Archive of Our Own

Everyone at Briar knew Garrett Graham. And everyone who knew Garrett Graham knew her–the best friend; the intimidatingly smart Art History major dating an even more intimidatingly smart Political Science guy. Jason was the only reason Garrett and her never got any dating rumours; they’ve been together since high school, have been living together off campus for a year now, and add to the fact that Garrett’s never been one to keep his exploits hidden, everybody knows their relationship is platonic with a capital P. 

He was never close with Jason–Garrett thinks he’s a pretentious douchebag who his best friend just so happens to enjoy kissing–but he never really has a problem with him, either. As long as he gets to keep the daily Saturday brunch hang outs and bi-monthly movie nights with his best friend, and as long as she doesn’t miss too many games, he’s pretty okay sharing her. Sure, the first few months their senior year of high school was a huge adjustment; he couldn’t just hold her hand in the hallways anymore, or show up to her house unannounced (he did that one time and got scarred for life) but, like all things in Garrett Graham’s life, he learned to deal with it. In a few years, he knows he’ll be standing by her side at the altar, holding her bouquet as her best man, and it’s a future he’s completely been okay with in her three-going-on-four years of dating Jason. Well, that’s what he thought, at least. 

It has been a tough week. The game that weekend had been too close, so Coach Jensen was being extra hard on them during practices. And then his philosophy paper (which he admittedly barely studied for) came back with a glaring D, and combined with the previous F’s he’s gotten, he needs at least a B in all his course work for the semester if he wants to pass the class. Garrett’s sore, his head hurts, he can’t focus enough to understand what the fuck Kierkegaard is talking about, so really it’s a respite that one of the girls Dean invited over for air hockey and beers made eyes at him when he passed by the living room on his way to the kitchen. It takes three more unsubtle glances, a raised eyebrow, and a tilt of his head, and suddenly Garrett’s week is becoming marginally better with his arms caging the girl (what’s her name again?) against his bedroom door and his mouth attached to her tits. Somewhere downstairs, his friends’ muffled voices playing video games and air hockey can still be heard, but his ears are more focused on the helpless noises coming out of his company’s mouth. 

He moves with efficient experience, tugging her jeans down her waist and unclasping her bra with a snap of his fingers. She giggles when he guides her to his bed and drops between her thighs, but the laughter quickly turns into choked moans the second he presses his tongue into her. It’s there, his head between her legs and her hands gripping his hair, that his bedroom door slams open, causing the girl to yelp and Garrett to snap his head up in shock. 

“Angel, what the fuck?” Garrett sputters at the sight of his best friend, immediately throwing his blanket to cover the naked girl on his bed and scrambling up to his feet. 

Angel–not because that’s her name, but because their first Halloween as friends when they were twelve, she had come as an angel complete with a wide-span, white feathered custom wing that sliced a jagged wound on Garrett’s bicep when she turned around and accidentally hit him with it. It turned out that she hadn’t assembled the wings correctly, and a loose wire had been the culprit. They spent two hours in the emergency room with their year coordinator because Garrett’s dad didn’t bother to drive up to their boarding school and check on him, her in her angel costume sans the wings (which she threw away violently in solidarity with him) and him in his Wolverine get up, hair gel, claws, and all. Garrett thought it was the funniest thing ever, telling her that their costumes matched after all, and had proceeded to call her Angel (from X-men, that is) for the foreseeable future. 

She seemed unbothered at having caught him with his head between a random girl’s legs, but that’s not really the most compromising position they’ve seen each other in in their over ten years of friendship. If anything, she seemed annoyed, but Garrett knows her like the back of his hand, so he immediately clocks the mask and the underlying problem in the twitch of her eyebrows and her raw-bitten lower lip. Something’s wrong.

“What’s wrong?” He asks immediately, tugging his sweats back in place. 

The girl in his bed scoffs. “Are you kidding me?”

Garrett doesn’t wave her off, but it’s a close thing. He stands straighter, jaw clenched. “Angel?”

She finally meets his gaze. “I need you.” 

Just three words, but they get his heart beating against his chest in mixed anxiety and concern. “You got me.”

“Okay.” She nods, finally allowing her eyes to flick towards the increasingly annoyed girl (whose name Garrett still can’t remember) in his bed. “I’ll wait for you downstairs. Brush your teeth, please.”

And then she turns around and leaves. 

For a moment, his room is silent, the kind that sits awkwardly in the atmosphere, and then Garrett clears his throat and faces–Zoe? Zara?--with a sheepish smile. “Sorry about that.”

She stares up at him expectantly, her bare torso still covered by his thin sheets. 

Garrett scratches at the nape of his neck. “You should probably go.”

Her jaw drops immediately. “Unbelievable.” 

But she really shouldn’t have been surprised. If everyone on campus knew who Garrett Graham was, then everyone also knew that his best friend comes first. Always.

🏒

By the time he manages to get downstairs, mouth minty cool because he knows better than to face his best friend with pussy breath, Zoe (that’s her name!) had already shoved his chest and left the house, which is a relief. He spots his favorite cockblocker right away in the kitchen, idly chatting with Logan and Tucker, but Garrett can tell her heart isn’t in it. The second she sees him, she lifts her hand and twirls his car keys in her finger, giving him a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. Garrett feels another tug in his chest at the sight, but he knows she hates talking about her problems with an audience, so he decides to put a pin in it. At least until they’re alone together. 

“I’m driving,” she says, getting up from the stool. 

He rolls his eyes, reaching over to snatch the cap on Tucker’s head and put it on his own, backwards and all. He ignores the consequent “hey!” that comes from his friend’s mouth and instead makes a face at her. “Do I have a choice?”

“No,” she grins sarcastically, patting his chest and walking out the door, him close on her trail. 

They’re only driving for about seven minutes when Garrett bites the bullet. “So–”

“Zip it, Professor X,” she interrupts, which in turns makes him glare at her. She knows how much he resents that nickname–he’d had a buzzcut one time in 9th grade, he wasn’t bald at all, and she still won’t freaking drop it. “At least let me get my fries first.”

It’s only then that Garrett notices the nearby Wendy’s she seems to be driving towards. “I swear to god, Angel, if you interrupted me just because you wanted fast food–”

“Oh, poor Garrett and his sad little blue balls,” she mocks, pouting her lips. “However will he recover?”

“I hate you,” he deadpans, but there’s a traitorous grin tugging at the corners of his lips. “I actually, bone-deeply hate you.”

“You love me,” she corrects him, pushing at the turn signal.

“I can love you and hate you at the same time,” Garrett tells her, face mock-serious. “I contain multitudes. Right now, it’s veering towards ‘I hate you,’ though.”

She flashes him a smile, but it’s all wrong. “Well, you’re not the only one.”

Immediately, the teasing air evaporates, and Garrett feels his eyebrows come together in confusion. “What does that mean? Angel?”

But his best friend remains frustratingly silent. She goes on to order for the two of them, only acknowledging him when it’s time to pay, which makes him scoff but hand over his card anyway. The grin she gives him then is a little more real, a little more Angel, so at least the tight ball of anxiety in Garrett’s chest loosens a little. She finds a parking spot easily, and for ten, torturous minutes, she does nothing but eat her heart out and ask him insignificant questions about the game last weekend and how practice was. Garrett tries to indulge her a little, but when she opens up another insignificant topic, this time about her Art Criticism professor, Garrett can’t take it anymore. 

“You’re killing me here, Angel,” he sighs, stealing a fry from her. “I’ve kinda been panicking about what’s wrong for the last half hour, so if you could please with a cherry on top get to it, it would be much appreciated.”

She glares at him for his bluntness for a few seconds, before her shoulders visibly deflate and her lower lip begins to tremble.

“Hey,” he sits up immediately, one hand reaching out to grip her chin. “Talk to me. It’s me. What’s wrong?”

She takes a few steadying breaths before saying, “I’m a horrible person.”

“No, you’re not,” Garrett counters immediately, eyebrows furrowing even further. “You’re the best person I know. Who told you that?”

“Garrett,” she says helplessly, and the break in her voice makes his head pound. 

He wants names of the people who hurt her and he wants to hunt them down one by one. But getting angry in that moment isn’t exactly appropriate, so he swallows down his rage at seeing the most important person in his life hurt and crowds further into her space instead, guiding her face so she can look at him. “Angel.”

She shuts her eyes tight, and every tear that drops to her face feels like a gunshot to his chest. “I did it.”

“What did you do?” Garrett asks, forcing himself to keep his voice soft and stable. “Angel, you’re really scaring me here.”

She looks at him, then, and then utters the words Garrett never thought he’d ever hear. “I broke up with Jason.”

“What?” He backs away a few inches in shock. 

“I broke up with Jason,” she says again, clearer this time, and Garrett feels something loosen in his chest. Disbelief, yes, but also something more hidden. Something that feels a lot like relief.

🏒

“She did what?” Dean exclaims, pulling his helmet off his head in shock. 

Garrett sighs at his dramatics but repeats his words, anyway, his tone of voice still a little disbelieving, himself. “She broke up with him. For real. Like, permanently. I’m helping her find a new place after practice.”

“Well, shit,” Dean says, face still looking puzzled. “What did the asshole do?”

Garrett pushes his sweat-slicked hair back away from his face. “That’s just it. Mayor Jason did nothing. Like, absolutely nothing.”

“What does that mean?” Logan chimes in, unflinching at the mocking nickname and obviously just as invested in the story of his best friend’s love life. 

“She told me that she just woke up one day and realized that it wasn’t working out anymore. That she…doesn’t love him anymore, I guess.”

Tucker falls down on the bench next to Dean, having heard the words himself. “Shit.”

“I know,” Garrett sighs, fiddling with his gloves. “I kind of feel bad for him.”

Dean laughs at that. “Dude, you hated the guy.”

“I don’t hate him.”

Logan shoves his shoulder. “You literally call him Mayor Jason.”

Garrett scoffs. “He wants to be a politician!”

This makes his friends laugh even harder, and Garrett finds himself chuckling along. “I just think he’s a pretentious asshole. But Angel loved him, and he was good to her, I think, so no, I don’t hate him.”

“Damn,” Tucker says, shaking his head. “I always thought those two would, like, get married and have kids and stuff.”

Garrett feels his stomach drop at the words, but there’s no denying the truth behind them, especially when even he agreed. “Me too.”

“Is she okay, though? Does she regret it?” Dean asks, beginning to put his helmet back on. 

Garrett thinks about their text messages that morning; all playfulness and banter, nothing out of the ordinary. But then he remembers her words in his car the other day, the way she cried into his chest. He clears his throat. “She feels terrible about it. But she’ll be fine.”

“Of course, she will,” Logan reassures him with a pat on his chest. “She’s got you, G. She’ll be just fine.”

🏒

He’s at the student union center getting a gatorade in one of the vending machines when she purposefully bumps her shoulder to his, pressing their sides together.

“Ouch,” Garrett deadpans, reaching a hand out to press the necessary button and waits for his drink to fall. 

She nudges him further, until his senses are assaulted by the smell of the strawberry shampoo that she’s been using since high school. “What are you doing tonight?”

That makes Garrett pause for a second. It wasn’t Saturday so he definitely didn’t miss brunch, and they haven’t scheduled their movie nights for that month, either. No games until next week, too. Slowly, he turns to her, eyes full of suspicion. “Why do you ask?”

“Don’t be weird, Garrett,” she rolls her eyes, her shoulder still pressed to his. “What? Do you have plans?”

He crouches down to get his Gatorade. “I was actually planning to study for my Philosophy class. I have an oral exam coming up.”

She snorts; an ugly, raw, Angel sound that automatically makes Garrett feel ten thousand times lighter. “Oral exam? Oh, is that what you were doing when I walked in on you–”

“Shut the fuck up,” Garrett interrupts her with a hand to her mouth, the tips of his ears burning. That only serves to make her laugh more, the heat of her breath scorching his palm. 

“Come by my place later, come on,” she tells him, one hand reaching out to grip at his hoodie. 

Garrett throws his head back in exasperation. “Angel, I really need to do well on this exam. I might not be allowed to play if I fuck it up.” 

“I’ll help you!” She raises her voice, lips stretching into a smile at his disbelieving look. “I swear! I took that class freshman year.”

He immediately frowns at that. “Wait, you did?”

“Yes?” She gives him a weird look, tugging at his hoodie to get him to start walking with her. His feet follow immediately. Traitors. “It’s a pre-requisite to this class I really wanted to take.” 

“How the fuck did you pass that class? It’s hell!” Garrett says, lips turning into a slight pout. “And you passed it your freshman year?”

She laughs again, a high, twinkling sound, looking back at him. “Oh, babe. Don’t you worry. I got you.”

“What’s the catch?” He continues to ask, taking her hand from his hoodie so he could grip it with his own. It feels natural, just like the hundred thousand times they’ve held hands before she got herself a boyfriend. Garrett tries to ignore his heart pounding in his chest.

“You’re my best friend,” she widens her amused eyes at him, squeezing his fingers. “There’s no catch.”

“I don’t believe you for a second, Angel.”

🏒

Over the next few weeks, Garrett tries to convince himself he’s being totally normal about the fact that his best friend is taking over his life. 

She texts him after practice to go have dinner. After he bullshits his way to a B+ for his Philosophy oral exam, she drags him to IKEA and makes him help her pick out new furniture for her place. He’s over at her apartment nearly every single day, helping assemble said furniture and unpack her moving boxes (it takes too long because she forgot to label them). She bullies him into studying with her, and it’s the most time Garrett has spent in the library since his first year (except he doesn’t actually study; he tries to do his course work for about twenty minutes before giving up and going on his phone while she’s nose-deep in her readings beside him). She shows up at the hockey house unannounced like she usually does, but this time more frequently, sometimes even getting the other guys to join in on their movie nights. One time she even helped Tuck with dinner. They go on random drives so much that his car feels practically hers as much as his. Their Saturday brunches become a daily thing. 

And Garrett knows nothing is wrong about any of this. It’s nice to not have to schedule their hang-outs anymore. It’s refreshing that all he has to do to see her now is to send her a text and vice versa. He doesn’t even care that the last time he hooked up with someone was that interrupted time with Zoe more than a month ago. Nothing is wrong about his best friend suddenly just being there. All the time. Except when they’re walking together around campus and she’s hooking their arms together or, God forbid, intertwining their fingers, Garrett’s breath catches in his throat and he finds it a little harder to breathe. Or when she shows up at practice unannounced wearing his old high school jersey with a tray of coffee for him and the other guys in the team and his heart stutters in his chest. 

So no. He’s not being completely normal about it. He just can’t figure out the reason why.  

🏒

He slams his locker shut before leaning against it. “It’s weird.”

Dean looks up at him from where he’s unlacing his skates. “What’s weird?”

Garrett frowns down at him for a second before averting his eyes. “Angel.”

“Oh, boy,” Logan says, and he sees the rest of his friends exchange knowing looks. 

“What?” Garrett asks, looking between them. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

They’re still smiling at each other like they know something he doesn’t, which fucking sucks. 

Dean’s shoulders begin to shake in laughter. “I have never been wrong a day in my life. Goddamn.”

“What?” Garrett presses, growing more annoyed by the minute. 

Dean continues to laugh, even tutting at him appeasingly. “Don’t you worry your pretty curly head about it, G. You’ll know soon enough.”

“Fuck you,” he says automatically, but the heat isn’t there. 

Dean takes the curse in stride. “So what about your ‘Angel’ is weird?”

The words distract Garrett enough that he forgets about their weirdness entirely. “I don’t know. Everything? I know we’re best friends. She’s the most important person in my life. But I feel like we’ve been…I don’t know, spending so much time together recently. Like, we haven’t spent this much time together since high school, probably, and we were stuck in the same boarding school and taking all our classes together then, so that’s saying something.”

Logan chuckles and shakes his head at him. “G, your best friend just got out of a serious, 3-year relationship. They were living together at one point. Of course you’re going to spend more time with her now. More than half of her day just freed up by being single alone.”

“And I bet she’s bored,” Tucker adds, nodding. “Imagine all the free time all of a sudden. Even her own apartment is probably too quiet now. I remember that Jason guy can talk.”

“Yeah, about apolitical bullshit that no one but him cares about,” Garrett mutters under his breath. 

Dean makes a face. “I’m not getting the problem here. Are you boys getting the problem?” Logan and Tucker dutifully shake their heads, making Dean point at him. “See? That’s such a non-issue, dude. So you’re spending more time with your best friend. Your steak is too buttery. Your bread is too soft. Nyada nyada.”

Garrett throws a glove at his face that he manages to dodge at the last minute. “It’s not that. It’s just…Okay. If one of you makes fun of me for what I’m about to say, I will crush you like a bug. Get it?”

The three look at him expectantly. 

Garrett sighs, training his eyes up the ceiling. “When we were in our senior year in high school and Angel started dating Jason…I kind of had a hard time adjusting.”

Dean looks way too delighted at his words, making Garrett throw another glove at him. This time it hits him right in the center of his chest. 

“Don’t make it a thing,” Garrett warns, giving them a look before sighing again. “Back then we were–I don’t know how to explain it. Attached at the hip? Two halves of the same person? Just. Inseparable, I guess. No one could tell where she ended and I began. And I loved that about us. She was the only family I have. The one I chose. And then Jason happened, and I lost that. The casual intimacy and closeness. It suddenly wasn’t appropriate anymore. I never heard a peep from her, but I was a guy. I could tell our closeness bothered him. So eventually I dealt with it. I adjusted. But it was hard. And to say I didn’t mourn our relationship then would be a lie.”

Tucker leans forward. “How did you adjust?”

Dean smirks. “Let me guess: by fucking half of the senior year population?”

“Fuck you,” Garret tells him again. “But yeah. Kind of. But that’s not even the point! The point is I get the sudden free time, okay? That’s what I felt when she got a boyfriend. All these things I used to do with her suddenly aren’t feasible anymore, so instead I spend hours of my day with nothing to do. Eventually, yeah, I found something to fill the time, but it was hard. I thought I was losing my best friend, and I couldn’t do anything about it because then I might lose her for real. I was a dramatic 18-year-old. Whatever. But what happens when she glues us together again, forms us a routine of being constantly together, and then she gets another boyfriend? That’s bullshit.”

Logan, Tucker, and Dean slowly exchange another look. 

“What?” Garrett asks. 

Logan shakes his head. “Are you hearing yourself, man?”

“What?” He repeats, getting even more confused than before.

“Oh my god,” Dean laughs, slapping his thighs. “He’s fucking hopeless, man. I give up.”

🏒

She’s already drunk when Garrett gets to the party, and he knows this because she lights up instantly at the sight of him, her entire body practically vibrating from where she’s standing. “Garrett!!!”

“Hey, Angel,” he says, receiving her tackle with a short grunt. “How much have you had to drink?”

She ignores his question completely, burrowing her face in his chest. “Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been waiting for you for ages.”

Garrett allows himself to chuckle at how obnoxious his best friend is being. He shuffles both of their bodies so that he’s leaning against the fridge, his feet planted firmly on the ground in case she intends to tackle him again. His hands rub her back in slow circles, and Garrett immediately takes note of the goosebumps lining her skin. She’s wearing a tight brown tank top and low-rise jeans, and he puts his hands on the slit of skin of her back showing underneath her top and pulls away just enough to see her face to face. “You cold?”

“No,” she answers instantly, then steps forward even closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “I need to tell you something, Charles.”

It takes him a moment to place the name, and when he does, he rolls his eyes. He’s never living down that fucking buzzcut. “What is it, Angel?”

“I ran into Jason’s friends at lunch,” she continues saying, voice low enough that Garrett has to strain his ears. He nods at her to continue, which she does, voice shaking. “He hates me.”

For a second Garrett isn’t sure whether she’s going to cry, but then her shoulders start shaking, giggles leaving her lips uncontrollably. “He fucking hates me, Prof.” 

Garrett tightens his arms around her, unsure how to approach the situation. “I’m sure he doesn't, Angel.”

“No, he does,” she nods her head in resignation. “And I don’t think I care. I’m a horrible person.”

He pinches the exposed skin of her back, making her yelp. “Enough of that. I won’t let you talk shit about my best friend anymore. Stop it.”

She shuffles closer again, getting on her tiptoes and burying her face against his neck. Every word out of her mouth sends a hot breath against his skin that Garrett tries hard to ignore. “I wish he cheated. Or neglected me. I just wish he did something bad so I wouldn’t be feeling all this guilt.”

“You don’t mean that,” Garrett says against her hair, squeezing her tightly against him. 

“I wish I could say that I’m in love with him,” she continues. “What if I never was? Isn’t that crazy, G? We’ve been together for almost four years. We’ve exchanged I love you’s countless times. But in hindsight, what the fuck do I know about love? If I had truly loved him, how can I wake up one morning and just…stop?”

“That’s just it, though,” Garrett says, which makes her pull away to look at him. “It’s scary.”

“What?”

“Love,” he shrugs. “How fickle it is. What happened to you scares me. What if it doesn’t stop at just romantic love?”

She almost smiles at that. “What, you think I’m going to wake up tomorrow and just decide you’re a repulsive best friend and I want you out of my life?”

“Don’t even joke about that, Angel,” he chides with a fake shudder, and something in her expression melts and softens. 

She steps closer, enough that their noses are touching. “Wanna know something?”

Garrett swallows the lump that suddenly formed in his throat. “What?”

“Jason would hate to see us like this,” she says, and Garrett tenses up instantly, intending to pull away, but she tightens her grip around him.

He takes a few seconds to reply. “I know.”

Garrett sees the way her eyes dilate at his words. “Is that why you pushed me away?”

“I didn’t push you away,” he denies immediately, but even as he says the words his breath stutters in his chest. 

She smiles a little sadly. “Of course you did, G. One minute we’re inseparable and the next we had to pre-sched our hang outs because you’re fucking every girl in school.”

The blunt way she puts it makes Garrett squeeze her hips, and he doesn’t miss the way her breath hitches at the action. He feels like he’s underwater, like everything suddenly became muffled around them. The only clear view is her. His best friend. The most important person in his life. 

Best friend, he repeats the words in his head. Come on, Graham. That’s your best friend. 

“Want to know the funny thing?” She asks again, nudging their noses together. 

Garrett almost chickens out and doesn’t ask. But her gaze is a challenge in itself, and he’s nothing if not competitive, so he forces the words out of his mouth. “What, Angel?”

“The night before I broke up with him, I closed my eyes and imagined my future. Ten, fifteen, twenty years from now. What I wanted it to be. What I think it would be. And,” she cuts herself off with a chuckle, alcohol breath fanning against Garrett’s face. “Jason wasn’t there. He was nowhere to be found.”

Garrett clenches his jaw. “Really?”

“Uh huh,” she confirms, extending one hand up to push back his hair. “Wanna know who was?”

But Garrett already knows the answer. It’s clear as day. Still, when she pushes up on her tiptoes to whisper it to his ear, he feels his world begin to crumble, the words devastating in their honesty. 

“You,” she says, and then she smiles a little cruelly. “My best friend.”

🏒

That night wouldn’t be the first time Garrett Graham jerks off to the thought of his best friend. But it’s the first time he doesn’t feel guilty about it. 

🏒

He swings his stick harshly. The puck misses the goal.

Another swing. Miss again. 

Swing. Miss.

“Fuck!” Garrett throws his stick to the ice, skating away. 

From the stands, his three friends watch him, faces in varying states of winces. 

“That,” Dean says, voice low. “Is a cry for help.”

Logan scrunches his nose up. “Amen, brother.”

Tuck nods along. “Amen.”

“What can we do about it, boys? Our cap needs an intervention.” Dean says, still eyeing Garrett’s form critically.

Logan chuckles. “Unless we get him to admit he’s in love with his fucking best friend? Nothing.”

“Not nothing,” Dean says with a smirk, lifting up his phone.

Twenty minutes later, she’s there in the tunnels, head whipping around in search of Garrett. 

“Angel!” Dean calls out, making her turn towards him. “Over here!”

She speedwalks towards where he’s standing, wearing a Briar U hoodie Dean’s pretty sure is Garrett’s and loose sweats that may or may not also be Garrett’s. “What happened? Where is he? And don’t call me that.”

“Oh right, sacred nicknames, I forgot. Sorry.” Dean says all of this with a knowing smile on his face, which she decides to ignore. “G’s in the shower. We’re gonna head out. You go do your best friend magic on him and take care of our cap.”

She rolls her eyes but dutifully drops down to one of the benches in the hallway to wait for him. When Garrett steps out of the locker room, he’s wearing a navy zip-up hoodie and his hair is still dripping wet from his shower. He almost jumps at the sight of her.

“Angel,” he says in surprise, his grip on his bag tightening. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know, Prof X. You tell me,” she says, getting up and dusting off her sweats. “Dean says you need an intervention.”

Garrett closes his eyes at that. “I fucking hate him.”

“Come on,” she inclines her head before hooking her arm to his. “You can hate him in the comfort of my new apartment. Movie night?”

The last thing Garrett wants is to spend an entire night pressed up against the best friend he’s trying and completely failing to convince himself he feels nothing for, pretending to watch a movie he could care less about. But clearly the universe had other plans, so now they’re cuddled on her couch, a half-empty box of pizza on the coffee table in front of them and High School Musical 3 playing on the tv.

“Troy Bolton is so hot,” she comments after one of the song numbers, licking her fingers to clean off the pizza sauce. 

Garrett clears his throat and tells himself the view doesn’t affect him. “He’s so short, though. How does he expect to be a collegiate point guard with that height?”

“Good thing it’s a movie,” she emphasizes the last word, nudging his stomach with her elbow. “It’s escapism. Besides, with a pretty face like that, size won’t even matter.”

That makes Garrett’s eyebrows raise to his hairline, his head twisting to shoot her a knowing smirk. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” she juts her chin out and insists, glaring at him. “Sorry you can’t relate.”

Garrett knows she’s making a dig at his looks, but he can’t help but twist her words, his smirk practically a permanent fixture on his face at the moment. “Yep. Never had a problem with size, I’m afraid.”

He watches her jaw drop at his words, laughs out loud when she suddenly slaps his shoulder multiple times. “You are infuriating.” 

“You love me, Angel,” Garrett teases her, hoping she doesn’t hear the way his heart jumps at the bold words. 

“I wish I didn’t.”

He’s still chuckling when he finally catches her hands, stopping her continued assault. “You don’t mean that.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“You love me,” Garrett says again. And maybe this time she hears the catch in his voice, the underlying seriousness beneath the teasing, because she freezes in her spot, both her hands still held tightly in his. 

She looks at him for a few seconds. “I do, yeah.”

Garrett feels like he stops breathing. When he speaks again, the word sounds like a warning even to his own ears. “Angel.”

He feels her shift against him until she’s practically on his lap. “What? Don’t you love me too?”

Garrett is suddenly hyperaware of every point of contact; her thighs almost bracketing his hips, the heat of her skin seeping through their clothes, her hands still dwarfed by his. In the background, Zac Efron is singing something about screaming, but the sound is dull and muffled. He can’t focus on anything except her. 

“You’re dangerous,” he manages to rasp out. 

He thinks of all the times they found themselves in this position; all the times Garrett found himself wanting to cross the boundary they’ve drawn when they were twelve and decided they needed to be in each other’s lives forever as best friends. The summer before high school when they became each other’s first kiss because it’d be embarrassing to be in 9th grade without any experience. His sixteenth birthday when a game of spin the bottle had them doing it again, deeper that time, with tongue. Junior prom when they went together as friends and right there on the dancefloor, Garrett had to grapple with the fact that he wanted to kiss his best friend badly. 

It had always been there in the crevices of their friendship; the unspoken need for more, for intimacy and connection. It had been easier to handle when Jason happened, because finally the boundaries were physical and concrete in the form of another person. But now, in the couch he helped her assemble in the new apartment he helped her find and move into, with her body pressed against his so closely and tightly he can feel every breath she takes, the boundaries might as well be nonexistent. 

“This is a bad idea. You just got out of a relationship.”

She almost smiles. “I know.”

“You’re my best friend,” Garrett says again, but he’s not sure whether it’s her he’s convincing or himself.

She shifts again. Garrett closes his eyes at the feeling. “Garrett. You’re my best friend, too.”

A pause. 

They’re not really sure who moves first, but in the next breath their lips are pressing together, a moan punching out of his throat from the sensation. She plants her hands on his shoulders to anchor herself, straddling him properly now. Almost immediately, she begins grinding down on him, and his body’s reaction is instant. 

“Fuck, Angel,” Garrett exhales a heavy breath, torn between wanting to close his eyes or savoring the sight of his best friend on top of him. “Come here.”

He guides her by her jaw so he can kiss her again, deeper, his tongue tracing her lower lip before slipping inside her mouth. She tastes like the soda she had been drinking. It takes Garrett back to that birthday party when they were sixteen, their classmates all around them cheering while he got to properly taste her for the first time. He thinks about sitting there finishing the spin the bottle game with a raging hard on inside his pants, hoping the light is too dim for anyone to notice. 

He bites at her lips again, causing a soft noise to come from her mouth that absolutely destroys him, enough that his hips juts up without control. 

She pulls away and begins tugging at his zip-up hoodie, chest heaving harshly. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Take this off.”

He helps her along dutifully, watching with dark eyes as she tosses the piece of clothing behind her. “Fuck, Garrett, I love your shoulders.”

“Yeah?” He breathes out, letting his hands bunch her top upwards and over her head until she’s left in a lacy lilac bra, sheer enough to leave nothing to the imagination. 

She gives a trembling nod, taking his tank top off too. Her nails trace down his torso, watching his abs contract in fascination. “Got myself off for the first time thinking about them.”

“Jesus Christ, Angel.” Garrett huffs, his breath leaving him. It only gets worse when she reaches behind herself to unclasp her bra, revealing her full breasts, nipples dark and tight just like he imagined. As if he can’t help himself, his face drags forward until he’s close enough to close his mouth around one bud, his hand taking care of the other. 

A choked cry leaves her mouth, head throwing back in pleasure. One of her hands skirts the waistband of his sweats, and then she palms his cock through the fabric like it wouldn’t absolutely ruin him. His hips jerk up again. “You want me?”

The question almost comes off as cruel. Does he want her? As if there’s a world in which Garrett doesn’t. As if he doesn’t feel as if he had been born to worship her like this. 

“You don’t even know how much,” he murmurs against her skin. He kisses over the moles in her chest and shoulders that he used to make fun of when they were kids. 

She shimmies out of her shorts and underwear, and the sight of her thin damp curls short-circuits Garrett’s brain. He isn’t even aware of her hands sliding his sweats down, just enough to free his cock with an angry bob. His blood thuds in his ears loudly. 

She shuffles closer again, until they’re almost chest to chest, hovering above him and teasing the head of his cock at her entrance. “Since when?”

Maybe it’s the intimacy he’s been craving since he first learned what it’s like to want his best friend, or maybe it’s his dick talking, but the honest words are out of his mouth before he could stop them: “Since forever.”

He feels more than sees her body tense up, and in mere seconds she has shuffled away, still within reach but the inch of increased space makes his heart drop to his stomach nonetheless. Shit. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She asks, face going pale. Her eyes scan his face steadily, and he knows guilt is written all over him in capital letters. 

Garrett tugs his sweats up with a sigh. “Angel–”

“Garrett,” she says, voice hard. The lack of a nickname sends a pang through his chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He pushes his hair back and leans his head against the couch, eyes trained to the ceiling. “I’m sorry.”

He hears her shuffle around, knows that it’s her getting dressed, the final nail in the coffin that was their night together. The panic is slowbuilding in his stomach; half of his wits are still stuck to two minutes ago when they were flushed together making out with wild abandon.

How the fuck did he let this happen? More than that, what the fuck is going to happen to them? She’s his best friend. She’s been in his life for over ten years. She’s held him during losses, nursed him when his dad beat him to shit. She’s the only one who truly knows him inside out, and now he’s on the verge of losing her because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. 

“That’s not what I asked.”

Garrett attempts to look at her. She’s wearing her top again, arms crossed over her chest and still staring at him in horrified expectancy. He pries his eyes away immediately, instead focusing on the loose thread in the throw pillowcase next to his lap. When he speaks, his voice comes out defensive. “I don’t know what you want me to say.” 

“The truth, Garrett,” she says, the hard edge to her voice still there. 

Garrett throws his head back again. Anything just to avoid her eyes. “I know it’s wrong, alright? You’re my best friend. We shouldn’t–I shouldn’t have ever—but I couldn’t help it. I’ve wanted you probably since before I even knew what wanting someone meant.”

She inhales a sharp breath. “High school?’

“Yeah, mostly,” he admits, clenching his jaw. “Maybe even before then.”

“Fuck, Garrett,” she breathes out, making him shut his eyes tight. 

“I know. I’m sorry.”

They’re silent for a few seconds before she speaks again. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

That finally gets him to look at her, if a little incredulously. “Are you kidding? I didn’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose you.”

Her face twists, like she’s in pain. “But you blew me off.”

He sits up at that, his confusion clear as day. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Garrett,” she laughs his name out tiredly, shaking her head. “Don’t you remember? The summer before our senior year. We spent almost every day together. We held hands and cuddled and you kissed me everywhere except my lips constantly. Everyone else thought we were dating. And I thought…I thought we were getting there.”

He swallows harshly. He doesn’t know what to say. The memory of that summer hit him like a brick. The train rides spent flushed against each other, his hands on the back pocket of her jeans. The amount of times he stopped himself from just crossing the line and kissing her for real. 

“I fell for you. Hard.” She tells him, causing his mouth to gape open. “I thought we were on the same page. But then we got to Stacy’s party at the end of summer and everyone asked where we stood and you completely blew me off. She’s just my best friend–that’s what you said. And then you let all these girls hang all over you the entire night. It doesn’t get any clearer than that.”

Garrett opens his mouth. “But–”

“Jason asked me out a few days later and I figured why not. Might as well.” She shoots him a sad smile. Her eyes are wet, and Garrett hates himself for making it happen. “I grew to like him eventually. And you started pulling away. Maybe part of it was on me for getting a boyfriend and not having enough time for you anymore. But every time I saw you with a different girl, it just proved to me what I realized at that party. You didn’t want me. I was just your best friend. And if I wanted to keep you in my life, I had to be okay with that.” 

Garrett shakes his head. His heart is thrumming so loudly in his chest he’s sure she can hear it from where she’s sitting. “I wanted you. So bad. I was so scared that it would ruin everything that I never said anything. And then you got together with Jason. It killed me to see you with him. To know that I could never hold your hand or kiss you or put my arms around you anymore because he might get mad. Those girls were just–”

“I know what they were,” she interrupts, a resigned smile on her face. “Still sucked, though.”

“Yeah.” 

A cheer comes from the TV. Garrett almost forgot it was still playing. The characters launch into the finale song, the one at graduation. At least it does the job of filling the silence. 

Finally, she lets out a long sigh. “This was a mistake.”

He can’t even explain the hurt that shoots up his chest at the words that just left her mouth. He wants to build a time machine and go back to three hours ago, debating pizza flavors and movie options without a hint that their night will get derailed. He wants to go back to that summer before their senior year and kiss her right there on the train. But Garrett is no scientist and time travel doesn’t exist, so instead he chooses to say nothing, waits for more hurtful words to come. 

“You’re right,” she continues, beginning to play with her fingers. “I just got out of a relationship. This isn’t–” she shakes her head. “It’s not good. For me or for you.”

Garrett shakes his head. “Don’t say that. Don’t–” His mouth struggles with the words. “You can regret this. Me. But don’t ever think that there’s a reality where you’re not good for me. That’s impossible.”

She looks at him like it hurts her to do it. Garrett reaches down to get his shirt off the floor.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and somehow that makes it worse. 

Garrett puts his shirt back on with as much dignity as he can muster. He bites his lip in contemplation. “Why’d you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Kiss me.” He can tell by the look on her face that she wants to argue about who did the kissing, but thankfully she drops it. 

“The truth?” She asks quietly, making him nod his head. She pauses again, like she’s thinking about lying anyways, and then thinks the better of it. “I’ve wanted to do it for so long, and for the first time in my life I felt like you actually wanted to do it too.”

“I did,” he tells her, voice just as quiet. “I do.”

“I’m sorry, prof,” she smiles at him, eyes shining with unshed tears. “Did I ruin everything?”

Garrett wants to cross the space between them and hold her. It kills him that he hesitates. “No. Never. I love you, Angel.”

“I love you too,” the words get caught in her throat the way they tend to do when she’s about to cry. “And it’s because I love you that we can’t do this. Not now, anyway. Four years is a long time, G. Even if I’m not in love with Jason anymore, jumping into something with you so quickly after him would feel…I don’t want to use you in that way. Not if…”

“What?” He asks. “Not if what?”

She blows a deep breath. “Not if I want this to be for real. Us.”

Garrett feels his own throat constrict at that. “You do?”

“Of course, I do,” she almost laughs, but instead she settles for a shy smile. “What do you say, Xavier? You down to wait a few more months?”

When Garrett laughs back, it’s breathy and wet and all embarrassing. “Angel, I’ve been waiting for years. A few more months is nothing.”

She finally shuffles over and sits next to him, nudging his shoulder with hers. “You don’t have to leave.”

He feels himself grinning. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says, voice more casual now, one hand reaching for the remote to pick their next movie. “Zac Efron looked super hot in Hairspray too.”

Garrett lets out a groan in complaint, but inside his blood is singing, a kind of happiness settling in his bones that he’s never felt before.