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  “So, you had to fix them? Yeah, that was totally bad, I agree. I have much better songs, I swear, and they are not some emo crap.”

  “I want to hear a good one. Sing me your favorite,” he pressed.

  “Here? No Kev, when we get back home, I promise. This is a library - we’ll get kicked out.”

  I pointed to the sign that was taped on the wall right in front of us, saying “QUIET PLEASE! Low voices in the library are appreciated.”

  “It says low voices are appreciated, not required. What are you afraid of, Lauren? If that’s the dream, share it with the world. You have to make them listen and break some rules if you want to make it.” Kevin was daring me and not giving me much wiggle room to find excuses.

  “I don’t have my guitar, so it might not be that good.” I made one last attempt to get out of singing in public.

  “You don’t need your guitar. I notice it’s more of a security thing for you, so if you need to hold on to something, use me,” Kevin offered. He wrapped his arm around me, placing it to my chest, right where my instrument would usually lay. On instinct, I hugged his hand like I would do to my guitar. He was right that this was a safety device, that the familiar object was for comfort more than anything else. But so was Kevin.

  My palm wrapped around his biceps, and even though it was much larger than the neck of my guitar, the touch of his skin gave me goosebumps, and the way his muscle flexed from my touch, invigorated me. The fingers of my other hand traced over his like I was strumming actual strings, though my touch was feather-light, like a caress. His chest stopped moving like he held his breath, but the stillness felt strange. I leaned back, lowered my head on his shoulder, and closed my eyes, listening as he let out the air from his lungs. And then I sang.

  At first, the words came as a whisper, but they were too poignant to be contained. The song was called “You can’t hurt me if I am happy,” which was how I felt right at that moment. With every line, I felt stronger, like I was finding not only my bravery to overcome everything that held me back, but to reach for the happiness that I dreamed of when I wrote the song. My lyrics spoke of the simple things in life that gave me joy. The flowers in spring, the laughter I share with a friend, and the memory of a green-eyed boy. In verse, I taunted my adversaries because happiness was a choice, which pain couldn’t penetrate. It was a happy song, and the melody lifted me up, suspended me in a state of pure ecstasy because I was happy right where I was – holding on to the one person who mattered the most. I was not examining the gravity of my feelings for Kevin or questioning them; I was simply feeling with every fiber of my being and letting my soul sing the words.

  When the last verse ripped right out of my heart, there was silence. All that was left was the heavy beats of Kevin’s heart, and the trembling of his fingers right under my ribcage. I opened my eyes and met his emerald gaze. He was looking at me, lost in an emotion that was too powerful to put into words. It radiated from him in waves and slipped into me, shaking me to the core. I swear I heard the thunder.

  Literally, there was a loud external sound which made me snap my head to find the source of it. I thought I might be hallucinating. My eyes focused, only to see that there were many eyes on me, and a big crowd had gathered around us. They were all cheering and applauding. It took me a long moment to realize it was all for me.

  “You made them listen, Lauren,” I heard Kevin whisper in my ear.

  Chapter 16

  Something changed after that day in the library. Not Kevin- he was still acting the same, walking me to classes, waiting for me when I was done, making sure he scheduled some of his private training sessions around my activities, so we could spend time together. But everything he did for me meant something more to my stupid heart. When he held my hand, his touch caused shivers up my arm; when his thumb casually brushed mine, it felt like a caress. His embrace felt intimate, and the feel of his body made me tremble. This was desire pure and simple, and it was not going away.

  I felt like this for a guy once, even though I was younger, and the awakening of my body was a gradual process. Physical experiences were new then, and I couldn’t recognize them for what they were, but now I understood my libido was fully awake. Not that a singular dating endeavor made me an expert on sex. In fact, after Jaxon I suppressed my blossoming sexuality, ashamed that I had fallen for his stupid games. Maybe I lost trust in men because I expected the worst from them since everyone surrounding me was more or less like my father. Jaxon, I thought, was different, but he proved me wrong.

  It was unfortunate that my body made a single-minded decision to fixate on my best friend. I could clearly separate my feelings of love for Kevin and the unconscious physical responses I had to his touch. Though those lines were getting blurred sometimes when I looked into his eyes and felt not only our deep connection but the arousal trickling under my skin. There was probably a good reason why people didn’t get affectionate with their friends of the opposite gender. The comfort of his presence, the reassurance of his touch, and even the friendly banter between us became torture. Everything made me burst into flames, and it was difficult to contain. This is how friendships ended. One of the two became infatuated with the other, and sooner or later, it backfired.

  Kevin seemed completely unaware of my reactions to him, asking me if I was okay when I flushed by one look from him. He was, as usual, concerned with my emotional well-being when I was lusting after his hot body. Good thing after the first night we reconnected we never had sleepovers, because I was not sure if I’d resist the urge to get too close and personal with him in bed. That would probably be the end of our friendship because I don’t think Kevin saw me in that way. I was his little friend who he missed for years and was happy to reconnect with.

  One evening I was already in my pajamas getting ready for bed when I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Kevin was standing next to the fridge, rummaging for some snacks. I smiled because it was funny. His healthy diet developed by a nutritionist consisted mostly of salads, tons of protein, nuts, and not that many carbs, but he was a big guy and was probably starving half the time.

  “If you are looking for the ice-cream, which I bought the other day, that’s gone,” I informed him.

  “Bummer. Now I’ll have to make do with the rest of your stash.” He opened my snack drawer, the one I told him was off-limits, and took out the candy-colored bag with my goodies. “What is this?” he asked showing me the package.

  I grabbed it from his hand because I was not willing to share. “Cereal marshmallows. You know the best part of Lucky charms.” I held it to my chest, protecting it from his grabby hands.

  “Do you go through the box and pick out only the marshmallows?” Kevin asked, and his eyebrow quirked.

  “No, some company figured it out. I buy them from Amazon, and they cost a fortune…” I was saying, but the snitch used my distraction, and snatched the plastic bag out of my grasp.

  It was pointless to try and wrestle it out of his hands, considering he had seventy pounds of muscle on me, and the thought of wrestling Kevin was leading my mind astray.

  He was stuffing a handful of my goodness in his mouth, a moan of delight escaped from his lips, and I had to swallow hard. I froze, staring at him, at his hard jaw moving, at his parted mouth while he licked a pink crumb stuck to his full bottom lip. I had the urge to grab him and taste the marshmallow candy right from his lips. I was getting flushed and sad at the same time because I was going to ruin everything. Kevin looked at me, and his hand froze halfway to his mouth. He returned the candy he was holding, back to the package, and put it on the counter.

  “Sorry, Lauren, I didn’t mean… Are you going to cry over cereal?” He came to me and hugged me, the way he did every time I was sad. His gentle embrace was too much, and I was about to start crying for real. I couldn’t lose this.

  “Oh, poor baby. I’ll buy you a box full of the marshmallows, but only so we can share.” He kissed the top of my head, and that did it. I b
uried my head into his chest and let the wetness of my tears soak into the fabric of his t-shirt. He felt it too and held my shaking shoulders. He didn’t say anything, just let me cry and let it all out, holding me tight, comforting me with his embrace. Once my sobs subsided, he reached between us, took my hand, and laced his fingers with mine.

  “Let’s go watch a movie.” He led me to the living room and sat on the couch, pulling me next to him. His hand never left mine, and instead, he wrapped his other arm around my shoulder, letting me rest my head on his chest. “Unless you want to talk about it?” he offered.

  “No, it’s nothing, Kevin. It’s stupid, okay.” I cut him off because it was impossible to tell him what really upset me. He had to unknot our fingers to reach for the TV remote, and I felt the emptiness of his touch like a broken chain that I needed to keep us together. The glow from the TV illuminated the mostly dim room, and the shadows made the angles of his body look more defined. I was seeing him as the man he was; Strong, beautiful, dependable.

  I know you can’t call a guy beautiful, but Kevin was. His masculinity was not rugged but somehow soft and fluid. His muscles were toned and ripped, considering he worked out like crazy to build a physique like that, but he moved not like a lion, more like a panther. Even watching him play baseball, his movements were precise and controlled like a choreographed dance. There was boyishness to his face even though his jaw was more defined and his features sharper. His eyes were the same as the mischievous little boy I remembered.

  “How about a chick flick – that might cheer you up?” I heard his question, and for some reason, even his suggestion lifted me up from that place I was treading, between drooling over him and being sad about doing it.

  “Are you seriously going to suffer two hours of a romantic movie, so you can cheer me up?” I looked up at him, a smile spreading on my lips.

  “Why not? You endured hours of baseball to cheer me up, so…” he started saying, but I cut him off.

  “I am starting to like baseball now that you explained what’s happening, so that wasn’t torture. And I don’t like romantic movies, anyway. Too sappy and unrealistic.” I told him some of the truth, but in fact, watching people falling in love on the screen was not a good idea, considering my befuddled feelings for Kevin. He was looking down at me strangely, his lips parted like he was about to say something but had to think before he spoke.

  “Have you been in love, Lauren?” He made up his mind and asked me.

  He was going there. I thought if I should tell him the truth, considering friends talked about their romantic relationships, shared their feelings, and their heartbreaks. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to let Kevin know I was not promiscuous or had a long line of boyfriends, so he wouldn’t assume the worst of me if he noticed my infatuation with him.

  “I don’t think I was in love with him, Kev. I was falling in love, but it all ended before I was completely there. Not sure if even the heartbreak was a real one, more like my ego was hurt, not so much my feelings.” I spilled the beans.

  His eyes widened, like my admission surprised him. “Him? As in singular?” he quirked.

  “I know, pathetic, right? But yeah, I had one boyfriend, and that was three years ago. I told you my parents kept me on a really short leash. There were not many opportunities to meet normal guys. When I ran away, it was just for three months, and I was in survival mode to be looking for love. The guys in my private school were all rich, entitled, and I was an outcast, so never fit in with any of their cliques. And there was Jaxon.” I sighed, remembering the charming, handsome guy I once shared myself with. It made me sad that I had sex with someone I didn’t truly love.

  “Dreamboat?” Kevin chuckled, remembering I called my ex-boyfriend that once.

  “Yeah, he was that. With a British accent on top of the hotness. He was an exchange student my sophomore year. I was held back for two years of therapy, so he was a senior, but we were the same age. He was different, or at least I thought so. We bonded over music. I brought my guitar to school one day and played it in the parking lot during lunch. Jaxon came over and not only sang with me but knew all the lyrics of this song by this obscure 80's band called "Graphic.” I didn’t know another person who might have heard of them, so I was taken. He also said he played in a band back in England, and we started talking about favorite music and stuff…He totally had the rock star thing going for him – the messy hair, the nose ring, the whole shebang… Anyway, we were friends for six months before we started dating… and the whole thing lasted less than that.”

  “What did the moron do? Cheat on you?” Kevin rumbled next to my ear and wrapped his arm around me tighter.

  “No, I found out I was the other woman. The asshole had a long-time girlfriend back home, and the poor girl flew over the Atlantic to surprise him. She showed up one day after school, and he had the audacity to introduce me as his friend…” I whispered.

  “What did you do, Lauren?” Kevin said quietly like my admission was affecting him too and making him sad. At least he was not seething, threatening to exact revenge on my behalf.

  “What do you think? I slapped his ass, gave him one big smooch, and thanked him for the sex. Didn’t have to knock him hard. His girlfriend did that for me.” I smirked, remembering.

  Kevin started laughing, but there was a rasp to his voice when he spoke. “Was at least the sex good?”

  Him mentioning the word “sex” ignited a fire deep in my belly, and it was definitely not something I’d felt with my ex. I don’t even know why I kept talking. “I wish. We did it like two-three times, and since he was sneaking me into his room at his host family’s house, it was rushed, short, and in the dark. I should have known with all the sneaking around, and the fact he couldn’t look at my face, he was hiding something.”

  Kevin shifted uncomfortably next to me, and only a rasp of breath came out of his throat, like a sigh. Silence settled between us, and it wasn’t the comfortable one we shared when we just sat together. It was time to change the subject, but I didn’t think before I spoke.

  “How about you, Kev? Were you ever in love?” I asked the exact question I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer to, He sighed again, but didn’t respond immediately, like he was examining his feelings.

  “I had two serious girlfriends. In high school, I dated one girl my junior year. I don’t think it was love — what we shared was because hormones were running wild. She was a senior and graduated a year ahead of me. She went to college on the East Coast, and there were no hurt feelings on both sides when we broke it off. Freshman year in college, I got a bit caught in the partying scene and had a few one-nighters, but those made me figure out I was not into casual sex. It makes you feel empty afterward, like scratching an itch that bleeds after. Maybe it had to do with my issues, and the fact I came from a broken home, as you know. My Dad was never married to Connie, and I was not even out of diapers when she started cheating on him with Mike. Casual hookups were like cheating to me – not cheating on someone, but cheating yourself out of a meaningful relationship.” He admitted. I knew what he meant, and it resonated in me as well. This was the feeling that I had after Jaxon – that I cheated myself from something deeper that you share with someone you love, not someone you lust after.

  “What happened to your second girlfriend, Kev? Did you love her?” I asked my words, barely a whisper.

  “McKenzie and I dated for almost two years. At the time, I believed we were in love. She was an athlete too, and we had tons of mutual friends and interests. She was wholesome, funny, and the relationship was kind of easy and uncomplicated.” I can hear the sadness in his words, which meant something happened, and it didn’t end well.

  “Did she cheat on you?” I whispered, kind of dumbfounded that a girl might cheat on someone like Kevin, not just because of his looks, but because he was a good person.

  “No, she broke up with me before she got with the other guy. It was the right thing to do. She went to a training camp in Ar
izona and met another runner. Both were track and field stars, and apparently it was love at first sight. At first, it hurt my ego that I wasn’t that person for her, but then I realized she had a point. With us, it was a slow burn, not like an earth-shattering event. She dropped out of college for that guy, left her own athletic ambition behind to follow him to the other side of the country. He made the Olympics team, and they got married only a few months after they met. And you know, Lauren, I wasn’t mad at McKenzie. I was, in fact, happy for her that she had found that kind of love. Maybe she set a bar for me, to wait until I see someone and the earth moves…” He was not looking at me, just staring somewhere into the room, like he did not see anything in particular, just lost in his thoughts. His voice trembled when he uttered the last words, and my heart sank deep.

  He was waiting for someone that could move his world, and not a best friend who might or might not love him. My own feelings for Kevin were so muddled, I couldn’t identify them anymore. He was once the center of my world, and in a way, I still loved him as deep as then. Now everything was more complicated because new emotions were piling up on top of the old ones, and I had no reference to place them.

  Kevin shifted and then unwrapped his arm from me.

  “Do you feel tired?” he asked considerately because my eyes were closed, and I was still resting my head on his chest.

  “Not that much, just thinking.” I opened my eyes and looked at him.

  Kevin took my shoulders and turned me around until I was lying down on the couch, and my head was in his lap, using his solid thigh as a pillow. He looked down at me and smiled. His fingers wrapped around a strand of my hair, and he started playing with it.

  It was soothing and peaceful, so I closed my eyes again, relishing in Kevin’s touch and his closeness. I felt the tiny caress, a small feathery brush of his fingertip on my chest, right above my heart. My eyes shot open and met his laughing ones.