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in his arms soft and warm, and his body so used and relaxed he thought he would melt into the mattress.
    “Thanks.” Brianne’s voice startled him awake. “I really needed this tonight.”
    “Me, too.” But what happens now?
    She almost echoed his thought aloud. “What are you going to do, Eric? Josh and I are leaving. What are you going to do next?”
    “Come back here in twenty years and I’ll probably still be living in this dump with my brother.” It came out more bitter than he meant it to.
    “You don’t have to stay here, you know. You could move to a new city and try something else.”
    “So I’d end up in a different dump with a different crappy job?”
    “Or you could just keep moping like a big baby,” she said dryly.
    “Give me your dad’s credit card and maybe I’ll stop.”
    “What a whiner! I like you better when you’re silent and stoic.”
    He laughed. It was impossible to stay annoyed with her. She was too damn cute. “And I like you better when you use your mouth for something besides talking.”
    He rolled her over and kissed her, not pulling away until she was breathless and nearly speechless.
    “Talking is overrated,” she gasped. “I always thought your quietness was kind of peaceful, especially compared to...” She trailed off without speaking Josh’s name, but it hung in the air between them. “Anyway, you don’t say a lot, but when you do it’s usually worth listening to. I like that.”
    He’d had no idea she thought about him even that much. It felt good to know she cared about his opinions.
    They resumed their spoon positions, and this time when Eric fell sleep he didn’t wake until long after midnight when Brianne nudged him awake to tell him she was going home.
    “Your brother just got here,” she whispered. “He kind of creeps me out. I think he was standing there looking at us before I woke up. Yuck! See ya later.”
    “Okay. Later.”
    After she left, he felt an aching loss of her in his arms. He scooted over into the warm impression her body had left on the bed. He couldn’t go back to sleep. His brain had opened for business again, reminding him he was a rotten, disloyal, slimy, back-stabbing person. Josh had offered friendship to him when no one else had, soon after being abandoned by his mom and utterly alone in a strange world. Sure, Josh liked having a follower he could coerce into doing just about anything, but he was also a loyal friend who would never betray Eric as Eric had just done to him.
    When he closed his eyes, all he could see was Josh’s open, trusting face. If he and Brianna kept their mouths shut, Josh never had to know. The three of them would go their separate ways in the fall with no one hurt or friendships destroyed. If a tree fell in the forest and no one heard it, did it still make a sound?
    Eric fell into a doze and dreamed he was with Brianne and Josh. They were all bodiless, and mingling together in some erotic way beyond the sensuality of touch. In the dream, he strove for something just beyond his grasp. It was unsettling and so hot he woke with a boner.
    It was morning and Carl was kicking the sofa-bed and asking where his bong had got to. “Hey, thumbs up on bagging Brianne. Way to go! Didn’t know you had it in you.”
    Eric sighed and stretched. Another day of laying carpet with his stoner brother stretched ahead of him—and probably many more after that. Brianne was right, he needed to figure out some other way to spend his life.
     
    Chapter Three
    Eric swore he’d steer clear of Brianne. He’d cut this thing off before it got any worse, before they dug themselves an even deeper pit, though, could they really put the horse back in the barn?
    But when he saw her name on his phone later that day his cock grew hard and swelled even more when he heard her voice message. “Hey. What are you doing? Getting all hot and sweaty at work, I bet. You should come over to my house for a swim after. And then we could go for