Free Love Edy by Shewanda Pugh

Right?
    Hassan contorted so that he reached the lamp
on the nightstand, his arm still around her.
    Steady, even breathing met her alongside the
rise and fall of his chest. The arm that held her grew heavy,
then—
    “Do you like him?” Hassan said.
    Edy waded in confusion, attempting to
extricate a “him” from her mind. She didn't want to talk about
“hims;” she wanted to bury her face in the crook of Hassan’s neck
and drown in his embrace. She didn't know any other hims.
    “Edy? The twins think you like him. Lawrence
doesn't though.”
    The boy she wanted lay in bed beside her,
lean and hard bodied, stripped down to his boxers, content to spend
their time talking about the next guy.
    “Never mind,” Hassan said.
    You think?
    But he did mind, judging by the hard,
guarded grip he held her in. Neither of them could sleep like that,
but Edy said nothing.
    He'd been trained for this, she told
herself, this fierce protectiveness, that wasn't just his but the
Dyson brothers’ too.
    Like siblings, was what she told herself as
his grip loosened. Family, she insisted to her thudding heart. But
she was aware of him in a way she never had been before and beat
back the heat that came with that knowledge.
    “I'm still me,” he whispered in her ear,
curling awareness through her in sharp tendrils. “And we’re still
us. Right?”
    Edy nodded and felt his lips brush her ear.
It was the closest she’d ever felt to a boy, and yet identical to
so many of their moments. If only she could convince her
stomach.
    He exhaled. Only then did Edy realize he’d
been waiting on her answer.
    “I haven’t done anything,” he whispered as
if the walls might hear.
    But she’d seen him, seen him go upstairs
with Aimee. She’d seen their fingers laced, too.
    Hassan meant it though. Lies didn’t pass
between them. And he was obviously still waiting on his answer
about Wyatt.
    “He’s nice.” Edy said. “But Wyatt’s a
friend. Same as a girl would be.”
    “Mhm,” he said and pulled her in.
    They’d snuggled up body to body with her
face in the crook of his neck. She drew close, lured by his scent
and floating on some bare petal of sweetness, gliding until her
lips brushed his neck.
    Until her lips brushed his neck. Oh God.
She’d kissed him. Edy drew back in eye gaping, mouth gaping,
nostril gaping horror, breath held and waiting for the fallout.
What had she been thinking?
    Seconds later, she heard the snores.
    Relief disguised itself as sorrow, and
briefly, she thought about waking him. But for what? To tell him
that she’d kissed him and he’d been too asleep to notice? Those
words would never leave her mouth. Better to take heaven’s gift of
a narrow escape and run with it.
    Edy adjusted to face him better in the dark.
She traced the lines of his face and the shape of his mouth with
her gaze. He’d slipped into stunning overnight, sifting and
shifting so that old features were only hinted at, memories of
times past.
    This would never be easy for her. Not so
long as her best friend took on beauty in effortless strides, or
drowned in talent and a willing pool of girls. They’d grow older
and further apart as time and tradition weighed in heavy, as the
truth of him never being meant for her found its way to them both
at last. And like always, parts of her withered at the idea of
relinquishing him eventually.
    Edy woke with a draft cooling her side. She
opened her eyes to the sight of Hassan pulling on last night's
crumpled clothes.
    “See you in five.” He bolted for the window,
doubled back to plant a smack on her forehead, and escaped the
usual way.
    Edy's bedroom door rattled.
    “Edith Phelps! You unlock this door,” her
mother shrieked. “The Dyson boys have been honking for you—”
    Honking for her? Edy shot a look at her
bedside clock and scrambled to her feet. She should have been
halfway to school already.
    “Eight o'clock,” Mason said and cursed under
his breath. “Any reason both of you are late as