“Me too,” I nod. “But more recently.” I easily scan the store.
“So it can’t be us, right—if he had headaches before the road trip? This whole…situation isn’t causing him physical pain?”
I smile softly. “This situation?”
She tries to lower her voice. “Us in the tent.”
I smile more. “There was zero stress in that situation, Sul. Trust me.” Banks was into her, and I know because I was watching her being eaten out and her getting off from him.
Which almost annihilated me.
And shockingly, it was a euphoric annihilation. Not a resentful, angry, pissed off one. I almost heat up remembering it all. And yeah, I wished I could’ve been the one between her legs, but I liked being against her lips. Kissing her.
Touching her.
It didn’t feel like I was losing anything. Just a part of something more. Something she enjoyed, he enjoyed—I enjoyed.
Plus, I hate that Banks is so hung-up on his shitty firsts. He deserves to be happy—and shit, it makes me happy seeing him have a good time and even having a good time with him. Last night was fun.
I’m feeling the moment out.
New experiences don’t send me hitch-hiking backwards. I’m not as free as the wind as Banks, but I try to kick myself out of my comfort zone. If I stayed in there, I’d never do half the things I’ve done.
Give and take punches and kicks for Muay Thai. Bungee jumping with my dad at fourteen. Open a gym at eighteen. Snowboard black diamonds. Swim with sharks with the Meadows family.
Chase after Sulli.
Some piece of me wishes I could be a cocky asshole and say, she loves me more than him. I have this in the bag.
But I don’t think I do. In order for me not to go out of my mind, I try to stop looking at this like a competition.
I just want to have this time with her.
At the small-town mountain store, Sulli breathes easier with my reassurance. She rifles through a bowl of Montana stickers. She’s one hundred percent looking for a gift for Winona.
I spin a rack of postcards next to Sulli, then take one out and flick it on her nose.
She tries hard not to match my smile. “You don’t want to start a nose-flicking competition with me. I’ll beat your ass, and then you’ll pout.”
“But I thought you loved winning against me?” I flick her nose again.
She steals the postcard. “Yeah, because you’re the biggest sore loser I know. Victory is that much sweeter when you whine—”
“I don’t whine,” I scoff with a smile.
“You whine.” She grins.
I glance at her lips more than once.
She bites the bottom one. “Fuck.” She turns her head away from me.
My pulse skips. “What’s wrong, Sul?” I tilt my head.
Sulli peeks up at me through her long brown hair. “Sometimes I think I was dreaming it—you and me together—and then you look at me like that, and I remember it’s real.” She inhales a bigger breath. “It’s pretty fucking overwhelming, but you probably know what this feels like already.”
I’m confused. “What do you mean?”
“A friend-turned-lover.” She cringes at her sudden use of lover.
I smile, “You don’t want to be my lover?”
“Kits,” she groans. “You know what I mean.”
“Okay, lover.”
“Fuck off.” She snaps the postcard to my nose.
We both laugh.
I spin the postcard rack but look at her. “I’ve had friends who I ended up dating, but no friend has been like you. I’ve had vested interest in your wellbeing for so long, Sul. It’s just a different feeling. More…intense.”
Can’t live without her.
She spins the rack now. “Do you think it’d be easy for you to just go back to being friends with me?”
I tense.
Is she already breaking up with me?
And before I can respond, she says, “Because sometimes I feel like I’m waiting for you to change your mind at any time. Like you could just pull that switch and go back to how things were with us.”
My stomach plummets. I don’t want Sulli to feel like I could rip a rug out from under her. To press rewind. It devastates me even imagining myself doing that to her.
Am I capable of it?
Yeah.
To her?
No.
But I can’t blame her for feeling this way when I kept asserting how our friendship was just that. Friendship. Written in cement. Carved in marble. Etched in the center of the Earth.
“I’m not going to pull that switch,” I say from my core. “I promise you, Sulli. I don’t just want to be