"Just Friends"

3

(2205 words)
His alarm went off early in the morning, around 7 am.

"Jesus Cally, it's so early," I pulled his covers over my head to block the sun from my eyes.

"I know, I like to pretend I'm a morning person for some reason." He groggily leaned over to turn it off, leaving me colder without his body against my back. I'd nearly forgotten how we went to sleep, but it wasn't hard to remember. I'd slept incredibly well in his arms.

Now that I was awake, I checked my phone. I had 3 texts from Brandon. 10 missed calls and 20 texts from Ally, and one from Jakes that said "Sorry."

All of Ally's texts and voicemails were about me sleeping over at Calvin's. "I can't believe you slept over, the day of a sex scandel! Just sleep with him, do us all a favour and suck his dick already so I don't have to keep going through this emotional rollercoaster." She'd texted at 1 am last night, but I hadn't noticed because Calvin was distracting me. Brandon's texts, the general gist of which was "Why didn't you tell me you were sleeping with him!" were considerably less graphic but still told me to suck Calvin's dick.

"Our friend's are very supportive of our fuck budy lifestyle." I told him.

"That's no surprise, I've got 11 missed texts and one call, you?"

"24 texts and 10 calls. Did Jake apologize to you too?"

"No," Calvin frowned. "That wanker likes you more than me."

"I'm just lovable," I laughed, and rolled back over to go back to sleep.

"Yes, you are." He snaked his arm back around me to spoon me, it still felt deeply foreign yet oddly comforting, and I wanted him to keep doing it. I was cold anyway.

He pulled me close to him and pulled the blanket back more to his side, making me cold. I tugged the blanket back towards me, to cover my recently exposed skin. The morning air nipped at my skin and made goosebumps stand at attention. In response, he rolled over and stole the entire covers from me.

"Hey!" I groaned, attempting to pull it out from under him. "Move your fat butt, you hog."

"I can't hear you, I'm asleep." He said, and faked a snore. After another solid tug I got some more real estate, and tried to wrap myself up.

Seeing me so cold, Calvin finally rolled back over and scooped me towards him, bringing me back to the warmth.

It felt so nice, so intimately close, cocooned in his blankets and arms. His bed smelled like him, it took strength to not take a deep breath and enjoy it. Cal smelled.... Nice. Very nice. Attractive, almost.

I almost physically shook my head to get the thought out of my head, but it stayed lodged in there. It was getting harder and harder to deny I didn't have real feelings for him. His smile gave me butterflies in my stomach, the way he quirked his head, the way he'd get into chaotic moods or do silly things, all of it made me happy in ways nothing else did. I wouldn't have cleaned Brandon's room, I might have cleaned Ally's, but I'd always clean Calvin's. My care for him surpassed normal friendship, but even if he wanted to date me, what if we broke up? What if it didn't last? What would it do to the friend group? I could never risk losing his friendship.

    As tired as I was I couldn't go to sleep, and his occasional sniff and movement let me know he was doing the same thing. I carefully slipped out from under his arm to use the bathroom, being as subtle as I could even though I knew he was awake. His arm reached out to weakly stop me at first but slipped from my hand quickly.

    "I'm just gonna use the bathroom," I said. Instead I just stood in the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My face was flushed and my lips were puffy from sleep, I played with my face and looked into my eyes for a while. His roommate, Aaron, was still asleep so the place was dead quiet.