Mia. On my bed. Talking blowjobs.
I clear my throat. "Do you want to get out of here? We could go for a drive?"
She sits up and nods, but suddenly tears pool in her eyes and stream down her cheeks. Fucking Brogan.
Maybe I should want this. A clean break for them so Mia and I can finally . . .
Fuck, I don't even know. But I'm not happy. I'm not relieved or feeling the slightest bit victorious. Instead, I want to take a swing at him for hurting her. And since beating the shit out of my best friend for cheating on the girl I love makes next to no sense, I'll settle for finding a way to make her smile tonight. Because that's what I do. I'm the friend. I'm the shoulder to cry on, the promised smile. That's why she's here. Nothing more.
She follows me to the car, and I open the door of my blue Mustang and watch her climb inside. Her jean shorts bunch around her hips as she sits. I fist my hands at my sides. Don't be a fucking asshole.
"Where are we going?" she asks when I climb into my side and buckle my seatbelt.
Anywhere that doesn't involve looking at you in my bed. "Well, obviously this calls for ice cream first and foremost."
There it is. The first smile of the night. Or partial smile, because it doesn't meet her eyes. But I'll take it. I'll have her grinning outright in no time.
"I want one of those massive sundaes," she says, buckling her seatbelt. "The ones with all the crap that's so bad for you and, like, two thousand calories each. I've always wanted to try one of those, and I think it's time."
I turn the key in the ignition and feel the car purr to life. "You're telling me you've never had a big ice cream sundae?"
She shrugs. "A cone's bad enough. I work hard trying to get my ass to shrink. Don't need ice cream to make it an even more impossible battle."
I bite my tongue against saying something inappropriate but then decide fuck it. Brogan cheated on her and they broke up. I don't need to censor myself out of respect for him anymore. "I'm pretty fond of the size of your ass, Mia."
Her eyes go wide and her jaw drops a fraction, and she stares at me as if she truly can't believe what I just said. When I just wink at her, she smacks me in the arm with the back of her hand.
"What?" I ask.
"You can't say that stuff to me."
"Why not?"
"Because . . . Arrow, we're friends. That's important to me above all the other petty shit. You don't say stuff like that to your friends."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
"Hmm. I don't know. I think you're thinking of mean things. You don't say mean things to your friends. What I said definitely doesn't qualify. If you'd like, I can elaborate, and you'd know just how kind my feelings about your ass really are."
"Ice cream." She points at the road and bites back a grin, but her eyes are already smiling. "Stay focused."
I'm so proud of myself for making her smile, it's all I can do not to give a little victory fist pump. "Yes, ma'am."
We go to the Dairy Maid drive-through, and Mia orders a four-scoop chocolate and peanut butter sundae with the works. I order a turtle sundae of similar size so she won't feel self-conscious, but I know I won't be able to eat it, not when my stomach is in knots over having her by my side. Single. No longer Brogan's.
And fuck it. It's not like I don't know there are rules. You don't go out with your best friend's ex. Maybe it would be acceptable after a respectable period of time passes, like, say, three or four years, but most definitely not the night she dumped him.
I'm not going to do anything. Nothing but make her smile. Make her laugh.
"Where do you want to go?" I ask as I pull out of the Dairy Maid lot. "We could watch B-grade horror flicks at the dorm or maybe play laser tag?"
At a stop sign, light from the streetlamp illuminates her face. Her cheeks are still pink from the tequila. She arches a brow. "Laser tag?"
"After we finish our ice cream. Sure. You could pretend the opponents are all Brogan and Trish and shoot them repeatedly."
She laughs. Really laughs. A bright, beautiful sound that seems to fill the car. "No, thanks. Not sure I'll be able to button my jeans after I'm done eating this, let alone run around in them."
"Fair enough," I say, but I have to grip the steering wheel a little tighter and try very hard not to think about activities that involve Mia unbuttoning her jeans. Because damn. "So, how about the movies?"
She pokes at her ice cream with her spoon. "Could we just . . . go somewhere private and talk? Not my apartment. Brogan's probably looking for me, and I'm not ready to face him."
"The dorms?" It's more a horrified question than a suggestion. I don't know how much more Mia-on-my-bed I can handle without acting on seriously poor judgment.
"I don't think so," she says. "There are always people coming in and out of your quad, and I don't feel like pretending to be okay tonight."
Private. Private sounds dangerous. "Whatever you need." I go to the light and pull a U-turn, heading back out of Blackhawk Valley and toward my father's house, all the while trying to decide if this is the worst idea I've ever had. I've always done my best to be worthy of Brogan's friendship, and I know there's no way I can tell Mia how I feel tonight without being a complete scumbag, which is why I was trying to suggest very public activities. But I can't turn her down.
On the way to my dad's property, she pokes at her ice cream, only taking a bite or two and abandoning it altogether when I pull up to the gates and drive into the estate.
Straightening, she sits the ice cream in the cup holder beside her. "We're going to your dad's house?"
"Not exactly." I'm trying to be mysterious, but she's too distracted, her eyes scanning the horizon as we follow the rolling hills to the back of the property.
"That's where you grew up?" she asks, as I drive on past the house.
I shrug. "It's just a house, Mia. A big one, sure, but we had our problems like anyone else."
"Right. Brogan said your mom died when you were in high school. I'm sorry about that." She turns her head and watches as it goes by, but soon I pull onto a gravel road at the back of the property and it's out of sight.
When I reach the lake, I bring the car to a stop near the bank, and she gasps. The lake is irregularly shaped and has fingers that stretch along a lot of the property, but this alcove surrounded by trees is by far my favorite. Water cascades from the creek down the stone-lined wall on the far side, making a little waterfall.
Clouds dim the moon and stars tonight, and my headlights offer the only illumination of the waterfall and alcove.
"I know this place," she whispers. "Bailey and I came here when we were kids." She throws her hand over her mouth and grimaces. "We . . . snuck in. This is yours?"
"My dad's, I guess. It's quiet back here. I like to come here to think."
"And swim, right?" She grins. "Bail and I swam here. God, what I'd give to go back to those days. Life was so much simpler."
"You have no idea how hard I'm kicking myself for not spending more time down here when I was in high school."
She bites her bottom lip and, ice cream forgotten, opens her door and climbs out of the car, rendering me temporarily helpless.
I'm frozen in place. Because Mia is walking toward the lake in the path of my headlights and pulling her shirt off over her head. Her bra is dark. Lace. Fuck. She tosses the shirt onto the ground then toes out of her shoes and drops her shorts before running to the end of the dock.
When she stretches her arms over her head and dives into the dark lake in nothing but her bra and panties, I snap out of my stupor and jump out of the car. "Mia!"
She bobs to the surface and shivers. "It's cold."
"No shit? It's October. Get out here before you get hypothermia or worse."
She laughs. "It's been an Indian summer. It's not that cold."
"Come on, Mia."
She answers by diving down again, and the light from my headlights isn't strong enough to allow me to see under the surface of the water. I wouldn't be comfortable with her swimming alone in the best of conditions, but in the dark, buzzed and maybe drunk, it worries the shit out of me.
"Fuck," I mutter. I pull off my shirt and shoes, drop my jeans, and dive in behind her, and fuck is it cold. My nuts immediately retreat, trying to draw up into my stomach, I swear.
Mia laughs. "You're so tough on the field, plowing through all those big guys, but put you in a little cold water and you look like you're being tortured."