Page 14 of A Totally Platonic Thing
What I really wanted to ask, was: Why hadn’t he thought to plug it in and call me? Or come see me and bring me some coffee and show me that he gave a damn? Or…I didn’t know. Something? Chris showed up at my lab as many days as he didn’t even when everything between us was fine, and this was also the first time he’d been a dick to me and hadn’t tried to make up for it somehow.
And yet he’d started digging his fingers into the tense muscles of my shoulders, and the warm solidity of him half under me felt so fucking cozy and nice. I didn’t need dinner. But I needed him to at least show that he knew he’d fucked up, and I would’ve preferred dinner to having to actually have a conversation about it, and it looked like that’s where we’d be heading.
At which point he’d stop rubbing my neck and get all defensive.
Maybe I ought to let it go this time, but then nothing would get solved.
“You just tensed up again,” Chris complained. “This is going to take all night if you don’t chill out a little. You’re home. Let it go. Or did something light on fire again?”
I didn’t mind if it took all night. Screw my own bed. Chris’s had him in it. And his magic hands.
“Something lit on fire, but it wasn’t mine this time. Amanda.”
“Oh, shit. That sucks. You stayed to help? Is that why you’re so late? I know she always helps everyone else. That’s nice of you.”
He chose that moment to turn on his side and get to work with the other hand too, and so I could only let out a little groan of combined agreement and appreciation.
“If you move a little and let me get my legs out, I can work on your whole back.” Chris gave another wriggle, jabbing my stomach with his knees. “When did you get so heavy?”
“Been working out with Aidan sometimes, on top of when I normally go,” I slurred. How did he not know that? We were practically joined at the hip.
Except, right. We hadn’t been so much, lately. Between Chris dating that scum-sucking lying cheater and then me dating Emma, and then all the extra work I had on my senior project, and him going out so many nights…yeah, we hadn’t been spending that much time together. At least not by our previous standards.
The silence that fell suggested Chris had had the same thought.
I lifted my hips so he could squirm out from under me, bracing himself on my shoulders as he climbed up onto me and straddled my thighs.Hehadn’t gotten heavier. Chris had been kind of thin when we met, and it didn’t look like he was going to get any bigger in any direction. He’d finally given up on getting a late growth spurt, after years of muttering about how his cousin had grown two inches over the summer when he was twenty-one.
“How come you never told me?” he asked at last, as he started in on the muscles to either side of my spine, working his way down. Fuuuck, that felt so fucking good. “I mean, like, you always tell me what you’re up to. Don’t you?” That sounded plaintive, and sad, and it felt like a sharp stab to the stomach.
“Wasn’t hiding it,” I grunted as he moved a little lower, hitting a knot I hadn’t even realized was there. “We meet up sometimes in the afternoon before he goes to work. You’re usually in class. I mean, I go to the gym anyway. I guess I just didn’t think about it. Do you tell me every time you meet Sebastian on campus to grab coffee?”
Another silence. “No, I guess I don’t. Is Aidan your best friend now, or something?”
Okay, and now he soundedmiserable.
I gave a little shove up with my legs. “Lift up.”
He stopped rubbing and got up on his knees, and I forced myself to roll over onto my back, opening my eyes and blinking against the glare from the ceiling light. I pinched Chris’s legs right above the knees, and he squeaked and dropped back down to sit on me again.
I looked him in the eyes—the wide, pretty, shining eyes that never failed to get my guard and my temper down, damn him.
“You know you’re my best friend, right, Chris?” Those eyes lit up, and he started to smile. There, that was better. “I mean, fuck. You’re sitting on me. I wouldn’t let anyone else use me as a chair. Maybe one of my sisters or something,” I joked, and that smile vanished like magic.
What? What the fuck had I said wrong? Wasn’t that what he wanted to hear, that he was one of the most important people in my life—for sure the most important one I wasn’t related to by blood? And probably even the most important full stop, because I loved my sisters, but we weren’t all that close, geographically or in any other way.
He started to get up, his face turned away. I grabbed his knees again, not pinching this time, but holding him there.
“Chris. Seriously. What the fuck? You’re being super weird tonight. More weird than usual when you’re feeling guilty. Are you still feeling sick from this morning? Did I do something to upset you?”
“No, of course not,” Chris muttered. “I’m the one who—I know you hate it when I come to see you in the lab, okay? Aidan told me everyone there thinks I’m—thinks we’re—they think we’re like, not roommates!” He turned his head back and glared at me, like this insanity was my fault somehow. “I go out and drink too much, and then you have to come and pick me up, or maybe not but I still wake you up getting home so late, and then I try to make it better by coming to bring you food, and then that makes itworse, because then it looks like you’re dating this pathetic, clingy guy who’s always hungover and fucking up, and they all think you’re something you’re not, which, like, that would seriously piss me off if I were—”
I boosted myself up in one smooth motion, thank you Aidan’s ab workout routine, and wrapped my arms around him, smothering any other stupid crap he might’ve said by pressing him into my shoulder. I buried my face in his hair and took a deep breath. Our shampoo smelled better on him, too. No wonder I never got laid.
Chris got laid too often, and I hated the assholes he hooked up with. None of them appreciated him.
Nope, not going there, because I was trying to make him feel better, not get all pissed again. I gave him a hard squeeze, his body feeling small and fragile and solid all at once in my arms. The perfect size for me to hold on to.
“I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks, because my personal life is none of their goddamn business, and for the record, half the lab is jealous that I have someone to bring me coffee. They think you’re too good for me.And,” I went on a little louder as he started to try to protest, “I love it when you come to visit me, because like I told you a second ago, you’re my best friend. So if you skipped your ‘I’m sorry I ruined your night’s sleep so here’s a sandwich’ visit today because you thought you were doing it for my benefit, news flash, dude. I would’ve rather seen you and had a sandwich. Especially since you always go to Romano’s when you think I’m mad at you. I would’ve killed for their Italian sub today.”
