Harder (Caroline & West #2)(29)

As flimsy as her sports bra, which presents no obvious barrier to Krishna’s hand. It’s working its way around to the front. It’s going to get there, and no. No.

This is wrong. It’s wrong in the way things are wrong when you don’t expect them, but it’s wrong in other ways, too, that I can’t even get a handle on because they hit me in one big mass, a cumulous cloud of emotions, foggy and cold, impossible to sift through, especially because it keeps happening. His hands are over her breasts now. They’re moving, they’re tweaking, and she likes it. So much.

I have to clear my throat against the possibility that Bridget’s hamster noises will actually kill me.

Bridget leaps away from Krishna. Her hand flies to her throat. “You scared me!”

I lift my water-bottle hand, now frozen into a claw. “I just wanted a drink.”

This is the worst thing to say, it turns out, because it makes them step farther apart, clearing a corridor to the sink that I have to walk through.

I have to not-look at Krishna so hard. And not-hear the way they’re breathing. And not-consider how wrong it is that none of us seems to have anything to say at this awkward moment to end all awkward moments.

Bridget. Krishna. The two talkiest people in a whole universe of talkers, now totally silent.

The water running into the bottle is louder than any running water has ever been.

I can feel them looking at each other behind my back. I can feel the conversation they’re not having, the frantic exchange of messages through hands and eyes.

I turn off the tap. Set my bottle in the sink. Pivot to face them and say, like it’s no big thing, “So this is a surprise.”

Bridget is the color of beet juice. “It’s not what it looks like,” she says. “Because, you know, it looks like we were going to—”

“It’s exactly what it looks like,” Krishna interrupts.

“It’s not,” she insists. “Caroline’s going to think we were sneaking around and we didn’t want her to know, but that’s—”

“We were sneaking around,” Krishna says. “We didn’t want you to know.”

Bridget punches him in the arm. “Stop it!”

“Stop what? Telling the truth?”

“No! You’re making it sound like we’re—like I’m—and it’s just not …”

“Not what?”

“Not like that. Dirty. And sneaky. And … I don’t know. Convenient housemate hookup.”

Bridget’s expression is searching, earnest in a way that’s painful for me to take in.

Krishna aims his can’t-give-a-shit grin at her. “Nothing wrong with a dirty, sneaky, convenient housemate hookup.”

It’s ghastly. She stiffens. The flush drains out of her face.

She gets smaller.

Krishna claps her on the shoulder like they’re old army buddies. “I’ll leave you girls to it. I need to grab a shower.”

We listen to the stairs creak underneath his climbing feet. “Oh my God,” I say when he’s traversing the hallway over our heads. “Bridge.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t make me talk about it.”

“I kind of think we should talk about it.”

“Yeah, I know. I just …”

She covers her face with her hands, and I wrap my arms around her, hoping that’s the right thing. It feels like the right thing, even though I’m having trouble switching gears from my own reactions to caring about hers.

It gets easier when I realize she’s shivering.

“How long has this been going on?” I ask.

“I don’t know if it’s going on.”

“It looked like it was going on.”

“It’s complicated. I would have told you, but it’s so complicated, and I could never tell if we were on or off or neither, so I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t know what to say. At all.”

“Can I say what it looks like?”

“Ugh. No.”

“You sure? Sometimes it’s good to hear what it looks like.”

“It looks like I’m in love with Krishna and he’s just f*cking me because I’m around all the time, and he’s going to break my heart and then pretend he doesn’t care because he’s a guy and that’s what guys do, and meanwhile I’ll be moaning about how he has hidden depths and you just don’t understand, but you’ll know better because you think Krishna’s only good to be friends with but not someone you can count on, and you’ve never really been able to like him as much since he let West get arrested, because you’re hopelessly in love with West and you’re always going to take his side in everything forever.”

Her hair drips on my neck.

I give her a squeeze.

“Okay,” I say. “So at least you know what it looks like.”

“I am fully aware, on every level you can possibly imagine, exactly what it looks like.”

“And you’re saying it’s not like that?”

“Unfortunately, no. It is like that. Sometimes.”

“What’s it like when it’s different?”

She inhales deeply. Bites her lip and casts her eyes at the ceiling, searching for words. “It’s like falling into …”