Shit.
Shit.
I’ve been flirting with Sulli. Every time she’s been interested in another guy, I’ve cut in…and teased her, messed with her hair and shoved her playfully.
I’ve flirted with her.
Will Rochester, her ex-boyfriend, told me to stop flirting, and I did back off my interactions with her because I didn’t want to ruin her first relationship. I couldn’t tell her why I was being standoffish, and when she found out, that almost cost my friendship with Sulli.
She broke up with him instead.
“Shit,” I mutter out loud.
Why has this taken so long for me to recognize? My brain…I’ve just shut off the possibility that I could be flirting. Maybe because I didn’t want to stop, and now it feels like I have to.
SFO has told me I’ve been in denial, and it’s taken Banks yelling at me to finally see that I have been.
Banks sinks down on the mattress beside me.
I look over with reddened eyes. “This is all my fault. She should know what an advance looks like from a guy. I’ve screwed with that—with her.”
He squeezes my shoulder in comfort. “You’re not some Wicked Witch, Akara. It wasn’t out of cruelty.”
“Is jealousy any better?” I ask him.
Banks shrugs. “She’d understand.”
“Maybe she shouldn’t,” I mutter. “She deserves a better friend, better bodyguard—”
Banks shoves me. He literally shoves me off the fucking bed. My ass hits the floor and I look up at him like he’s nuts.
He’s smiling this stupid crooked smile.
And I start laughing. “Fuck you again.”
“Fuck you thrice.” He bites down on the toothpick. “If you try to beat yourself up again, I’ll just shove you harder.”
I stay on the floor, resting my forearms on my knees. “What would I do without you, man?”
“You wouldn’t be on the ground, for one.”
I let out another laugh. And I exhale, massaging my knuckles. What are you going to do, Nine? I’m a leader, and I have zero answers on where I need to go. Or what I even feel…
It’s all confusion.
Quietly, I say, “So she doesn’t recognize come-ons.”
“At least she’s not that naïve,” Banks says. Motioning to my chest, he adds, “She’d bite a dick off if the wrong guy whipped it out.” His smile rises at that image he constructed. Reminding me that he likes everything about her.
Yeah. I nod tensely. “You’re the right guy, Banks.” My muscles feel taut. “She likes you—she told me.”
He doesn’t seem that surprised. Just concerned. For me.
“And what’d you say?” he wonders.
Here it goes.
Me on the floor, him on the bed, I meet his gaze head-on. “I didn’t say anything really. Not even after she told me she thinks you don’t like her as more than a friend.”
Banks stares at me, expressionless.
So I add, “I let her believe you don’t like her.”
He blinks. “And why do you think that is, Akara?” I hear the tension in his voice.
“Because I’m an asshole.”
Banks rakes a hand irritably through his hair. “Because you love her too.”
My brows jump. “Too? You love Sul—?”
“Like,” he corrects fast, his eyes dragging across the carpet. “I just like her. You know that.” He looks back up at me.
“Yeah,” I say casually.
“I like her,” Banks says, “and you love her.”
I shake my head without thinking. “It’s not romantic love…” It hasn’t been. I’ve been her bodyguard since she was sixteen.
I love Sulli—I will always love Sullivan Meadows—but I’ve never crossed that line. I would never. Could never. Maybe now, it could be different…
Could it?
I glance over at the bathroom door. Steam billows out of the crack. She’s older.
A lot older.
If I start really seeing her like the woman she is, then maybe…
“Alright.” Banks rises off the mattress. “I don’t want to push you one way or the other. From here on out, I’m shutting up about it.”
I let out a short laugh. “Really?” My smile dies. I’ve tried to get Banks to shut up about it for so long. My stomach cramps suddenly, not liking this road.
“Really,” he says seriously. “You figure it out.”
I push my hair back, but strands fall forward over my forehead. But I need your help. I struggle with those words. All this time, I just thought Banks was annoying me on purpose about my relationship with Sulli. Being a pest like the rest of SFO. It’s the one sore spot they know they can touch with a wisecrack and a laugh.
Now I think he’s been helping me. Because he knows me too well, and I can’t sort through my friendship with Sulli without him.
I nod to my friend, thankful for him, for how much he’s already done for me.
Banks reaches a hand out.
I grab hold, standing up, and our eyes just impulsively go to the bathroom. Shadows play through the ajar door, and I can almost see the outline of her body against the shower curtain. A glimpse, then gone.