Page 34 of It's Complicated

I’d done everything I could to do just that, acting the fool and going overboard in my attempts to be “normal.”

It hadn’t helped, and we were still stuck in that weird place where we pretended like everything was fine when it felt like the world was crumbling down around us and we were becoming strangers.

I missed my best friend, and I was terrified that we wouldn’t be able to come back from this.

The next few hours were a test of patience and my acting skills as I tried to pretend like I wasn’t having an internal crisis, and I was mentally exhausted by the time we were back at the apartment.

“What’s going on with you?” Jamie asked, tossing his keys on the coffee table.

I scooped them up and walked over to the little hooks by the door to hang them up. Things tended to get lost in our apartment if they didn’t go where they were supposed to. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” he asked incredulously. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Believe whatever you want,” I said tiredly, kicking off my shoes.

“Are you going to kick me out?”

I spun toward him. He looked like he was bracing for a fight. “What?”

“Are you going to kick me out?” He wrung his hands in front of him.

“Why would I kick you out?” I asked dumbly. Where the hell had that come from?

“Because I’m a pervert who keeps fantasizing about my best friend sucking my dick.” His eyes went wide, his mouth falling open in a little O of surprise, like he hadn’t meant to say any of that out loud.

I stood stock-still, his words echoing in my ears.

He’d thought about me sucking his dick?

“Forget I said that.” He started to turn around, like he was about to run away.

“Wait,” I croaked.

He froze, his back to me.

“Jamie,” I managed to get out in a normal voice. “Look at me.”

He did, his expression eerily blank.

“You’ve thought about that?” I asked softly. My head was spinning for an entirely different reason now.

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Would it help if I said I’ve thought about it too?” I asked cautiously.

Some of his stoic demeanor slipped away. “You have?”

I nodded.

His cheeks went a little ruddy as he swallowed, his throat working.

“I have no idea what to say right now,” I confessed.

“Me either.” He raked his hand through his hair, messing up the carefully styled strands. “I’m going crazy here, Z.”

Seeing him so distressed was killing me. I wanted to run over and wrap him up in a hug, but I kept still, giving him a chance to keep talking if he needed to.

“I’m so confused.” He sighed wearily. “So fucking confused. I don’t understand any of what I’m feeling. It doesn’t matter how many times I go over it in my head. None of it makes any sense.”

---