How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas

For the first time in so long, I came. Great mind-exploding bursts against her. On her. Some of it, undoubtedly, in her. And I couldn’t be sorry. I couldn’t be anything but out of my head with bliss.

When the storm passed, when it was all over, when it was just the two of us holding onto each other like the world was going to tear us apart, it was alarmingly…silent.

“You okay?” she asked, like she knew I was in over my head.

“Yeah. You?”

“A little…I’m, ah…” I leaned back and realized she hadn’t come. Her hips were still shifting and rolling against mine, like she was searching for the right pressure. The pressure she needed. She was flushed and breathing hard. The camisole she wore was damp with our sweat, the cream silk transparent and her nipple was so pink. So hard and perfect. I put my mouth over it and sucked. Hard, because she was such a good girl and she liked that so much. I took the two steps back over to the island and set her down on it. She braced a hand behind her and I slipped my fingers down between us and slid two fingers inside of her. She was hot and wet and needed more, so I gave her a third and put my thumb down on her clit.

“Come for me,” I said.

Her wide green eyes opened and locked on mine, and honestly, for a moment it was too much. The intimacy of this moment, of us, it nearly crushed me.

She grabbed my neck. My hair.

Her eyes on mine.

And she broke into a million pieces right in front of me.

10

Sophie

So. There was awkward. And then there was Fucking Sam Porter pulling his fingers out of my wet vagina and not looking me in the eye.

It was a whole new kind of awkward. An undiscovered flavor.

I flinched, pulling my legs together, and accidentally kicked him in the hip.

“Sorry.”

“You okay?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“Excuse me.”

He stepped back and we both scrambled around for our clothes. I found myself not wanting to bend over in front of him, like the guy hadn’t licked my asshole just a few minutes ago. And he put on his sweaty underwear when it had to be so uncomfortable. We couldn’t even look at each other and I felt a little like crying.

How could something that felt so good, end up being so…awful when it was over?

“Sophie,” he said, and I braced myself. Whatever was coming was going to be bad. I couldn’t imagine him being mean—not after that. All that. My heart was still pounding. But I didn’t know what he might say. “I never wanted you to feel used. Or stupid. I’m sorry.”

I swallowed. Nodded. “Thanks.”

Behind us the oven binged. The timer for the potpie going off.

In my shorts and sweatshirt I grabbed a tea towel, pulled out the chicken potpie, and set it on the burner on the stove.

“You want to stay for some food?” I asked, not sure if I wanted him to stay. Not sure if I could handle us being uncomfortable with each other.

“It’s Christmas. I should go home. Mom, you know.”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

Cry for a few minutes, I thought.

“Eat this chicken potpie. Drink some more gin and play video games.”

“That sounds good,” he said, smiling, and I smiled back, because it was basically our version of the perfect day.

He had his coveralls on but unbuttoned, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out a hat and his phone. I looked away, giving him some privacy as he checked his messages.

“My mom is actually going over for dinner at the neighbors’,” he said.

He left that hanging there.

“Would you like to stay?”

Our eyes met and he was just my friend standing there. And I loved him. I did. But that was all built on the fact that I loved him as a friend. And playing video games and drinking some gin with my friend did sound great.

“You got one of my shirts here?” he asked, shucking out of the coveralls.

“And some of your sweats, too.”

“Let’s do this. You go get my stuff and I’ll make us drinks.”

That’s how I ended up spending Christmas Day with my brother’s best friend.

And the love of my life.

Just waiting for my heart to get broken again.

Never say I’m not a sucker for punishment.

Sam

She got out the other beanbag and I found the controller I always called mine in the drawer of her entertainment center. We had icy cold G and Ts, my mom’s potpie, and a couple of hours of finding magic scrolls ahead of us.

Any other time this would be one of the greatest days ever.

But what we’d done earlier made it…stiff. Awkward.

And I didn’t know how to change that. So I sat there and ate the potpie and hoped, prayed, that Sophie had the grace to get us out this uncomfortable spot. Because I’d never had any grace.