Best Man

Somehow, I manage a little bit of sleep. But it’s not the good kind of sleep.

Oh, it’s good in that I forget where I am and really do zonk out. It’s bad because the second I close my eyes, I dream about that night.

After Aaron left, I expected Miles would talk to me. But a new frat brother took Aaron’s place, and Sergeant Shitface started getting into the game again, instructing the new brother which way to throw the ball. My buzz fading, I stood there awkwardly, biting my lip and wondering when Aaron was going to get back.

Around me, the crowd was rapt with beer pong, cheering and laughing. I tried to be interested, but I suddenly looked around for my friends and realized everyone was a stranger. I began to back away, when I looked up.

Miles was now staring at me.

He leaned over, close, but not close enough to touch me. “What did you say your name was?”

“Lia.”

He sat up on his stool, elbows on his knees, and hooked a finger at me, like he had a secret to tell me. I waited for him to ask me the same pick-up questions. What’s my major?

His voice was gravelly as he said, “Don’t stand there. Stand here.”

I frowned at him. So he was ordering me around his house like a fucking lap dog. Even so, I moved like he told me to, confused as to why it mattered. “Why?”

He pointed at the game board, just as a Ping-Pong ball flipped into the cup that would’ve been closest to me, spraying a couple of girls that were standing where I’d been. They shrieked, drenched.

Oh. That answered that question.

I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. And either Aaron had gone overseas to fetch that beer, or he was never coming back. I began to feel like an idiot, sitting there, talking to no one, so I started to meander away.

“Wait,” he said, his voice straining over the music. “Don’t go.”

I frowned. “Why? So you can not talk to me some more?”

“Why do we have to talk? It’s too fucking loud here. Can’t we just be here?”

I blushed. “Um…why?” I asked.

He tilted his head, regarding me like he was seeing me for the first time. “You ask too many questions.”

“Because—”

He put a finger to his lips, and I got the feeling that I was like some science project that he wanted to dissect. So I stood there, for maybe twenty minutes more, watching him give the occasional direction to the brother playing beer pong, until the basement got a little less crowded and things started simmering down.

When it did, he leaned in and said, “You’re alone.”

Duh. “I don’t know where my friends went.”

“Text them.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t have my phone.”

His eyes drifted over my shoulders, taking in my bare skin, my long hair. I didn’t see appreciation in them; just curiosity. “Why am I not surprised that outfit doesn’t have pockets?”

I suddenly felt naked. Well, I was close to naked, much closer than I was used to, but I’d dressed in order to fit in with my new friends. It was the tail-end of summer, and still hot, so we’d all worn short shorts and tight camisoles to bare our tans. I crossed my arms over my breasts.

He stood up from the stool as he set his beer down. I noticed he hadn’t taken a drink from it once. “Come on.”

I know, it wasn’t safe for me to follow a guy I’d just met anywhere. But for some reason, I never questioned it. I’d come into the basement from the walkout, so I’d never seen the rest of the house. We climbed up a narrow staircase, into a dark-paneled, masculine room that looked like a medieval banquet hall, complete with a massive wooden chandelier, arched doorways, and tapestries.

He walked through it with his head down, unimpressed, but I nearly tripped over a pile of lacrosse gear that had been discarded there, so interested was I in the house. He didn’t stop, and as he passed other guys with D-Phi shirts, he didn’t say hi to them. I noticed them eyeing him, too, as if he was as big a mystery to them as he was to everyone else.

Then, they gave me a once-over, like, What do you think you’re doing with him?

As we climbed another wide staircase with ruby-red carpet over mahogany stairs, I glanced briefly at the lines of composite photos of each class of D-Phi brothers, dating all the way back to 1911. By the time I found the most recent one, he whistled.

I didn’t get a chance to find him in the picture. I turned to find him all the way down the long hall. “Come on. Keep up.”

I peered into some of the open doors as I passed them. Walls decorated with posters of movies and scantily clad women, shelves holding empty alcohol bottles, floors covered in garbage and strewn clothing. The brothers were slobs. The carpet was stained with a rainbow of strange substances and the hallway and smelled like cheese and body odor. It was the exact result anyone would expect of twenty-some guys living together. Music drifted from one of the open doors, and somewhere, there was a rhythmic banging sound. I didn’t realize what it was until a girl started to moan.

That knocked me sober.

I was eighteen, and had had sex exactly twice before. Once, just to get rid of my V-card, and the other, because the first time was so awful, I’d decided I must’ve done something wrong and needed a do-over.

Annnnd the second time had been worse.

So I really had no interest in a third time. Not until I found a guy to totally sweep me off my feet and romance me out of my panties. Someone I knew really well. Someone I maybe even loved.

He opened the door to his room and hung an arm on the knob. I hesitated in the doorway.

“Coming?” he asked, his eyes challenging me.

I took a single step. When I did, he banged on the door and yelled, “Hey, Ross!”

I whirled to see a guy in boxer shorts, stumbling out of one of the rooms down the narrow hall and scratching his balls.

“You bang a girl in a common room again, I’ll kick your ass. You left cum stains all over the upholstery. It’s yours to clean up. You hear me?”

The guy mumbled something under his breath, shoved open the door to the bathroom and gave him the finger.

He banged the door again with his fist, then rolled his eyes until they landed on me. “If you stand there all night, there’s about a ninety-six percent chance a beauty like Ross might try to have his way with you. Your choice.”

Good point. I stepped inside.

His room wasn’t just a different room. It was like a different world.

The place was immaculate. There was a neatly made futon in the corner. The carpet had recently been vacuumed because I could see the tracks in it. His walls didn’t have posters of half-dressed women and obscure bands. The only thing on his desk was his laptop, and a shelf over the desk had a number of trophies for swimming and rugby. There was an entire wall filled with books, the spines neatly arranged…alphabetically?

I was so shocked by it that I forgot my purpose. The next thing I knew, he held his phone out to me. “Your dorm at Williams?”

I nodded and stared at his phone. “I…really don’t know anyone’s number. I just met all those people.”

“Then I guess you’re in trouble.” His eyes drifted to the phone, where the display showed the time as three in the morning. Where had the time gone? “Campus transportation’s done for the night.”

I looked around, feeling a little desperate. This was not how my first frat party was supposed to go. Stranded in a fraternity? Great. Would he throw me out on the street, now?

He sat down on his futon, leaning back, then noticed a bit of fuzz on the carpet and plucked it up. Then he fixed me with a curious, lazy stare. I don’t think any guy had ever looked at me with such confidence.

“So…Lia. You look a little worried. Something tells me you’re not used to trouble. First time away from home, huh?”

Oh, really? Was it that obvious from the way my knees were practically knocking together? He had a window open, and cold air was blowing in, putting goose bumps all over my naked arms and legs. I hugged myself.

“Relax. I’m not going to hurt you. You can stay here tonight and I’ll walk you to the bus stop at six, when they start up again.”

Stay here? My eyes trailed to the narrow futon. It looked as clean as the rest of the room, but still…

“You can have my bed. I’ll sleep somewhere else.”

I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Thanks.”

He was still watching me, making me so self-conscious I spun, wobbling a little. My eyes snagged on the books on his shelves. They were all classics. As someone considering majoring in English, I was fairly well-read, but he had lots of lesser-known works from the greats. Albert Camus’ The Plague, Pale Fire by Nabokov, and some Jack London I’d never even heard of before. That, and a whole lot of nonfiction.

I wondered if he knew that he came off as super-pretentious. I picked one of the books, flipped through it, then put it back, upside down, to see if he’d notice. “Interesting collection. Are you an English major?”

He shook his head. “Math and Business. Double major.”

“I’m thinking of English, myself.” Only because I had to. I liked reading. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life.

“Yeah?” His eyes briefly went to the bookshelf. “Second shelf from top. Third from the left. Read that one. You won’t be sorry.”

I stood on my toes to read the spine. It was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. “I’ve never read that one.” I stole a look at him, only to find his gaze on me, wandering slowly up my body in a way that made me feel like he’d already stripped me bare. “You’re the first person who hasn’t tried to talk me out of English as a major.”

He shrugged in a superior way. “Read the book.”

I eyed him doubtfully. “You’re graduating in the spring?”

“That’s the plan.”

“And?”

“And I’ll move to Denver. I already have a job lined up at a place I’ve been interning at for the past three years. I’ll never come back here.”

I don’t know why that made me sad. He was the first person I’d met at CU who didn’t seem to give a shit about drinking and acting older than he was. He had his own drumbeat in his head, and was marching to that. I liked it. I already sensed I didn’t feel the need to pretend for him, and if I did pretend, he’d call me out on it. “You won’t? Why?”

“No reason to.”

“Your brothers don’t seem to like you very much.”

He chuckled and stood up. He reached into his pockets, removing his wallet, his keys, his phone, and setting them down on the table, like he was about to turn in. “No great loss.”

“Hmm,” I said, trying not to show how impressed I was. I was at that age where I wanted everyone to like me. I felt like I was in high school, talking to my first real adult. I ran my finger along his bookshelf. No dust. “You’re very clean.”

He walked toward me, stopping so close I thought he’d touch me. Then he went to the bookcase, slid out the book I’d put in wrong, flipping it the right way. “I just like things the way I like them.”

“And you clearly don’t like people. Why?”

“I like some people.” He smirked down at me. “But I don’t like socializing. I’d much rather sit back and observe.”

“Observe what?”

“People. The way they behave. People like you.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “You weren’t even looking at me.”

His eyes met mine, and he held my gaze. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t just observe with your eyes.”

So he had been noticing me? Suddenly, I felt like he knew me better than I knew him. Like he understood that I’d spent most of the past few hours trying to figure him out. “And what did you observe about me?”

“You might not want to know. It’s not very kind.”

I wrinkled my nose. What, did I have a big butt? I knew I wasn’t ugly, but I wasn’t the most gorgeous woman on Earth, either. “Well, thanks.”

“Relax. It has nothing to do with your physical appearance.”

I think that was the first of about a million times since that I had the suspicion Miles Foster was some kind of a mind-reader. I looked away and gnawed on my lip. “I’ve observed things about you.”

“Yeah?”

“You like telling your brothers how to play beer pong, but not actually playing it yourself?”

He tilted his head. “I like the physics of beer pong. The game itself does not sufficiently interest me.”

Oh, god, he was definitely pretentious. It was a wonder to me he’d ever become a brother here, because it was clear his brothers who’d ignored him on the way up didn’t think much of him. “And what does sufficiently interest you?”

The smirk faded. “You.” He reached over and touched my hair, pushing it behind my ear.

“Me? Why?”

His eyes zeroed in on my lips. “You’re insanely beautiful, and I get the feeling that’s the least interesting thing about you.”

If that was a line, it was a damn good one.

He didn’t need it. Any woman would easily be his the second he laid eyes on them.

He dipped his finger under my chin and lifted my face to his. Not fast enough for my liking. I went up on my toes and met his mouth with mine.

He seemed surprised by that, but in a good way. Just like I was surprised he didn’t taste like stale beer. He tasted delicious, and he felt like all man. His hand slipped under my hair, cradling my skull. I parted my mouth. His tongue flicked inside and entwined with mine. Not gently, either. Hard. All in.

I swear the Earth tilted. I saw and felt things I never had, before or since. So good. He tasted and felt so damn good.

I let out a little groan and we started to kiss more deeply, and soon we were exploring each other’s mouths with abandon.

He walked me across the room as we kissed. He retreated, nibbled my lower lip, once, twice. Then he cupped my head between his big hands and went back in, crashing his mouth to mine, thrusting his tongue deep, mimicking sex. This man knew how to kiss. It was the closest thing I’d ever felt to being kissed like a real grown-up, like in the movies, like making love.

The backs of my knees hit the futon, and he wrapped an arm around my back and lowered me onto it, like a prized possession. As he did, he tore his mouth away with a light, sucking sound.

My eyes trailed to the bulge of his erection under the fabric of his pants. I ran my hand over it and let out a shuddery breath. No wonder he had that ego. He was huge.

My pulse quickened.

I dove for his shirt, lifting it out of his waistband. I scrabbled for the buttons on his pants, but he grabbed my wrists and held them, breathing hard. “Whoa. Hold on. You sure about this? How old are you?”

I nodded. “Eighteen.”

“Eighteen,” he repeated. “And you know what you want?”

“Yes. I want you.”

“Yeah?” He gave me the sexiest smile, full of pure male pride. His eyes narrowed. “Jesus. And you’re sure?”

Breathing hard, I gave him an exasperated look. He was acting like he’d never hooked up before. “Miles? Shut up and let’s go.”

He pulled open the button on his pants and motioned me forward with both hands. “All right. Show me where you want me.”

I grabbed his waistband and pulled him on top of me.

He fell upon me, caging me under his body and kissing me. I didn’t know that he didn’t like to be touched, because he surely showed no signs of it that night. He let me run my hands wherever I wanted—down his firm chest, up his broad back.

But he kept his hands in my hair, on my face, in respectful places. I realized he was waiting for an invitation. Because I was only eighteen. It was kind of sweet.

“Miles? Touch me.”

“Tell me where.”

“Everywhere.”

He dropped his hands down my shoulders, and then under my camisole, sliding them up my rib cage, cupping my breasts and tweaking the nipples.

The second he started touching my body, it was like he couldn’t get enough. But I was a little self-conscious, especially about my breasts. They were just handfuls compared to other women’s.

He lifted the straps over my shoulders, and I stiffened.

He stopped at once and looked into my eyes. “No?”

“I’m just a little…I hate my boobs.”

He kissed the top of my breast. “Fuck. How can you hate them? Every little part of you is like candy. Just tell me if you want me to stop.”

I didn’t. I wanted him to keep going.

He slid my camisole down and buried his face between my breasts. He tongued and sucked on my nipples, and I arched my back. No one had ever done that to me before. I squirmed as he licked and sucked, again and again, biting my nipples until they were hard and sensitive.

He cupped my breasts. “I think they’re perfect, Lia. I can spend all fucking night right here.”

Then he pushed back, kneeling between my legs on the futon, unsnapping my jean shorts and helping me shimmy out of them.

He tossed them over his shoulder and looked down at me with heavy-lidded, lust-filled eyes. That superior look was gone. Now, he was hungry. “Look at you,” he murmured. “Holy fuck, there’s not a single part of you to hate. You’re beautiful.”

He lifted one of my legs and pressed a soft kiss to my inner ankle, then trailed his tongue down the inside of my calf.

I swear I nearly died, right there.

I was wearing just my pink cotton panties and my camisole, but it was down beneath my breasts. I’m sure he could’ve seen my heart, beating out of my chest. I’d never felt so sexy.

I reached for the buttons of his shirt, and started undoing them, one by one.

He slid open his shirt, I became infinitely wetter. His chest was tanned and lean, a swimmer’s body. God, he was so hot.

He growled, “You want this?”

Yes. Yes, oh, yes.

I suddenly blink back to the present and find myself with my eyes dragging open, lying on my back on the hard bench. The man who in my dream had been tweaking my nipples with lust in his eyes is now older, a little bit hairier and grittier, a lot sexier, and…gazing at me with suspicion instead of desire.

I realize he’s holding a bottle of water out to me. “Hey. Shorty? Snap out of it. You want this?”

I blink away the last of the dream and sit up. “I…” What are we talking about? Oh. The water. “Don’t you want it?”

“Nah. I just saw a plow go by and now I’m thinking that you’re right. We should think of putting something outside to signal to rescue workers that we’re here.”

“There was a plow?”

“Yeah. But it’s gone now.”

Great. If I hadn’t pulled my little stunt driving off the road, maybe we could’ve gone out and checked to see if the plow cleared the road any. I peer out the doors. The snow seems to only be falling harder, now. There was a line of bushes outside the place when we came in, and now they’re completely covered.

“So do you want it or not?” He shakes the water in front of me a little.

I take the bottle. “Thanks. My dad put a safety kit in the back of my car. I think there are flares there.”

“Good.”

I reach into my bag and hand him the keys. Then I sit up and watch him as he fixes the skullcap over his head. I remember I’m using his flannel as a blanket and ball it up to throw at him. “Here.”

He grunts. “Forget it. I’ll be back in five.”

I watch him head out, flushing because of the way my eyes sort of, of their own volition, drink in the way his ass fills out those jeans. The guy has such a rocking body it’s almost unreal. I remember thinking that he must’ve worked out as I ran my hand down the hard curve of his backside…

Oh, god.

Shivering, I pull my knees and the flannel up to my chin, but that’s no good because the flannel smells like him. I throw it down, guzzle some water, and start to pace, still thinking about that night. The way he’d sucked on and worshiped my breasts.

And suddenly it hits me.

Obviously Miles doesn’t care about the triple D. He was perfectly in love with my breasts. It was Aaron who’d asked me once if I ever considered getting implants. Who’d always comment on the tits of girls in the movies we watched. Who’d had posters of top-heavy naked blondes on the walls of his room at the frat. In fact, Aaron didn’t even…

What the hell am I doing? Comparing two men, as if I even have a choice?

I made my choice.

I can’t do this. Not now. I need to collect myself. I need to get a grip on myself and not allow Miles, nor his ass, nor his words, nor his anything, get to me.

I check my phone. It’s nearly midnight. My wedding day. The happiest day of my life.

And here I am, miles away from the wedding site, dreaming about the groom’s best friend.

I am so fucking stupid.

Pushing open the back door, I brave the outside to see if I’ve gotten any more messages, but no. It feels like everyone has just forgotten about me.

Which isn’t very different from the rest of my life.

Sighing, I go back inside, just as the front door opens across the lobby and Miles blows in, the safety kit under one arm, holding his hand out in front of him.

He’s dripping blood all over the ground, and it’s all over the front of his white thermal shirt.

“Oh, god! What happened?”

My eyes trail past him. Outside, the orange flares burn in the darkness amidst the driving snow. So I guess he did that. But how long will they last in that weather?

“Cut my hand on the guardrail as I was trying to get back up,” he mumbles. He’s motionless, watching it bleed.

“Don’t just stand there! Follow me.” I lead him to the women’s bathroom and turn on the faucet. “Run it under here.”

He does as he’s told.

I pull the emergency kit from under his arm. It came complete with a first-aid kit. Opening it up, I find gauze, antiseptic, and tape. He turns off the faucet, but the cut, running from the middle of his thumb to his wrist, keeps bleeding. “You might need stitches.”

“No, I don’t.”

“And you’re so brilliant, you’re a doctor now, too?” I wad up some paper towels and run them under the other sink. “May I?”

He nods.

I point to the counter. “Sit.”

He hefts his body onto the counter, between the two sink bowls, and leans back against the mirror. I take his hand, turning it over. I dab at it gently. I try not to let my thoughts wander back to that night as I touch him, even as innocent as this, but it’s all I think of.

He winces.

“Does it hurt?”

He shakes his head. “You know how I am.”

Right. He doesn’t like to be touched.

“It’s called tactile hypersensitivity,” he adds. “A real medical condition.”

He says it with the same inflection as I’d told him about my Raynaud’s. “But it doesn’t mean you shy away from all touch?”

“Not all of it.” Not the touching we did, obviously. “I have to expect it. Want it. And then I’m fine with it.”

“Oh. I see.” He’s so close that if I looked up at him, it’d be like a replay of that night, so I stick to my work, bandage and tape the injury as quickly and professionally as I can. “Good as new.”

“That was nice of you. But not something you had to do.”

I smile. “Well, it’s the least I can do, in repayment for your services.”

“Services?”

“Yeah. Remember how you always used to take care of me? When I’d be resting in Aaron’s room, when there was a party going on? Or that one time, when we’d gone to that other frat, TKE, and I’d drank too much? You always watched over me and made sure no one took advantage.”

He raises an eyebrow. “And how did you know about that, if you were asleep?”

“I was resting my eyes.”

He shakes his head. “Ah. You got shitfaced too often with Aaron. You did stupid things.”

At first, I’m annoyed. Obviously, as sober as he was, he probably catalogued every one of them. “Well, thanks, Dad,” I snap.

Then I sigh. I suppose he’s right. Just like Miles didn’t want Aaron dragging him down, I guess Aaron did drag me into the world of seven-days-a-week partying. My grades weren’t anywhere near as good as they had been in high school because I found myself with constant hangovers, which resulted in many missed classes. At the time, I’d thought it made me cool, but now, I see what Miles means. All four years of school kind of bled together into one big party, and I barely remember any of it.

“Okay. Maybe. I knew you disapproved. So I never understood why you did it. You probably had a lot more fun things to do than watching over Aaron’s drunk girlfriend. Didn’t you?”

He smooths the bandages on his hand and slips off the counter. “Yeah, well. Just looking after my best friend’s girl. But any guy who isn’t a total asshole would do the same. Don’t read into it.”

He opens and closes his hand a little, getting the blood flowing again, then catches his reflection in the mirror as I say, “What do you mean? Read into what? Of course I—”

I stop when he suddenly reaches down, grabs the hem of his shirt, and yanks it over his head.

And oh, my lord.

Not that. My heart can’t take it.

I’d done my best to avert my eyes at the lodge. But now, I have nothing else but pink women’s room walls to look at. And he is like an oasis in the desert. So I can’t help it. I get massive eyefuls of him, enough to feed my fantasies for the next decade. He’s certainly not the college boy I knew five years ago. He’s filled out. He’s gone from kind of lanky to completely cut. Now he has a six-pack. And biceps to die for. And…

And I’d thought he was made for pleasure before. Now…

He glances at me in the mirror as he turns on the faucet and throws his shirt under the stream. “This is my favorite shirt.”

I catch the flicker of amusement on his face. He can read my expression like a book. Busted. So I tear my eyes away from the wonderland that is his body and stalk, head down, to the lobby, chanting, Dumb, dumb, you are so dumb, to myself as my face overheats.

When I’m there, I fan myself and wipe the drool from the corners of my mouth.

Lord, help me. I’ve got to pull myself together.

A few minutes later, when he appears in the door, he’s still shirtless, and I’m no less hot and bothered.

He sits on the bench, his eyebrow cocked in a way that makes me feel like a schoolgirl. “You get any sleep?”

“A little. It’s hard,” I mumble, looking right at his chest. “Um. The bench, I mean.”

Lia, you are such a goober.

He’s sitting on the bench in just his jeans, all male ego, manspreading with his arms out along the back of the bench, like he knows he’s something special.

I can’t look, and I can’t not look. The war inside my head must be igniting firebombs in my eyes because his mouth is still twisting in amusement.

Oh, he just loves making me pant, doesn’t he?

He hooks a finger at me, like he did that first night, when he prevented me from getting splashed by the beer pong game. That’s probably why I feel like a fish on a hook, being reeled right in to my doom.

He pats the seat next to him. “You can rest on my shoulder.”

My heart feels drawn to that spot, to him, and yet my head’s screaming out warnings. I twist my engagement ring. “Put a shirt on.”

“Why?” he challenges, eyes drifting down to my ring, which I realize I’m nervously twisting.

I mumble something incoherent about how it’ll be more comfortable that way, but he sees right through it.

“Do I scare you? I thought you needed your beauty sleep, Princess.”

I sigh. Right. It’s just Miles, after all. If I can’t trust him, I can’t trust anyone.

I sit down on the bench, and he wraps his arm around me. I drop my head on his shoulder. I try to ignore how well I fit in this spot. How even though he’s hard, he’s also comfy. How good he smells. How every part of my body is tingling. How his fingers are slowly and lightly stroking my upper arm.

I close my eyes and try not to let my thoughts drift back to that night.

Somehow, sleep comes.