Kane (Arizona Vengeance 8)

And many of her blog articles and photos are focused on how to travel on a budget. Mollie’s most significant expenditure—an investment made by her parents—was a customized van that has everything she could need. Storage for food items and clothing, a bed that converts out of the way into a small kitchen, and she even outfitted the vehicle with solar panels to provide for her electricity.

Mollie Callister is a one-of-a-kind woman.

Tossing the phone on the couch beside me, I kick my feet up on the coffee table and reminisce how this friendship started. Ten years ago, when we were both eighteen and freshmen at Boston College, I saw her walking across the quad while I strutted along with my new hockey teammates since I had been recruited to play there. And I thought she was the most beautiful thing in the entire world. I approached her with the sole intention of getting a date, but what I found instead was a girl completely lost and struggling to fit in.

I suppose people would say it was fated, but it turns out Mollie and I were both from Southern California and grew up in towns about an hour apart from each other. It was that shared background of growing up on the beaches of SoCal that helped build the bond of a strong friendship. And while I quickly determined that even though I was crazily attracted to her, Mollie needed a friend more than anything. For some reason, I was happy to provide it.

From that first week of school, we became close friends. We only had one class together that first year—English—but we spent a lot of our downtime studying together in the library. My time was more limited than hers because I had practice, and the hockey season went from October to March of the school year. But whenever there was an opportunity, we hung out. Mollie came to all the home games to cheer me on. She became an honorary member of the hockey team because she was always with me. We confided in each other, and we could spend hours just talking.

She became “Noodle” to me, a nickname I bestowed upon her when she got very drunk one night at a party. I’d had to carry her three blocks back to her dorm while she was limp as a noodle, passed out in my arms. Of course, this was after I found some guy trying to take advantage of her drunken state at a frat party. I had to first beat the shit out of him before I could take her back to her dorm and tuck her in for the night. I’d sat in a chair by her bed until the next morning to make sure she didn’t need to throw up.

Our freshman year of college is where the foundation of friendship was laid. That summer, in between our freshman and sophomore years, was when we became best friends.

After nine months of living the college life together in Boston, we’d both returned to our Southern California towns and spent more time together than we ever had. While we both had summer jobs, we spent our weekends on the beach hanging out with mutual friends and partying.

The next three years at Boston College were a blur. I played hockey, and they were some of the best times of my life. It ultimately led me to the professional league. Mollie and I both dated—we just never dated each other. We were best friends, and that’s the way it stayed. Our summers were spent on the beaches and having dinners in each other’s homes. Her parents became my parents, and mine became hers. Everyone in our families always marveled that a boy and a girl could stay only friends, yet we did it. Everyone said we should always be more, but we ignored them.

Not that we didn’t try… once.

In her sophomore year, Mollie’s boyfriend broke up with her and left her heart shattered into a million pieces. We hung out in my dorm room that night, sharing a bottle of vodka. We both got very drunk. She kissed me, then asked me if it was a bad kiss.

Because she was my best friend and I loved her as such, I felt safe in telling her it was the best kiss of my life. We kissed again, and it turned into more. Alcohol fueled our desires, and we had sex. It was sloppy, drunk, and we laughed all through it all, but fuck… we both came hard.

And then… we were awkward. But we loved each other enough as friends that we quickly concluded it was a mistake. We agreed to move forward and not look back.

There may come a day when I am old, gray, and reflecting on my life that I might say that decision was the biggest mistake of my life. Not having sex with Mollie, but in pretending it was wrong and we should move on.