Free That Girl is Mine - Part Two by Eve Cates Page A

and I swear he’s shaking.
    But, that could just be me.
    “Fuck,” Dylan growls, looking pissed off at himself, or me, or both of us and the world at large. “Fuck!” He punches the steering wheel and drops his face into his hands. “I don’t want this, Rusty. I never wanted this. You were supposed to be an annoyance. You were supposed to move in, act like a typical girl and piss me off so I’d be glad to see the back of you. You weren’t supposed to be this…this…” He stops talking and shakes his head. “Fuck!”
    He turns off the car and gets out, pulling at his hair as he mumbles to himself, and rubs at his tattooed undercut as he heads back into the house.
    I take a moment to let the gravity of the situation roll over me, and my stomach twists and turns, while my chest tightens, crushing my windpipe. “Oh god,” I gasp, feeling horrible for feeling so wonderful when I shouldn’t be feeling around Dylan at all.
    What are we supposed to do? I’m with Josh, and this feeling – the intensity of it…it isn’t normal. Tears begin to pour out of my eyes. I can’t stop them, and I sit in his car for a long time, and I cry.
    When I finally head back into the house, I find Dylan pacing the floor. His hair is sticking up all over the place, and he stops when he hears the door close and turns to me, his expression stricken.
    “We can’t tell Josh,” he says in a rush. “Not…not until we know what this is.” He moves his hand, indicting the space between us. It’s filled with electricity, as if when he kissed me, he flipped a switch, and now it’s crackling through the air.
    “I don’t want to sneak around behind his back, Dylan. I don’t know what to do here.”
    “I’m not asking you to, Rusty. Just…just don't tell him. Not yet. Let's…let's just give this some time, and if it doesn't go away then we'll tell him. Then we'll face up to what this means.”
    I nod and take a deep breath before I fold my arms across my chest and meet his eyes. “OK. I won’t say anything yet. At least not until I get this straight in my head. I don’t want to lead him on, and I don’t want to lead you on either. But right now, I have no idea how I feel about either one of you. I need to work it out, and we need to just… just be normal while we do that.”
    He holds out his hands in question. “How am I supposed to act normal around you now?”
    I close my eyes as my tears well again. “I don’t know, OK? I’m just so confused about all this, and the only thing I know for sure is that I need you here.” I hold my hands out, palms facing the floor, as if the sheer power of my will can keep him rooted to the spot. “Please. Just stay, and we’ll work this out. We’ll figure out what’s going on between us, and then we’ll work out what to do. And…and then we’ll tell Josh. We’ll make this right.”
    Dylan nods, his expression concerned, apologetic and pained. This isn’t easy for him either.

    ***

Dylan
    No matter how this ends, I feel as though we’re all going to lose. There is no way to make this end well. There’s no way to come out on top. There is no way to come out of this and feel good. I will either lose my oldest friend, or I will lose the only girl I’ve ever felt something for. Or I’ll lose both, and be the empty shell I was before…
    Without realizing it, I guess I’ve always wanted a girl like Avery. It just sucks that she belongs to Josh. It sucks that I didn’t meet her first. It sucks that I’m going to have to destroy my friendship to have her. It sucks that fate brought her to my doorstep on the arm of another man.
    It just fucking sucks.
    Although, the thing I can’t get my head around is why Avery? What is it about her that makes me feel like I’ve lost my mind, and I might die if I don’t reach out and touch her? I have this urge to claim her, to protect her, and to just be with her. Every time something happens in my life, she’s the first person I think about