The Real Thing (2 page)

“Eric?”

He laughs before wrapping me in a bear hug. The buttons on his tight black shirt press into my cheek as he squeezes me tight. Butterflies explode from my stomach and escape my mouth in the form of an embarrassing high-pitched squeal. In high school, we’d start most of our greetings this way—me getting swallowed in his massive arms. But after three years … his arms are different. His stomach, holy shit, where did it go?

I push back and can’t keep my jaw from dropping to the asphalt.

“Where’s the rest of you?” I laugh and walk around my Eric. Is this my Eric? He looks so different.
So
different. His squishy, adorable love handles have disappeared into his shorts. His ass,
holy shit
, and his face went from round to square. He laughs as I step back in front of him, poking his stomach. He jerks back, and that’s when I know it’s really him. Eric is the most ticklish person on the planet.

“Holy shit.” Seems to be the phrase of the day.

He smiles and my heart balloons. I’ve missed that smile.

“I must’ve left the rest of me in Samoa.”

I throw myself back into his bear hug, clasping my wrists and laughing. “Oh my gosh … I can wrap my arms around you.”

This is
not
what I expected. Eric was my squishy teddy bear. Now he’s this muscular teddy bear. I run my hands over his back just to get a feel for it. Unreal. I stay in his hold for probably way longer than is considered normal.

“Let’s get your stuff inside,” he says over my head. “I promise we’ll hug more later.”

I feel insanely empty when we break from each other. We talk every day. We chat and we email and we talk on the phone, but I never get to hug him. So I can’t help but hold on to his arm and bounce as he pulls my suitcase from the trunk.

I’m too damn excited to let go of him now.

Eric Matua

4 hours ago

Am I supposed to buy a new roommate a gift? Not really sure what the etiquette is on that.

Emilia Johnson likes this

She’s still as cute as she was in high school.

Scratch that.

She’s cuter.

Shit, she’s sexy as hell.

No … scratch that, too. Hell is a walk-in freezer compared to Emmy.

She just spent three hours on the road, in a car with AC that’s crappy at best. Her brown hair is tied in a loose ponytail, and her bangs cover her forehead and spread down around her cheeks. Her freckled skin looks amazing. Em never tanned. Burnt to a crisp whenever we were out in the sun and cursed at me for having “burn-proof” skin. Her lips would scrunch up in this damn cute way as she looked at her reddening shoulders.

She clings to my arm as I hoist her suitcase from the trunk. I can’t believe she’s still driving this piece-of-shit Camaro. It’s been three years, but I feel like we were hanging out yesterday, since we’re online all the time. Never skyped though. Always came up with a lame excuse so I wouldn’t have to be on camera. I was worried as hell about seeing her in person. I’m still not down to the weight I want to be at, but her reaction gave my ego a good boost.

She presses up against my side and my whole arm flames hotter than the sun beating down on us. I have to get her to stop squeezing her body against mine unless she wants to find out
just
how much I like it.

I don’t know what she packed, but I feel like I’m lugging twenty medicine balls up the concrete stairs into the condo. I try to be smooth about it, like it doesn’t weigh anything, but my heavy breathing gives me away.

“You know, I can carry my laptop bag,” she says, cocking an eyebrow at my less-than-smooth moves up the stairs. My fingers slip on the handle of her suitcase because, damn, that expression was sexy. I don’t know how I’m going live with her this summer if I can’t even walk up the stairs without fumbling.

Em was the fantasy girl. She was my best friend—
is
my best friend, but I’m not sure she ever knew that. The fat, shy kid I was didn’t have a ton of friends outside my teammates, and of course Em had me slapped in the friend zone. Then there was Ali … but I don’t really count her as a friend. Even though we dated. Sort of. Hell, I don’t even know what to call that relationship. I try to block it out.

Emmy picks up speed on the second landing, giving me a nice view of her ass in cutoffs. She probably doesn’t even know what she’s doing to me, or she does and doesn’t care, but my hand slips on her luggage again.

“What number is it again?” she asks, tucking her fingers in her front pocket and taking out her phone.

“Fourteen H,” I pant.
Damn it
. “Just one more flight up.”

“Yeesh. I’ll be getting my workout for this summer. No reader butt for me this year.”

My eyebrows pull in. “Reader butt?”

She turns to face me, a dimpled smile on her lips. “I read a lot. My butt is paying for it.” She smacks her backside and then starts climbing. I take a good look at that ass—again—and I’m thinking if reading is making it look like that, then bring on the books.

We get to the door, and I gratefully let go of the suitcase to grab the keys in the pocket of my cargo shorts. Emmy leans against the doorframe, entering something in her phone with a smile on her face. She’s so distracting I miss the keyhole four times.

“What’re you doing?” I nod to her phone.

She taps something, then turns it around to show me. She’s on Twitter, and just typed in
#summerofawesomeness with #bestbud has now begun!
Three people have already favorited it.

“Best bud, huh?” I tease, relaxing into friend mode, since, duh, that’s what we are. I can’t keep checking her out, because I’ll set myself up for disappointment.

“Since age fifteen.” She pulls the phone back and slides her finger around the screen. I glance down to watch her type. Wow, she’s a pro. I’m still trying to figure out how to defeat autocorrect.

I push the door open and wave her in first. The second I roll her suitcase across the threshold, my pores go into instant sweat mode. What the hell?

“Um … is there an air conditioner?” Em asks, waving the collar of her loose, green T-shirt.

Abandoning her luggage, I slide past her, lightly touching her elbow to get to the thermostat. Mom said she had the thing on a timer, but knowing her, she probably set it up wrong.

I press the temperature down and make sure it’s on Cool, then flip the cover shut. “It should turn on in a bit. Sorry about that.”

She lets out a breathy laugh and shuts the front door. “I’d leave it open, but I’m pretty sure it’ll only let in bugs.” She laughs again. “Though they’d probably die the second they got inside.”

I scratch the back of my neck, my fingers wiping the sweat accumulating back there, and try to smile. “Sorry. It works, I promise.”

“I’m not worried about it.” Her eyes scan the living room, glancing from the TV on the wall to the family pictures in my mom’s glass cabinet. It looks like a grandma’s place, except for the giant LoveSac my brother, Tolani, put in here last year. But at least there isn’t plastic on the furniture.

“Do you want to pick your room?” I ask, hoping she doesn’t march over to the pictures of my teenage self on the beach. I’m pretty sure my man boobs rivaled my mom’s at one point.

“I get to pick?”

“Yes. There’s only two, but you get first choice.” I use my shorts to wipe the sweat from my hand before grabbing her suitcase. She seizes her laptop before I get the chance to take that, too.

She bounces down the hall, and I can’t keep the smile off my face. Same Em … there’s no medium setting for excitement.

“The master is on the left, up those two steps.” I jerk my head that way, even though she’s not looking at me. I’m ready to lug her suitcase into that room, but she swerves right to the room that’s usually reserved for me and my brother.

“I want this one.”

“Uh … you sure? You haven’t even looked at the other—”

“This one has a desk and an outlet. And it’s closer to the bathroom,” she says, slipping out of her flip-flops and resting her laptop on the desk. “So it’s perfect.”

There’s about two seconds when my head suggests I stay in this room with her, but I shut the door on it so I don’t freak her out. The two twins are pushed against separate walls, and she plops onto the one I usually take, bouncing a few times to check out the mattress. I try not to let my gaze drift south as she moves, but it’s a wasted effort.

“Yep, perfect,” she says, falling down on the sheets and inhaling the pillow. A smile floats across her face, and she sits up, wiping sticky hair from her forehead. “How long till that AC works?”

I push her suitcase against the wall for her. “I’ll go outside and bang on the unit a few times. Maybe it’ll kick in.”

“Still have those handyman skills I remember,” she jokes, and I give her a face. I might not have been so handy a few years ago, but I’ve improved. I mean, I fixed my uncle’s washing machine in Samoa … how different can an air conditioner be?

“Do you mind if I check my email while you do that?” she asks, eyes flicking to her laptop. Why would I care? She’s going to be living here. She
is
living here. She can do whatever she wants.

“Emmy, this is your house for the summer. Do whatever you’d do at home. I’m going to be doing that.”

She cocks an eyebrow. “You mean I can walk around in my underwear?”

“Hell, yes.” Damn it, that came out fast.

She laughs and tosses a pillow at me. I catch it one-handed and chuck it right back. It flops against her face, and she says, “Oh, that actually feels pretty good.” She holds the pillow out and then tosses it at herself. “A breeze!”

“I’m on it,” I promise, then tap the top of the door frame on my way out.

Halfway down the hall, I hear her yell, “As soon as this AC is on, you’re going to pay for that face shot!”

If it means a wrestling match like we used to have, then I’m sort of glad that pillow hit her face.

It’s been three hours since I’ve turned our sauna into an icebox. I keep waiting for Em to crawl out of her room to congratulate me on my newly formed handyman skills, or follow through on that threat she made, but it’s been pretty quiet. She closed the door and I don’t know if she’s taking a nap or what, but that little ego boost she gave me earlier has sort of faded into oblivion. Maybe she wasn’t as thrilled to spend time with me as I was with her. Or maybe she thinks I’m boring. Maybe it’s still weird, and we’re adjusting to seeing each other after so long.

Or maybe I’m just being a damn pussy.

I hoist myself off the couch, tossing the remote behind me. The sweat from earlier left my clothes damp, and now that it’s about twenty degrees cooler, it causes a chill to run up my spine. I check over my shoulder before lifting my arm up to sniff my pit. Shit, no wonder … she could probably smell my hard work the second I came back inside.

Grabbing the bottom of my cold, sweat-riddled shirt, I pull it off on my way to the bathroom. Hopefully she’ll hear the shower and know I’m doing something about the stink, and that it’ll be safe to venture out as soon as I get my sweaty ass washed.

Her door opens with a bang, and I bolt into the bathroom so she doesn’t see me. I know it’s stupid, but give me ten pounds more muscle and twenty pounds less fat, and maybe I’ll be okay with her catching me without a shirt on.

“Hey Eric!” she calls from her room.

“Uh, yeah?”

“Could you come here for a second?”

My hands fumble over my counter for cologne, deodorant … something, just let me find
something
. “Give me a minute …” I dive for the counter under the sink and praise the heavens when I spot the air freshener. I know I told her I’d be living like I normally do, but as I spray the air freshener out in front of me and walk through it, then do it three more times, I’m pretty sure I lied. After a few sprays on my shirt, I tug it back on, rolling it down my torso.

I get to her room and try to act casual, like I wasn’t freaking out like a damn girl in the bathroom over how I smell.

“What’s up?”

She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, laptop in front of her and her nose crinkled in a disgusted, yet sexy way. She crooks a finger at me.

“I keep getting emails from this guy I don’t know, and I need your opinion on them.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, sliding next to her on the bed. She pushes the laptop so it’s half on my lap, half on hers. I’m fist bumping myself for getting that AC running because the heat from the computer, added to the sudden warmth flooding my body at Em’s knee against mine, makes me want to kiss the breeze coming from the vent.

“This is the second one I’ve gotten from him. The first one came off like one of those ‘You’re so beautiful, let’s get married and have babies’ emails, but now that I think about it, maybe he just has the wrong email address?”

I tilt the screen to get a better look, and read the email.

Mia,

You check your email every day, so I know you saw the last one I sent. I’m a believer in second chances (No shit, right? Otherwise I wouldn’t be emailing you AT ALL) so …

Begging for your forgiveness … take two.

I miss you. Lame way to grovel, I know, but it’s the truth. I keep looking at the pictures I have of us on my phone. I can’t stop … it’s an addiction. My brother says I’ve lost my shit. Rus says I need to get laid. Vicki wants me to delete them. They all think it’s a lost cause, but I don’t think it is.

You said we were a mistake. I just want to know why? Because if we were, I feel like you were the best mistake I ever made. And I want to make it again.

—Scott

I read it again, feeling my face contort into an expression similar to the one Em had when I came in.

“Uh …,” I mumble, not knowing what the hell to say. Em laughs and pulls the laptop back in her lap.

“It’s weird, right?”

“Looks like a wrong email to me.” I point to the return address at the top. “Unless you tore some guy’s heart out.”

“Not a Scott.” She attempts to wink, but Em’s never been able to do that. One eye shuts, then the other acts like it’s trying to catch up. I love that she’s still the same, just … well, older.