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“It’s not like that.” It feels like at least the fourth or fifth time he’s said as much since he first casually mentioned that Cadence would be coming to visit this weekend, much to the delight of his friends. “We’ve been best friends our whole lives. That’s it.”
“Sure,” Angelica grins, looking just about as far from angelic as any one person can get. “If you say so.”
Devon takes a less patronizing approach. She shrugs, not looking up from where she’s filing her nails. “I don’t buy it. You don’t go through puberty with someone without having at least a little sexual tension with them.”
“Oh my God,” Shane groans, “Will you guys stop? We’ve never – I don’t – we’re just friends.”
Evan, his roommate, hums. “Just let me know if you need me to clear out tonight, okay? Casey said I could bunk with him.”
“If you guys don’t shut up, I swear to God –”
There’s a chorus of protests from around the table, several whispered exhalations of touchy, I see and hands being raised placatingly. He rolls his eyes, picking up his empty plate. It’s time to go pick Cadence up from the bus stop, like – now. “Just please be normal when she gets here, okay?”
“We will if you will!” Angelica calls out after him. Laughter follows him as he exits the dining hall, and he only exhales once he’s halfway to his car, shaking his head.
His college friends are far from the first group of people to assume that there’s something more than just friendship between he and Cadence. His own parents have implied a number of times that it wouldn’t be the worst thing if they got together, and that’s about a girl that’s slept over at his house more times than he can count, a girl who he went through his power rangers phase with, a girl who saw him through middle school and high school and still somehow liked him enough to call him her best friend.
He’s gotten very good at ignoring comments from people who don’t understand their relationship or even think it’s weird how close they are, so being teased by his friends doesn’t bother him as much as it makes him roll his eyes.
Shane’s used to the judgments others cast on what’s always been nothing more than a mutually supportive and wholly enjoyable friendship. Still, for some reason, it’s a little tougher to shake off this time than in the past, and he finds that some of their comments have poked at certain sore spots he didn’t even know he had.
He’s uneasy, as he ducks his head and jogs across campus.
It’s probably going to be a very long and very strange weekend.
*
True to form, Cadence is beaming when she hops off the bus, the last person to exit the doors that swing open at the campus stop. She’s looking around at everything wide-eyed, like she’s never seen a college campus before, which is hilarious, given that she’s just come from one.
But the tiny performing arts school she attends a few states away is surely at least a little bit different than their hometown state college, a giant university with nearly one-hundred thousand students in attendance.
She rushes over with her duffel and he feels himself grinning back at her as soon as she’s close enough for him to see how bright her eyes are, behind her glasses.
She really is very pretty.
Shaking his head, he folds her into the biggest hug he has, making a little oof sound when Cadence squeezes him so tightly it leaves him short of breath.
“Oh my God, hi,” she squeals into his ear, bouncing up and down on her tip-toes. “I missed you so much. It’s been forever!”
It’s been just about three months, since they said goodbye at her grandma’s house in August the night before they both had to leave to go move in. And while in some ways it feels like they were just together, especially given how they’re constantly in contact, he knows exactly what she means. It definitely also feels like it’s been way too long since he last held her exactly like this.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he murmurs in return, pulling away to reach for her bag for her. “There’s so much I want to show you.”
“I know!” Cadence exclaims, back to smiling at everything again. “I can’t wait to meet all your friends. But – come on, I’m freezing. First let me see your dorm.”
Right. His room. Where she’ll be sleeping… with him.
It wasn’t like that’d never happened before. Of course it had. You didn’t get to be lifelong best friends without squeezing into a few strange sleeping arrangements. He and Cadence had shared a bed, a couch and the same stretch of floor before without even an ounce of weirdness affecting their relationship.
So he can only assume that the reason why it feels suddenly strange, this time, is because of the way his friends had just been teasing him and how uncomfortably close to home some of their comments had landed.
Devon’s voice in particular flashes through his mind again as he does his best not to stare at Cadence and her leggings and the sweater that’s slipping off her shoulder: you don’t go through puberty with someone without having at least a little sexual tension with them.
Shaking his head to dispel the unwelcome flipping of his stomach, Shane jerks his thumbs at the far side of campus with a grin. “Right this way.”
*
Like always, he finds himself waiting around for her to finish getting ready.
They’re not due at the pregame for another hour, so he’s free to catch up with her (alone, thank god – Evan is meeting them out) while she gets her makeup on, his eyes lingering on the precise movement of her dainty hands applying eyeshadow while she talks a mile a minute about her bus trip earlier that day.
“– and there was this little girl making bracelets at the terminal, she was so cute. I gave her five dollars and she made me this keychain for my bag on the bus. Isn’t it so good?” She sets down her concealer to reach for the beaded lizard hanging off the edge of her duffel. “So cute, right?”
“Have you ever gone anywhere without making friends with someone?” Shane asks instead of answering, smiling fondly at her. “I swear you could hold a conversation with a brick wall.”
Cadence laughs, turning back to the tiny compact mirror balanced on her knees. Despite the less-than-ideal environment of his very bare and very poorly lit dorm room, she still looks flawless, brushing highlighter on her cheek until it’s glittering.
He realizes he’s staring again and averts his eyes guiltily. Why does he feel guilty? It’s just Cadence. Have a few simple months apart made him completely forget how to act around her?
“Well, the drive would’ve been boring without anyone to talk to,” she answers finally, “And you were in class.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t bring something to read,” he muses. There’ve been plenty of times he’s had to rip a book out of her hands so she’d pay attention to him and the movie he was trying to show her, after all.
“God, I just wanted a break from anything academic,” Cadence groans, “Midterms ruined my life. Do you feel like college is a thousand times harder than high school, or is it just me? Most of the time I thought everyone had to be exaggerating, but – I don’t know.” She fidgets on the rug, flicking her eyes up to his. “It’s not like how I thought it’d be.”
Shane holds her gaze quietly. College isn’t like how he thought it’d be, either – it’s actually a little bit better. But it’d be impossible to say so now that she’s admitted she’s struggling.
One thing is exactly like he’d imagined it, though: he misses her just as much as he’d expected to. It’s not easy at all to be so far away from his best friend.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he says finally, keeping his eyes locked on her even when Cadence turns back to her makeup to gloss her lips. “It is hard. And it’s definitely important to take those breaks. Don’t worry, we’ll get your mind off of school this weekend.”
Cadence laughs, snapping her compact shut and stuffing her makeup back into her bag. “I hope I can keep up with you guys. My school is definitely not a party school.”
“We’ll catch you up,” he promises, grinning at the thought of the evening ahead of them. He’s going to show Cadence a good time if it’s the last thing he does. And she has no idea what she’s in for. “Don’t worry.”
*
Surprisingly, everyone is perfectly nice and normal when they arrive at the pregame. His friends treat Cadence like an instant member of the group, like she’s someone they’ve known for years. They welcome her with open arms and start pouring shots down her throat like they’ve done to him so many times before completely effortlessly.
It’s what happens when they get to the party that’s troublesome.
He’s admittedly a few drinks deep when Cadence drags him onto the dance floor. He should’ve known that’d be the first place she’d want to go; all of Cadence’s shy little wallflower moments fly straight out the window whenever she’s had so much as a sip of alcohol.
It’s not his fault he doesn’t manage to stop her. Shane’s own head is swimming from the shots he’s had and he figures there’s not much harm in indulging her, but it’s only when they all crowd onto the dance floor and he sees the way his friends are looking at him that he realizes the position they’re in.
“This is awesome!” Cadence chirps, angling her head to be near his ear. Her arms loop around his neck as she swings her hips to the music. “I’ve never been to a party like this before.”
True, in high school, there were parties like this, but the two of them were never invited to them. They’d gone to prom alone together, and stayed up all night afterwards sneaking sips of alcohol at Cadence’s grandma’s while she pointedly went to bed early.
“I’m glad you’re having fun,” he calls back, shuffling awkwardly on his feet in front of her. “Do you need a water?”
“No!” Cadence’s eyes are bright in the low light of the random living room they’re in, bopping along to the beat. She bounces up and down on her feet, dragging him closer. “You need another drink.”
To say the least. He could probably stand to put some distance between them, too – get himself a moment of air. Shane nods, ducking out from the circle of her arms. “Yeah, I’ll be right back.”
He groans as he steps into the kitchen, almost turning around and heading back the way he came; Casey and Devon are standing in front of the counter. They both give him a pointed look as he slows to a stop in front of them.
“Don’t,” he mutters, suddenly feeling very warm from the drinks he’s had and absolutely nothing else.
“Dude,” Casey sighs, shaking his head at him, “You guys should probably just hook up and get it over with.”
“Okay, that is not helpful,” Shane answers, leaning around him to reach for a beer, cracking the tab on the can and taking a big swig in the hopes that it’ll calm him down. Unfortunately, his head just spins harder as soon as he swallows. “It’s not a big deal. We’re just excited to see each other.”
There’s a beat before Devon answers, eyebrows arched from behind the plastic cup in her hands. “Sure.”
Admittedly – the rest of the party is kind of a blur. There’s more drinks and more dancing, and his friends drag he and Cadence up on the roof to play some drinking game he doesn’t understand. The thing is… it’s fun, in a way he hasn’t experienced since the summer. Sure, he’s been to plenty of parties since the semester started and gone out and gotten drunk and stayed up all night, but…
Time with Cadence was a different kind of fun.
Having her around, with him at school, filled a void he hadn’t realized he was lacking until she arrived, like he’d simply grown accustomed to a new full-body ache and had only noticed it once it was suddenly removed.
It’d be impossible to pretend not to be endeared by the way she stumbles out of the party and how she hums to herself in the street on the walk home, so he doesn’t bother, slinging his arm around her shoulders to lead her back to the dorm.
While everyone else is arguing about what type of pizza to order, they slip away, and then they’re alone in his room again.
Cadence toes out of her shoes and twirls around barefoot across the rug between his and Evan’s beds on her way back to her bag. “Okay, that was so fun,” she sighs, dropping down onto the floor. “I wish I went to school here.”
“Me too,” Shane murmurs, watching her pull out her makeup wipes and tie back her hair. His eyes drift over to the twin bed sitting inconspicuously on his side of the room. When he’d invited her up here, he’d assumed they’d both just cram into it like they had so many other times before, in his twin bed at home. Now…
Now Cadence is getting changed into her pajamas with her back to him, and he coughs and does the same, averting his eyes in the dark where he’d never flicked the light on when they got back to the room.
He’s saved from having to think of something to say by the way she crawls straight into his bed and leaves the blanket flipped open for him to join her.
Maybe it’s the beer’s fault, that he gets in – or maybe he has the beer to thank for giving him the courage to get into bed with her, but either way, he does, and within moments he’s nose-to-nose with Cadence in the smallest space they’ve ever been in together, and she smiles at him in a way that’s almost unfairly beautiful, for someone who knows him as well as she does.
That’s the thing that’s so unlawful about this: she’s his best friend. She’s been by his side for every single up and down of his life, every moment he was happy or sad or angry. Cadence picked him up when he doubted himself, comforted him when he needed it, made him laugh when the world felt ugly and hopeless.
If he did something wrong now, all of that would go away.
It doesn’t stop her from staring at him, though. Cadence keeps her eyes locked on his, and smiles at him through the dark, and evidently he’s the world’s biggest idiot, so he stares back. Of course he smiles, too.
“Thank you,” she murmurs after a moment, breaking the still silence between them. “I’m glad we did this. I needed this.”
Shane swallows, resisting the urge to reach out for her. “You should’ve told me you were struggling. I would’ve had you out sooner. Or – came home, or something.”
She shakes her head. “Nah,” Cadence whispers, “I could tell you were having too much fun.”
He sighs, giving in and tucking his arm around her back. Cadence wiggles closer under the sheets until their knees are touching. “It doesn’t matter how much fun I’m having,” he reminds her, voice as serious as he’s ever heard it before, “Because you’re the most important thing in my life. Always. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
Cadence blinks at him. Her face splits into a beautiful, dazzling smile and then, quickly enough to make his head spin, she leans in and kisses him, closing the last inch of space between their faces.
His palm spreads out over her back and he tilts her in closer, kissing back slowly. Part of him knows it’s a mistake, but a larger part of him has thought about this before – too much, probably, for someone who calls himself her best friend. Part of him has imagined it a million times, in a million ways, though none of them compare to this – the real thing.
In none of his fantasies did he ever think it would feel like it does, comforting and familiar but new and exciting all at once. He’d never assumed kissing Cadence would feel as natural as breathing – but it does.
It feels like something they’ve done a thousand times before, and there’s no denying it’s something he’d like to do at least a thousand times more. His exhale is shaky when they break apart, his eyes sweeping her expression for a sign of regret on her beautiful face.
Cadence’s eyes blink open slowly, her smile reappearing as soon as they do. “Shane…” she murmurs, and something in his chest twists and then cracks wide open, a swarm of butterflies invading his stomach.
“Yeah.” This is insane. What are they doing? They shouldn’t be – he shouldn’t, really, because Cadence is his best friend and he needs her and she is…
She is asleep, suddenly, breathing even and deep with her eyes closed again. The lips he’d just been kissing are parted with a little hitch in her exhales.
He relaxes, slumping back against the mattress.
Fuck.
Is she even going to remember this in the morning?
Studying his best friend, curled in towards his chest and fast asleep without a care in the world, like the entire planet hasn’t somehow just shifted on its axis, he can only hope that she will – because he knows that tonight, and its many revelations, is going to be impossible for him to ever forget.
Not that he’d ever try to. A palm scrubs across his face, and he lays down, resting carefully on the other half of the pillow Cadence’s hair is taking up the majority of.
Well – at least they’re together on this one, Shane muses, as he stares up at the ceiling and tries to calm down enough to go to sleep.
No matter what madness tomorrow brings, at least he’ll still be sorting through it with his best friend.