Page 33 of Speeding Hearts

He didn’t have a single thing to be self-conscious about. He was—and there was no more denying it—the sexiest man I’d ever laid eyes on.

“So… I can go,” he said. “You need to rest.”

I thought of him leaving, of it just being me and the darkness outside. I should have felt relief, but instead, panic gnawed at me.

“No,” I said. “Please, come inside.”

He hesitated a moment, then took a step toward me, then another. I stepped back so he could come up the two little stairs and come inside.

Dean had to duck to get through the door, but suddenly he was there next to me, filling the space.

I took a breath, backing up until I hit the little table there. I opened my mouth to speak, but Dean spoke first.

“Stella, I can go sleep in the truck, I can park it right here in front of the door, or…”

He looked around. I saw his eyes land on the couch in the middle of the trailer. It looked like it could barely hold him sitting up. Trying to sleep on it would be a joke.

“Dean, just share the bed with me,” I said. “We don’t have to make this weird. I want you to be able to have a good night’s sleep. If you want to go, that’s fine too, I just—”

“I don’t want to go.”.

* * *

And so itwas that I found myself lying in next to nothing beside Dean Hughes, in a surprisingly soft, but decidedly narrow, double bed.

I’d be lying if I said I’d never imagined this. Never dreamed of this. Only in my dreams—my daydreams and the ones that came involuntarily at night—we were doing a lot more than we were now. We lay on our backs, our arms folded up around our chests. I wasn’t sure about Dean, but my heart was beating so hard I was sure he could hear it or even feel it—an insistent tug on our shared sheet.

“Dean?” I whispered after a moment.

“Yeah?” I felt more than saw him turn to me. I couldn’t look at him. If I looked at him, I didn’t know what would happen next, and I didn’t trust myself to stop it.

I didn’t trust myself not to instigate it.

“Thank you,” I said.

There was a long pause, then he said, “You would have done the same for me.”

He was right, I would have. If he’d ever called me in a crisis, I’d have been there in a heartbeat. Not that I could ever see him needing me the way I’d needed him tonight. But who knew? Maybe one day he would. And I wanted to be there. That’s what friends were for.

Friends.That’s what we were, and that’s what I cherished so much with him.

It was what he’d made clear was important to him, too.Our friendship is everything,he’d said. He’d made it clear that’s what he wanted us to be.

Well, me too.

We lay there in silence for a long time, and after a while, my heartbeat slowed to a more normal pace. I found my eyelids growing heavy.

Friends.

Friends were open with one another too, my sleepy mind piped up.

Then, as if involuntarily, I found myself speaking again.

“Dean?”

“Yes, Stella?”

Despite my previous concern, I turned to him, nerves fluttering in my stomach. There wasn’t enough light to see his face now anyway. Under the shield of darkness, I spoke again.

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