Page 47 of A Totally Platonic Thing
And it wouldn’t be fair to either of us to try.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t try something else.
I could take my shot with Lucas. See if I could convince him to givemea try. Maybe he wouldn’t go for it—he almost certainly wouldn’t go for it, and I’d be left humiliated and miserable, and I’d lose my best friend, the person I loved and trusted more than anyone in the whole world. But I wouldn’t keep him anyway, at this rate. We’d stop living together, and then I wouldn’t be able to handle hanging out while he went on and on about whatever girl he’d eventually marry, and I could see it all playing out in front of me like some shitty movie: him asking me to be the best man, me drowning my sorrows in a vat of vodka…
Lucas finished up in the kitchen, giving the fridge one final slam, and came around the counter island. “I think I’m going to settle in and watch a show or something,” he said. “I’m fucking beat.”
Speaking of beating…my heart went into overdrive. “Want to watch a movie together? I was thinking the same thing. I’ve done all my reading.”
I hadn’t, strictly speaking, doneallmy reading. But most of it. And I’d spend the whole rest of the day tomorrow between classes in the library or something. It counted.
Lucas stopped and eyed me in a way I couldn’t quite define. “Not going out tonight? It’s Thursday. Don’t Josh and Mason go to Aeon on Thursday nights usually?”
Josh and Mason were the core of the group of Aeon regulars I hung out with there, mostly on Sunday nights but some other nights too. Lucas had come along to drink with them more than a few times. They’d already texted me to see if I’d be showing up, in fact. And I’d said no.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice coming out all husky. Having him standing there with his dark, intent eyes fixed on me had started to get me worked up. “I’m taking a hiatus from going out clubbing and the whole scene.”I can’t stand the idea of hooking up with another guy who’s not you.“And I can’t afford to go out anyway.”
“That sounds—that’s good.” Lucas cleared his throat. God, Ihatedthis. How awkward it was to talk to him, after two years of it being as easy as breathing. “I was thinking of watching that movie you said you didn’t want to see,” Lucas added. “The one with all the spaceships exploding in the trailer. And the purple dude with the laser cannon.”
Right. Because he wanted to keep avoiding me. Well, too damn bad. I’d make him either tell me that outright, or back down.
“The purple dude actually looked pretty hot. I don’t mind watching that. I picked last time, right?”
Lucas backed down, letting out a long breath and shaking his head a little. “Sure. I’ll get it set up.”
“Give me five minutes?” I hopped off my bed and headed for the bathroom. “I need to grab a shower anyway, and I’d rather do it now so I don’t need to after the movie.”
Actually, I needed to grab a shower so I could be squeaky-clean for my post-movie plans, but details.
Lucas shot me alook, but he nodded and started rummaging in his bag for his laptop.
I grabbed some clean underwear and an undershirt out of the dresser and escaped. With the bathroom door safely shut behind me, I stopped, closed my eyes, and took a deep, shaky breath. Lucas might completely reject me. I had to expect that, because if I got my hopes all up I’d be a nervous wreck and then be crushed by the nearly inevitable disappointment.
But you never knew.
Here goes nothing.
I got in the shower, ready to make myself as nice-smelling, soft, and clean inside and out as I possibly could. If I didn’t tempt him, maybe he didn’t deserve me.
Chapter Eleven
Chris
My shower took more than five minutes. I mean, on a good day, when I only wanted to wash my hair and scrub down quickly, I still took twenty minutes or so—hot water on demand ranked right up there with vibrators on my list of civilization’s greatest achievements. When I wanted to get ready for what I hoped would be a guy getting up close and personal with all my parts, that could stretch to more like an hour.
Anyway, by rushing like a fiend, I kept it to twenty-five minutes. Ish. Lucas didn’t comment, so used to my shower habits that he probably didn’t notice I’d been gone so long. And my red face would totally be covered by the heat of the shower, so that worked in my favor.
He’d settled down in bed with his laptop, but I noticed two distinct differences from our usual arrangement: first, he’d left the overhead light on. I fixed that right away, hitting the light switch by the bathroom door casually as I stepped out. And second, he’d scooted over way farther in the bed than he usually did, since he typically took up two thirds of it. And usually I didn’t mind, because I’d end up cuddled up to him anyway.
So I knew he’d left me way more room on purpose.
Well, too bad for him. I had to sit right next to him in order to see the movie anyway, right?
I stopped by the kitchen for a glass of water. God damn, did I ever wish I could grab another beer out of the fridge, but I didn’t want to irritate Lucas by drinking if he was still kind of worked up about it, and it wouldn’t be a good idea to have a beer with him. He had to be stone-cold sober for this. If he had even a drop of lowered inhibitions in his bloodstream, I’d never forgive myself if it worked.
And then I settled into Lucas’s bed, shifting over until I sat next to him. Not pressed right up against him. I didn’t want to make him run screaming. And I also didn’t want to be a high-pressure salesman.
I mean, I wanted Lucas to want me. If he really didn’t, if he truly regretted getting off with me before, then I couldn’t and wouldn’t pressure him into doing it again.
