Shame Me Not

But it was easy to date him because he was in our group of friends. Not much changed in how we all hung out except that Sean held my hand, and I sat next to him at lunch rather than Kevin. At least when I couldn’t help it. I always tried, selfishly, to have both boys on either side of me at lunch. Kevin was still my best friend, despite spending less time together than before.

I’d devoted more time to seeing Sean, but I still looked out my window every night, hoping to at least get a goodnight smile from my friend. Even if we weren’t around each other all the time, we were still there for each other when needed.

When we did hang out, Kevin didn’t talk about Sean at all. So, I’d decided to follow his lead and not say anything either. On the flip side, he never talked about any girls he was seeing. It was as though the time we spent together was our own and no one else could enter our bubble.

“I can’t wait for Thanksgiving,” Sean interrupted my thoughts.

“Me neither. Even if it is a month away.”

“It’s something to look forward to. It will be nice to have a full week break from soccer practices.”

“I saw you running the other day. You looked good,” I said. He had too, running in only shorts. I’d been standing in the parking lot, ready to head home when Gwen and I had stopped to drool a little. We’d watched the whole team sprint around the track with sweat dripping down their bodies. Sean always drew my eye with his killer body. A lot of the guys had lean muscles, but Sean was bulky and ripped.

“Thanks, babe. The coach has been making me run more. It sucks, but it’s getting easier. All the other assholes give me shit for how slow I am, but I remind them I can pin them when they least expect it.” The way the guys ribbed on each other always entertained me. It was attractive to me to see Sean take everything in stride. “Besides, me being bigger means I can intimidate the other team when they try and score, and block more of the goal.”

“There you go. Way to look at the bright side,” I said with an exaggerated nod.

“You should come to practice some time.”

“I wouldn’t want to interfere.”

“Nonsense, I’d love to have you there. It would give me a reason to show off and try harder.”

“Alright, but only if you promise there’s a possibility of you pinning me.” It was a forward comment that I hid within a joke, but I just wanted to try and see if I could get him to react.

“I’ll see what I can make happen,” he said, running a hand through his hair.

Honestly, I avoided practices because I didn’t want to take a chance getting caught staring at Kevin. I was giving it my all to make it work with Sean because Kevin and I were friends, and it would never go beyond that. It was fine and what I wanted. But it didn’t stop the attraction I felt toward him. So instead, I tried to focus on Sean. But with both of them flaunting their bodies together, I didn’t want to find out, with everyone watching, which one drew my eye more.

Also, Sean and Kevin were close friends, but I could tell Sean was a little bothered with how close I was to Kevin. He would casually ask how much I talked to him or if we ever hung out since we lived next door to each other. I’d decided to be vague; not going into detail about how often we met out on the loungers by his pool, or up on the roof to talk about our days. It was less than before, so it could be considered not much.

I ignored the little voice in my head that was calling me a liar.

Sean started telling me a story about how the guys pranked Isaac and hid his clothes from him while he was in the shower, and I reminded myself how good it was to sit there and laugh with someone who was so good to me. So what if he didn’t light my world on fire. So what if it was two months and we were still softly kissing like it was our first time. I liked Sean and there was more to a relationship than my—odd—desires.

Sean walked me to my door and said goodnight with a chaste kiss on my cheek. I stood on the stoop and waved as he drove away. Once he turned the corner, I ran over to Kevin’s. We’d talked earlier and said we needed to make time to catch up this week. We’d had midterms on top of everything else and decided to watch a movie and veg in his bonus room. He said his parents wouldn’t be home and he would leave the door unlocked for me.