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Chase, but he was focused
on crossing the street to get to the truck and not getting pressed like
roadkill.
    She knew she had to say something. Anne couldn’t lose him
because they’d gotten carried away during a dance.
    “Chase—” Anne began carefully when they’d reached the truck.
    “It was just a dance.” He cut her off but his tone was
casual. His actions didn’t match his words. He’d backed her up against the
truck and the only space between them was a single breath. “What’s a little
orgasm between friends?” He twisted her words and threw them back at her.
    “I don’t know!” she cried, betraying every fear that lurked
inside her.
    “It doesn’t have to be anything. Nothing has to change. It
happened. So what? Do you remember Jennifer Eisler’s party in seventh grade?”
    She’d kissed him in the closet for their Seven in Heaven.
Anne had been thinking about that earlier, but the first inexperienced touches
of a boy had nothing to do with the man he’d become. “Yes. I remember.”
    “And did it change us?” he whispered.
    “No, but we didn’t want it to,” she answered.
    “You want us to change?” He sounded surprised.
    “I don’t know. God, I can’t think when you’re this close to
me.” She pushed at his shoulders but he didn’t move back.
    “It’s a simple question, Annie. What do you want? Be honest
with me, and yourself.”
    “Honest? Fine. I’ll give you honest. Dreamed Desire. There’s
honest for you.”
    Damn, why had she said that? She couldn’t answer the
question so she’d turned it around on him. Anne knew she wasn’t being fair.
    He raised a brow and waited for her to continue, but she had
nothing else to say. Chase straightened. “You want me to be ashamed or to
apologize? I won’t. It’s paying for med school and the house where we both lay
our heads at night.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me if you’re not ashamed?” she
demanded.
    “So we could end up doing this?”
    “Stop answering my questions with more questions!”
    “Stop asking questions that beget more questions.” His lip
curled in a half grin.
    Now they were back in comfortable territory, a place they
were both familiar with—and somehow that was more devastating than any of the
rest of it.
    “Chase, you’re my best friend.”
    “And that stops because I made you feel good?” Chase
narrowed his eyes at her as if she were a strange sort of bug.
    When he put it that way, it didn’t make any sense. He always
did that. She knew what she wanted to say, had a killer argument all laid out
in her head, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he had a way of
oversimplifying that made everything she’d decided obsolete.
    But she hadn’t been arguing with him for fifteen years to
lose so easily. “No, making me ‘feel good’ doesn’t mean we won’t be friends
anymore. It’s when you want to make someone else besides me feel good,
as you put it.”
    “Well, that’s just selfish. You want to keep all the feeling
good to yourself,” he teased.
    “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He obviously had
none of the same concerns she did. It was just as well, she told herself for
the millionth time. She turned and got in the truck. He stood there for a
moment before going to the driver’s side.
    “Annie—” he began.
    “Hey, no big deal, right? It was only a dance.”
    “It’s a big deal now.” Even though he didn’t say it, she
could still hear the damn it hanging on the end of the sentence.
    “No, it’s not. I won’t bring it up again. Let’s forget it
happened.” The words felt hollow on her tongue and the lie turned to ash in her
throat.
    “If that’s what you want.” He started the truck and pulled
out of the parking lot.
    It wasn’t what she wanted. Why did he keep asking what she
wanted? What about him? What did he want? Anne wanted to ask him all of
those things but instead of speaking, she rode in silence.
    They drove for a while before he spoke again.