That's What friends are for

Chapter 1

Collecting myself, I went on the defensive. "Look, Lucy is like me. She was raised to take sex seriously and that's why we haven't done anything yet. She thinks you should only have sex once you really care about the other person."

"She's a very caring person."

"Knock it off, Camila!" She was pissing me off at this point.

"Camila?" She grinned. "You never call me that. Truth hurt?"

"Why do you care? You've done nothing but rag on Lucy since I started going out with her. You say she's stuck up and slutty and you barely know her. What's your problem?"

"That I care about you and think you're getting used." Mila took the last bite of the banana and tossed the peel into her backpack. "Look at today. She's this big green freak and says Earth Day is such a big deal, but you're here and where is she?"

"She's in Jamestown cleaning up the cove. She doesn't have a lot of people helping, so she spread us out."

"Yeah, she's spreading all right. My sister says her ex-boyfriend is part of the cleanup. I think he's ..." She snapped her fingers. "At the beach. You can think what you want, but there's no way in hell she isn't fucking Luis and who knows who else. She's using you, Lauren, but I guess you'll have to find that out yourself."

I stared at her and frowned. I had heard Lucy's ex, Luis, was sniffing around, but whenever I mentioned it she got mad and said I was acting jealous and shouldn't worry. When I'd pushed, Lucy had brought up Mila and how much time I spent with her and how she wasn't jealous.

Watching Mila unwrap a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and begin eating, I recalled how I had told Lucy that Mila and I had been best friends since middle school, and that we'd never been more.

Lucy had insisted that was because that's how I saw it, claiming Mila had a thing for me, that I was too naïve to see it. Just like Mila was telling me I was naïve thinking Lucy was waiting for the right time with me.

I was well aware I tended to take people at face value and was a little too trusting; but in these cases I was right. Mila was a good friend and had zero interest in being anything but, just as I had no interest in her as a girl.

I was also sure Lucy wasn't fucking around. Unlike me, Lucy had been with someone before, and most likely more than just Luis. Then again, I was the only person my age I knew who hadn't been with anyone.

But after my mother had discovered my asshole father had been fucking anything in sight for years, she raised me to believe that sex should be special the first time, with someone who meant something.

I not only agreed with her, but swore to her that I would be a better man than my father and would wait until I met someone special. Not that it had been easy. Although I'd never met anyone who I had a serious interest in until Lucy, there had been a few girls who'd made it more than clear we could have some fun.

Sometimes I wondered if I wasn't being an idiot waiting, passing up on some chances for a good time. But my mother was thrilled with my promise to make my first time meaningful and that had pretty much trapped me into keeping my word. There were times I thought I could just fool around and she would never know, but that would make me a lying dog no better than my father.

How many women you screwed didn't make you a man; keeping your word to someone you loved did. And I swore to keep my vow and not be a dog in heat. I did, however, know enough not to tell anyone. That didn't mean I had to advertise the fact I was a virgin, though. Any girl who had been interested in just a good time, I made up the excuse I was dating someone. And I was way too smart to tell any of the guys.

Mila knew because Mila  pretty much knew everything about me, just as I knew more about her than her own brother and sister. We'd met in fifth grade when we'd been put together as lab partners and had immediately become good friends. We both enjoyed the same books, movies, and video games, and had the same laid-back personalities. Where we were different was when it came to what people thought about us.

Mila  pretty much marched to the beat of her own drummer dressing like a tomboy and watching football and bad horror movies while spending more time around me and my friends than the other girls.

I, on the other hand, wore brand name clothes and took a lot of care with my appearance. Enough for Mila, along with my mother, to teasingly refer to me as a 'pretty boy' who generally tried to put myself out there as cool.