CHAPTER 12

Micah

The day after the concert, Bash texted me back late afternoon saying he wasn"t feeling great, but we could have lunch the first day of school on Monday. I instinctively knew that part of his malaise had to do with what he saw on Saturday night, but I still couldn"t wrap my head around the why of it all. Bash had reacted almost like…well, a jealous ass boyfriend.

His mixed signals over the last few months were giving me whiplash. However, I couldn"t puzzle out if he was truly giving me mixed signals about his feelings, or if I was mistaking his normal bestie feelings for romantic ones. To be fair, the latter sounded more like me, so I doubled down on my efforts to put my feelings for Bash into a box and lock that shit up tight. It was hard though because everything Bash did pushed my buttons and lit me up inside, and it"s probably because I"d given him full access to my damn nuclear codes. With one sexy smirk or piercing gaze, he could hit my big, red self-destruct button and I would go out in a blaze of glory.

The first day of school went as well as could be expected, and I had some courses for my Psychology major that I was pretty excited about. Bash and I had the lunch he promised me, but I could tell there was something off about him. He seemed troubled, his features drawn and his eyes rimmed with dark circles. I didn"t get much out of him other than he was still fighting off whatever had made him sick the day before, but I let it go so I didn"t bother him when he wasn"t feeling well.

We talked and shot the shit for almost an hour, and I even wrangled a small smile or two from him, which made me absurdly happy. Although it all came screeching to a halt when Ainsley sauntered over, a smug smile across her stupidly gorgeous face. I thought I was lucky to have no interactions with her since that day I popped over to Bash"s apartment and had her existence thrown in my face. That was evidently coming to an end, but I knew I"d have to tolerate seeing them together at some point. Guess there"s no time like the present. Oh joy.

Strangely, Bash seemed to deflate even more when Ainsley scooched in next to him in our booth and slid her arm around his. The move made my head buzz with jealousy and it caused an unpleasant sensation to settle over my chest. From my body"s reaction, I could tell it would be a while until I could easily stomach the sight of them all cozied up.

"Hey baby! I"ve been looking for you everywhere," she trilled. For such a beautiful girl, her voice was whiny and grating, but it wasn"t my place to point that out. I hope she doesn"t sound like that while they"re in bed…oh, STOP! Ugh! Rewind and delete the tape please!

I shoved the invasive image from my head and gave an excessive amount of attention to my club sandwich so I wouldn"t stare down Ainsley unintentionally. Sometimes my facial expressions had a hard time using their inside voice.

"Well, you could"ve texted me and asked. I promised MM we"d have lunch today because I was sick yesterday," Bash muttered. Ainsley"s nose flared a bit when Bash used my nickname and her eyes flashed with irritation, but she quickly schooled her features.

"That"s okay! Can I join you guys? I"m starving!" she chimed, already making herself at home by putting her backpack underneath and pulling out a wrapped up sandwich she brought from home. Bash looked up and caught my eye, an apology stamped clear as day in those beautiful emeralds of his.

"You know what, I actually need to get going. My Cognitive Psych class is starting up in about ten minutes and I"ve gotta book it across campus," I said regretfully, packing up my bag as I spoke. Bash"s eyes widened and hurt crossed his face, but it was gone so fast that I thought I had imagined it.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Ainsley interjected. "Oh, that"s too bad! Well, this gives us a little alone time then, huh babe?" she gloated, running her fingers through Bash"s hair lightly, a bright smile overtaking her face.

If I didn"t know Bash so well and I didn"t happen to have eyes on him at that exact moment, I would have missed his flinch when Ainsley touched him. My curiosity was on overdrive about what was going on with him where she was concerned, but I reminded myself it wasn"t my business. Yeah, I was his closest friend and would support him through anything, but I wasn"t supposed to dig into his personal life like that. It would only end up hurting me more to know things about their relationship, so I wisely stayed out of it.

"You two have fun. Text me later, BB," I said, making eye contact with Bash one last time because it just hurt to leave him. The concert hadn"t done us any favors in rebuilding our friendship, and it appeared that having Ainsley around was going to cause some friction if I wasn"t careful. He glanced up at me, seeming to say so much in one look without saying a word. I stared back for a few seconds, trying to transmit every thought I could to him in the space of a moment.

It"s okay, BB.

I"m still here for you.

You still mean the world to me.

I"ll always love you.

I wish I could tell him that last one more than anything, but I knew better. I just gathered my things, and made my long trek across campus, leaving Bash and his troubles behind.

Rhys caught up with me halfway to my class, and I was actually happy to see him. After Bash had left the concert, I brought Kit over to meet Rhys because I wanted to get his impression of him. Oddly, I trusted Rhys" judgment despite knowing him for all of forty-eight hours total.

Within half an hour, Kit had charmed the pants off my new friend. He also turned out to be one hell of a dancer, but that was just a side perk. I assessed him for red flags and wasn"t coming up with anything egregious, so I was fairly confident in my answer to his coffee date proposal. He even walked us out to our Uber at the end of the night and made sure we got in safely, which was kind of unnecessary, but I appreciated all the same.

Rhys gave me one of his sweet smiles that crinkled his eyes and showed off those dimples of his. "Hey Micah, where are you headed to?"

I hauled out my printed class schedule to double check the name of the building. "Uhh, the Seay building across Dean Keeton Street. It"s my Cog Psych class. What about you?"

"Oh sweet! I"m on my way to the ETC building. It"s almost right next to yours! Perfect time for a chat!" Rhys exclaimed, his violet eyes shining with happiness. What I wouldn"t give to be as happy and carefree as he is. It"s honestly really nice to see.

We talked for a couple seconds about the classes we had earlier in the day, and then Rhys seemed unable to wait any longer to start his interrogation. "Okay, enough of this boring crap, I need the deets! Are you and Kit still going on your coffee date? I need the location, date, time, what you"re planning to wear, and his social security number just in case he murders you. I like to be prepared," he spouted at me, his eyes wide and serious looking, even though I think he was mostly kidding.

"You"re really trying to gather the appropriate information on the off chance that I"m murdered on my date?"

"I"m a very organized, motivated person," he said, nodding solemnly.

"You know everyone who died on Mt. Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe take it down a couple notches?" I suggested to him, causing him to shove me with his shoulder, laughing.

"Seriously, tell me about it though!" he urged. I rolled my eyes and told him about the coffee shop that Kit was planning to take me to on Saturday. He graduated UT law school last year and had just started working in a decent sized law firm downtown, so he was pretty busy during the week. It didn"t much matter to me at the moment. I was just starting to dip my toe into the world of dating and moving on from Bash, so I knew I"d only be able to handle Kit in small doses until we got better acquainted.

Rhys looked slightly nervous before continuing on, "Have you told Bash you have a date?"

Ugh, I knew he was going to ask that. I had debated endlessly Sunday whether I wanted to tell Bash about my date with Kit, but something held me back. I could try to blame it on Bash being sick and not wanting to have the conversation over text message, but in all honesty, I was nervous about his reaction.

It"s not that I expected Bash to fly into a jealous rage and sweep me into his arms, commanding me to never see Kit again because he couldn"t live without me. Though it makes for a very sexy video that will play through my head all day on an endless loop because I am a hopeless idiot. Maybe it will make a nice visual to latch onto while I use "Baby BB" later? Hmm, possibilities…

I think it was the fear that I"d see nothing but happiness, acceptance, or maybe even indifference on his face, and for some reason that hurt more than I knew what to do with. I guess if Bash was happy for me and wholeheartedly accepted me dating Kit, then it would be irrefutable proof that Bash held no love for me in that way, and it would crush what remained of my fragile heart that was utterly his.

With that knowledge, I decided to keep my date with Kit under wraps and only tell Bash if I felt it was truly going somewhere. I wrestled with it because of the whole "secret Ainsley" debacle, but I thought it was a different enough scenario to not count. Kit wasn"t my boyfriend, we hadn"t even kissed, and our date hadn"t yet happened. There wasn"t really a need to tell Bash anything yet.

I just hoped I was doing the right thing.

*****

The week dragged on in a blur of classes, homework, and caffeine-fueled studying and next thing I knew, it was Saturday morning and I was preparing for my coffee date. Bash and I had barely seen or talked to each other all week, only able to hang out for a quick twenty minute lunch on Thursday after I complained that I missed my best friend.

I didn"t understand what was going on with him and it was starting to piss me off. He had never been this closed off before, especially with me. After he had pleaded to fix things between us, I have to say I expected a more concentrated effort from him. Not to sound too pathetic or anything, but the whole point of me transferring to UT Austin was to be closer to him and grow our friendship after two sucky years of being apart. You"d never know it of course because Bash the Ass was doing his best to remain tight lipped and avoid me.

Okay, I didn"t actually know if he was actively avoiding me or genuinely busy like he told me, but the third option was honestly the worst to me; his time might have been occupied by Ainsley. It"s not that I didn"t like her…she was just a good reminder that some people really needed a high five.

On the face.

With a chair.

Repeatedly.

I logically recognized that I would need to put in a good faith effort to tolerate Ainsley"s and Bash"s relationship, but I still hadn"t brought myself up to trying. It was still too new and raw to me to think about Bash having someone so significant in his life who wasn"t…me. I got that it was a selfish, jerky thing to think, but I was only human and Bash had been my number one person for so long. I wasn"t entirely prepared for the day to come where I wasn"t the most important person to him.

I didn"t want to dwell on the state of Bash"s affairs too much before I had to meet Kit at the coffee shop, so I did my best to focus on my wardrobe and my handsome date. It was 10:15am, giving me about two hours to get ready and hype myself up for my first, real adult date.

That was the thought that tripped me up the most. I hadn"t actually dated anyone since…ever. I literally had never dated before, not even in high school. The only boys who were out at my school were all cute little twinks who were adorable in their own right, but not exactly my type. My type was…well, did I really need to say? For years, I didn"t think much of the fact that I didn"t date because I hung out with friends, attended parties, and had a few hookups when the urge struck. To me, my life wasn"t missing anything. Now that I was examining it further, maybe I had put myself on hold more than I thought.

It was now blatantly obvious that I had, subconsciously or otherwise, put a pause on my love life for Bash, hoping against hope that there was a chance he"d wake up and see me as something more than his friend.

It was a sobering thought that hit me like a slap to the face when I looked at the evidence of how truly pathetic I had become. But then, it was a feeling I was becoming intimately acquainted with.

It"s a special kind of pain when you have someone lodged in your heart, but you can"t hold them in your arms and make them yours.

I"d like to say I"ve learned to live with it, but I"d be lying to myself. I"d been forced to live with it, struggling to breathe most days when hit with reminders of just how unattainable a future with Bash was. This date was like turning the page to a new chapter that I knew wouldn"t involve him, but my story had to go on one way or another.

By the time I pulled up to the coffee shop, I was feeling optimistic and even a bit excited at the prospect. Kit was waiting for me at a table in the corner, messing with his phone, but when his attention was pulled to me he broke out in a huge smile that put me at ease. Okay, you can do this! You are sassy and bad-assy, and you can rock his world!

"Micah!" Kit grinned at me, standing to pull out my chair. "I"m so glad we"re getting to do this. I"ve been thinking about you since last weekend," he murmured in my ear, his breath warm on my neck. Funny enough, it didn"t have the same effect on me as when Bash would do it. With Bash, the action would have raised goosebumps all over my skin and ticked up my heart rate, whereas when Kit did it it was just a…pleasant feeling. Not bad, but not anything to write home about.

Okay, this is bad. Not even two minutes into my date and I"m already comparing Kit to Bash. Get your shit together, Russo! Get. It. Together!

"Well, thank you. I"ve been excited for this, too," I told him shyly. Kit smirked at me as he sat down. I then noticed he already had a coffee cup next to him, having ordered before I got there. Was it customary to order without your date there? I didn"t exactly have a wealth of knowledge on dating etiquette, but I was leaning towards "no".

"Oh, uh, did you already order? Was I later than I thought?" I asked, knowing full well that I was right on time for our date.

Kit waved me off, "No no, not at all. I got here early and thought I"d go ahead and grab something for myself. What would you like to drink? I"ll go up and order for you."

"Uhh, I"ll take an iced caramel macchiato, easy ice," I said, noting that Kit"s face shifted slightly as I spoke, almost seeming judgmental about my order.

"Alright, coming up," he replied, his lips thinning imperceptibly as he got up to go place my order. Huh…weird, but maybe he"s just a health freak. It"s fine. No biggie.

When Kit brought back my coffee, we launched into semi-easy conversation with Kit doing most of the work because I was woefully out of practice at being a functioning human adult apparently. I knew I wasn"t usually that inept, but it was hard to think of topics or things to say when Kit"s piercing baby blues were staring at me so intently while he spoke.

I did observe that he seemed to talk about himself a lot, not asking too many questions about me unless something I said really piqued his interest. I assumed it was because he was just as nervous as I was and talking about ourselves is always the easiest thing to do.

I discovered that he had wanted to study law since he was eleven, his parents were both affluent lawyers in their own right, and he was close with his family, especially a cousin he grew up with who lived nearby. He also talked about his high school years, the sports he played, the pets he had growing up, and an unfortunate incident his sophomore year of undergrad when his roommates played a prank on him while he was hooking up with a girl in a frat house. They had snuck in and stole his clothes, leaving him to flee the house afterwards with nothing but a baseball cap he found covering his junk. Oh, and that"s also how I found out that Kit was bi.

We had covered nearly his entire life story in an hour and a half, but we only got around to talking about my major, where I was from, my friendship with Bash, and oddly enough, my irrational fear of the ocean. It didn"t escape my attention that he seemed to tense up a bit and flared his nostrils when I brought up Bash.

"So Bash…is he the reason you chose to come to UT Austin?" he had asked me. I knew that it would sound like I was obsessed with him if I told him the truth, so I amended it slightly to make myself seem less stalker-ish.

"Not exactly…" I started slowly, "Bash was the first one who brought up the idea of me transferring, but I kind of fell in love with the city whenever I would visit. I just felt like it was time for me to push out of my comfort zone a little bit."

It was possible I imagined it, but it looked as though Kit had relaxed a bit after I told him that Bash wasn"t the entire impetus for my move to Austin. "Well, it doesn"t matter what the reason was, but I"m just thankful that it allowed us to meet," Kit commented smoothly, flashing me a smirk that made him look even more attractive. I blushed lightly, flattered by his interest.

"Honestly, so am I. This has been good for me, and I"ve had fun," I agreed.

"I"m glad to hear that, Micah. Does that mean it would be appropriate at this juncture to ask you out on a proper date? Perhaps dinner and dancing?" Kit asked, a wicked gleam lighting his eyes.

I faltered a bit at his request. Something about it had my gut twisting, but I couldn"t put my finger on the reason. On paper, Kit was a catch; he was well-educated, had a good career going, was attractive, charming, polite, and had treated me pretty well up to that point. So why did his proposal hang over my head like a dark cloud and sit heavy in my stomach like lead?

It had to have been Bash. That was the only reasonable explanation I could come up with for my strange resistance to saying yes to Kit again. It had to have been my ridiculous, pitiful heart that wasn"t ready to move on from my best friend yet. I had to give him up. Kit was a good guy and gave me something Bash would never be able to: himself. With that reminder, I pushed back the niggling feeling in my brain and told him I"d love to.

"Perfect! This week"s no good because I have a big case I"m working on, but how about the Friday after next?" Kit proposed.

"Yeah, that should work. Sounds great," I said, mustering up a smile and trying to look happy about our second date.

Maybe I"d actually be able to turn the page on mine and Bash"s tragic love story after all.

*****

I rolled into my apartment around half past two, a myriad of emotions running through me after the events of the last couple of hours. I hadn"t walked more than five steps into my entry hallway when my phone went off, blaring at me in the voice of Freddie Mercury. In retrospect, maybe "You"re My Best Friend" was a little on the nose as a ringtone for Bash, but Queen was fucking iconic. Honestly, the fact that my phone didn"t chirp out "I"ll Always Love You" when he called showed great restraint on my part.

I couldn"t help the smile that swept across my face as I answered it, missing the fuck out of my bestie who had been agonizingly MIA from my life that week. We had made plans to hang out that night for one of our ritual movie nights complete with junk food, booze, and a sleepover. I had been looking forward to it for days. "Hiya stranger. I was beginning to think you"d forgotten about me," I teased.

Bash didn"t give me his standard chuckle and sarcastic remark. Instead, he was almost painfully quiet, and dread unfurled in my belly. "BB? You there?"

"Hey…look, please don"t be pissed, I tried so hard to get out of it, but…" Bash sighed deeply.

"Let me guess. You can"t make it tonight," I said lightly, trying and most likely failing to make it seem like it wasn"t a big deal and I wasn"t super hurt by it.

"MM, I swear I tried. My dad is in town and called, basically telling me to get my ass to dinner tonight and bring Ainsley with me. You know how he is. I couldn"t exactly say no or he"d give me hell," Bash muttered wearily. At the mention of Ainsley being at the dinner, my jaw tightened and my stomach soured.

I tried to let it roll off me. I really did, but my inner petty bitch awoke from her slumber and the claws came out.

"Hey, I get it, it"s cool. I went out with Kit earlier today and I"m super tired, so I"ll probably catch up with Rhys a bit and crash early," I told him, playing it off like I wasn"t affected in the slightest.

"Wait…what? What do you mean you went out earlier? Who"s Kit?"

In the back of my head, I was fully aware that I was trying to provoke a reaction and maybe hurt his feelings a little, but that tempting green devil of jealousy was squatting on my shoulder and unleashing poison into my ear.

"Kit? He"s the guy I met at the concert last weekend. We had our first date today, and it went really great! I can actually see it going somewhere with him," I said cheerfully, tasting the words like ash on my mouth.

"Oh…I didn"t know you had a date today. Why didn"t you tell me?" Bash sounded hopeless and distraught, like I had just told him I had some terminal disease. I knew it would hit him hard when I started dating because he"d have to share me with someone else, just as I was still struggling to accept that I had to share him with Ainsley.

This was a natural and not at all codependent thing for best friends to go through. Right? Whatever. That"s my denial to live with, so shut up.

"Well, it"s not like we"ve talked much this week, BB. You"ve been crazy busy and I didn"t think about it when we had lunch a few days ago."

"Yeah, but after all that crap you gave me about hiding Ainsley and not being upfront with you, why wouldn"t you just tell me? It"s not like you couldn"t have texted me," Bash said a little angrily. Umm, hold up there bestie, what the fuck?

"Okay, this is wildly different from the Ainsley situation. She was your girlfriend for months and you lied to me about her. I didn"t lie to you, and I didn"t realize I had to clear my entire social calendar with you. Should I have gotten your approval first, Dad?" I asked sardonically, lighting up with indignation.

"What the fuck, M? I didn"t say that! I just would have liked to have known when my best friend had a date with some douchebag he met at a club!"

"You don"t even fucking know him, Bash!"

"And whose fault is that? You used to tell me everything!"

"Well, so did you!" I shouted.

Bash fell quiet at my outburst, hurt and anger spreading across the line. I didn"t understand why he was being such a jerk to me about this, but maybe it was because he was right. We used to tell each other everything under the sun, our lives an open book to one another without question. It hadn"t seemed like that was the case the last few months.

"I"m sorry, MM," Bash murmured softly, "You"re totally right…this is my fault. I"m the one who broke your trust first and lied to you. You aren"t in the wrong here. It"s all me." Bash"s gruff tone made my throat tighten painfully and I worked to swallow around the lump there.

"BB…"

"No, really, it"s okay. So tell me about the date. Did it go well? Are you seeing him again?" Bash asked, but his voice held the faintest undertone of tears and regret.

I swiftly felt like utter shit that I had dropped that bombshell on him like that, but there was no turning back, so I elected to be as honest as I could.

"We went out for coffee, and it was pretty fun. He asked me out to dinner in two weeks, and I told him yes. I…I think it"ll be good for me, you know?" Every word felt like acid working its way up my throat, shredding my vocal cords as I forced the words out.

Bash was quiet for a minute, and I was about to ask him if he was okay, but then he replied, "I"m really happy for you, M. You deserve so much happiness and more. I really hope it works out."

The words made my knees weak and I nearly crumbled to the ground, pain draped over me like a shroud. Bash had said he was happy for me and wanted it to work with Kit, which should have made me happy. I should have been relieved and pleased to have my best friend"s support, yet all I could feel was immense grief that he was pushing me toward someone else. It wasn"t surprising that he did, but it hurt nonetheless.

"Thanks, BB. Text me later after your dinner," I choked out, praying I didn"t sound like I was as close to tears as I was.

"Always. Text you later," he said softly.

"Love you, BB."

"Love you, MM."

And with that, he hung up the phone and I sank to the floor, unable to bear the weight of the ache growing in my chest any longer.