I had pushed aside our friendship out of fear, but fear of what?
I shuffled my feet as I waited for him to speak. I wasn’t used to apologizing, but the desperation to hold onto our friendship made me want to. There was also something else in my apology too. It was a need to stay close to him and his body. The way his eyes looked me up and down. The way his face felt familiar, safe and warm. There was a tension in my fingers that desperately wanted to touch his body so it would know what his skin felt like. It was taking all my mental strength to stop them from reaching out. The want to grab on to Josh was alarming my senses. It was unknown yet normal at the same time. Josh's feet shuffled forward too. It was almost as if he felt the same pull of our bodies. There was some kind of electricity being generated. Josh and I always had a spark, but right now, it wasn’t easy for us to ignore.
Was it because I was suddenly feeling jealous and possessive of my friendship with Josh? It would certainly hurt if he had our kind of connection with someone else. Or was it something different, something else, something more. I didn’t know.
“Melanie is not my girlfriend.” Josh held my gaze as he said it.
“Good!” I thought.
Wait, why is that good?
“And what do you mean by a guy like me?” Josh questioned. He quickly noticed my change in demeanor and my seductive tone. Realizing what I said, I turned my head, trying to think of an alternative to avoiding the next part of the conversation, but since I didn’t want lie to Josh, I just pushed out the rest of what I meant, even knowing it was probably wrong of me to do so.
“Oh you know, charming and attractive.” I tried to sound as if there was no meaning behind the words, but Josh heard how I sounded. I sounded inviting, and he looked at me wide-eyed at my direct approach. Josh stepped forward to me, and my skin pricked up at his closeness to my body.
“You think I’m charming...and attractive?” he asked, saying those words slowly, making sure he had heard them right. I wasn't one to compliment so I knew how that must have come across. It was an obvious flirtation, and unexpected at that.
“Of course I do Josh, I always have. And given what I’ve seen in the past, you obviously have quite the sexual appetite too.”
His body flinched as I acknowledged past events. I knew all too well of Josh’s sexual escapades, having walked in and seen one for myself. The memory burned my heart painfully as I remembered the sight of Josh and that blond the first time back in Morewell. That night that was supposed to be the start of something more between us.
Oh what a difference one night can make.
Josh was staring at me puzzled. The conversation had taken a massive left hand turn to something quite unexpected. We hadn’t seen each other since graduation and since that night, everything between us felt normal. There wasn’t the obvious sexual tension that had suddenly appeared before us at this very moment. Had time forced it to build up? I assumed that time would make it go away, and that Josh and I would go back to how our friendship was before Morewell, but now there was electricity buzzing between us, and we were both thinking about getting a shock.
I looked at Josh’s T-shirt, thinking of those muscles underneath. I didn’t expect to be so turned on by seeing Josh again, but the sight of him instantly reminded me of our first kiss. That explosive, earth-shattering, knee-buckling kiss. It was hard for me not to wonder what else could be that mind-blowing, especially since I was so in tune with my body now.
“And what do you know about sexual appetites Norah?” Josh was standing even closer to me, and when he said those words, he said them carefully, ready to watch for my reaction. We had never crossed over to conversations about sex, so this was brand new territory for us.
I lifted my head so I could look into Josh’s hungry eyes that were gazing back at me. It was as if the last ten minutes of walking in and seeing Josh and Melanie had not even occurred, and this flirtatious moment that had come out of left field, was