Oops, baby, I miss you - Dylan O’Brien
Author: @brien-odylan
Pairing: Dylan O’Brien x OC
Word count: 14.5k
Warnings: a little bit of angst, mentions of sex, cursing, World Cup, Brazil losing, some fluff.
A/N: I can’t believe it’s finally done! *inserts hallelujah chorus here*. This story has been on the made ever since the enf of June, over the course where I had to go through a dryspell, where I couldn’t write anything for days. But it’s finally here now and man... Just knowing that it took me a little less than a month makes me want to kill myself.
Anyways, this was made as part of @disbestiles writing challenge in celebration of her 600 followers, using the songs Oops, by Little Mix and Miss You, by Louis Tomlinson. Let’s a great deal of it, having my back when all I wanted was to give up writing this story and everytime I changed what it was going to be about. See, miga, I finally finished it! Shoutout to the amazing @mischiefandi for proofing some of it and to @malia--stilinski @mf-despair-queen for yelling at me. And also to my best friend that doesn’t have a tumblr but was totally my inspiration for the very last scene. Enjoy it!! xxx
A shrill sound was what woke Ananda up that Sunday morning, her eyes trying to adjust to the clarity of the room. She tried to close her eyes and muffle the sound, but for as hard as she tried, the noise wouldn’t go away and seemed to be coming from inside her head, going off for countless minutes until it stopped.
Slowly, the girl opened one eye and looked around. She was back in her room, the sunlight entering through a crack on her blinds on the window on the opposite side of her bed and she just wished she was dead. Her head was pounding strongly against her skull, as if someone had dropped an anvil on her head or hit her until she went unconscious.
Once again, the annoying noise came back and she felt something vibrating against her skull. Trying to understand what was going on, she reached beneath her pillow only to find her phone ringing insistently on her palms. She had the vague idea of throwing it on the other side of the room, her trembling arm already shaking in anticipation. She was in no condition of talking to anyone at that time of the day after the night she had had.
It has to be the worst hangover ever, she thought to herself as she tried to make out the letters on her caller ID to no avail. It was going to be impractical to try to figure out who was disturbing her at that time, so she just rejected the call and turned the phone off. I’m never drinking again, she added.
It was an empty promise and Ananda was well aware of it. She had lost count of how many times she had said that only to get hammered the following weekend.
There was a movement behind her, the sound of her sheets being ruffled by someone getting her attention. It was probably just her best friend trying to get more comfortable during her sleep, her lazy self trying to find some more hours of sleep. Ananda half expected to hear her groaning at the sound of the ringing phone, but she must’ve been dead to this world.
With a sigh, Ananda closed her eyes once again and pushed the covers over her head in order to block the light in the room. She was going to spend the rest of the day in bed while begging Let to ask for takeout. It was a day to be lazy and get cured, she would understand.
However, things went slightly different, because soon enough Ananda felt something slightly different in the sleeping arrangement. First of all, Let seemed to be taking way more space than she usually did. They were about the same size and there was always a gap between the two girls, something that seemed nonexistent that morning. The second thing was a muscular arm draped over her body, pulling her closer to its owner and it made Ananda freeze in her place, dread icing her veins as she tried to understand what had happened the night before.
Because, obviously, she had ended up sleeping with someone and that was not Let, her best friend.
Sweaty bodies danced scattered around the dancefloor, the beat reverberating through the walls, hips swaying from one side to the other, people getting drunk all around the deck, the lights blinking as the DJ started another song, this time with a more powerful bass echoing around the surroundings, an obvious change in the atmosphere, causing everyone to shout in excitement as the music started.
From where she was standing, her bare feet in contact with the soft fabric of the booth she was designated to, Ananda threw her head back, her hips already dancing on their own accord, following the new rhythm, the words to the song coming out of her mouth as if it was her own creation. In her intoxicated state, she could feel the sound booming through her veins, her closed eyes intensifying the feeling and before she knew it, she was screaming at the top of her lungs the words to the song, her hips swaying, shyly at first.
That’s how things always started for her. She would claim she couldn’t dance, that she was way too shy to do it in front of anyone, but everytime she went out with her friends, she would end up giving all she got on the dancefloor, not caring if anyone was seeing it or not. Of course there was always a great amount of alcohol involved, but she wasn’t the type of person to drink and forget everything; she would just let go of her inhibitions, secretly saying a ‘fuck you’ to herself. It was fun to watch. You could see she was having a good time coming out of her shell and attracting looks from a few guys around.
And of course it couldn’t be any different that day. It was her birthday, all her friends were present and she even got a VIP section of her favorite night club, not to mention a free champagne bottle to celebrate it. She was having the time of her life, dancing on top of the seat, not a care in the world with her hands on her knees, her ass stuck up in the air, moving from one side to the other almost in a broken way to whoever saw it, but she was in complete control of what she was doing, the sharp motions of her hips forming, slightly, what could be remarked as a geometric shape as she kept singing loudly to the song.
Ananda could see, by the look on her friends’ eyes, that most of them had no idea what the music was saying or what kind of moves they should do and she just shrugged it off, telling them to do what felt natural. There was no correct way of dancing funk. You just had to feel the beat and do the most provocative moves you could muster, that’s how she went.
She felt a sharp tug on her arms, her movements halting immediately as she looked at whoever had stopped her, the bewilderment expression she had softening as soon as she saw her best friend looking at her with the biggest smile on her face.
“He’s here!” she heard through the song. Two little words that sent her heart in a frenzy, completely forgetting to follow the music’s beat to a rhythm of its own, almost as if it was racing against her eyes, which had already darted to the entrance searching for someone.
Ananda was sure he wouldn’t make it, she was sure she was going to spend another birthday without him, without the guy she considered her best friend. It was weird, to be honest, that he had become someone so close to her. They had shared one meaningless class back in freshman year, done one unimportant seminar together and yet he kept on being by her side, talking to her throughout the rest of the college years. Not to mention when he moved to the same building as hers.
In the end, they had accepted that they were destined to be in each other’s lives; they had far too many things in common, not to mention how they worked perfectly together. And now, five years after they had met, she was glad they had decided it.
As soon as her eyes fell on his frame, his spiked hair, the infamous blue shirt and khaki pants he wore everywhere - she really thought those were the only clothes he owned and once offered to go shopping with him. What was his problem? - and those warm honey colored eyes, she felt a squeal erupt from her mouth, her legs pushing her through the mass of sweaty bodies, making her way to the man she was expecting.
“Dylan!” she screamed over the noise, her much smaller frame colliding against him, her arms circling around his neck as she stood on the tip of her toes. “You made it!” she beamed, her eyes staring at him intently as he shook back the confusion he was in once he felt someone run into him.
He let out a loud laugh, a smile on his lips as he hugged her back, his arms wrapping tightly around her waist and picking her up a little bit, her feet dangling a little bit. “I wouldn’t miss my best friend’s birthday, come on!”
“You missed the last one,” she looked at him sternly. He was not going to pull that kind of crap on her. Not on her birthday.
“It’s not my fault you decided to have your birthday when the semester is almost over,” he defended himself.
“It’s not my fault you struggled with your grades. You should study harder, Dylan.”
Whoever watched their interaction from the distance, wouldn’t actually see how their dynamic worked. Dylan was the laid back one, doing everything he deemed possible to achieve what he wanted, but never stressing himself over it, hence the moments he needed to ditch his best friend to stay in and study for his finals. It was just how he worked, pushing things back until he couldn’t get away from it anymore and it was amazing how he always ended up being at the top of his class or having the best job offer ever. On the other side, there was Ananda: a hard-worked, over-achiever, stressed student who was always trying to make the best of her time and classes. Maybe it was the fact that she was living through what felt like her only shot of winning in life, like if she ever stood a toe out of line, she was going to be sent back home and say goodbye to her much dreamed graduation. Maybe she felt like she had to prove herself all the time because she was from another country; maybe she felt like everyone was judging her, as if it wasn’t her place and she needed to prove them wrong.
How those two ever ended up close to each other was a mystery, but it worked perfectly well. They balanced each other’s lives.
“Well, I’m here now,” he said with a smirk. “Just in time to see you twerking, something I never thought you would do.”
Ananda scoffed. She couldn’t believe he would compare her sharp hip movements to something so simple and silly as… twerking. She had spent hours and more hours practicing her movements, the positions of her legs, how her hips had to swerve from one side to the other in a fluid movement with her ass stuck up in the air.
“Don’t ever compare my quadradinho to twerk,” she shouted over the song, her eyes rolling. She wasn’t going to stand there and be offended like that. Ok, it wasn’t like that and she was being a little bit over dramatic, but the amount of alcohol in her system wasn’t helping much.
Dylan laughed at her and put his hands up in a surrender motion, accepting what she had said. He had no idea what she was talking about or what the hell a quadradinho was, but he would accept it. She seemed like she was having fun and that was enough for him.
After that, everything seemed to go in a blur. A shot of tequila turned into four and he had ingested more caipirinhas than he would have thought healthy. Damn those Brazilians and their need to make something so sweet and tasteful, making you drink more than one in a hurry thinking it wasn’t too strong. When it hits, it hits you hard, he thought. But it was already too late. He was already in the middle of the sweaty bodies taking the space of the VIP section designated to Ananda, his mind all fuzzy, his steps a bit faltering, but never stopping moving to the rhythm of the music.
And that was pretty much how things went all night long. At some point, Ananda turned around, her glazed eyes trying to focus on a black figure sat right in front of her. Of course it was Dylan, she though with an internal roll of eyes. She knew he had already drank more than he should, but she couldn’t stop smiling at the way his head rolled around, trying to keep an eye on everything that was going on around him. They had always joked about visiting Brazil together. She said she would show him everything worth seeing and not just Rio and what people thought that was Brazil.
Well, that night club was something he would see in a night club in the latin country: people dancing around, having the time of their lives, shouting the words to every funk song while dancing to it.
She didn’t know who had started it, but when she realized it, both of them were extremely close to each other, Dylan out of his seat, his frame towering over hers slightly as he tried to keep his face in a serious expression while watching her dance, her back turned to him as she bounced her hips, slowly going up and down, her movements never faltering.
He was hypnotized. His eyes couldn’t avert from her as she laughed, her hands lacing around his neck. That was it. That was what made him lose all his sober thoughts as she turned around, her face inching closer to his as she grinded against him, her chest pressing entirely to his, her breath fanning against his neck.
It was hard to see where Dylan stopped and Ananda started. Somewhere along the song, they had become one.
No. No no. No no no no no. It couldn’t be, right? That was just a drunk mistake, she had only kissed Dylan and then walked away from him to find someone else. Some tall, blonde stranger, something completely different from the brunette she called her best friend. Because that was the right thing. She couldn’t have walked home with him and slept with him.
She took a deep breath and poked her head through the covers, almost too afraid to turn around and see who was behind her, snoring softly and completely lost to this world. She had to do it. She had to make sure that she hadn’t jeopardized years of friendship because of a wild night out. And then, with a hammering heart and completely neglecting the pounding in her head, Ananda slowly turned around, her body shifting swiftly against the sheets as she tried to see who was in bed with her and the first thing she noticed was a mop of brown hair contrasting with a pale skin.
And if it weren’t enough to send her heart in a frantic rhythm, the face her eyes came into contact did. Because there was no way she could mistake those long eyelashes against that cheek or the constellation of moles that dotted that beautiful face. She had watched them closely a thousand of times, trying to memorize every little speck of color, how they looked under the natural light, how they contrasted against his skin and how she loved when he was wearing a beard, but hated the fact that it hid the dots she had grown to love. Purely platonic, that is.
And it was amidst the realization that she had slept with her best friend that she couldn’t ignore the fact that she liked seeing Dylan like that, his face free of any worries, his eyes rolling from one side to the other behind his closed eyelids, the soft snores coming from him, almost melodic and sending her back into a slumber, the way his chest was raising and falling, the way that the morning light hit his warm skin, giving it a new shade. He seemed so peaceful, so innocent and pure that Ananda found herself gazing at him, her finger itching as she tried to not outline the contour of his jawline.
She was incredibly scared of what would happen when he woke up, but she couldn’t stop looking at him and admiring the man beside her. He was gorgeous; his pale skin looked amazing against hers - a little bit more tanned -, his strong arms, something that she had watched grow over the years, felt so secure and soft that she couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to be held by them. And it hit her that she probably had been trapped between those same arms the previous night and what startled her the most was the fact that she couldn’t remember much of it.
There was a lingering thought on her mind, something telling her that she had been in there. It was almost a memory, completely blurred and confusing, but she had a feeling that it had been amazing. For as long as she knew Dylan, she had failed to know something he wasn’t good at. She had heard things about him in bed, of course, having talked to a few girls that had been in his life and some rumours that went around the campus. If any of them were true, she must have felt in heaven.
In the complete stillness of the morning, where no sound could be heard coming from the closed window she had on her bedroom, the annoying sound her vibrating phone caused startled her one more time, her eyes tearing apart from the sleeping figure besides her, her body almost jumping out of the bed and away from his as she tried to reach for the buzzing device to quiet it hurriedly before it disturbed Dylan from his sleep, but it was already too late.
Dylan stirred on his side of the bed, his eyes opening and closing rapidly due to the clarity of the room he was in, his head screaming at him while he tried to make sense of what was happening. He could feel a commotion going on beside him, someone talking hurriedly into a phone words he couldn’t make out and the ruffling of sheets. Where the hell did he spend the night?
Slowly and carefully, he opened one eye flinching slightly at the bright light, his hands reaching down to pull the duvet closer to his chin, suddenly too self-conscious for his liking.
The voice - it was a girl, that he was sure of - cut the call short and turned around, her eyes finally meeting his.
Saying that life is full of surprises is an understatement; you can prepare yourself to a lot of things, but waking up, naked, in a bed with your best friend when you can’t recall what happened the previous night, is something that you can never be prepared for and something that can never cross your mind. And that was exactly what was happening to Dylan that Sunday morning.
His eyes stared wide open back at the Brazilian girl by his side, her smaller frame enveloped in the duvet they were sharing, her small hands tugging at the ends of the fabric trying to get more of it around her body while he could just sit there, too stunned to say or do anything. How could they ever walk away from this situation?
“Do you…” he started, his voice caught in the back of his throat. Fuck, how do you even start a conversation? “Do you remember anything from last night?”
Ananda stared at him blankly, her head shaking, her eyes focused on the wall behind his head. That was it. The perfect friendship had been reduced to a big pile of nothing because of a drunk mistake. What were they thinking of? Well, they weren’t.
“Do you have any idea how wrong this is?” she asked, her voice barely over a whisper. She was mortified.
Maybe, to anyone else, it might have seemed like they were just being over dramatic, that it wasn’t that big of a deal and that it was bound to happen at some time, but when it came to friendships, Ananda didn’t like to see hers being ruined, much less with the only guy she had in her life, the one person she could count on at any given time. Of course she had other friends, Let for instance, but it was different. Dylan knew her the longest, he was aware of her deepest secrets, he could read her like the back of his hand and to have him there, in the same bed as her after a night of sex, it seemed like she couldn’t look at him without wanting to die.
“Ok, don’t freak out,” he started, one of his hands slowly reaching to grabs hers in a soothing way. If he was thinking straight, he would’ve realized it wasn’t a good idea, but he was set on trying to comfort his best friend. “I know this is weird, but come on, Nanda. It’s just us.”
“Of course I’m freaking out, Dylan!” her hand slipped out of his, holding the duvet closer to her. “You’re my best friend! I have the right to freak out! Oh my God, what have we done?” she rambled, her eyes falling to her lap as she tried to think of a way to walk out of the awkward situation. “I need an aspirin,” she mumbled, her legs finding the side of the bed, steading her descending self as she clutched the sheets around her. “Don’t look!”
It was then that Dylan realized he had not only been looking at her, but gawking. He was transfixed on a point over her shoulder, how the skin there seemed so tender and soft, something he would like to feel again, to refresh his memory, to run his fingers through it until he reached the pulsing point on her neck. She was extremely beautiful, something he hadn’t failed to realize in all those years, but it had a different meaning now. Because he was actually seeing her, all her walls down.
Some people would wake up and grumble, roll out of the bed and start their day with a roll of eyes, but not Ananda. Despite having a real shocker that morning, Dylan could see that she was doing her best to let it slip from her mind and not ruin her day. He saw her walking up to the window, the light hitting her skin and adding a golden tone to it. Her hair waved down to the middle of her back, the sunlight making it look lighter than it actually was. And he kept watching, almost too scared to say anything, almost too scared of moving and making her scurry away from him. He watched it like it was forbidden, like he was stealing glimpses of her and storing it in his memory before it was too late.
She was beautiful and it hit him like a brick. He had fucked it up.
A week had passed. An entire week in which Ananda had done her best to avoid any kind of interaction with Dylan or any conversation about what had happened. She knew it was ridiculous because they had to talk it out at some point, but she just couldn't bring herself to look at him without feeling utterly mortified.
It was a crazy feeling, something she never thought she would feel towards him, but she couldn't help herself. She had been out of herself enough to sleep with him and that was not something she did. She was the calm one, the one who always thought things through and avoided all kinds of crazy thoughts. Why had this happened and with him?
No, she wasn't repulsed by the idea of sex with Dylan, because he was amazing. He was gorgeous and had a body that she could stare at for hours - something she actually did when he was running around the room and putting his clothes on - but it was also her best friend. She was repulsed by the idea of throwing herself at him, completely out of her normal state, her drunk haze making her act like someone she was not. That was her problem with the whole situation.
And, if things weren’t already hard enough, she had to deal with her Let being all over her, asking things she wanted to forget, trying to make her remember things that were forever lost on her sucky memory, something she was glad for for the first time in her life.
“You know you’re acting really childish, right?” Let asked as she moved around the kitchen, her hands gripping tightly the dishes as she put them back in the cabinet. The two girls had just walked home from a long and exhausting day at work, ready to call it a night and order takeout. “You two slept together, so what? Everyone does that.”
Ananda rolled her eyes. She was tired of having that same conversation, tired of saying everything she had already said, but her best friend wouldn’t give up. She wanted to talk about it all the time, almost like she was rooting for it to happen again and soon. The truth was… She knew Let had always wanted them to be together, had always hinted at that fact and had always secretly rooted for that to happen. Ananda was really surprised Let hadn’t shouted it to the whole world yet.
“But it’s not something I do,” she sighed. “I don’t want to jeopardize everything I have with him because of a mistake, ok? I like him, he’s my best friend and I don’t want to give it away because we were too drunk to do the right thing.”
There was a lingering silence in the kitchen, the only sound coming from the dishwasher working in the background and the occasional sound of the chair scraping against the floor as Ananda rocked herself back and forth, trying to think of a way to walk out of that conversation.
“Well, you two have to talk,” Let said with a final tone, her eyes rolling at how things were being treated by two grown ups. She expected them to be more mature about it all, she thought they would look at each other, have a laugh and move on with their lives. Deep down, she thought it could mean something, that they would finally be together. It was just a matter of time. “Meanwhile, you could do the laundry,” she added, a smile playing on her lips as she hinted to the big pile of dirty clothes they had put aside.
“Yeah, I’ll do it tomorrow,” Ananda rolled her eyes. Yes, it was her turn. No, she wouldn’t waste her night doing something she hated.
“But you gotta do it today,” Let pressed, her hands firmly gripping the girl’s hands and pushing her up. “I’ve got a meeting tomorrow morning and I want to wear the black pants I lent you Monday. So you gotta do it now.”
There was something to it, Ananda thought as she went through the laundry, separating the clothes she was going to wash first. First because Let wouldn’t be so adamant on making her wash the clothes, second because the following day was a Saturday and Let didn’t work on Saturdays and third because she knew Ananda didn’t like being on her own on that room. It was all gloomy and eery. The sound of the plumbing always managed to scare her, it didn’t matter how many times she had been in that basement.
Either way, the Brazilian girl found herself all alone in the room, praying for nothing to happen as she put all her color clothes into the machine, internally rolling her eyes at how silly she was being. She was a grown up and didn’t have time for irrational fears. Resigned, she shook her head, set and started the machine, adjusting the earphones in her ears hitting play on her playlist as she waited for the cycle to be done sitting on a chair with her legs up, her back to the door.
Of course, had she been sitting differently or not using the earphones to block the sound coming from the plumbing, she would have noticed the door had opened and someone had walked into the room with her, their steps not so light as they stumbled on their own feet due to the amount of things they were carrying, blocking their vision. Had Ananda been paying attention, she would have noticed when the figure walked up to her, let go of the basket with clothes and detergent and looked at her, a smirk on their lips as they watched the girl singing happily to whatever she was listening to, her eyes closed and her head thrown back, completely lost to the world around them.
Dylan chuckled to himself. It was such a normal thing for her, to sit back and relax, listen to her random playlist and forget about everything else. She looked so relaxed and carefree, a smile playing on her moving lips, the words escaping from her mouth echoing around the almost empty room, reaching his ears and making him smile. He loved when she sang; her voice was melodic enough to carry a song on her own, her tone causing some kind of effect within him. His heart, somehow, felt lighter at the sight of the girl in front of him combined with her sweet voice.
He knew she was trying to avoid him ever since the weekend and he couldn’t understand why. Well, he could, but he thought it was just a little too much of her to do something like that. It wasn’t that big of a deal and despite the fact that she thought it could be something to ruin their friendship, neither of them remembered what actually happened. They could pretend it never did and move on with their lives, be the best of friends as they had always been, but she had chose to ignore him and he had let her. He gave her the space she thought she needed, he respected that and at that moment, as his brain screamed at him to walk away from the room and leave her alone, another part of him - he wasn’t sure which one - was telling him to just walk up to her and question the girl on her actions.
It could be a little selfish, he thought, but he didn’t want to be apart from her anymore. He missed her, the way her accent rang on his ears when she said his name or tried to say some word she thought that was difficult to say. He missed her rambling on and on about the upcoming World Cup, he missed her trying to teach him things from her country. He missed his best friend. So, shutting up his brain and acting on the behalf of his heart, Dylan slowly turned to her, his hands reaching out to gently grab her shoulders and snap her out of her daze.
What followed after was a cacophony of sounds, the metal chair scraping against the floor, Ananda’s legs hitting the side of the washing machine as a piercing scream left her mouth, echoing around the nearly empty room and probably reaching the first level of the building. Her heart was hammering wildly against her ribcage, her head pounding and her veins turned to ice. That was how she was going to die. All alone, doing laundry while listening to some poorly chosen songs. Fantastic.
With her body shaking from head to toe, she opened her eyes and slowly looked back, her eyes finally coming in contact with the culprit of her heart attack, seeing Dylan standing there, eyes and mouth wide open, his already pale skin even paler and his breath uneven. On the process of being scared, she had managed to scare him back, nearly making the young man going deaf.
“Filho da puta,” she shouted, her hands reaching her accelerated heart as she tried to calm it down, her head tilted down, her free hand resting against her forehead. “Son of a bitch.”
Dylan kept looking at her, his eyes still wide open, but his mouth had turned into a smirk. “You've got some lungs, huh?”
She looked at him wanting to be able to murderer the man. He knew very well that she didn't like being in there all by herself and he went and scared her? Ok, maybe he hadn't meant it, but what could you expect to happen when you sneak behind someone's back and they've got earphones on?
With her heart calming down, but still beating too rapidly for her liking, she reached down and threw some of his own clothes at him, rolling her eyes as he laughed at her. She hated him. She really hated him.
Dylan could only laugh. “What are you doing here?”
Ananda looked from him to the working machine, back to him and crossed her arms over her chest. It was an obvious question and she couldn’t actually believed he had asked it. “Laundry,” she limited herself on saying. “This is the laundry room, right?”
Dylan surely had missed her sarcastic ways. The way she would look at him whenever he made a dumb question, her eyes struggling to not roll, her lips pulled in a scowl and how her nostrils seemed to inflate as her annoyed expression came on her face.
“I meant a, you don’t do your laundry on week days and b,” he paused scooting closer to her, the smirk still on his lips. “You hate being here all by yourself.”
The girl couldn’t deny it. He knew her like the back of his hand. He knew every little thing that was on her mind, before she even knew it herself, and that was what sucked the most about that friendhship. Because she wanted nothing more than to just roll her eyes at him and ignore him for the rest of her life, but since he knew she was doing it, he wouldn't let it happen.
“Well, Mister Know-It-All,” she started, her legs kicking her off the chair and leading her to the side of the machine, her body leaning over it as her elbows pressed against it. “For your information, I needed to do it today. Let has a meeting tomorrow and she lent me one of her pants, so I’m washing it right now.”
“Are you sure?”
Ananda blinked a couple of times. What did he mean she was sure? Of course she was. She had just talked to her best friend, whom she shared an apartment with, and she had just being told that said best friend had a meeting on the following day and she needed the clothes she was washing at that exact minute. Did that week away from her had caused Dylan to develop some kind of conditional disease that made him act weirdly?
“What do you mean I’m sure? Of course I am. She just told me.”
Dylan, who at this point was already unloading all his clothes into another machine, not caring about mixing them up, stopped and looked at the girl. She was leaned over her machine, her brown hair didn’t look as shiny as he knew they were under the incandescent light hanging from the low ceiling of the room. The brick walls contrasted greatly with her now pale skin, so much different than when she first arrived there. She was in great need of a tan to go back to the olive skin he knew that looked so great on her. He wasn’t going to lie: she looked perfect in anyway.
“Well, then why did I get kicked out of my own apartment because your best friend is there to celebrate her anniversary with my best friend?”
She didn’t have an answer. Let hadn’t said anything about it being that Friday. If she remembered well, Let and Tyler’s anniversary weren’t for another whole week, so why were them already celebrating it?
And then it hit her like a brick. “You think they planned it?”
“I’m sure they did,” Dylan said with a roll of eyes. He knew it the moment he saw her sitting with her back to the door, but he didn’t want to be the first one to bring it up. He also quite of agreed with their friends’ decision. They needed to talk. “Tyler keeps telling me we need to talk and I told him it’s kind of hard when the person you need to talk to is ignoring you.” There was a long pause this time, like he wanted her to react to what he had said, but all she could do was stare at the wall in front of her, never meeting his eyes. “What happened to us?” He pressed. “Do you remember anything?”
“Not really,” Ananda sighed. She didn’t know what she was doing, but she felt compelled on talking to him. “I can’t tell if they’re actual memories or just my imagination. You?”
“Kind of the same,” he said coming closer to her tentatively. “I remember enjoying it, though.”
The blood rushing to her face was thankfully hidden by the poor light. Never, in a million years, Ananda would have thought she was going to hear those words coming out of his mouth. It was going to be completely weird to hear it from any other guy, to hear it from Dylan was even weirder. It caused a mix of feelings to swirl in her, like her mind was trying to navigate through a vortex of thoughts and sentiments. She tried to reach for a surface, but there was nothing she could grab onto.
“Is this how it’s going to be for us now?” His voice sounded shallow, like he was tiptoeing around her, speaking carefully so he wouldn’t send them down the hole again. Dylan didn’t want to be away from her anymore.
“What do you mean?”
“Damn it, Ananda, we can barely be alone now,” Dylan said. He was tired and frustrated from everything that was going on, so much he couldn’t put into words. He always knew Ananda was too headstrong, but he never thought it was this much. “You don’t talk to me anymore, you don’t look at me, you don’t answer my texts or calls. I miss you.”
“I miss you too,” her voice was so low he thought he had misheard it, but the truth was there. She had said those words.
He smiled for real this time. “So can please put it past us? We don’t even know what really happened,” she gave him a pointed look. “Ok, we know, but we don’t remember. We can move on with our lives and pretend it didn’t happen. How about that?”
“I guess that would be fine.” Ananda, for as much as she liked to pretend that she wasn’t, was an emotive person. She was slowly fighting back the urge to start crying right there.
“I miss my best friend, ok?” Dylan said, his body completely next to hers now. “And the incredible person that she is and I don’t want a drunk mistake to be the thing that puts us apart.”
“Me neither,” she sighed, finally letting go of her stiff position and turning to him, a small smile playing on her lips this time. “You know what? Maybe this was for the best.”
“How?” Dylan scoffed. “How having our relationship shaken up was for the best?”
Ananda bit her lips and shook her head. They weren’t that shaken up, that she knew. Somehow, it just had made them realize how important they were for each other and how much they really cared about one another and when she voiced those thoughts, she saw Dylan’s eye color change slightly. They weren’t so dark anymore. There was light in them again.
“I don’t regret it, though,” he said silently, catching her attention. “Sure, I don’t remember it, but I don’t regret it. If anything, I’m glad it was you. You’re amazing and the level of intimacy we have surely went up by a hundred percent now, and I have yet to find a better girl than you.”
“Are you trying to make me die out of embarrassment?” Ananda was outraged. Did she really hear what she thought?
“I just wish I could remember, ok?” Dylan sighed his body leaning closer to hers. “Because, that way, I would’ve known how it felt, but I can only guess…” His eyes dancing from her eyes to her lips, the tip of his tongue running through his own lips. There was something else in the air, the tension thick. “Or maybe…”
“Maybe what?” she heard herself whispering, her eyes focusing on his for the first time ever since he walked into the room. The sound of the machines was the only noise in the air, but it was completely neglected by them. It was like nothing around them mattered anymore, like the two of them were in a trance.
Their breath mingled, their eyes danced around each other’s faces and their bodies kept leaning into one another. It was pure bliss surrounding them, the rhythm of their hearts beating to the same beat, the anticipation cursing through his veins.
Suddenly, Ananda felt like she was at the end of a first date, that feeling you get when you reach your porch and don’t know what’s to come next. Was he going to kiss her? Would she let him do it? Would it mean anything?
She didn’t know about the first one or the last one, but she was sure about the second question. If he tried, she would let him do it, hell she would even reciprocate. She couldn’t deny that there was a curiosity lurking her mind ever since the previous weekend when she woke up with him by her side, but it was more than that. It was the way he was looking at her, it was the way his eyes flickered when he laughed or how his voice sounded. It was every little thing that she hadn’t paid attention to. It was his smell, the way his hair fell on his forehead, the feeling of his beard against her face. She wanted to have all of that again and remember it this time.
And that was why she didn’t fight back when he finally closed the distance between them, his lips slowly and tentatively pressing on hers, like he was afraid of what her reaction was going to be. It felt like he was having his first kiss all over again, the way his hands were shaking and he didn’t know what to do with them, but he managed it, just like it happened all those years before. And it was blissfully good. The way her lips smoldered against his, so softly at first that he wasn’t sure he was awake.
He didn't want it end; He realized, with a sorrow in his heart, that he didn’t want to let her out of his arms any time soon and that sucked, but he was going to be just great.
Of course nothing was great. Everything was so far from being ok that Dylan wanted to scream at the walls until his thoughts would leave his mind, mostly because it was his fault. It was him who initiated the kiss, it was him who wanted to do that and it was him that couldn’t take it off his mind. And how he hated it.
Things weren’t bad between them, far from it. It felt like they had moved past that week and that everything seemed to go back into place, but while things did look like it on the outside, Dylan was dealing with a lot on the inside. Because there wasn’t a single second he didn’t remember about that kiss in the laundry room or the small smile she had on the second they pulled apart and it was eating him alive.
His day had started like any other and the walk to his work had been nothing but boring, with the same boring people looking at the same boring way. Everything seemed to be grey, like any presence of color had suddenly been forbidden. Even the sky wasn’t in its usual shade of blue. Or maybe it was just him, maybe it was his dark mood affecting everything he touched, because as soon as he pushed the door to the vet clinic open, a radiant smile came into contact with his eyes.
“Good morning, sweetie,” chirped Mrs. Olsen, the receptionist. She was a very adorable lady, with her bright blue eyes and almost completely grey hair. Dylan had yet to see a day she wasn’t smiling at everyone walking through that door no matter what and he had known her for three years.
“Morning, Mrs. O,” he mumbled not even finishing his walk to his office, plopping down on one of the soft chairs in the waiting room, his eyes closed, his arms crossed over his chest and a big sigh leaving his lips. “But nothing’s good coming out of it.”
Had his eyes been opened, he would have seen the old lady send him a quizzical look, her brows scrunching up as she looked at the pile of clothes he had been reduced to. He was always a very charming, very energetic boy and she was used to seeing him oozing excitement every time he walked in, so seeing him mopping was somewhat affecting her.
“What’s the matter, son?” she asked walking from behind her desk, her light footsteps leading her to his side, her small hands brushing the hair from his forehead. “Are you sick?”
Dylan opened one eye, a small smile making way on his lips as he stared at the woman he had come to love as his second mother. She was so genuine in everything she said and expressed that he couldn’t help but be happy at the thought of her being worried about him. He knew that, if needed, she would send him back straight home and not hear a word of his complaints. But that wasn’t the case. He was sick, but not from something that could be cured with a good night’s sleep or some medicine.
“You could say that,” he sighed, his body curling up against the chair as best as he could. “Tell me, Mrs. O, have you ever done something that you shouldn’t and then keep thinking about it all the time?”
She gave him a suspicious look. “Is it something illegal?”
“No, it’s not,” he chuckled. “Though I think it should be.”
Mrs. Olsen eyed the boy, taking her time to try and understand what he was saying. She had been close to him pretty much ever since he had started working in the clinic, automatically making his way through her heart. Dylan was a kind soul, acting respectful towards everyone, never mistreating anyone. He had always been a ray of sunshine in the clinic, so seeing him so down like that morning was not okay with her.
She was certain something had happened over the course of the past week, with his excitement dwindling down each day, but she thought he was just tired and stressed, and thought all he needed was a good rest over the weekend. Now she was rethinking everything. He had bags under his eyes, his hair was a little disheveled and it looked like he hadn’t put any effort into dressing up in the morning, with his black shirt wrinkled.
Although there were a lot of things that could lead Dylan into that state, she also noticed how he hadn’t walked in holding a cup of coffee or his phone in his hand, something he always did. It was customary of the man to have breakfast with a girl she thought very pretty, but he had sworn they were just friends. She guessed it wasn’t the case anymore.
“Is it about a girl?” she asked again, a small smile on her lips. Of course it was.
Dylan sighed and nodded. It wasn’t about any girl, though. It was about a girl he should never think of that way given their previous status and when he told her everything, from the waking up next to her to kissing her on that Friday night, she looked at him like he was talking the most ridiculous things in the world.
“Have I ever told you how my husband and I met?” she had turned completely to him, her small frame fitting into the chair perfectly. “It was in 1969, when we were in high school,” she smiled. “We had the same group of friends and we used to hang out in this diner after school and we somehow ended up being great friends. Everyone thought that there was something going on between us, you know,” she chuckled lightly. “But the truth was that we were such great friends that we could talk about pretty much everything. When his brother died in a car crash, I was the first one he ran to when he found out. When my mom fell sick, I could only find comfort on him and his friendship. It wasn’t until the end of 1970 that I realized that I liked him more than just a friend,” she squeezed his hands in reassurance. “Those feelings, Dylan, the ones that hit us after a while, the ones we never really knew we were looking for, are pretty powerful. They shake us to the core, make we go to hell and back, but they’re usually not wrong. She tried to avoid you, right?” he nodded. “She must have been scared of what she felt. I remember how Howard was scared to tell me he had feelings for me and it literally took him two of our friends to make him do it,” she laughed a little, her eyes scanning Dylan’s, trying to convey as much courage in them as she could. “Talk to her. If you’re scared it might drive her away from you, she wasn’t that good of a friend, but chances are she feels the exact same way.”
He looked at the woman in front of him, his thoughts running a hundred miles per hour as he went over everything she had just told him and he tried to compare it to everything they had lived so far, all the times someone had asked if they were together, how he felt at ease when she was around, how she was always running to him whenever she felt homesick, how they always had fun together and liked to be in each other’s presence more than anything.
Dylan thought of all the times he had wanted to just cut off communication with the rest of the world after a long and exhausting day at work, but then he would see her smiley face and puppy brown eyes, just begging for some kind of attention, a movie night or just talking, and he would give up. He would give up pretty much anything just so she could be happy and he knew she would do the same, she had done the same countless times, and then he smiled.
“You’re right, Mrs. O,” he said, a new found resolution within him. He was going to walk out of that door, march up to Ananda and tell her that everything hadn’t been a mistake. At least not anymore.
But it was so much more easier said than done.
As the days rolled by, Dylan found himself trying to come up with that courage that had invaded him during the conversation with Mrs Olsen, but whenever he saw Ananda, her brown eyes and smiling face, he would start to rethink everything, every life choice he had made so far and his brain would stop working, freezing all of his functions as he just stared at her and tried his best to not act like a complete fool. It was hard, he was pretty sure she was aware of how he could barely talk to her anymore and it pained him.
There was always a lingering silence between them, a thick tension that no one could cut through and it ruined everything. As much as both of them tried to come up with a light conversation, it would soon be over with an uncomfortable smile and their faces turning the other way.
Things weren’t going that differently that night. Dylan had come home a little earlier from the clinic, his shoulders down and his mind set on relaxing for the rest of the night, but the sight of Tyler walking out of his room ready to go out made him hault. He really hoped his best friend wasn’t going to make him go with him.
But, of course, it hadn’t been the case.
“You know how much I had to bargain for that, Dyldo?” he asked, still trying to convince the man. “Let wasn’t keen on letting me have a night out with the guys, but I managed it, and you’re not going to ruin this for me, man. You’re going.”
Dylan sighed. “You go without me, man.”
“I don’t think you’re understanding the situation here,” Tyler grabbed him by the shoulders and, with a stern look, he spoke real slowly. “You’re going with me whether you like it or not. It was one of the terms I had to accept.”
“What?”
“Come on, Dylan,” Tyler rolled his eyes. “I’m not asking for much. You go out for a little while, we have fun, you distract your mind from work and you’ll be home soon enough to spend all the time you want with Ananda.”
Funny how one simple name could make everything change, Dylan thought. Not that he wanted to go out and forget about the girl, but he really needed a time out to think things through. Maybe all he needed was a little bit of alcohol to make his mind clearer and finally understand what was going on with him. How that would work, he had no idea, but he was willing to try.
And that was why the brown eyed man found himself fully dressed, hair styled and ready to leave in no more than 30 minutes, his fingers cracking in anxiety as he waited for Tyler to say goodbye to his girlfriend, her small frame leaned against their counter as she said, one more time, all the things she expected from him and the man, like a well trained puppy, nodded at each word she said. It was funny to watch their interaction, the way she said everything and how Tyler paid attention to every word.
“You take care of him for me, ok, Dyl?” she said to him, a smile on her lips as she made her way to the front door. “And I’ll take care of Ananda for you,” the girl completed walking into the hallway and never looking back, leaving a perplexed Dylan as he tried his best to shout a come back to her.
There was no need on taking care of her for him. They weren’t anything. They didn’t have anything. Sadly.
That was not how Ananda thought she was going to be spending her night.
When Let said she wanted to have a girls’ night, she imagined them going out, shopping, having dinner somewhere or even having a walk down the park, not staying home and watching old movies and eating chinese. They were young, they had worked their asses off the whole week and they deserved to do something, anything at all, that didn’t involve being home, but she had chosen a 84 year-old best friend, by the looks of it.
It was probably the third movie of the night, but she wasn’t paying close attention to it, her mind going back and forth, distracted by the low chimes of her phone whenever a text came through. By the time she had lowered her head to look at her phone for the tenth time during the first five minutes of that movie, Let looked up at her, a scowl on her face as she kicked her friend’s leg from the other side of the couch.
“Who is it that demands so much attention of you?” she asked with a roll of eyes.
Ananda let out a small chuckle and turned the device to the girl, a video of Dylan and Tyler illuminating the screen. They were standing back to back, both men holding a pint glass on their hands as they chugged it down, voices chanting their names in the background as they did their best to finish it first.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Let mumbled, her head shaking. “I told them to be responsible and that’s what they do? I can’t fucking believe it.”
“Come on, Let,” Ananda smiled. “They’re just having a bit of fun. It’s not like you’ve never done it.”
Let blinked a couple of times and shrugged it off. Yeah, she was being a bit of a hypocrite in that situation.
“And why are you seeing these videos?” She asked after a moment of silence, her mind finally catching up on the fact that she hadn’t received any message.
“One of the boys sent it to me,” the Brazilian shrugged. “So we wouldn’t be worried, as he said.”
She hadn’t exactly understood why someone would send her that, but given the fact that Tyler and Let were dating, they assumed all of them were pretty close and wanted to make sure no parts were left out of what was going on with the two boys. At least that was what she thought, until she received another message, a picture this time, of Dylan smiling smugly at Tyler, his hands up in the air as he celebrated his winning. His shirt had ridden up, showing some innocent bit of skin on his stomach, the path leading down to his pants and suddenly her thoughts weren’t so innocent anymore.
But what intrigued her the most, was the caption of the picture. There, in bolded letters, had been written Your boyfriend won.
It wasn’t the first time and it wasn’t going to be the last one. She had lost count of times people had said they were a couple, that they should be a couple or that they would end up being a couple and she was tired of it. They were best friends. Best friends who had slept together after a drunk mistake. Best friends that had kissed one night where no alcohol was involved, but best friends nonetheless.
Ananda couldn’t deny the fact that there was chemistry between them with the playful flirts over the years and knowing what to do around each other, but that was it. They were platonically involved, nothing more. And yet, she couldn’t deny that she wished there could be a little more, that was why she was so scared when she first woke up next to him.
Because she remembered walking in that one class they had shared, looking around and finding him sitting by the end of the third row, his head down reading some book. And then he looked up and she could’ve sworn she felt like she had been knocked off her feet. It was silly, but she felt like his eyes could pierce into her very soul and bring out her darkest secrets. They held so much light and life within them that it seemed just impossible to steer away from it. And that was why she felt compelled to sit next to him, starting then and there something that would lead up to their friendship and unrequited feelings of the present.
She huffed in annoyance at the caption, tired of having to explain to everyone that they were dating.
“Don’t,” was all Let said, her body suddenly behind Ananda’s, her head poking through her shoulders as she read the text still showing on the screen.
“Huh?”
“Don’t be a hypocrite,” she explained. “Why do you think everyone thinks you two are together?”
“Hm… Because we have some incredibly noisy friends that like to say those kind of stuff,” the Brazilian girl replied in provocation, but her best friend wasn’t having any of it.
“We can see the way you look at each other,” Let said with a roll of eyes. “Don’t deny it, you like him.”
“Of course I do. As my best friend!” Ananda insisted.
“Ok,” Let sighed, a thought running through her head. If Ananda wasn’t going to admit willingly, she was going to force it out of her. “So you’re telling me you don’t mind he’s out now, having a good time, checking girls out and being checked out?”
Ananda felt something changing inside of her, a slight turn in her chest as she thought about it. There was nothing wrong with Dylan being out and checking girls out, right? He was single, he was free. “Of course not,” she said with certainty.
“You don’t mind that there might be a girl eyeing him up and down and thinking ‘that’s some fine ass’ because it is?” Let pressed.
She could almost picture it. Some girl watching him from the other side of the pub, a low cut dress showing more than it should, her luscious lips adorned in a red lipstick, her pearly white teeth showing as she smiled down at Dylan maliciously.
“Nope,” she mumbled.
“And you don’t mind if she walks up to him, with a smile on her lips, and her hands start to trace his shoulders and arms, going dangerously lower?”
She was walking to him now, more like strutting, making the whole distance between them her runway, her eyes set on him. And he couldn’t take his eyes off of her, too entranced on the beautiful girl in front of him, with her long legs and tall figure, her feet graciously balancing themselves on stupidly high heels, her hair waving back her shoulders. She finally reached him, her hands slowly touching his shoulders as she leaned forward, giving more view of her cleavage, whispering something on his ear, his eyes changing to a dark color as he listened to it, hands grasping her waist.
But it was all in her head and yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was going on as the two girls spoke, Ananda’s hands slightly shaking from what she was feeling.
“No,” she said through gritted teeth, her hands balling up in fists trying to contain the sudden urge of punching someone that had overwhelmed her.
“Then it’s fine by me,” Let finally let go, a smirk on her lips as she watched the expression on her friend’s face change from soft to a scowl.
But it was already too late. The imagine was burning into the girl’s mind and she was fighting every instinct inside of her, every fiber of her screaming at her for changing into something more suitable and going after him. But why would she? She thought in a moment of lucidity. He could be with anyone he wanted and she was only his friend, nothing else.
And it was at that very moment that Ananda realized that maybe, just maybe, she needed him more than she thought she did.
However, things weren’t going exactly as the girl had pictured it as Dylan was being dragged out of the bar by his friends with a black eye, a cut on his lips and his knuckles bruised, not to mention the little blood that had found its way to his shirt.
It all had happened way too fast for his liking and when he realized it, he was already at the table next to the bar, his fists flying to the guy’s nose, cutting his story short as he bragged about everything he had done. Dylan had aimed to hit it so hard he hoped it was broken, and by the amount of blood that oozed out of the guy’s nose, he was sure he had done his job perfectly, making him grin to himself. He had wanted to do that ever since he met the guy, years ago.
The poor bastard - not so poor but a bastard nonetheless - was Logan Hersey, a football player back in college that Dylan had the displeasure of meeting after he started dating Ananda. It was hate at first sight for both of them. Logan couldn’t stand the fact that his girlfriend spent too much time around a guy that wasn’t him, always begging her to stop being friends with Dylan, which only added to the hatred the brunette guy felt for the player. For months, they were like water and wine, never really mixing but walking side by side because of the girl and Dylan couldn’t be happier when they broke up.
The guy was a total prat.
And the moment Dylan saw him walking into the pub, he knew his night was going to be ruined. It was like that guy brought grey clouds into the room every time he walked in with his obnoxious friends and the vet warned his friends as soon as they saw the group walking up to a table close to them and did their best to ignore whatever was said in the douchebag’s table - as they had called it - but one can only have enough.
“I date a girl once,” Logan said, his voice carrying over the loud music playing on the speakers, his neck craned to the side in an obvious attempt of making Dylan hear what he was talking about. He had been doing that the whole night. “She was wild,” he laughed. “Brazilians, man, I’m telling you. They do everything you tell them to.”
Dylan knew what was coming and why he was doing that. Logan had some kind of comfort on knowing that he could affect the man when talking about Ananda and he always did that when he was close. Every other time, Dylan had restrained himself because of his best friend, but this time she wasn’t there and they weren’t dating anymore. If Logan said one more thing, he was going to act.
It didn’t take longer than five minutes. Logan was already laughing and bragging about his sexual encounters with the girl once again, his eyes moving to the group of men behind him every now and then, making sure they were listening to everything he was saying.
“Maybe you should have a little more respect,” he heard from behind him, a firm hand clasping on his shoulder rather forcefully, but didn’t back down.
“Oh?” he smirked at Dylan, his head tilting back and looking at the man from upside down. “O’Brien, man, didn’t see you there,” Logan laughed. “It’s been a while.”
Dylan squinted his eyes, choosing not to enter whatever game the other man was playing and said nothing.
“Oh, come on. You can’t be mad at me after all these years,” Logan chuckled. “You can’t get over the fact that the girl chose me over you?”
“I wasn’t aware there was a competition,” Dylan limited himself to say, his face still pulled in a frown.
“Oh, but you see,” Logan smiled and turned in his seat, his front now facing Dylan. “There was a small thing I like to call ‘Win yourself a girl’ and you lost, my friend,” he finished dramatically, his army of friends laughing along adding fuel to the burning hatred Dylan was boiling inside of him. “You can’t be mad at me for scoring the slut, O’Brien. I was going to play dirty to get that hot ass.”
And that was when Dylan felt himself pulling back his arm only to slam it back against Logan’s nose, his fist curled up in a ball, blood oozing out of the other guy and splattering against his shirt. What followed next was a ruckus of chairs being scrapped against the floor and bodies getting up, trying to understand what was going on.
Logan, from the floor, held his nose with both of his hands, tears prickling in his eyes as he tried to understand where he was and what had happened.
“What the fuck?” he shouted, his voice completely muffled by his hands. “Are you fucking crazy, O’Brien? You’re this mad about some whore? You’re too butthurt she didn’t sit on your dick?”
What followed next was a blur of bodies launching at one another, Dylan hitting Logan one more time before one of his gigantic friends pulled him off, hitting him on the lips, a cut busting open almost immediately, which made Tyler and his friends dive into the mess that was going on, fists flying everywhere, occasionally hitting something or someone.
It took four of the securities men to break them apart, Dylan holding Logan’s shirt in his hands as he went for another punch, hoping to crack the asshole’s skull open, but he came into contact with nothing but air, as a big man pushed him away, yelling at both groups to get the hell out of the pub and never come back.
“Damn, Dylan,” Thomas gasped out, his British accent echoing down the empty street as he tried to calm his erratic breathing. “What the hell was that?”
But Dylan couldn’t answer anything. He was still too furious about everything he had heard, his hands still shaking from all the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He couldn’t believe he had done it. For the first time in his life, he had been in a fight and, hadn’t him been stopped, he was pretty sure he would’ve beaten the crap out of Logan. There wasn’t a hint of regret on him, the jackass deserving everything that happened to him and maybe more.
Tyler groaned at his side. “Fuck, man. Let is gonna kill me,” he said as he looked at his reflection on a shop window. His jaw was severely bruised, a big purple on his eyes and some swollen lip. That was far from the quiet night he was hoping on having.
The doorbell was ringing unceasingly, waking up not only the owners of the apartment but also some of the other people living on the same floor, much to Dylan’s annoyance. He didn’t need anyone peeking through their doors and seeing him and Tyler all bruised and looking like they had just taken the worst beat ever. They were winning the fight.
The door finally opened, the light from the living room illuminating the hallway, making the two of them presentable to a very frightened Ananda, who had taken in their appearance and closed her hand over mouth, trying to contain a loud gasp. From behind her, it was possible to see a distressed Let, her eyes widening in worry as she looked at her disheveled boyfriend and imagined what had happened.
Tyler walked into the apartment, not even waiting to be asked him, and plopped down the couch, his head resting against the back of it as he closed his eyes and took deep breaths. Dylan, on the other hand, was still waiting by the door frame, his eyes searching for Ananda’s who could only look back at him not understanding what was going on, worry flooding her system.
She took hesitant steps forwards, her hands slowly reaching out for Dylan, waiting for him to flinch. When he didn’t, she grabbed his hands and pushed him into her, her arms closing around his middle in a tight embrace, feeling his calm heartbeat against her ear.
“What happened?” she asked slowly, her head tilting back in order to give him a better look, but all she found was a lack of response from him, his eyes set on Tyler, as if telling him to keep his mouth shut. “What happened, Dylan?” When he didn’t say anything, the girl turned to Tyler, her eyes pleading for an answer.
The man sighed, looked at his girlfriend and then at his friend before shaking his head. “We had a run in with Logan and some of his friends.”
Ananda blinked a couple of times before turning to Dylan, her eyes squinted at him as he tried his best to avoid her gaze.
“Logan Hersey?” she asked, but she already knew the answer to that question. There was only one Logan that could provoke such primal instincts on Dylan. “Oh, please tell me you didn’t have a fight with Logan Hersey, Dylan.”
She looked furious and rightfully so. She had lost count of how many times she had asked him to forget about that guy and ignore everything he had to say, but, apparently, she was asking for too much.
“I can’t believe you fucking had a fight with him,” she was fuming, her arms no longer wrapped around him as she paced around the living room, looking at him as she tried to give sense to why he had acted that way. “I told you to not pay attention to anything he has to say, Dylan, that he’s an asshole and wants to get a reaction out of you, but do you fucking listen to me?” Her accent was all over the place now, becoming too thick when she was mad about something and all he could think about was how he found that beautiful. He was screwed.
“He was talking shit about you!” he shouted back, his brain finally being able to function. “I wasn’t going to let him say those things, you know?”
“Oooh,” she laughed sarcastically. “My knight in a shining armor. I don’t fucking care, Dylan! For all I care, he could say that I’m a fucking whore and I wouldn’t mind. Because I don’t mind what his friends think of me, ok? I mind about what you think of me.”
“Well, I care when people talk shit about you, Ananda. Fuck!” Dylan let out, his shoulders relaxing as he walked up to her, grabbing the girl by her arms to make her stop walking around. “I hate it when I have to hear anything bad about you. And it killed me to hear him talking about you like you were a disposable thing,” he took a deep breath, his eyes finally looking into hers. “Fuck, I care way too much about you to let anyone say those kind of things when I’m around, ok? You have a problem with it? Deal with it, because I won’t stop caring about you or about what people say about you.”
The girl stood there, frozen on her spot, her eyes gazing the man in front of her, her thoughts way too confused to think of anything else to say. Of course he would care, he was his best friend, but there was something else lingering between them and she could feel it. She could see it in the way his chest was raising and falling as his breath came out in large puffs of air, the way he was holding her down and looking at her, almost begging for her to understand his reasoning. It was more than what she had bargained for. It went completely beyond their friendship, the platonical feelings they had for each other. Those were long gone now and there was only this vibrant new feeling between them; stronger, burning hotter than ever before.
What broke them apart was Tyler coughing from the couch, reminding them that they weren’t alone. It was possible to see Let rolling her eyes at him before grasping his hands and pushing him down the hall leading to the rooms, annoyance written all over her face as she tried her best to not hit him on the head.
Ananda sighed, her eyes casting down, seeing the bruised knuckles on Dylan’s hand, slowly reaching for them and softly tracing the outline of the wounded skin.
“Does this hurt when I touch it?” she mumbled.
“Just a little bit,” he said with a small chuckle, trying his best to not make a face and betray his words.
“Liar,” she smiled. “I’d hate to see the other guy.”
“Oh, he ended up looking horrible,” he laughed and shrugged, his eyes falling on hers once more.
“Come on,” she tugged on his right hand. “I need to clean your knuckles and cut lip.”
The way to the kitchen was short, but they never let go of each other, not even when Ananda had to open the refrigerator to grab a package of frozen carrots so Dylan could put it on his black eye, or when she had to reach for the top shelf in the cabinet, where she stored the first-aid kit. It caused a little trouble, but neither of them thought about disconnecting their fingers.
“It’s gonna sting,” she said after a while, turning to him with a piece of cotton soaked in antiseptic, right after cleaning the cuts with distilled water. “But you’re gonna be fine.”
The first reaction he had was to close his eyes and wait for the contact that was to come, internally flinching at the pain that was to come. He had done that countless times to a huge variety of animals that came into the clinic, but never had it done to himself, at least not when he was a grown up and after a fight. But he soon learned that he didn’t have to worry about it. Ananda’s touch was so gentle, almost like a caress and the small stinging sensation on his lips was nothing he couldn’t endure.
Almost as soon as it started, it was over. Dylan opened his eyes and came in contact with a void, his good eye trying to find the girl that was in front of him not even a second before, only to find her throwing away everything she had used on him.
“Thank you,” he whispered. He didn’t know why he had, but the atmosphere around them seemed so peaceful that he didn’t want to disrupt it.
“Thank you for defending my honour,” she smiled poking his cheek slowly, making sure she didn’t hit his cut lip or his eye.
“I would do that anytime.”
And maybe it was the calm air around them, or the overwhelming feeling of doing something that pressed at his chest, but Dylan found himself leaning in to the girl, his eyes holding her stare, trying to find any sign of reluctance on them, but when didn’t find any, he finally closed the distance between them, his lips pressing hers in a tender way, not moving as if too afraid it was just a dream and he would wake up without her.
It was Ananda who moved first, her lips slowly sliding against his in a slow kiss, her skin prickling and tingling at the sensation of his chapped lips moving against her soft ones, his hands holding her by the waist, pulling her flush against him. It was all a new feeling, something neither of them had ever felt, not even with the shy kiss they had shared in the laundry room.
Her arms wrapped around his neck, her hands running up and down his hair, something she had always wanted to do, involuntarily pushing him harder against her, their lips pressing with more force, making Dylan whimper and pull back.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she bit her lower lip, her eyes scanning his face for any indication of pain.
“It’s fine,” he chuckled and pecked her lips one more time. “But maybe we should lay back on the harsh kisses.”
She smiled, her eyes cast down, her cheeks in a pink hue as she thought about his words. It meant there was more to come, it meant he wanted more from her.
“So where does that leave us?” she mumbled, a bit scared of knowing what his answer was going to be.
“Where do you want it to?” he asked back, his eyes sparkling in the flourescent light of the kitchen, but there was something else too. Hope. “Because I’m right where you are, baby.”
Ananda decided she liked the way the pet name rolled off his tongue and reached her ears. She liked being called that and the fact that he was the one to call her that.
“Are you sure you want this to happen?” she asked cautiously, a glint of mischief on her eyes. “I mean, the World Cup is almost upon us and you know how crazy I get over football.”
“First,” Dylan chuckled. “It’s soccer. Second, I think I can handle you being a little crazy.”
“It’s football because you play it with your feet,” she sassed. “Take it from the girl who comes from the country with 5 titles,” she winked.
The past two hours had been a rollercoaster of emotions, with people screaming at the TV, offenses thrown at the ref and popcorn flying everywhere. Ananda had her head pressed against Dylan’s chest, her eyes closing every now and then, too perplexed with everything going on, too saddened to see her beloved team struggle. It wasn’t what she imagined that would happen and she wanted to just curl up in a ball and cry her eyes out.
“Do something, Dyl!” she mumbled against his yellow jersey, the five green stars taunting her mockingly.
“What do you want me to do, babe?” he murmured back, his hands stroking her back and caressing her head.
“Get on the field, do something!”
Dylan could only shield her eyes from the TV, shaking his head at her as he tried to think of ways to cheer her up. He had seen her upset over a game, yes. Mad and pissed off too, but never this sad. It was like the other team was a horde of Dementors sucking her soul away and all the happiness the bubbly girl once had.
And then the ref blew the whistle and the air around everyone stopped, no sound coming out of anyone, except for the TV, loud cheers coming from it, but it was the wrong color celebrating.
A wave of red chanted at the top of their lungs, their screams only meaning they had done the unthinkable: they had beat the odds and smashed the team that was seen as the favorite one, crushing the dreams on 200 million people, Ananda included.
All eyes turned to her, hers glued to a point behind the TV set, her frame frozen on the spot, her face stuck on a horror expression. It couldn’t be possible. She was having a nightmare and she was going to wake up any minute now, at the comfort of her own bed without her hopes being left down, because it just couldn’t be.
The girl felt everyone looking at her, their breaths held as they waited for her to say anything, an outburst of any kind, but they only met a complete void, she was just petrified. It was like all her blood had turned cold and her mind buzzed, replaying all the last two hours of her life.
And it was then that the tears came; all at the same time, leaving her eyes like a waterfall glistening under the sunlight, cascading down her face and washing away all the yellow and green makeup she was wearing, her hand reaching her mouth trying to contain the sobs that threatened to come out of her. Her whole body was shaking, fighting back the urge of shamelessly crying in front of all her friends over something as silly as soccer.
Only it wasn’t just that to her. It was a long desired wish, something she wanted so bad to happen, to claim as her own, but now it was out of their reach. Once more, Brazil’s national team had disappointed her and it seemed unfair, because this year they were playing way better than in 2014 and they couldn’t reach as far as they had before. And everything sucked.
She felt herself being pulled against her boyfriend, her face hidden in the jersey she had bought for him, her makeup smearing on the fabric, not a care given as he cradled her in his arms and whispered sweet nothings into her ear, trying his best to make her forget all about it.
Slowly, everyone seemed to vanish, their steps echoing around the small apartment, some even walking out of the place and into their own houses until there was only Ananda and Dylan in the once packed living room, the TV turned off, flags and horns abandoned serving as a reminder of what happened not even 15 minutes before.
“This is so ridiculous,” she mumbled, her hands running over her eyes, wiping away the tears and glitter on her face. She probably looked like a mess at the moment and she cringed at the thought of anyone seeing her like this.
“Oh, come on,” Dylan smiled. “It wasn’t that bad. So you cried because your team lost. Mine wasn’t even qualified.”
“That’s because your team sucks, mozi,” she grunted, a long sigh echoing around the room as she stared ahead, thinking about all the missed opportunities of scoring a single goal and buy some more time into the competition.
“Now, we welcome you into our home and that’s how you thank us?” he poked her side, trying to sparkle a laugh out of her. “That’s not nice,” he tried one more time.
She looked at him and laughed a little bit, but a small tear rolled from her left eye, stopping on her cheek as Dylan reached out and wiped it, holding her face in a sweet way.
“I’m sorry, babe,” he said sincerely. “You know that if I could, I would do something, right?”
Ananda smiled at him and nodded. He had been nothing but supportive of her during that half of a month, not caring if she was a little over the top or when she started to curse in Portuguese at everything. Soccer brought her ugly side and she knew that, she was just glad he didn’t mind it.
“You’re the best, you know that?”
“Me?” he scrunched up his face in doubt, holding back a smile when she poked his face.
“Yeah, you,” she laughed.
“That’s because you make me want to be the best.”
And that was nothing but the truth. While they were just getting started on that relationship, there was nothing they wanted more than to be the best versions of themselves for the other. Much more than when they were friends, and much more each new day.
They had, unknowingly, been reaching for that ever since her birthday when they first overstepped the boundaries of friendship and turned it into something else. Because, suddenly, they weren’t just friends who knew everything about each other. Suddenly they were something else, something that craved more and more of each other each day and while it scared them, making them - mostly Ananda - put barriers between their new found feelings and what was to come, it also made them realize that they were never just friends. They could never be just friends.
And it was in the light of the sun streaming through the window on that very sad yet very happy day, that they finally saw how much they meant to each other and how much they had missed all those years.
Forever tag: @disbestiles, @malia--stilinski, @darlinganthony
