Page 45 of The One for Me
“Is this a tragic story?”
“Depends on your perspective,” Zach replies.
Great. I really don’t need another version of relationships gone bad between friends, even if this ends well, the middle part doesn’t. This is what keeps me from sticking my tongue down his throat again. I would rather deal with a lifelong yearning than pain from acting on it.
“Tell me the perspective about you and your best friend.”
Zach nods once. “Well, first, I broke us.”
This is everything I fear.
“I see.”
“But nothing that’s ever broken is beyond repair. All you need is a bond, love, and a lot of fucking patience. She taught me that. We had to spend seventeen years figuring it all out before we could be what we are now. There’s nothin’ in this world I wouldn’t do for her—for us. You see, that’s the friendship. At the very core of it all, she is, and always has been, my best friend.”
The way he speaks of her gives me a glimmer of hope that the friendship Sean and I have built is strong enough to withstand any storm.
“And you think that friendship is enough?”
Zach smiles, and his gaze moves toward Sean as he makes his way back over to us. “I think that, without it, there’s not a chance in hell you could ever be more. He loves you, no matter what flaws you think you have. Hell, if I were to guess, I would say that he loves you more because of them.”
That almost completely sums up how I feel about Sean. He can be moody and stupid and stubborn, but I love him to the ends of the earth. We have been through times of happiness and the darkest of days. I don’t know if that means we can be more than just friends though. That’s the big wild card.
Still, he bet me that I couldn’t last two weeks, and there’s not a shot in hell I’m going to win. Each day it’s harder and harder to resist the pull to him. I want him. Not just like I always have, but as something much deeper and more meaningful. I don’t have a lot of time to figure it out, which is what scares me. If it’s just attraction, that can be dealt with. However, if there’s more, I don’t know that walking away from him is totally possible.
Time is what I need. One more week is what I have before our bet is over and he goes back to being nothing more.
“Well, no matter what, we have another week where I’ll be just his best friend, nothing more.”
His chuckle fills the cold air. “The lies we tell ourselves.”
“What lies?” Sean asks as he comes to a stop beside us.
“Just talkin’ with Devney about feelings.”
Sean grins, mischief dancing in those green eyes. “Don’t worry, Zach. She might try to deny it to herself, but I’ve always been able to see through it. She has feelings for me, she’s just not ready to accept them.”
* * *
“Good morning, sunshine.”
I jump, turning around to find Sean standing in the kitchen doorway—shirtless.
“What is your aversion to clothing?”
He smirks. “I don’t have one. I just know it makes you flustered when I’m wearing less of it.”
It’s been two days since Zach left, and since then, Sean’s made it his mission to drive me insane. Last night, he said he needed to do laundry, which meant taking off everything he was wearing other than his underwear.
I really hoped that, by now, I would stop drooling over his incredible body, but it seems that the more I see it, the more I want it.
Which is really going to make the next five days of resisting him—hard.
Pun intended.
“I am not flustered,” I deny and turn to finish making my sandwich.
“No?”
