The Pretend Friend

Something was bothering Olivia. We woke up a little less than an hour ago, probably, and I couldn't even keep track of how many orgasms we've had since then. I lost count after three, and she was still going.

The sheets were fisted in my hands as she slammed the strap into me from behind, her hips slapping against my ass with each thrust. I was on my knees, my back arched, and her hand on the back of my head, pressing the side of my face down into the pillow.

My mind was completely devoid of anything that didn't involve the pure bliss shooting through my body. I didn't even remember how I had gotten into this position, and I had begun to disassociate until I felt her nails drag down my back. It wasn't painful enough to draw marks, but it was enough for my mind to snap back into the moment, where Olivia thrusted hard and shot a tingling jolt through my walls.

"Oh, fuck," I cried out. "Oh fuck oh fuck oh--"

My stomach tightened up, and a groan rolled out of my throat. I tried to hold back the wave, but with another thrust, it came crashing through. I bit down on the pillow and groaned into it. Olivia was cumming too as she fell on top of me, panting hard against the back of my neck. She rolled her hips, and my hips jerked back against hers. She thrusted again, a smaller one, but it was enough to send another wave through my body. My eyes rolled to the back of my head.

The next time I came to, I was still on my stomach, but Olivia was no longer on top of me. I didn't feel the strap between her legs anymore as she cradled me, one leg draped over my body. I felt her fingers run down the crease on my back, and her breath against the side of my neck was even and soft. We had never cuddled before. I didn't think she was even capable of it.

I turned my head on the pillow to meet her gaze, which was no longer filled with the lustful energy from this morning. Now, it was just contemplative and something...softer.

"Are you okay?" I asked carefully.

When I asked her that question after she pulled me into her hotel room last night, frantic and frustration all over her face as she tried to pull my clothes off, she had gotten defensive and snappy. It took all of my willpower to not leave after she called me "nothing but a fuck relief," who "shouldn't be in her business." Despite me being exactly that for her and our relationship being nothing but purely sexual, I could tell she wasn't okay, and it wasn't in me to leave her in that state. If I was what she needed to release that tension, then I would be that. Besides, I needed to release my own tensions too, with Charlotte being the main source of it.

Instead of getting defensive again, Olivia rolled onto her back, her leg sliding off of me. She stared at the ceiling, but I continued staring at her. It was unlike Olivia to be so quiet. Usually, she would have jumped off the bed already to shower, which was usually my cue to leave.

But now she was just...lying there.

"Olivia, are you--"

"There's this party on the beach tonight," she interrupted while sitting up. "Will you be able to come to it?"

I pushed myself up to sit. "What time is it at?"

Olivia slid off the bed, not looking at me as she pulled on a robe. "It starts at seven, but you can come at any time, you know, if you're at the theater today."

"I'm not working today, so I'll just meet you at the beach whenever you get there." I answered, and she nodded, still not meeting my gaze. For some reason, it felt a little awkward, but I didn't know why.

As Olivia walked to the bathroom, I slid off the bed and reached for the clothes she had shed off of me last night.

"You wanna join me in the shower?"

Startled, I looked at her. Now, she glanced at me over her shoulder, a small smile on her lips, as she slid the robe off her shoulders and dropped it at the doorway. Now, that was more like Olivia even though she had never invited me in to shower with her before.

Still, the awkwardness felt like it was easing off, so leaving my clothes, I followed her on legs that were still unsteady from the thorough fucking.

-----------------

While I was in a practice session with the band, Charlotte and I made plans to eat lunch together at her office later in the afternoon.

The girls and I were on a water break, which grew longer when Victor stopped by to see Alex. They were upstairs now while we lounged in Alex's basement. Laura was lying on the floor beside me and scrolling through her phone while Sadie sat on the couch, talking quietly to her girlfriend on the phone.

Charlotte: How weird are we talking?

Jess: I don't know. Just softer?

Jess: that doesn't make any sense

Charlotte: I think it does. Do you think she likes you?

My fingers hovered over the keyboard as I thought about Olivia's expression this morning and the way she touched me after.

Did Olivia like me?

But then as I thought about our session in the shower, how she had returned to her usual assertiveness by pushing me to my knees and riding my face, I scoffed.

Yeah, as if.

Jess: she definitely does not have any romantic feelings for me

Three dots appeared on Charlotte's side of the chat, and I watched it wiggle while she typed.

"Oooh, who likes you?" Laura breathed into my ear.

I jerked away in surprise. "What the fuck, Laura!"

She grinned with glimmering eyes. "You met someone? Is that why you didn't come to Sadie's yesterday?"

At the mention of her name, Sadie looked at us with a puzzled look.

"Jess met someone," Laura cooed.

"I met no one," I snapped. "Olivia and I are just--"

"Olivia?" Laura cackled. "Her name's Olivia!"

"Shut up!" I pushed myself to my feet to put distance between us and looked down at my phone.

Charlotte: Do you like her?

I began to type back a response.

"I'm surprised Dear Charlotte is taking this calmly," Laura mused.

My eyes snapped back to her. "What?"

Her lips slowly drew into a smirk. "Come on, Jess."

"What?"

It was annoying, her looking at me with that goddamn smirk as if she knew something I didn't.

"You know," Laura wiggled her brows. "I thought she would have already pulled up

Olivia's

family history, put a tracker on her, and questioned her intentions with you by now."

"And why the fuck would she do that?"

Not to mention this was my first time even talking to Charlotte about Olivia, but I didn't tell them that. It felt strange talking to Charlotte about her, but Olivia's expression this morning still bothered me. She just seemed so...sad and unlike herself.

"Because she likes you," Sadie answered like it was obvious, and my eyes snapped to her now. She had ended the call with her girlfriend, and, unlike Laura, she was giving me a serious look.

I didn't know which one I preferred.

"Charlotte does not like me," I said firmly.

Sadie merely shrugged. "Maybe not, but there's some serious tension there."

"Sexual tension," Laura clarified chirpily.

I opened my mouth to deny all of that because of course they were wrong, but then Alex came bounding down the steps.

"Who has sexual tension?" Alex asked.

"Jess and Charlotte," Laura answered before I could say no one.

"Oh, yeah! Definitely," Alex exclaimed while nodding vigorously.

"You know, it's not completely out of the realm that she likes you," Sadie said in the slow, patient voice that she had whenever she was giving us advice or trying to calm us down. "She came over with a bunch of things for you and Noah when you were sick."

"You guys came too, and we don't have any feelings for each other!" I exclaimed and continued before they could fit in any more assumptions. "She was just checking on me like friends do, and she can go a little overboard sometimes but that's just Charlotte. Besides, she is one hundred percent straight."

I blew out a breath as they stared at me. Sadie with that same patient look, Alex with a suppressed smile, and Laura with her leering grin.

Then Laura, because of fucking course, broke the silence. "How sure are you on that percentage?"

I lunged towards her, and Sadie jumped off the couch to grab me. Laura bursted out laughing as I glared at her.

"Laura, enough," Sadie scolded. "If Jess says they're just friends, then that's that."

"Fine, fine!" Laura groaned but the smirk returned to her face as she met my glare. "Can't have any fun around here."

"Don't ever bring any of this up in front of Charlotte," I warned. "I don't want her overthinking just because of your assumptions."

She rolled her eyes. "Alright, jeez. Lighten up, will you? At this rate, I might start to think you have feelings for her."

I couldn't help but stiffen, and Sadie seemed to notice as she pulled back to search my face. I turned away from her.

"Can we just get back to practice now?" I muttered, but that finally shifted the mood away from Charlotte and I as the girls reached for their instruments.

As I picked up the guitar, my mind ruminated on Sadie's words.

Charlotte having feelings for me.

That'd be the day.

-----------------

Yet, I just couldn't stop thinking about what the girls said for the rest of practice and even after when I grabbed lunch to meet with Charlotte at the theater.

Because while I knew Charlotte tended to go the extra mile in every thing she did, it always felt a little bit more with me. I just didn't realize it until now.

Or maybe I was overthinking.

Before I started to overthink about overthinking, her office door swung open, and the frown lines on her face smoothed out as she smiled in relief.

"Thank god, you're here. I'm starving."

"Oh, sorry. I could have came earlier," I said as she closed the door and followed me to the sofa.

"No, it's okay. I had a lot of phone calls earlier." She unwrapped the sandwich I offered, took a huge bite, and moaned.

"Good?" I asked amusingly.

She nodded and gave me a thumbs up. I unwrapped my own sandwich and took a bite of it. For a couple of minutes, the office was just filled with our quiet chews, and while it was a comfortable silence, it was also quiet enough where my mind began to drift back to the conversation I had with the girls.

It was dangerous, thinking about her potential feelings for me and the feelings I might have for her. I thought that it was just my pent-up need for sex, and I honestly had not thought about Charlotte at all last night and this morning when I was with Olivia.

Now, though, sitting so close to Charlotte with her knee pressed against mine and being enclosed in this office with the scent of her perfume everywhere, it was impossible not to think about those feelings. Especially when my heart felt like it was racing faster now.

"So you never answered my question," Charlotte said after finishing her sandwich. I looked down at my own sandwich, which I wasn't even halfway through with yet. Charlotte crumpled her wrapper, and I looked up at her again. "Do you like this woman?"

For a beat, I just blankly stared at her, not fully registering.

Woman...

Then it clicked. She was talking about Olivia because I had forgotten to answer her message earlier.

Did I like Olivia?

The answer was clearly a no.

Did I like Charlotte?

I wished I had a more definitive answer for that.

But as Charlotte lifted a brow, I shook my head of that thought. That wasn't what she asked me.

"No," I answered. "I don't like her."

"And you're sure she doesn't like you?"

I nodded.

"Then maybe she's just having an off day," Charlotte said with a shrug. "She's probably dealing with something personal and doesn't want to talk about since you two are just, you know..."

"Fuck buddies?"

She grimaced from the vulgarity, and I grinned. "It's not the word I would use but sure."

It...made sense. The first night I met Olivia, she had said that I was her saving grace while she was in town, so I figured she wasn't here for pleasure, though it seemed like she was. I didn't even think there was a night where she hadn't gone out to drink, but maybe that was a sign that she was dealing with something.

And coping in a very unhealthy way.

Charlotte swept the crumbs off the table onto her hands and dumped them into the empty bag.

I leaned back into the sofa, watching her clean for a few moments before asking, "Have you met anyone recently?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like a fuck buddy or someone serious. Have you met anyone?" I clarified.

Charlotte's hands stilled from cleaning, and she whipped her head around to look at me. "Um, no. Why?"

I searched her face, trying to find any signs, but she looked more surprised than anything.

Playing it off, I shrugged. "I just thought I would ask. I feel like I barely hear anything about your dating life."

The surprise left her eyes, and she breathed out a laugh. "That's because it's nonexistent. I've been too busy to really think about any of that."

"Not even sex?"

Her brows raised up high. "Definitely not. I don't really..."

Intrigued now, I sat up straight. "Really what?"

She shrugged. "Sleep with people I'm not dating?" And then she quickly added, "Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's not for me."

I frowned. "So how do you release that tension? I mean, if there are any, I guess."

Charlotte's cheeks flushed, and she looked away. "No, I definitely do, um, feel it sometimes, but work has been pretty helpful in distracting me from that."

My frown only deepened. "Charlotte, work is not really a relief either, and you have seemed really stressed for the last couple of days."

"I do yoga on some mornings."

My mind immediately jumped to an image of her in tights, and I cut it off before it could go into even more imaginative places.

"And does that help with the stress?"

"Probably? I don't know. It has helped before." She shook her head. "I'm just more tired than usual because of work, but once we get everything settled, then I'll be fine."

"Okay, but have you tried masturbating?"

"Jess!"

I threw my hands up defensively. "What?"

Her eyes were wide and sharp. "You can't just...that's -- that's private!"

Relief filled me now that I knew I didn't offend her, and I laughed. "Oh come on, we're best friends."

"Still!"

"Are you shy?" I teased, and her cheeks flushed harder. I so wanted to touch it and see how hot they were. I almost did before she jumped off the couch and paced away.

"I am not talking to you about that!" Charlotte exclaimed as she smoothed down her pants.

"What, masturbating?"

"Jess," she groaned.

I held my hands up in surrender. "Alright, alright. I'll stop teasing you about it."

She breathed out in relief. "Thank you."

"But if you need any recommendations for toys, then I'm--"

Charlotte groaned again and covered her face with her hands. "You're relentless."

Grinning, I leaned back again. "I didn't think you would be so shy about it."

"It's not a matter of shyness," she mumbled behind her hands before dropping them and giving me an exasperated look. "It's just, privacy is important to me."

My chest pinched with a little bit of guilt now, especially when she looked away and rubbed her palms down her thighs.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed," I apologized. "What you do is your business, and I'll remember to respect that next time."

She returned her gaze to me, and her expression softened. "Thank you."

I patted the seat next to me. Charlotte blew out a small sigh, but her lips tugged into a smile as she sat back down.

"So tell me," I began, and her expression grew wary. "When did you get so fast at eating?"

Charlotte bursted out into giggles, and I grinned.

--------------

After lunch with Charlotte, I went home to go for a run. There was still a lot of time left before I had to meet up with Olivia, so I did a long run to clear my mind.

While I wasn't sure what my feelings were for Charlotte, I settled on just letting it be. I wouldn't focus too hard on figuring it out, and with time, hopefully it would just fizzle out. The last thing I needed was for potential feelings to ruin our friendship, and I just didn't have the energy for a relationship.

My resolve grew concrete by the time I got back, and I was glad I went on the run at all. After I showered, I received a message from Olivia letting me know what time she was going to leave, and I sent her a quick confirmation before I called Noah to check in on him.

"Mom, please, please, please can we keep him?" Noah pleaded when he picked up.

I was in the middle of putting in a load of laundry when I paused. "Keep who, Noah?"

"Nox! He was just lying on the porch, and there was blood everywhere! Mr. Wilson drove him to the doctor, and we're waiting for him to get out of surgery but I think he's going to be okay so--"

"Noah!" I exasperated. "Who's Nox, and how did he get hurt? And where's Mr. Wilson? I want to talk to him."

There was some movement and quiet murmurs before Robert's voice came through. "Jess?"

"Robert, what the hell is going on over there?"

He sighed. "We found a dog on the porch an hour ago, and it seemed like he was hit by a car but was still alive. We're at the vet right now, but I don't know --" he lowered his tone before continuing, "I don't know if he'll make it, but Noah wants to keep him. He said you would be fine with it."

I dropped my face into my hand. Of course he did.

"Are the kids shaken up?" I asked. "Noah said there was a lot of blood."

"They're fine, but I'm worried how they'll be if he doesn't make it. Noah already seems attached."

"I'm coming up there."

"Jess, absolutely not. It's storming up here and dangerous," he chided, and I frowned. "All we're doing right now is waiting around for the results anyway, so I don't want you risk driving up here in this storm only for everything to be fine. I've got this, I promise."

I rubbed a hand down my face. "Do you think he'll make it?"

"I don't know. He didn't look good when we found him, but the doctor said his injuries looked fresh so maybe we got him here in time. Hell, he must have gotten hit during the storm and saw the house and just --" Robert sighed. "Noah gave him the name Nox."

My chest tightened. "Can you pass the phone back to him?"

"Sure thing, Jess."

There was some ruffling and footsteps before Noah's breath filled the line again.

"Noah, are you okay?" I asked.

"Yes, but Mom--"

"Noah."

He released a frustrated breath, but answered, "Yes, Mom. I'm okay."

"Good." I blew out a breath, thinking, while he waited. I knew he was gripping the phone tightly, itching to say something with his brows pulled down and his lips pressed firmly together. My heart ached at the image, and I hated that I wasn't there. "Noah, I want you to listen to me carefully, okay?"

"Okay."

"From what Mr. Wilson told me, the dog seemed--"

"Nox," he corrected.

I sighed. "Nox seemed severely injured, and I'm not saying he won't, but there's a chance he might not survive the surgery, sweetie." I paused, waiting to see if he would say anything, but he remained silent. "Would you like me to come up there?"

He remained quiet, and I swallowed tightly. As I opened my mouth to speak again, he answered, "No. I'm okay, Mom. I promise." Then, quietly, he added, "I know he was hurt badly."

Tears sprung to my eyes, and I gripped the phone tightly. "There's still a chance he'll survive, but I just want you to be prepared if he doesn't, okay?"

"Okay, Mom."

And fuck, I couldn't believe I was doing this, but I added, "And if Nox turns out okay, and they let him leave, then we can talk about bringing him home."

"Really?" he exclaimed.

Despite my hesitance at taking in a stray, I knew I made the right choice from hearing the excitement in his voice.

"Yes, Noah," I answered. "So just give me a call when the doctor comes out, and we'll talk, okay?"