"Obviously I'm a girl," she confided to Aura, "but you don't ever have to worry about fishy stuff between Asher and me. We're good buddies, that's all." She cuffed my scapula to prove it. "I mean look at the age gap. I'm way, way older than this guy."
"You don't seem older. How much older are you exactly?" Aura demanded.
"Four years. No, for real. We actually know each other because I'm friends with his big sister, Mel. It's almost as though we really are siblings, isn't it, Asher?"
"You betcha, sis," I said, with an edge of something I wouldn't let myself think about. Whenever Charis talked about how we were like brother and sister, it never failed to get my goat.
She held my gaze a moment, spacing out like she did sometimes, her soft brown eyes blinking. "So yeah, we just hang out and play games."
"Four years is a lot older," Aura said sweetly. I looked at her in growing irritation.
I'd hoped she'd let go of this shit once she saw Charis was not my type-a tomboy, a dude without the rude, an honorary fellow. Hell, Sloane used to practice soccer and baseball with us guys. I've seen her dripping with sweat. She laughs at penis jokes, for godssakes.
But Aura was assessing her in one of those cool looks women give other women. "How did you two meet, exactly?" she demanded.
And so, hugging her cute, knobby knees as she sat on the floor, Charis told her the story of our history together. She told about how, in my sixteenth year when her parents were abroad, she'd joined Mel at the Norrell family home for Christmas. In a nutshell: My family had all gone to bed, and Charis and I, both night owls, had stayed up in the kitchen together playing Mahjong and having an altogether holly, jolly time.
"So you've been friends ever since then?" Aura sounded surprised.
"Actually, no, I was attending college out of state and didn't make it home much," Charis said. "But then I came back to attend grad school at Marmot Canyon, ran across Asher on campus this fall, and we reconnected."
Charis was being tactful. She didn't mention the crush I'd had on her at thirteen, and she didn't mention being a regular visitor at my family home or that everyone thought of her as honorary family.
"So you see, for all intents and purposes, my friend here is a dude," I said, leaning in to kiss Aura's plump mouth. With my lips still attached to hers, I winked over at Charis, who jabbed my ribs and kicked me to boot-which I admit I fully deserved for the dude remark. Messing with Charis is hard to resist sometimes.
Aura seemed convinced at the time.
Turns out she wasn't. But I was. Fully, optimistically, blindly, then, and afterward.
I believed Aura was flat-out wrong when she got into her jealous fits. I didn't have a secret boner for Char. As everyone's always drumming on about, she's way older. Practically my grandma, with the way she dresses, in those old-fashioned sweaters and baggy slacks.
Sometimes we jabbed each other in the ribcage or exchanged a friendly tickle, sure. All of it was non-sexual. All Aura had to do was pay attention and she'd see we were not.
Attracted.
To each other.
At all.
My girlfriend, a law school student, wasn't swayed by the hard evidence before her. That hard evidence being literally my dick, which I stuck only in her. Kissing her, loving her, assuring her flat chests didn't do it for me, that I got hard for a woman's passion, not the ability to trounce me at games … nothing I did did any good.
Of course not. I know now that moving to the fucking moon with Aura wouldn't have done any good. But I put up with her refusal to believe in me for three mind-fucking years, complete with bursts of temper and crazy shrieking episodes.
Why? you ask. Because I was desperate. Because I couldn't control my cock. Because I had a platonic shutter bigger than a house hanging over my eyes.
A shutter that came up every fucking time I looked at Charis.
It slitted open every so often, but I always shut it fast. If my dick got hard for Sloane of all people, I must be missing Aura, and it was time to go. Was how my reasoning went.
I know, you don't have to say it.
Fool.
Yeah, pretty much. Thicker than a tree trunk, that's me, forgetting that once upon a time, Charis Sloane had been utter perfection to my worshipful kid eyes. That in her own gamine way, with all her energy and enthusiasm for life, she'd supplied dozens of hard-ons and wet dreams to this growing boy.
Forgetting I used to fantasize about the smell of her sweat, for fuck's sake.
All this time, I never once put two and two together and thought, duh, Sloane is the person you'd pick to be stranded on a desert island with, no contest …
Sitting here now with her cradled in my lap-fuck, she smells good-I'm just beginning to discover how much of a dumbass I've been.
Now.
But an hour ago?
An hour ago, I still hadn't realized.
An hour ago, I was still thinking Sloane and I were only friends.
An hour ago, I didn't know she was getting married.
Married. Married. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
So an hour ago, when Sloane asked me if I wanted to talk about what happened with the breakup, precedent should have had me keeping my mouth shut.
But this time, thanks to Aura's slander, she was directly involved. So I broke precedent for the second time that day.
CHAPTER 6
Three Years Ago-A Pointless Question
Charis: Hey, Asher, question for you. Was Medusa the daughter of Typhon and Echidna?
Asher: Listen, even if I knew, I'd refuse to answer, based on the fact that your question is A) pointless, and B) pointless.
Charis: Pointless! But my prof challenged it in a paper and I have the nagging feeling he's right. And if he is … if he is …
Asher: See? Still pointless.
Charis: Ancient Greek mythology is important! It's important because … something. All right, I hate to do this, Norrell. I didn't want to bring out the big guns, but you've left me no choice. If you don't look it up for me at this very moment with that convenient tablet you have, I am prepared to … this time I'm the one who … I'll tickle. Yeah, you heard me. And I will have no mercy.
Asher: Really? I call it. Right here, right now. You think you got what it takes? Do it. Bring it, Sloane. Look at this gut. I'm ready. I'm braced.
Charis: Uh, I guess I can just go get my phone.
Asher: I knew it! Chicken.
Asher
"MIGHT AS WELL TALK ABOUT it," I said slowly. "Aura came by and had one of her freakouts."
"Freakouts? What do you mean? Is this a thing?" Charis sipped from her glass.
"Yeah." I blew out a breath. "First, back up and tell me what happened when you saw Aura the other day."
Charis looked confused, then her face cleared into a smile. "Oh, right, I did run into her, was it Monday? I totally nailed her, Asher. She saw me having lunch and sat down and we chatted for a while. Then when we stood up we literally crashed into each other and my chicken meal exploded all over her. Crumbs and coleslaw freaking everywhere! It was like this spectacular southern fried shower. I wanted to buy her a new dress, but she stomped off. Sorry, I know I shouldn't laugh, but it was just soooo funny."
"Did the word 'ugly' come up?"
She wrinkled her nose. "Huh? I don't-oh, right, yeah, I looked at the whole disaster and I said 'that's … pretty ugly' or something like that. I almost texted you. Your girlfriend was having a day, Ash."
It all made sense now. I knew that incident had been blown up, and I was right. I shook my head. "She has a lot of those."
"So what's the problem with you guys?"
I leaned forward to pour myself three fingers and drank two. "Remember when I told you I was going under the radar?"
"Back in December? Yeah. You said you had some things to work out. You'd be holing up with her and not hanging with anyone else for a while. I assumed since I didn't hear from you that's what you were doing."
"Yeah, that's what we were doing. I didn't see you, I didn't see my buddies, my sibs, no-one. No digital or phone with anyone this whole time."
"That blows. You weren't at Christmas, I know."
"You went to our place?" Sloane usually spends her holidays with my family, because her parents are assholes.
"Yeah … " She shifted uneasily.
"Christmas was an intimate dinner for two this year. Fucking awful."
"Wow. I'm sorry, Ash. So … the bonding thing didn't work?"
I looked at her. "Actually, it did."
It had been Aura who suggested it. She'd tried plenty of times to get me to banish Sloane from my life. But each time I'd called her bluff. This time, though, with graduation looming-me from college, her from law school-she'd pointed out we needed more bonding time if our relationship was going to work long-term.
She said-and I strongly suspect an issue of ELLE was involved-we needed to become not just lovers, but friends.