Page 54 of Big Boss
“Me? How about you could have said something at literally any point in time during the night before and saved us from that mess of a morning after?”
“I don’t owe you anything when it comes to my body.” She abruptly jabs me in the shoulder with her sharp little index finger. “I don’t owe you an explanation or an apology.”
I grab her hand in mine and lace our fingers together so she’ll quit poking me. “That wasn’t what I was trying to say. Come on, Erica. You know I’m bad at words.” I press against her. “I’m the one apologizing, though, and please let me explain about that mess with Bella.”
She waves a hand at me. “No need. Anyone who’s paying attention can see she’s not into you.”
I look at her. “Since when did you become someone who was paying attention to that sort of thing, Erica?”
She shrugs one shoulder. “Since she told me that she ambushed you. She said you told her that you were seeing someone—” She looks at me and then down to our hands again. “But she kissed you anyway. Climbed you like a tree, more or less. And that you were nothing but a gentleman despite her best efforts.”
I let out a long exhalation. “Thank goodness she talked to you. I have had the worst time trying to figure out what words I was supposed to use to explain it to you. You know how much trouble I have with words.”
“Bull shampoo!” she snips at me. “Your problem is that you’re too good at words. You could make anyone believe anything you want. And nobody ever bothered to figure out if anything you said was real or not before now.”
The way Erica always strips away all the decoration from our conversations always takes my breath away. I used to think she was doing it to make me uncomfortable, but now that I know her better, I understand that this is what feels best to her.
Honesty. The unadorned and simple facts. A purity of thought and expression that is everything I have struggled with for almost the entirety of my life because I have always existed to be a pretend person, not someone with a real truth to tell.
“Thank goodness for you. Sometimes I think you are the only one who has ever seen me for what I really am.” Miserable and damaged, yes, but somehow I’m here with my very closest friend and she’s touching me. Wow.
I watch as her hand drapes across my chest. I’m sure she has to feel my heart racing, but she answers my unspoken question first. “That’s bull shampoo, too, and you know it. You have some of the best friends I’ve ever known. Ethan Alexander thinks you can do no wrong. Sebastian said you were the kindest person he knew.” She pauses, then continues. “Although it did sound like he was making fun of you when he said that.”
I can’t help but grin when she says it. “Sebastian always sounds like that. The best thing to do is—”
“Ignore him, I remember.” She rubs absently across my chest, her fingers gliding along the soft fabric of the shirt I’m wearing. “And as for Jackson, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you.”
I nod. “They really are good guys. But even they don’t see me like you do.”
She flinches, and I hold up my hand to stave off her protest. “Whatever else happens next, Erica, I want you to know that I’ve never felt so close to another person as I do with you. Thank you for that.”
She tenses her jaw, then nods. “I’m grateful for you, too. For having been a part of your crazy existence, and for having you trust me enough to show me who you really are.TheDonovan Tate.”
“About that.” I crack my neck. “My first name isn’t actually Donovan.”
A pin could drop in the corridor now. I swear neither one of us is even breathing.
“Go on,” she says in that low, dangerous way she wields like a weapon.
“It’s just Don. But my father thought it sounded too ordinary to sell records, so he changed it legally when I was a teenager. First he just gave me the Ovan part as a middle name, but I had that sorted out myself as soon as I could.”
“Wait. Not just Don, but Don Ovan? Wow, he really is an idiot.” She shakes her head. “But also, it’s just the name Don,” she says, rolling it around in her mouth. “It’s not as good as Donovan. I never thought I’d find myself agreeing with your craptastical father about anything, but I couldn’t exactly call out Don in the heat of passion.”
She cackles, but then keeps going. “Oh Don! Give it to me, Don. Yes, just like that. Don, Don, Don! Please, harder Don.” Her voice rises with each repetition, and it’s ridiculous, and a little humiliating, but also kind of hot in its own weird way.
This time, I don’t hesitate. I wrap my free fingers into the hair at the base of her skull and pull her into a blistering kiss.
“I like it so much better when instead you call me sir.”
Her eyes widen and she nods like a Bobblehead. “Yes, sir.”
“You’re such a good girl, aren’t you?”
She inhales sharply. “Why don’t you take me home and maybe we can find out?”
19
Erica
