"This okay?" She sat back down, this time clear across the room on an armchair.
Music is where we clash big time. Our tastes overlap only enough that we don't come to physical blows-usually-but we'd never managed to agree on a live concert.
It's kind of reassuring, in a way. Women tend to bend over backwards to flatter me and my taste. Only my sisters and Charis tell me the truth.
I gave her a thumbs up.
And I leaned back, folded my hands together, and looked at her.
I tried to be analytical. To think of her as my buddy.
But the shutter had lifted and my awareness could not be flipped off. My jeans were old, comfortable, and currently killer tight at the crotch.
That member I'd concluded had reached the third stage of masculine maturity? It was now firmly back in Stage One, out of control. The apartment felt way too warm and stuffy.
I was drunk, but my brain hadn't dulled completely. I knew something was happening here, something important. Hours ago my girlfriend of three fucking years had walked out of my life. And one of my first thoughts had been well, damn. I need a daily screw. Who am I going to fuck now?
My breath came shallowly with this new, disturbing view of myself.
Why had I even come over here tonight? It was late. I should have been at a bar with my bros, ushering in the new Auraless era of my life. I should have been broken up. I should have been the one picking out depressing, discordant tunes.
Instead I'd hightailed it over here, to Charis. The moment she'd opened the door, it was like I'd come home.
Home to Charis Sloane.
Who persisted in seeing herself as some kind of proxy for my elder sisters. She looked about sixteen right now, but still.
Charis, the woman I'd spent more time alone with than-well, than anyone.
Damn it, I'd been a good boy all this time. Since day one I'd been sexually faithful to Aura; I even stopped myself from fantasizing in other directions.
And if my cock happened to stir around someone else-Charis, say-I ignored it. Transferred my focus to where it was appropriate.
Once I was fucking Aura, I forgot about anyone else.
And when I wasn't fucking her? said the devil on my shoulder.
Well, of course there was Charis. Until Aura drove me to prove my loyalty by cutting her out of my life.
And then what did I go and do when I got too damn frustrated with that?
I coughed as the unbelievable answer came to me.
I fucking broke up with my girlfriend and raced over here.
For friendly support, dude.
To get her take on the "ugly" incident.
To catch up.
You were bored.
Yeah, right.
What a load of B.S.
With shaking hands, I filled up my shot glass. Swallowed more. Repeated. Charis sipped her port.
We listened to music in silence. Well, she listened. I sat there while my mind was blown … while I made my acquaintance with one Asher Total Moron Norrell.
My new and revised self.
Charis didn't look in my direction. She looked anywhere but at me.
I watched her chew on her bottom lip. Her mouth wasn't full, wasn't plump; her lips were as narrow as the rest of her. She was skinny, she had the whole geek image going except the glasses, so why was I hard, why did my mouth tingle and my skin feel tight?
I looked away. My world was spinning. Everything looked different. The whole thing was impossible. I couldn't have fucked up that bad.
She knew something was up. She was nervous, maybe made uncomfortable by an intensity she sensed from me. Probably she thought I was shattered. Wrecked.
And I was.
Not by Aura.
No, fuckitall. By this one.
It was Sloane that had me sitting here with visions of her naked, twitching, my cock at ludicrous heights, like it was going to try to come all on its own in my jeans. As if I was sixteen years old again lying with her on the carpet in my folks' house playing Mahjong, smelling her sweet scent, captivated, silently swearing to unload my virginity ASAP so I could be man enough for her.
I'd fucking been in love with her.
Shit. I knew about arousal. I knew about pleasure. I'd forgotten something, though.
Lust. Lust for forbidden fruit was agony.
The last time my dick had been in this degree of pain was freshman year. Charis's grandmother had just died and I'd opted to fly with her to Portland. I couldn't bear to see her miserable, so I stuck to her through the funeral and the reception. At one point I hugged her.
Huge mistake.
At the feel of her hips against me, at the scent of her, I'd forgotten my pre-adolescent days were over, that I was an expert at fucking, that Charis and I were just friends and she was four years older and my tastes had matured …
I forgot it all. My cock started battering against my fly just the way it used to.
For my first crush. The subject of my earliest sexual fantasies. The girl I'd wanted more than anything.
I pulled away just in time, before I picked her up, carried her off and did something really stupid.
And later on I met her family. They called me a nice kid and said they hoped I met a nice girl my age. Charis echoed the sentiment emphatically. She still obviously thought of me as an immature kid. I gave my cock a strict talking-to.
Shortly afterward, I met Aura. I fell on her like a starving man. Because I was starving. My dick had been like stone all week.
For Charis.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
Can a man have a 3.86 GPA and still be a dodo?
She rose, staggered over to me, tripped, and to my shock, practically fell onto my lap. I lifted her and gently set her down next to me. Her waist under my palms felt fiery hot.
It wasn't her skin, it was me. I felt feverish.
I felt like I'd just been fucked over by my own mind. Like I'd pulled a colossal practical joke on myself.
Ha ha. Got you, loser. Thought you were clever, calling her a friend when you never stopped wanting her. Admit it. You were just settling for what you could get. You're still the infatuated boy you were.
I stared at her face as if I could figure things out that way. I honestly couldn't tell you whether she was objectively gorgeous or not, whether her skin had always looked that smooth, whether her neat, pretty mouth really promised nirvana.
I just knew I wanted to slam her up against me. All out of proportion to our heretofore completely, a hundred percent platonic, pure and innocent relationship.
That once I'd opened the floodgates, I couldn't stop thinking about raising her shirt, exposing her breasts, smoothing her hair back, looking at her, having her-
Shittafucktion.
I kept my hands on her simply to keep her at arm's length. But she didn't take the hint. She was wasted. I'd never seen my best friend more wasted.
"Ash," she slurred, rubbing her cheek on the cloth of my tee shirt, putting her scent in my nostrils, no way to ignore it. "There's something important I need to tell you. I've been putting it off, or maybe not exactly putting it off, more like I haven't had the chance with you being incommunicado, but you see, the fact is, I'm getting married."
It was only then, in that stunned moment of pure horror, that I began to sense the true scale of my life's upfuckedness.
CHAPTER 8
One Year Ago
Charis: If you could live in any city in the world, what city would that be?
Asher: Kill me now.
Charis: Oh, come on, the question is perfectly apropos. You're graduating next year. You can live anywhere you want. You must have thought about it.
Asher: I'd live wherever you are.
Charis: You're joking. Be serious.
Asher: I am serious. Where else would I find another friend who'd keep asking me completely irrelevant questions?
Asher
I WOKE UP BLINKING AT A LOW ceiling. Blue leather sofa. Snow white carpet. Books, food wrappers, and papers on every surface, like a hurricane had come through a library.
What the hell was I doing at Sloane's place?
Oh, yeah. The last thing I remembered, I'd laid down on her sofa, pulling the red and black throw rug over me.
I sat up and hunched over with my head pounding, tongue dry. Hangover. Why did I have a … oh, yeah.
Now I remembered. It all came flooding back.
Aura.
Whiskey.
Charis.
I stumbled to my feet and over to the kitchen. You'd think an academic would keep a neat and tidy kitchen even if the rest of her place was chaos, but no. Charis doesn't get that some housework is meant to be done every day.
I managed to wade through the mess to gather up a pitcher of water, a jumbo chocolate bar, an orange, a handful of raw mushrooms, and half a jar of olives. I downed it all and drank three cups of coffee. It would suffice as a hangover remedy.
Then I went to check my phone and saw the text from Charis.
Went to collect exams. Crash as long as you want. Aspirin in medicine cabinet.
That was it.
Nothing about last night. Nothing about my breaking up with Aura. Nothing about her bombshell.
I was pissed.