I didn’t expect it to be her.
She wasn’t the type I usually noticed—and yet I noticed everything. The way she tucked her hair behind one ear when she was thinking. The way she paused before speaking, like she weighed every word in her mouth first. The way her laugh landed softer than anyone else's.
We’d been friends for almost a year. The kind of friendship that’s full of comfortable silences and charged glances that neither of us ever named.
Until that night.
She stayed late.
We opened a second bottle of wine.
We sat too close on the couch.
Her thigh touched mine and didn’t move away.
When our fingers brushed on the throw blanket, I didn’t pull back. Neither did she. And when she turned her head to look at me, really look at me, I felt the air leave the room.
“I’ve never done this,” I said.
Her answer was a whisper against my lips.
“Me neither.”
The kiss was soft. So soft I almost didn’t know it had started.
Then came the second one—slower, fuller. She kissed like someone who didn’t need to rush. Like someone who wanted to feel everything.
Her hands were delicate at first, running up my sides over the cotton of my T-shirt, then under it. My skin lit up where her fingers traveled—my ribcage, my waist, the curve beneath my breasts.
When she pulled off my shirt, she paused. Looked at me.
“You okay?”
I nodded. More than okay.
She undressed me gently, like she was unwrapping something precious. When her lips touched the top of my breast, I exhaled a sound I didn’t know I was holding. Her mouth was warm, slow, patient. Every kiss down my body was an act of attention.
She didn’t go straight for it.
She circled me with her fingers first.
Learned the shape of my arousal.
Listened.
And when she finally touched me, it wasn’t fireworks. It wasn’t sudden.
It was something deeper—like coming home.
I came quietly, with her name on my breath and my hips pressed into her palm. Her forehead resting against my thigh. My hand tangled in her hair.
Afterwards, she lay next to me, her arm draped over my waist. We didn’t say much.
But she kept her body close, and her fingers traced the edge of my wrist like a secret language neither of us had learned yet—but were willing to.
