Page 31 of Enough Isn’t Everything (Everything Trilogy #1)

Chapter Twenty-Two

BEING A FRIEND

Max pleaded, “Come on, Saffy. Lily and I are consenting adults. I mean it’s not as if I tied her down or anything, although…” He smirked, then continued, “anyway, I don’t think I took advantage of her, do you think I did, Lily?”

I eventually found my voice. “Not at all. I am more than happy with what happened.”

Will’s “I bet,” fell out before he was conscious of it, his thinking voice falling out of his mouth.

Saffy turned and batted him on the chest, then snapped at him. “Shut the fuck up, Will.” Will shuffled his feet, biting his lip, and it was my turn to smirk.

Will cleared his throat and tried to stick up for himself after she’d chastised him. “I think you need to calm down, it’s not like it’s the end of the world or anything.”

She snapped her head back in his direction now, giving him a scowling look, but Will became braver.

“The thing is, I don’t think you’ve a right to get on your high horse when we were at it all night.

What’s good for the goose…” Max growled at Will, who had just admitted to having sex with his sister.

I giggled at Will’s attempt to make it better, instead he’d made it worse by putting himself further in the firing line. It was becoming so ridiculous. What we had done was a natural adult activity by consenting adults. The way Saffy was behaving was like someone had committed a major crime.

Holding my hands up, I couldn’t keep my face straight because the situation was becoming so absurd.

“Will you all stop this?” Another fit of giggles threatened and I tried to compose myself.

Turning this back on Saffy, I asked, “If you hadn’t gone with Will, would Max and I have happened last night? Highly unlikely, I think.”

I rolled my eyes and glanced at Max’s smirking face.

“Do I think we would have had sex some other time? I think so if the circumstances arose. Max and I have always had a kind of ‘thing’ about each other. We’re just old enough to see where it takes us now.

We enjoyed spending time with each other and know that if it doesn’t go anywhere, we’ll still love each other because of our history. ”

Max rubbed her back and pulled her in for a bear hug, kissing her forehead. “You’ll get used to it, Saffy. We won’t be in your face with this, but we don’t want to stop.” Saffy struggled to hold her gaze to me.

“Please, Saffy, be okay about it.”

She sighed. “I don’t ever want to lose you because of a bad relationship with my brother, and I don’t want you not to have a relationship with Max if it makes you both happy either.” She sniffed.

“We’re very cool with what happened and just going to see where it takes us. Nothing’s changed.” I hugged her affectionately.

“True, Lily, nothing has changed, except we had some incredible orgasms,” Max muttered, earning him a glare from Saffy.

I threw Max a murderous look, and his sister slapped him hard on the arm. “That’s way too much information, Max! TMI.”

Will raised an eyebrow at me, and I couldn’t help but think that someday this conversation would be used to get his own back for the prank I pulled on him about his sex life. He winked and grinned at me.

“What’s the female version of a stud?” he asked, teasing me before chuckling again. I had been doing excellently, but now that the focus was more about the sex, I blushed again.

Max and I continued to have a great time together in the following few days. When Sunday arrived, it came too quickly for the both of us. We lay tangled in each other, him holding me tightly, stroking my arm, after a tender lovemaking session.

We had stayed awake all night talking, not wanting to waste time sleeping when we could share it with each other, enjoying the darkness, and watching the daylight creep in.

When I drove him to the airport, we stood holding each other and stared ahead at the security desk that would take him airside. My stomach sank when his flight was called.

We had a torturous parting, with Max coming back to kiss me deeply twice, pained about leaving me, while I was trying to be strong and not cry.

Biting my lip, I stood watching him until Max told me to stop or he’d drag me to a bathroom for another farewell session. Looking up at him, with tears welling in my eyes, I stretched up on tiptoe to peck his cheek.

Max kissed my nose one last time, and I watched him looking back at me. He looked as torn as I felt. He cleared security and disappeared out of sight. I sighed and a single tear ran down my face. My heart squeezed when I could no longer see him.

Driving back, the radio was full of music that did nothing to lighten my mood. It was dark by the time I arrived home, and the apartment was empty.

I was thankful for that at least, I didn’t feel like talking and went for a hot bath, filling the tub with bubbles. The smell of the bath oil was intoxicating but it didn’t make me feel any better.

Saffy was staying with Will again, and Holly was working. I hadn’t seen her in days. I crawled into bed and tried to do some homework for college, but my mind was still with Max. My cell buzzed in my purse, and I leaned out of bed to reach for it, almost toppling out of it.

Max: Lying here, remembering your sweet face.

Lily: Me too, yours I mean; not that your face is sweet… it’s handsome.

Max: You like what you see, huh?

Lily: Nah, honestly… you’re a troll.

Max: LMAO. My time with you was wonderful, Lily, thank you.

Lily: I had a great time… it sucks we didn’t have more of it.

Max: True, but I will try to repeat. I don’t want you to sit waiting for me though.

Lily: You mean I should see other people? Not sure we’re on the same page with that.

Max: If we don’t put boundaries in place, then we’re less likely to get hurt if one of us isn’t strong.

Lily : Hmm… I guess… Night Max x

Max: Sweet dreams, mwah x

Max’s text made me feel uneasy. It was almost like been there done that, but you don’t have enough to hold my attention. It was a complete contrast to what he was saying when he was here.

He told me he really wanted to try to have something between us, that it was only the distance that made him hesitant. His texts didn’t read that way at all. I made a note that the next time we spoke, I would need to clear this up with him.

Exhausted by the time I finished texting, I realized I hadn’t had much sleep this weekend. Clutching my cell phone in my hand, I turned it over and over, then placed it under my pillow and snuggled down to sleep. When I woke it was buzzing against my cheek. It was 7a.m.

Will: Meet me at 8:15 I’ve snagged a recording booth for two hours.

Lily: Sleepy, can we do 8:30a.m.?

Will: Nope, see you at 8:15a.m. Aren’t you energized from your ‘fitness regimen’ this weekend?

Rolling my eyes, I stretched out, groaning. It was easy to see that Will was going to milk my situation for his own amusement. He was going to give me as much shit as possible over his observations of what went down with Saffy, Max, and I.

I stepped into the shower, the temperature only tepid, so I didn’t linger. Once I’d had a quick scrub in all the important places, I threw on some cropped jeans and a crisp white Ralph Lauren crew neck T-shirt.

Placing a small red, wooden beaded necklace around my neck, I let it hang down in front, taking the plain look away from my outfit. Then I began to gather my stuff to leave for campus. Holly arrived home from her night shift and looked gray with tiredness. I felt so bad for her doing night work.

Hugging her, I picked up my guitar and rucksack, and shoved some toast in my mouth as I ran out of the door. Will squeezed me tight when I arrived at the parking lot at college.

We settled in the recording booth and got straight to work on an arrangement he had put together the night before. He asked about yesterday with Max, and I mentioned his strange comment in the text he sent me.

Will sighed. “Sorry, Lily.” He looked awkward.

“For what?” I asked confused.

Will exhaled. “Max.” I sighed sadly thinking he meant about Max having to go.

“Well, we like each other Will, but the distance and where we are in our lives right now…” I hesitated, “we’ll see how it goes.”

By the dejected look on Will’s face, I realized that wasn’t what he meant. Will moved some gravel around under his foot. His eyes flicked to mine, and he exhaled heavily again before he spoke.

“So you’re still going to do the long distance relationship thing with him? Try to keep this thing going?” I nodded and gave him a weak smile, because after Max’s text I wasn’t confident it would work.

“Well, yeah, that’s the idea… that’s what he said. He’s going to try to be here once a month.” Will’s brows bunched together, and he shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

“What’s the matter with you, Will?” He pursed his lips into his mouth and shook his head but didn’t give me eye contact.

He rubbed his eyes with one hand. “Nothing.” The defeated way he said it told me it wasn’t.

Searching his face, I knew there was more to this than he was telling me. “Will, I think I know you better than this by now, come on out with it.”

Will exhaled loudly. “Aw, well, shit! Lily.”

I waited, but when he didn’t say anything, I asked quietly, “Did you and Saffy break up?”

Taking my hand in his, Will looked serious. “No.” He inhaled sharply, shook his head vigorously, before his voice took on a much softer tone. “No, it’s nothing like that.” He let out a shaky breath attempting to control it.

Will chewed his lip and huffed, still struggling to look at me. Eventually, his eyes met mine and held my gaze. I’ll never forget the look of pain in them.

“Well, what is it? You’re scaring me, Will.” He stroked my hand, then my cheek.

“Lily… in the time I’ve known you…” He took a deep breath.

“Okay, just spit it out,” I snipped. “My nerves can’t take any more of this shit, Will.” His eyes fell to the floor.

“If I tell you, Lily, I don’t want it to affect our relationship, or yours with Saffy.” His eyes looked dull and concerned. I knew whatever he had to say wasn’t good. I watched his body language prepare to tell me something that he knew I didn’t want to hear.

“Will, whatever it is, you can’t keep it to yourself now. I promise to try to keep our relationship as it is, you and Saffy are like family to me now, so I figure that whatever it is, we’ll weather it.”

Breathing deeply, Will grimaced and I felt angst roll of him. The atmosphere between us was very tense. “You sure you want to hear this?” he asked, giving me a sideways glance.

“Just tell me.” I was getting really annoyed now.

“Okay, here goes nothing.” He sighed. “On Saturday night, when we were at dinner, and I went to the bathroom, do you remember that?” I nodded. Will struggled with his thoughts then continued, “Okay, well, Max… he was on his cell… in the hallway I mean.”

Waiting for him to reply, I held my breath.

“He was talking to a female saying, something like ‘it’s been a pain to be away from you, I won’t be long until I’m home now, Kelly.

I can’t wait to see you tomorrow’. I thought I’d heard him wrong, then he said, ‘I’ve missed you too, babe’.

I was going to confront him, but then he said, ‘Okay, we’ll get some time and meet with them, talk soon’ and hung up.

” I had felt there was something that Max avoided, nothing I could put my finger on, but it made perfect sense when Will told me what he knew.

Max was reluctant for me to visit him in Nashville when I tried to pin him down with a date during one of our conversations at the airport. How stupid am I? Of course Max would have a girl. Which meant he’d cheated on her with me. I felt devastated that he could betray me like that.

Will enveloped me in his strong arms and squeezed me, resting his head against mine for a moment, before letting me go.

“Lily, I know I’m not wrong. I’m a guy, and from how he was speaking to her…

I don’t think it was just a friend. Kelly’s his girl.

” Will looked terrible at having to tell me this, and I could see he cared about me.

I felt that the last thing he wanted was to hurt me.

“There was something else. He was texting a few times on Friday to someone when we were on the boat, and he was smiling kind of wistfully when he was reading the replies. You were looking at your phone. Were you texting with him?” I shook my head.

“I thought he was texting with you, but when you stopped and he kept going, I kind of realized he wasn’t texting with you at all. ”

Twisting his lips, Will worked a swallow.

“When my hat blew off on the boat and landed on his lap, I leaned in to take it back, and I think he thought I’d seen one of the texts.

He winked at me and switched his phone off, before I could ask him what’s up, he shoved it in his pocket. He looked guilty about something.”

Will gave me an awkward smile. “I thought, what the fuck are you doing winking at me, dude? It felt strange at the time, but after overhearing his call I sort of put two and two together.” Will looked uneasy and gave me a half smile.

“He’s good though. I’ll give him that, how he was all attentive and shit toward you. That was the only thing that made me decide not to tell you sooner.” I quickly wiped a tear that was rolling down my face. How could he do that to me, we had been friends.

Will saw how the news was affecting me and pulled me back into his chest in a bear hug.

He rubbed my back, and I sobbed into him.

Will stood silently holding me, he’d said enough.

I pushed away from him, but he pulled me back and held me tightly.

Will’s soft voice vibrated in his chest. “Sorry, honey, it really is better you find out now than later, huh?” Then he kissed my head again.

I straightened upright and stepped away from him. “I need to go home, Will. I can’t do today now.” I stared up at him. Tears streamed down my face. I felt stupid, ridiculous, and ashamed that I had let someone else take advantage of me.

“You look fragile. Don’t argue, I’m coming with you.

” He gave me a half smile. “There’s no way I’m letting you get behind the wheel of a car in this state.

” As we walked to his car, he pulled me into him again.

Occasionally, he looked at me and wiped his thumb over my cheeks in an effort to stop my tears.

I felt I just wanted to go home to the UK. I had got everything wrong here. I’d made so many mistakes and now seeing Saffy or bumping into Alfie would leave me with constant reminders of what a stupid fuck-up of a girl I was.