I woke up the next morning feeling like a giant weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. Chelle knew what had happened, no one had ended up dead, and things seemed peaceful around the house. The sunlight filtered through my blinds covering the glass doors and I stretched under the covers. Flipping back the sheet and comforter, I grabbed my shorts and tank-top to wear for the day, and padded down the hallway barefoot, heading towards the kitchen to make a nice breakfast for all of us. I sneaked a peek in Chelle’s room to make sure she was sleeping peacefully and came up short as I noticed Nick in her bed. They were curled together, her head was on his chest and his arm was draped possessively over her mid-drift.
‘Damn they move fast! If he had done this to me, I don’t think I’d be so forgiving so fast. Oh well, it’s not my life. She can do whatever she wants with him,’ I thought to myself, silently closing the door behind me.
Four sets of pug nails clicked across the kitchen floor as they all headed to the back door for their morning romp in the backyard. I hunted around the living room and hallway to see if they had left us any surprises, and I was amazed to not find any. I grabbed the Wall Street Journal from the front stoop and headed back inside.
I went back into the kitchen and dug around in the refrigerator for the ingredients to make breakfast with. I decided that a normal morning of eggs, sausage, bacon and toast was appropriate. It wasn’t overly special, but still kind of nice of me to do for them. Normally we all are to fend for ourselves, considering no one will touch anything that Chelle charbroils by accident for breakfast, and I really don’t want to find out what Nick can make. I’m afraid for our kitchen as it is whenever he’s nearby. He’s been known to cause a few explosions with baking powder in his past.
Heating the pan for the eggs, I knew they would be down as soon as the smell hit their noses. Chelle’s room being at the top of the stairs was the first to know when something is cooking in the house. Grabbing another pan for the bacon and sausage, I began heating it also, while scrambling a few eggs for myself. I pulled the toaster from the cabinet, hunted for silverware and plates and set the table, all while glancing at the Wall Street Journal that I had picked up from the front door to check on my stocks.
As soon as I started the bacon and eggs, I could hear movement from upstairs. I grabbed the orange juice and milk from the refrigerator to set on the bar next to the glasses I had put there. Everything that I needed was out and ready for consumption. I heard the thumping down the stairs come from the other room and soon was joined by Chelle.
"Good morning. Everything’s already out; I’m just finishing the eggs here and the bacon. I’ll start the sausage in a minute; do you think you can possibly toast the bread without burning it? I already set the temperature on it, all you have to do is push the lever down…" I smirked at her.
"Good morning to you too. And YES, I do believe I can handle the toast without burning the shit out of it. Have some faith in me…" she said.
"I have seen you in the kitchen before, remember? It was scary!"
She stuck her tongue out at me and I turned back to the stove to continue on the eggs. I finished those, put them in a bowl and the rest on the plates and focused on the bacon and sausage. Chelle had managed not to hurt the toast any more than she was supposed too and I was quite proud of her. You could tell she was excited about something because she was bouncing around the room with the plates and the bowl of eggs. I watched her out of the corner of my eye and finally I had to ask.
"Did you get some last night or are you just happy about life in general?"
She stopped and stared at me, her mouth open as I had caught her unawares. Finally she just gave me a dirty look and went on bouncing around the room.
"NO, I did not get some last night. But I can tell you are curious about what did happen after we all went to bed, aren’t you? I know you peeked in on me this morning, I really didn’t sleep all that much last night. I was just trying to sort through things and my mind wouldn’t stop to let me sleep. Plus it was really nice being back in his arms while he slept, I had missed that the most I think."
"Don’t you think you’re letting him off the hook just a tad too quickly? I mean, we all just sort of sorted through all of this yesterday, and already last night you two were in bed together. Not doing anything, but still together. Isn’t that too fast or something?"
"I don’t think that I need to justify that with an answer. What I do with my life, is mine. I’m not butting in on your life, so why don’t you just leave mine alone. We just talked in there last night, because we’re most comfortable in there. So that’s all there is to it. How fast we go, or what we do, is none of your business. I love you, but stay the hell out of it. I think you’ve already done enough," she said.
I put the spatula on the countertop and turned to face her. "I wondered when this was going to come out. I knew that you weren’t all right about this. Why don’t you just say exactly what you’re feeling, and I’ll get the fuck out of here again. Enough with this "friend-playing" game shit. Get it out in the open, and we’ll deal with it. The sooner we do, the better off we’re all going to be. So just out with it…" I said.
"What do you want me to say? I’m sooo glad that you fucked my man? Ummm, no, I’m not going to say that. I’m just dealing with it the best that I can. I don’t know what I’m feeling, that’s what part of last night was about. Plus, I’m tired of being alone. He’s there, he’s soft and cuddly, and he’s a guy. What more could I ask for? Oh, that’s right, a guy who didn’t fuck my best friend? Well, I think I’m shit out of luck on that one with this guy, and I like him, so I’m going to deal with it. Is that enough information for you? Or do you need more to interfere with my life?"
I slammed my hand down on the counter as I stared at her. "Why the hell haven’t you been saying this from the start? Why are you just now telling me this? Yesterday, last night, we were fine. Now, this morning, something’s crawled up your ass. What do you expect me to do? You want us back to the way we were, but yet you don’t want to forgive me for my mistake. I didn’t mean for it to happen. You weren’t on my mind as me and him kissed, touched, fucked or anything. It just fucking happened! Either deal with it or I’ll get out. I’m not going to stay where I’m not wanted. Make up your damn mind," I told her.
As we were facing off, the subject of the problem stumbled into the room. "Guys, come on. Jana’s right, we were fine last night. If we’re all set on trying to forget this ever happened, we all have to do it. If someone doesn’t want too, then they need to speak up now. Hell, if it’s that much of a problem, I’ll go. We all don’t need this right now…" Nick muttered.
I crossed my arms over my chest and looked pointedly at Chelle. I raised my eyebrows and tilted my head to signal that it was her call. I was just ready to move on; I had thought that we were headed that way earlier, but it wasn’t going to work if she couldn’t take everything that I said meaning nothing like before. We would always tease each other, and if it couldn’t be that way again, it wasn’t worth the fighting.
"Fine, I’ll try my best to not take everything so sensitively. I’ll TRY. But I can’t guarantee anything. Shit, I just wish this hadn’t happened in the first place, but we can’t go back, now can we? I’m okay. Jana, I’m sorry for going off on you. I’m still tender about that subject I guess. I’ll work on it. No one needs to move out, we’ll make it through this. Somehow…"
"Agreed?"
"Agreed."
"Agreed."
"Fine then, enough with my food going to waste or someone’s going to the store with only THEIR checkbook this time, no help. I didn’t make all of this to be wasted dammit…"
Together, we sat down at the table and began to work on rebuilding the friendships. It was going to take a lot of time and effort. Chelle had been really hurt by this, me and Nick had our work cut out for us. She wasn’t one to forget and forgive easily, no matter how much sex and ice cream you offered.
~*~*~
I walked down on the beach behind the house, barefoot in the cool sand with the water rushing up to meet my exposed feet. The sun reflected off the water, casting thousands of rays off the surface like prisms. There weren’t any people on the beach with me and it was so peaceful. Coming upon a few rocks, I climbed up to my perch and stared out over the water.
I had too many thoughts jumbled in my head to be able to think straight. I couldn’t help but think about what it had been like to be with him. It was wonderful, magical, fantastic, orgasmic; you get the picture. It hurt a little bit that I was the one who had to back off, but I knew that it was the right decision. Chelle was a lot more important to me than some hot guy’s cock. Priorities suck ass. They only take away the fun of things.
I pulled my knees to my chin and thought about what I was going to do next. I wasn’t going to crawl and beg around her. I’m not that kind of a person. I figured she’d have to work at forgiving me just like I had to work at being forgiven. That was the only way that our friendship was going to survive. Never before had either one of us really backed down from the other one, we were forever butting heads. But that’s what helped make our friendship so strong. Our pride always had a way of getting in the way of things.
It came down to one thing; I needed a man. My own man, not sharing him with anyone else. I didn’t really notice it until this episode with Nick. My carnal instincts were coming out, and there was nothing I could do about it except find someone to exercise those instincts on. Finding him was going to be a chore. ‘Hmm, I’ll bet Chelle would be more than willing to help me, especially if she figured that it would keep me away from her man,’ I thought to myself.
I was being completely honest with her though when I said that I didn’t want him anymore. He was one hell of a fuck, but I fully understood that I needed my OWN man and not one that I had to share. I never was really good at sharing; I’ve always been a tad possessive. ‘I guess it’s time to hit the clubs downtown again to see what fresh meat is on the market, damn, I was hoping not to have to do that again. But then, it could be fun…’ I thought.
It turned chilly with the air rolling in off of the ocean. I pulled myself together and headed back to the fort. Even though we were all working on getting things back to normal, it still felt like a war zone sometimes. I felt that I had to be really careful with the things that I said or I’d set off some reaction I didn’t want to experience. ‘Time Jana, it’s just going to take some time. You have plenty of it, it’ll work itself out somehow," I thought.
I walked in the house to find the two of them sprawled on the couch together, covered in pugs, watching TV. I said a quick good night and headed upstairs to work on some statements I was going to need for a meeting with a client tomorrow. I climbed into bed, got the laptop started and lost myself in the world of numbers. For right now, everything was fine.