Just Friends Read online

  Even though that’s not an answer, I reluctantly admit the truth. “Yes. Okay? I haven’t had sex.” Heat scorches my cheeks.

  And now my humiliation is complete. Someone needs to point me toward the nearest hole so I can crawl inside and die.

  “I’m a twenty-one-year-old virgin!” I add belligerently, sucking in a sharp breath. “Are you happy now?”

  He squeezes my fingers until my gaze returns to his. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  “Ha!” I’m sure all the idiots who witnessed my shame at the Alpha Delta Phi house would beg to differ. Remembering the laughter as I fled the room makes me cringe.

  “I hate that Tyler hurt you,” he murmurs.

  The softness that fills his voice is my undoing and I have to blink away the hot sting of tears as they prick the back of my eyes.

  Reed tugs my hand and I stumble toward him until his arms snake around my body. Giving in to the comfort, I melt against him. As I rest the side of my face against the solid width of his chest, his chin settles on the top of my head. Even with the height variation, we fit perfectly. The steady thumping of his heart settles the chaotic emotion swirling in me.

  We’ve stood like this a hundred times before and the sheer strength of him never fails to soothe me, making me feel safe and secure. I lose all sense of time as we embrace in the middle of the sidewalk.

  Breaking the silence, Reed clears his throat. “So…you’re a virgin, huh?”

  The tension that had been filling me drains as I snort out a laugh before reluctantly untangling myself from him and stepping away. There are times when Reed feels too good. When being wrapped up in his arms feels too right. This is one of those times.

  “It would appear that way,” I murmur self-consciously, tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear.

  He tilts his head slightly as a teasing smile curves his lips. “Can I call you virgie?”

  “Not if you want to remain friends,” I fire back.

  The humorous glint fades from his eyes as quickly as it had sparked to life. “Come here.”

  I stumble on bare feet as he reels me to him again before pressing his lips against the crown of my head. The achingly familiar gesture acts as a balm to my abraded emotions.

  “We’ll always be friends.” He pulls away until he can search my eyes. “You know that, right?”

  I shrug. After what just happened, I’m not sure what I know. Did I ever suspect Tyler would hurt me the way he did?

  Nope.

  “Hey,” his hand rises to cradle my cheek, “I’m serious, Em. You and me, we’re lifers. No matter what happens.” Our eyes stay locked as he presses his forehead against mine. “If it makes you feel better, I bloodied Tyler’s nose.”

  A shaky sigh escapes from my lips. I wish it were that easy. Unfortunately, inflicting damage on to Ty doesn’t change the pain he caused. And it certainly doesn’t change the aftermath of the bomb he dropped.

  “Why did he do that?” I whisper, squeezing my eyes closed as if that will block out the reality of the situation.

  “Because he’s a dickhead who never deserved you.” Reed creates enough room between us so he can slide his fingers under my chin and tip it upward until I have no choice but to meet his gaze. “I’m glad you didn’t lose your virginity to him.”

  I groan and avert my eyes as a fresh wave of shame washes over me.

  “Don’t do that,” he growls.

  Surprised by the harsh tone, my gaze snaps back to him.

  “You have nothing to be ashamed about,” he continues. “Do you understand me?”

  Sexual tension erupts in the air and my belly hollows out just like it did earlier this evening. As much as I try to tamp down the attraction and pretend it isn’t gathering power, I can’t.

  I jerk my head into a tight nod as my tongue darts out to moisten my lips. His gaze drops, following the movement and I gulp as heat leaps to life in his eyes.

  Reed groans. The deep sound vibrates in his chest as if it’s been dredged from the bottom of the ocean. He lowers his face until there’s barely a whisper between us. My eyes close as his lips feather gently across mine. All logical and rational thought clicks off. My fingers loosen and the heels drop to the ground. They clatter on the cement as my arms slide around his neck.

  All too easily, I get lost in the feel of his lips. He uses slow strokes that ignite a fire in my belly. Somehow Reed has managed to accomplish the impossible. Tyler and the shitstorm he set in motion less than twenty minutes ago are long forgotten.

  Reed’s arms tighten around me, tugging me closer until I’m flush against his body. All of his hard lines are pressed against my soft curves.

  He shifts, angling his head as his lips part, and I eagerly mirror the movement. His tongue slips into my mouth, brushing against mine. I whimper as a tidal wave of sensation washes over me and my body tingles with awareness.

  Does Reed have any idea how much this kiss is undoing me?

  Just when I think he’s going to deepen the caress, he pulls back. My mind somersaults as the neurons in my brain once again begin firing.

  Did that really happen?

  Or was it a figment of my imagination?

  I suck in a shaky breath. Then another. My eyelashes open and I find Reed watching me intently. The heat simmering in his eyes has a flutter of excitement exploding in my core.

  He presses his forehead against mine as his warm breath sweeps across my lips.

  I wrack my brain for something to say, but my mind remains blank.

  “We should go,” he murmurs, breaking the silence as if he didn’t rock my world with a single kiss.

  A million questions hurtle to the surface, but I don’t give voice to any of them. Instead, I nod and pull away. The night air rushes over all the places Reed had recently warmed with his body. The sense of loss is strangely devastating. I lift my fingers and brush them over my lips. I can’t wrap my mind around what just happened.

  I bend down and pick up the heels as we fall in line again. My apartment building is only a few blocks away. I want to ask why he kissed me, but I remain silent. It was probably nothing. A consolation of sorts. Reed has always been physically demonstrative. That’s just who he is. The last thing I want to do is make a big deal out of nothing. I don’t need to look like a silly virgin by assuming that a kiss between friends was any more meaningful than a token gesture of kindness.

  “Can I ask a stupid question?” he says, breaking into the chaotic whirl of my thoughts.

  “There are no stupid questions,” I quip, parroting Ms. Jones, one of my favorite teachers from elementary school. I’m fairly certain she regretted the motto by the end of the school year. There was an overabundance of idiotic boys in that third-grade class. And they asked a lot of questions.

  “How are you still a virgin?”

  “I stand corrected,” I grumble. “There are stupid questions.”

  “What?” he asks defensively, giving me a bit of side-eye. “It’s not like you haven’t had plenty of boyfriends. It’s a legitimate question.”

  He’s right, I’ve been out with a lot of guys. But I never let any of them get close enough to develop an intimate relationship.

  In high school, I was focused on my grades and taking college prep courses that would look good on my transcript. I knew I wouldn’t get a full-ride like Reed. So, I babysat for a couple of families to earn money and ended up with a partial scholarship along with some much-needed financial aid.

  Do I regret ignoring my social life in lieu of pursuing my academic dreams?

  Not really. I wouldn’t be at Southern if I hadn’t worked my ass off during high school.

  Reed and I have that in common. While I was focused on my grades, he was busy dedicating himself to hockey. Not that he’s a slouch when it comes to school. He has that elusive combination of brains and brawn. While I needed to secure academic scholarships to pave the way for my future, Reed needed to become a hockey phenom in order to make his
dreams a reality.

  In that regard, we’ve both achieved our goals.

  “Em?”

  I don’t realize that I’ve become tangled up in my thoughts until he calls my name.

  I jerk my shoulders. “I guess there’s always been more important things to focus on.”

  Did I ever imagine that it would get to this point and I would still be a virgin during my senior year of college?

  Of course not. I assumed somewhere along the line, I’d find a guy I cared about and it would happen naturally. But that hasn’t turned out to be the case.

  Out of all the boys I’ve dated, none have come close to touching the kind of relationship I have with Reed. He’s my best friend. The one I turn to when I have a problem or news to share. I can tell him anything (virginity withstanding). Until I find someone similar, I’m not sure when I’ll lose my V-card. Without realizing it, I’ve been using Reed as a benchmark for all the guys I’ve been dating. And they’ve come up sorely lacking.

  Tyler included. What he did tonight was painful but I’m not heartbroken over the loss.

  “It’s just,” he pauses, “surprising.” Every once in a while, his gaze catches mine.

  “Yeah, I get it. Your mind has been totally blown.”

  If we were discussing any other subject, his shocked reaction would be hilarious. But I can’t laugh this off or brush it aside. It feels too personal.

  “I never imagined…” he murmurs, more to himself than to me.

  I’m sure the idea of being a virgin at my age is something he can’t fathom. Reed has been having sex since sophomore year of high school. And he wasn’t the one to share this monumental news with me either. It was Cari Smith, the girl he slept with.

  Unable to contain herself, Cari sought me out before first hour the next morning so she could share all the gory details. Before Reed came into the picture, Cari and I were cool with each other. We weren’t best friends or anything like that, but we certainly weren’t enemies. That changed as soon as Reed began paying attention to her. Suddenly, I was competition that needed to be eliminated.

  I’m sure she thought her newfound intimacy with Reed would cement their relationship.

  It didn’t. He dumped her a month later when she tried making demands on his time. Like me, Reed was too focused on his future to allow something to get in the way of it.

  I wasn’t sad to see her go.

  Bye-bye, bitch.

  After that, there was a steady parade of females through his life and bedroom. But they never lasted long. A couple of days. A few weeks. Maybe a month. As soon as they got possessive and started envisioning a future together, they were unceremoniously kicked to the curb.

  When it comes to sex, Reed and I are at opposite ends of the spectrum. That realization leaves me feeling naïve and stupid. I don’t want this newly gleaned information to change Reed’s perception of me. This whole situation is embarrassing enough without him treating me differently.

  “It’s not that big of a deal,” I mumble. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “Em, I—”

  “Not another word!” I snap. Can’t he see that I’m all but drowning in humiliation? I suck in a deep breath before slowly releasing it. “I want to forget about everything that happened tonight.”

  Reed stuffs his hands into the pockets of his shorts as we continue walking. “Everything?”

  “Everything.” Tonight has been a nightmare. One I can’t seem to wake from.

  “Okay.” He jerks his shoulders. “Consider it forgotten.”

  Relief floods through me when my five-story apartment building comes into view. Our footsteps slow as we arrive at the walkway that leads to the main entrance.

  Reed turns toward me. “Want me to come up?”

  God, no.

  Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be a question. It’s still relatively early. On a night like this, we would go up to my apartment, order a pizza or Chinese, and find a movie to watch. If it got late, Reed would crash on the couch.

  Instead, all I want is to be alone.

  He searches my eyes as if picking through all of my innermost thoughts and feelings that lurk beneath the surface. If there’s anyone capable of doing that, it’s him.

  “You sure?” His tone softens as he tilts his head. “I know you’re still upset.”

  I am upset, but for some reason, his presence only makes it worse. Normally, Reed is the one person who makes everything better.

  “Yeah.” I force a weak smile to my lips. “I’m tired. I think I’ll hit the sack.” Maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll wake in the morning and this will have been nothing more than a bad dream.

  A look of uncertainty flashes across his face and I brace myself for an argument. He surprises me by relenting. “All right, I’ll go.”

  Before I can escape, his hand snakes out and wraps around my wrist before he hauls me into his arms. Anticipation gathers inside me as I wait for his next move. We didn’t talk about the kiss or even acknowledge that it happened, but it’s all I can think about.

  When his lips brush across my forehead, a strange cocktail of disappointment and relief flood through me. My heartbeat settles as my muscles loosen. Even with confusion pulsing through me, I melt against him.

  How is it possible that when I’m tucked against Reed like this, everything feels as if it will be all right?

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he whispers against the crown of my head.

  I nod, inhaling a big breath of him before forcing myself to step away. As I do, all of the pain and embarrassment rushes back in, nearly swallowing me whole.

  With a quick wave, I jog up the path. Once I’ve punched in the code for the building on the panel, I slip through the door into the brightly lit lobby. I step onto the elevator, hit the button for the third floor, and glance at the spot where I’d left Reed standing. Now that I’m safely inside, I expect the space to be empty.

  A jolt of awareness skitters through me when I find Reed on the sidewalk exactly where I left him. Our eyes lock. It’s only when the elevator doors slide closed that our connection is severed. Feeling oddly agitated, I lean against the wall before squeezing my eyes tightly shut.

  No matter what I thought might happen tonight when I poured myself into Brinley’s dress, this wasn’t it.

  Not by a longshot.

  Chapter Seven

  Reed

  Exhausted from a two-hour practice on the ice, I push my way into the locker room. When I walked blurry-eyed into the arena this morning, the sun had barely been peeking over the horizon.

  We have a few weeks before the season starts in October. Believe it or not, preseason is more grueling than the actual season itself. This is when the work gets done. Coach R is like a drill sergeant out on the ice. He has no qualms about skating our asses six days a week to keep us in peak condition. We’re lucky to get Sundays off.

  If you don’t like the way he runs his program, he’ll kindly show you to the door. With his size eleven boot. The Red Devils have a stacked roster of sixty players, so there’s more than enough talent riding the wood, waiting for a chance to fill a vacancy if some poor bastard can’t hack it.

  There might be a lot of grousing, but it’s kept to a minimum in Coach R’s presence.

  I was probably the only guy out there this morning who welcomed the punishment Coach meted out. Most of the guys were still hungover from the night before. Jessie Adams tossed his cookies in a garbage can near the benches. Thank God it wasn’t out on the ice or he wouldn’t have been the only one losing it.

  Coach yelling and blowing his whistle this morning was the only thing that kept my mind off Emerson.

  And that kiss…

  Fuck.

  I’ll admit that it was stupid on my part. I shouldn’t have given in to the temptation and brushed my lips across hers. Once I got a taste, it was game over. I had to have more. But it wasn’t nearly enough. As soon as rational thought prevailed, I ended it. Now that
I’ve felt her plush lips beneath mine, I’m not sure if there’s any going back.

  It was a wise decision on her part not to let me up to her apartment. After dropping Em off last night, I ended up at my house. I considered heading back to the party and laying into that cheating sack of shit for a second time but thought better of it. Instead, I called it an early night and tried not to think about Emerson.

  I drop my stick in the rack near the door and walk over to the bench before yanking off my practice jersey. My shoulder and elbow pads are next to come off. With a huffed-out breath, I plunk down onto the bench and unlace my Bauers. The locker room fills with loud voices.

  Now that practice is over, everyone has perked up.

  What a bunch of pussies.

  Not interested in listening to these guys run their mouths, I tune out everyone around me. Now that the physical punishment has ended, Emerson shoves her way to the forefront of my brain. I’m still reeling over the fact that she’s a virgin. If Em hadn’t confirmed the information herself, I would have never believed it.

  Not in a million fucking years.

  “Hey, Philips, is it true?”

  I glance at Jessie whose color has returned as he leans all casual-like against his locker. He hasn’t bothered to strip out of his pads. There’s a grin plastered across his face. That alone tells me I’m not going to like where this conversation is headed.

  When I say nothing, he continues in an overly-obnoxious voice. “Is sweet little Emerson still a virgin?”

  My jaw locks as a few other guys swing around and stare in our direction, their expressions pricked with interest. Last night, I turned down the chance to beat the piss out of Tyler, but it looks like I might be able to take my anger out on this dumbass.

  I rise to my feet. Even without my skates, I’m still taller than him. “Shut your fucking mouth, Adams.” I stab a finger in his direction and bark, “Before I shut it for you!”

  Jessie shrugs and his grin turns into more of a sly smile. It would be a pleasure to wipe it off his face. “Calm down, man. No need to get your panties in a twist. I’m just asking if what I heard was true.” He waggles his brows. “Cuz if it is, I’d like to be the first to offer up my services. I’d be more than happy to pop that over ripe cherry.”