Page 2 of Every Version of You

“Thank you.” I smile at our teacher. The fierce grip Angie has on my hand as she leads me around is a little alarming, but by doing so, she’s erasing all my new-kid jitters, and for that, I could not be more thankful.

Pulling out our chairs and setting down our notebooks, Angie’s bright blue eyes watch me carefully. “Alright, I’m warning you right now, Raf: if you cross this line,” she indicates an imaginary line with her forearm down the middle of our shared table. “I will leave snack crumbs all over your desk for all of eternity.”

I squint. “You wouldn’t…”

“Try me.”

1. We're Going to be Friends by The White Stripes

Chapter 1

March 23rd

Angie

Tonight feels like an end and a beginning. That might be the tequila turning me sentimental during Rafael’s housewarming party, but I don’t think it is. Because once again, Rafael Juan Dominico Jimenez is living in the same city as me.

The way it should be.

For the last eight years Raf has lived one hundred and fifty miles away in Washington DC, working as a financial controller most recently. That was until our other best friend, Cora, hired him at her architecture firm as her new Chief Financial Officer. If you would have told me twelve years ago, when we were raving in college, that my two best friends would be running a whole-ass company together, I would have told you to pass me whatever you were smoking. But people can change a lot in a decade.

Some things don’t though. Like how fine Raf looks in that white Henley, showing off his rich terracotta skin and bright, a-ton-of-money-went-into-this-mouth smile. Oh, and let’s not forget about those devilish dimples punctuating either side.

It’s like, we get it, you’re hot. Can you cover it up sometimes? It’s incredibly distracting as someone who is only supposed to be a best friend. Unfortunately for me, I made him become my friend at an innocently young age when we were simply two pudgy kids with less-than-ideal family dynamics. Well, that part was mostly me.

And sure, throughout our twenty-two year friendship, there have been heated moments where I thought…maybe. Maybe he felt the same unspoken spark that I have tried relentlessly to deny. But time and time again Raf has proved me wrong. He has stuck to his guns, continued the patterns, and perpetuated his no-romantic-commitment approach to dating.

Simply put: Rafael Jimenez is a slut.

Don’t get mad at me for using that term; he self-identifies as such. It works out for him. I know he’s upfront with his sexual partners, man or woman.

But for two best friends who, in a way raised each other, we could not be more different. While he’s sowing his wild oats, I’ve been looking for the real deal. This doesn’t mean I’m some virgin by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m thirty-one years old and I want a fucking husband. I’m not ashamed to admit that either. Not just any husband—I’m not that desperate.

What I want is someone to be obsessed with me the way I am about them. I want an all-consuming love bracketed by commitment. I want to laugh with someone about the dumbest, most cringe-worthy moments until we could pee ourselves, and then we’d laugh even harder from the sheer disgust. I want to go to the grocery store together, and he’d know that I like the expensive dill pickles you buy in the refrigerated section, not the green-dyed shelf-stable ones. And that he prefers the store-brand sandwich cookies over Oreos—you know, like a psycho. And I’d know he likes it when I write dirty things on sticky notes and leave them around the house to find.

Or…something like that.

That’s what I want and that’s not what Rafael has in him. Not that he is even remotely aware of my unrequited, soul-crushing love for him. Oops. I mean, super tiny, insignificant, barely a whisper of— now that I really think about it…is it even really…

“That’s our 1song, Angel!” my best friend booms his nickname for me over the salsa music. “Drink this and dance with me!” He hands me another shot of tequila as I swell with excitement. Holding limes in one hand, he already has salt stuck to the top between his index finger and thumb.

“Wait, I want salt too!” I giggle and try to step out of his way to head into the kitchen. But he stops me in my tracks and holds his hand to my mouth.

“Do it,” he dares, the salt taunting me.

Hell, I’m well past buzzed at this point, so without any hesitation, we cheers the way his family taught me all those years ago. “Pa’riba, pa’bajo, pa’centro, pa’dentro.” Our tequila shots travel from above our heads, down low, to the center of our chests, but before we throw them back, I do it.

I lick his strong hand.

Telling myself not to linger, I quickly remove my wet tongue from his warm skin, but his eyes don’t remove from mine. Furrowing his brows almost imperceptibly, he then lets out the smallest huff of laughter—like he can’t believe I actually did it. In the grand scheme of our friendship, we have performed far more sexually-inciting acts, both on purpose and by accident—all in the name of comedy, of course.

He licks over the remaining salt on his hand and my insides go tight.

But this—with his eyes boring into me—there’s a charged energy. More than what his housewarming party alone is providing.

I shake myself out of it and knock back the tequila as he does the same. Quickly handing me the lime, we both suck until the bitterness calms the surge. He promptly discards the shot glasses and rinds before making his way back to grab my hand and spin me out. He must have miscalculated my trajectory because he flings me right into our friends Cora and Jay, who are attempting to salsa dance as well.

“Sorry,” I giggle as Raf pulls me back into his orbit.

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