Like a Best Friend | ✓

chapter thirteen

I made it through the rest of Friday evening without freaking out. We went back to the Strat for our booked dinner at the top, a stunning view over Vegas at night, and I held my shit together. I managed to sleep in the same bed as Kitty without a hitch. I survived all of Saturday as we checked out the casino floor in the Cascade and watched the Bellagio fountains twice more (once in the daylight, once again as the sun went down) and at no point did Kitty seem to pick up on the fact that everything has changed. She has no clue what her kiss has done to me. No clue that it has undone me.

And if I can survive one day like this, I can survive another eight. It's going to be hard, though. Yesterday morning was bad enough, when we sunbathed on our private balcony and Kitty took off her bikini top to tan her back, and my mind wandered. How can it not, now that I know what her kiss feels like, now that she has unlocked a desire I didn't know I had?

Except ... maybe I did know. Maybe that's why Sally's remarks upset me so much. Because they hit too close to home. Because on some level I've been in love with Kitty for as long as I've known her, ever since she walked into our shared dorm and she lit up my world with her radiant smile and her infectious confidence. And I have spent a decade pushing those feelings down because yes, you're supposed to love your best friend, but you're not supposed to be in love with her. You are not supposed to crave her touch. The way I am thinking about her breaks all the rules of friendship but I can't stop.

Today's a chill day. No plans, because tomorrow marks the first of a three day trip across the northwest corner of Arizona and up into Utah to check out three more national parks. It'll be an intense trip, a small group – seven of us in total, I think – and a packed itinerary, so I haven't arranged anything for today or the days afterwards. I need to keep busy though. I need to keep us occupied to stop my brain from combusting and my heart from collapsing in on itself.

"Got any surprises in store for me today?" Kitty asks as we leave breakfast. I will miss their sausage patty and cheese biscuits, the vast array of eggs and breakfast meats and breads. Kitty has the same thing every morning: a buttered bagel topped with scrambled eggs (I don't usually trust hotel scrambled eggs, but there's a chef behind the counter making it fresh with organic eggs, the yolks rich and golden) followed by a couple of fluffy pancakes drizzled with maple syrup and served with a variety of fresh berries. We both have two coffees each, and we have tried every single one of what must be a dozen different creamer flavors. Today I have southern butter pecan. Delicious.

"How do you feel about going to New York?" I ask, breaking off a piece of freshly baked cinnamon roll. We eat like kings every morning.

"New York? Not really a day trip from here," she says, licking syrup off her finger. I have to look away.

"What about New York-New York?"

Kitty gives me a funny look. "You having a stroke?"

"It's a hotel," I say. "Couple miles down the Strip. They've got a replica of the New York skyline and a miniature Statue of Liberty and a–"

"Oh! They have a roller coaster!" Kitty finishes my sentence for me. "Are you offering to go on a roller coaster with me? After the whole palaver at the Strat?"

"In my defense, being launched into space on top of the city's tallest building is very different to a regular old roller coaster track built on solid ground," I say. God, I could eat ten of these cinnamon rolls. They're so hot and moist and delicious and–

Oh no. I can't risk thinking words like that.

"Well, you know me and roller coasters. I'm in. Although we might need a minute for all this to go down. I do not want to be splattered in your gross cheese and pork vomit when we do the loop the loop."