Telling Tales Read Online Free

ones eluded him. As though his brain constantly wanted to put weird things in there instead, like You look really pumpkin. Just very bicycle.
    Odd, that it only makes me want to leap in there with all the casual conversation I don’t usually have, and that he resolutely cannot provide.
    “So do you—I think you’ve gotten even better looking, somehow.”
    Which is absolutely true. His mouth looks even plumper, and softer—Jesus, that lower lip like something out of Hot Blowjobs Monthly . And he’s cut his copper-hinted dark hair so that it kind of swirls all over his head and swoops over his forehead and looks much lazier than he is and oh God, why is he staring at me like that? Am I staring too long at him?
    It had seemed easier to do, at first, but now it’s getting harder.
    “I think the others might be here,” he says and then I definitely know I stared too long. He’s going to think I’m hot for him or some other nonsense thing, which is completely not the case. Even if my face feels like it’s burning and there’s this funny, tingly ache between my legs as though really ? I’m horny again ?
    Usually it’s once a month and even then I’m pushing it. So what’s going on here, exactly? Is the thought of Wade really such an aphrodisiac?
    It must be, because little weird sparks prickle the length of my spine when Cameron puts a hand on my shoulder. Like he wants to steady me as we make our way back down the hallway, like maybe he knows that my heart is hammering and my legs don’t want to keep walking—even though that’s impossible.
    Cameron never knew anything about me, least of all this.
    He doesn’t know that I can hardly bear to look Wade in the face, not even when we come to the entranceway and Kitty’s giggling her ass off, camera in hand as usual, snapping away like there’s no tomorrow. And then there’s Wade, my Wade, just standing there with his back half turned as though this is nothing at all, really.
    “Allie!” Kitty screams, and I see how easy this is for her too. I see her in slow motion, tiny arms out, charging toward me—oh, she was always the one who never let me forget she loved me, with postcards from far-flung places and ridiculous emails about swimsuits made of ham—but it’s Wade I can’t stop watching, Wade who turns in that said same slow motion while my heart tries to eat itself.
    He looks older. And then my brain kick-starts and yells at me that of course he looks older, people with masses of handsome stubble generally look older . At which point I have to process that he has masses of handsome stubble and dear God I can’t let it slide. I just can’t! It’s all over-styled and too practiced and he’s gonna get it, now. He has to.
    “Did something grow on your face ?” I ask, and oh I’m so grateful for the great chunk of incredulity in my words. I’m so grateful that it all floods back into me—the way we used to talk, like nothing could ever be serious. Nothing could ever hurt.
    And he grins that shit-eating grin of his through the great mess of hair all over his chin, as though to tell me I’m right.
    He’s still him and I’m still me. I haven’t lost him forever, my best friend in all the world.
    “There’s something on my face ?” he says, with a real and perfect slice of panic in his electric eyes, and then he just throws his arms around me. Just like that. Nothing to it. Cameron’s hand slides right off my shoulder and I’m hugging Wade as though no time has passed at all.
    Makes me wonder what I was worried about, really.
    ***
    It takes three boring conversations about jobs we all do now—Kitty models, of course, Wade mysteriously works in real estate and Cameron now does something to do with software I’ve never heard of—and around two bottles of the terrible wine Kitty found in the back of the fridge—Cameron drinks more than I remember, Wade drinks less—before we get around to stories.
    Of course, we all know it’s coming. I can