Finding My Way (46 page)

Please wake up
sober and still horny.
  I know it’s terrible to be so selfish but
that’s all I can think as my eyes drift over in
Em’s
direction.  I chuckle as I turn down her street thinking back to how
adorable she was trying to buckle up her seatbelt earlier.  She didn’t
seem like she was drunk when we were dancing at the club but once the cool
night air hit it became apparent that she was.  And boy can she
giggle,
it only makes me like her more.  I just hope
that it’s not the alcohol that made it seem like she was as into this as I
am.  I’m not opposed to having drunken sex but I am completely sober and
if she is as drunk as I think she is, I would feel like I was taking advantage
of her.  She is just too sweet of a person to be taken advantage of.

“Wake up
Em
,” I whisper as I gently shake her knee.  She
stirs and blinks a couple of times.  “We’re here.”  She looks out the
window and recognition that we are in the driveway of her apartment complex
registers on her face.  She’s sleepy and so cute.

I get out of the car
and make my way to the passenger side to open the door. 
Em
looks up to me with an unreadable expression.  I
lean across her and undo her seatbelt, then glide my hand across her bare
thigh.  It takes all my effort not to put my hand up that short skirt of
hers.  As I go to stand,
Em’s
hand lifts and she
runs her fingers through my hair, our eyes meet and then I kiss her.  Of
course I kiss her.  It’s only a swift friendly kiss though as I’m not sure
of her sobriety at this point.  I grab hold of her hand and help her out
of the car.

She walks behind me
as I lead her by the hand up the stairs to her apartment.  I can feel her
eyes on me but I can’t bear to look in her direction, afraid that I will see a
drunken haze across her features putting a stop to what I want to do to
her.  Once we reach her door, I let her hand go so that she can retrieve
her keys from the tiny bag she has slung diagonally across her body.  She
unlocks and opens the door and then turns towards me with an almost hopeful
look in her eyes.  I put one hand on her cheek and she leans into it and
closes her eyes with a sigh.  So I lean forward,
hesitating
just a couple of centimetres from her lips for a moment before closing the
gap.  When our lips meet it’s just as electric as it was on the dance
floor.  Her mouth opens invitingly and our pace quickens as I insert my
tongue.  She moans softly as her hands come up around my neck and her
fingers lightly play with my hair.  And that’s when I lose it, my
self-control.

We stumble into the
entryway of the apartment our lips and limbs tangled together.  Somehow
the door closes and then we are pressing against it.  Nick’s hands are
roaming around my back and my sides and I cannot let go of his neck or stop
playing with his hair.  I have often wondered if it would feel as soft as
it looks and it does and I think I could keep my hands in it forever.  I
wonder what people would think if we walked around constantly connected by my
hand in his hair.  The thought makes me giggle against Nick’s lips and I
feel rather than see his mouth curve into a smile against mine.

Then our smiles fade
as passion takes over.  His hand grips the back of my thigh and I lift my
leg slightly to rub against his hip as our middles connect.  I can feel
his arousal just above where I need it to be.  I push against him,
then
he pushes me back harder against the door with a
groan.  His lips leave mine and they kiss my jaw and then start to move
against my neck.  He slides his free hand down the opposite side of my
neck and slowly moves it towards my breast.  His fingers are light as they
feather their way down my bare skin and it makes me gasp.  It’s not
enough.  I need to feel more.
 
Now.
  Before he even gets a chance to connect with my
breast, I pull him back slightly by gently shoving his shoulder with one hand
while tugging on his hair with my firmly attached fingers of the other.  I
keep pushing him backwards in the direction of my bedroom as he nuzzles my
neck.

The curtains are shut
and the room is dark so I can’t see his expression when he pulls away from
me.  I reach behind him and turn on the bedside lamp, I’m sure he can see
the question in my eyes as his search my face.  I’m not sure what he’s
searching for or what he finds but when he kisses me next it’s gentle without
the passion from just seconds ago.  I pull my handbag off and the handle
gets tangled up in my hair causing me to giggle.  Nick reaches over and
helps me to remove it then tosses it on the floor and kisses me gently
again.  I pull him closer to me and try to increase our tempo but he pulls
his mouth away.  He grabs hold of my wrists and pulls my hands up in
between us.  The look on his face is almost pained.

“What’s wrong?” 
I ask, confused.  He doesn’t answer but instead stares intently into my
eyes for a moment before he lets my hands go.
 
They fall to my sides and then he slowly unbuttons my shirt and slides
it off me, dropping it on top of my bag.  He doesn’t make eye contact with
me anymore as I stare at his gorgeous face.  His hands reach behind me and
he undoes the zipper on the back of April’s skirt.  It falls down to my
ankles and I kick it off with my shoes.  I’m standing in front of him with
my black crop top over my bra and a pair of lacy black knickers.  I am so
turned on that I’m sure if he looked he would see the dampness there. 
He’s not looking though, he’s barely acknowledging me.  His mood has
shifted and I can’t understand why.  I stand there dumbfounded as he pulls
the doona down on the bed and rearranges my pillows.

“Get into bed
sweetheart,” he says to me with a quick glance.  I climb over to the
bed.  I turn towards him on my hands and knees expecting him to lunge at
me at any moment.  “Lie down.”  I hesitate for a second before
obeying and then he does what is probably the most humiliating thing he has
ever done, in fact it’s the most humiliated I think I have ever been.  He
pulls the covers up, tucks me in and gives me a quick kiss on the
forehead.  “Good night
Em
,” he whispers
before promptly turning off the bedside lamp and leaving the apartment.

I want to scream at
him.  I want to call him back.  I want to demand that he finish what
he bloody started.  But I can’t find my voice.  Instead, I find hot
wet tears rolling down my cheeks as I quietly sob. 
What the fuck just
happened?

She’s too drunk to
remember
, I try to convince myself, as I lie awake in my cold and empty
bed.  When she wakes up tomorrow, she won’t remember that I crossed the
line of our friendship and then pushed her away.  Everything will be okay. 
She won’t remember that I treated her like a child instead of the sexy woman I
know she is.  I, however, will forever remember the hurt look on her face
as I tucked her into her bed tonight. 
I hope she forgets
.

She was too drunk to
know what she was doing.  I didn’t want it to be like that with her. 
She’s too important to be treated just like another casual hook-up.  I did
the right thing.  I know I did.  It scares the shit out of me that I
did.  When have I ever turned down a sure thing? 
Especially
with someone as hot and as willing as
Em
?

Up until tonight, she
had made it clear that we are friends only.  Alcohol is the biggest
impairment of judgement, I know that from experience, and I couldn’t have lived
with it if she had regretted it when she sobered up.  No, if we are going
to step this relationship up a notch it has to be when she is not drunk. 
I did the right thing.

So why do I feel like
I just royally fucked everything up?

I step into the
shower and try to wash away the previous night.  I feel like shit!  I
cried myself to sleep last night and that’s an exhausting thing to do.  I
wanted to go back to sleep but I forced myself out of bed after I received a
text from April.  She asked if the coast was clear for her to come and
collect her belongings.  She obviously presumes that Nick stayed the
night.  I guess when she gets here soon I’ll have to tell her how wrong we
both got it.  At least I don’t have a hangover
too,
I couldn’t have coped with that as well as all the crap going around in my
head.

All I can think is
that I must have read things wrong, though I’m not sure how.  I wasn’t
that drunk that I don’t remember what he said to me.  He called me
sexy.  He said he wanted to take me home.  I know I didn’t imagine
those hot kisses, his hands on my body or him pressing me against my front
door.  And I felt his erection too, more than once.

The only conclusion I
can come to is that he just doesn’t want me enough.  I don’t know why he
would tease me on the dance floor like that and then take me home with the
impression that more was going to happen.  I know he wasn’t drinking and
there is no other explanation to his behaviour.  He was turned on, yes,
but that was just his body reacting, it’s obviously not what he wanted in his
head or his heart.  He just doesn’t want me.  I guess he figured that
out once he had me almost naked.  I wish he had of figured it out sooner
than that to save me the humiliation of being left in such a state.

Nick doesn’t see me
that way and even though we had already decided to be friends, his rejection
still hurts.  It really, really hurts.

After my shower, I
make a cup of tea and sit down on the couch with my feet up.  There is a
knock at the door as soon as I get comfortable so I grudgingly stand up and go
to open it.  I regret not looking through the peephole first when I swing
the door open to find Nick standing there.

“What do you
want?”  I snap as I close the door until it’s just open enough for me to
stick my face out.  Making it clear to him that he won’t be invited into
my apartment today.

“Can I come
in?”  I guess not clear enough.

“No.”  He
flinches.  I’m guessing that’s not the response he was expecting.  He
looks at me for a moment before he speaks again.

“I’m sorry about last
night.”

“Are you?”  I
ask angrily.

“
Em
,
I didn’t mean for any of that to happen,” he pleads.

“I see.”  I
lie.  I don’t see.  I have no idea why he would play silly games like
that with me.  Why pretend like you want someone when you clearly don’t?

“Please don’t be mad
at me.”

“Listen I’m expecting
someone, I’ll talk to you later,” I say, and gently close the door on
him.  The tears are already trickling down my face before I make it past
the kitchen.  There’s another knock at the door and I pause, vaguely
wonder if it’s April.  Then I hear Nick’s voice so I continue onto the
lounge room.

“Please
Em
.  Talk to me.”  He bangs on the door
again.  I go to my stereo and turn the music on full ball drowning him
out.  I grab my cup of tea, stand by the sliding door to the balcony, and
wait for what seems like forever, until I can see him walking away down the
street.  I stare blankly at the back of him for a moment before turning
down the music and slumping back down on the couch.

Half an hour later,
there is another knock on the door.  This time I check the peephole and
see April’s face on the other side.  I give her a fake smile as I let her
into the apartment.

“Hey,
April.”

“So lovely, how did
the rest of your night go?”  She wriggles her eyebrows at me.  She
actually looks quite funny so I let out a laugh. 
“That
good huh?
  I want details.”  I guess she took my laughter as a
positive sign.

“I’ll never kiss and
tell,” I say hoping that is the end of the subject.

“Oh alright then,
don’t tell me!  I’d only get jealous anyway!”  She laughs and I
breathe a sigh of relief.

At least that crisis
is averted.

I could tell that she
had been crying.  I could hardly bare to look at her face through the door
like that.  Somehow, this morning I had gone to her door slightly hopeful
that we could pick up where we left off.  I hoped that maybe, even sober,
she would want me.  I should have known she wouldn’t forget how I acted
and just let it go.  There was so much hurt and anger in her beautiful
green eyes.  Knowing I was the one to put that there was gut-wrenching.

Things are worse than
I thought.  She is so mad at me for everything.  I should never have
let my need for her get in the way.  She wanted friendship from me and I
crossed the line. 
Big time.
  I should never
have started anything on that dance floor.  I should have realised that
she had been drinking.  I broke our friendship.  How can I ever
redeem myself?

I hit redial on my
phone and again she doesn’t answer.  I’ve really fucked things up.

After Nick called me
a couple of times, I turned my phone off.  I just don’t know what to say
to him.  I’m hurt, angry and confused.  I just don’t want to deal
with any of it.  I spend the rest of the day in my PJs watching movies and
pigging out on junk food.  Though this pyjama day feels nothing like the
last one.  I turn my phone on as I’m going to bed so that I can set my
alarm for the morning.  I have four missed calls from Nick and,
surprisingly, one missed call from Seth.  It’s from four hours ago and I
feel bad now that I turned my phone off.  I get myself comfortable on the
bed and after a couple of minutes of indecision, I call Seth.