Page 16 of The Night We Met

His dirty talking does the trick. My body tightens beforeit lets go. My moans turn breathier as my orgasm slams into me. Liam’s thrusts get sloppier as he chases his own release. His mouth latches onto my neck and with a groan he lets go.

We stand there with our hearts trying to slow down. My head resting against his shoulder. His forehead on the top of my head. A sound jolts us out of our post-coital bliss. We separate and make our way back to the study room we were in before Liam dragged me out.

It takes herculean effort to focus back on my previous task at hand. But I manage to get in an hour’s worth of studying before we’re packing up for the night.

I’d like to say that as the days went on Liam and I fell into a routine. That’s my wishful thinking that this could morph into something more. But he became distant. He would read my texts and then not respond. I know this because he was always on his phone. He would see me around campus and then sneak off to the athletic department, knowing I couldn’t get inside without him.

Did something happen that I was unaware of? Did he meet someone? Did I do something wrong?

Usually when something goes wrong, it happens to me in massive waves. But is Liam blowing me off a blessing or a curse?

Liam

Rynny: Hey, just checking in.

Rynny: Did you want to get lunch?

Rynny: Let me know when you’re free. I haven’t seen you in a few days.

I’m an idiot. A coward. I took this chance to be with my best friend because I felt it was the only way to be with her. But what I felt was just a way to scratch the itch has turned into a full-blown need for me.

Yes we’ve only been at this for a few days. But I’ve become a lovesick fool. From wanting to spend every moment that I’m not busy with baseball or classes with her. From wanting to take this arrangement to the next level with her.

I looked at Kamryn’s texts. I know she knows I looked at them.

A baseball hitting me in the chest pulls me out of my friends with benefits fog.

“Hey!” I scoldat Chance.

He holds his hands out in a WTF gesture. Something I’ve noticed he does a lot. It works. It says exactly what the words would.

Picking the baseball up, I throw it back to him and then rub at the sore spot on my chest.

We may be teammates, but I’m not sure I want to divulge what went down between me and Kamryn. Do I really not have anyone to talk about this with? Her roommate comes to mind but at the end of the day, Sarah is Kamryn’s roommate first and my acquaintance second.

I continue running through drills with Chance in hopes that it pulls my focus back to why I’m at the university in the first place. Which is for baseball. Kamryn wasn’t exaggerating when she encouraged me to keep up with this sport. I was aimless as a kid. Video games were what I did after school and on the weekends. Until one day after school, nine-year-old Kamryn knocked on my parent’s front door and exclaimed “Liam come outside and play catch!”

I’ll admit that I was terrible at first. Having a girl out throw me was embarrassing for a kid my age. But what I liked about Kamryn was her patience when she taught me. That patience moved on to competitiveness and eventually support as she cheered me on at every game she could attend.

Getting scouted in high school didn’t cross my mind. I didn’t even think I was good enough. Despite the honesty that bled into every statement, Kamryn told me I was good enough. I needed that more than she knew.

Chance and I wrap up our drills and shoot the shit before leaving the field house. He does his best to pull me with him, but my mind is too flooded with thoughts. Thoughts of Kamryn. Thoughts of what we’ve done this past week.

I’ve been in love with my best friend since I was twelve years old.

It sounds crazy even when I say it to myself. I hid behind different girls that didn’t look like Kamryn in hopes that what I felt for her wasn’t love, but a deep-seated crush.

But when she proposed a friends with benefits arrangement, I couldn’t say no. If that was the only way I could have her, I took it.

Yet here I am. Avoiding her texts because my feelings crossed over that line. Every touch, every kiss, every whispered breath against her skin had me weeping. I drank those moments up like a man without water for a month.

I’ll admit that the kiss we shared in front of everyone, rewired something in my brain. I thought that was it. That we would finally be a couple. Maybe one day. If I have to continue loving my best friend in secret, then that’s what I’ll do.

But how can I continue to be around her, sleep with her, if I’m terrified that I’m going to blurt out that I love her? I don’t even know if she’d feel the same way. I know she loves me as a friend. She’s said it to me several times. I carried those words around as if it could anchor her to me.

Pulling away, no matter how painful for both of us, is the only way our friendship can work. It’s the only way that I can survive. Until I can pick up the courage to tell her the feelings I have for her are more than just friendship, I have stop this.

If that requires me ghosting her then so be it. I can only hope that she comes to me first.

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