Chapter 14

"Damn, Kay, what the hell happened to you?" asked Reese from his deep slouch on the sofa.

Miguel punched him lightly on the shoulder and said, "Reese, dude, were you raised in a barn? That's not how you greet a guest."

Kay must have been thinking the same thing as Reese because she snorted behind her hand as Reese looked up incredulously at Miguel and responded, "Kay? A guest? Since when? She's always just been one of the guys."

Miguel winced instead of Kay at Reese's carelessness for the first time. It suddenly occurred to him what it must be like to constantly have one's femininity undermined. Strong woman or no, Kay was still a woman and the stirrings in his body as she wiggled next to him while laughing were sending him a sure reminder of that fact.

Kay sensed Miguel getting upset, and while she was pleasantly surprised at the fact, she didn't want to cause trouble between the two best friends. "Miguel," she murmured, "It's alright."

Kay's soft acceptance of Reese's words made him cringe all the more. "Reese, tonight, Kay is a guest, so just knock it off, okay?"

Reese smirked to himself. I know what's goin' on here buddy, and it's about damned time. Now maybe I'll get an intro to that cute sister of hers. Unwilling to let his mischief, go, however, Reese thought up another tactic. "Fine, fine, whatever you say man." He paused for effect, just to let the moment's awkwardness fade. All the better to create more in a second, he thought. "I guess I better clear the couch then so you can crash Kay.." he said, letting the end of his sentence trail off as he began to move out of his horizontal slouch and into a sitting position.

Kay immediately started to reach into the hall closet to pull out the blankets she normally used when she slept on their couch.

Miguel watched the preparations with dismay. This was not going as he (and his hormones) had planned. He had to put a stop to this before Kay was snoozing on the couch and he was alone and frustrated upstairs. "Actually, Kay, it's been so long since we've had a chance to hang out.." Kay looked down sheepishly at this. Miguel continued, "..So why don't you come upstairs and we can chat for awhile, and Reese con continue vegetating on the couch."

Reese could barely contain the snort that rose in his throat at this. Smooth, Miguel, real smooth, he thought. But not as smooth as me. "Oh, Miguel, after being so rude to our guest, I wouldn't want to put you guys out, I'll vacate the couch and head to bed and you two can talk down here, there's more room." Beat that, Miguel, Reese thought, hitting his stride in deviousness.

"Ummm." Miguel thought quickly and came up with nothing. So he decided to remove the problem. "Reese, can I talk to you for a sec?"

"Sure, buddy, what's up?" Reese asked, not moving an inch.

"I mean, in the kitchen," Miguel said, willing his teeth to unclench so he could get the words out.

"Ooooooooooooh, hehe, sure thing, after you," Reese responded, loving every minute of Miguel's tension.

Kay was totally confused. If she hadn't known any better, she would have thought that Miguel was trying to be alone with her. in his bedroom. at night. She was glad he was going to talk to Reese about .. whatever, because she needed a moment to process all of this. It appeared as though what she'd been wishing for, for what seemed like all of her life, was about to happen. Something in the back of her head told her that it probably wasn't a good idea to begin something tonight, since they still hadn't really talked about what had gone wrong with them in the first place. But she also heard Simone's voice in her head, telling her to go for it because she'd never know until it happened whether it was right or not. Simone was definitely winning out until visions of Nicholas and Charity began to pop, uninvited, into her head, spurring on a wave of guilt. She knew what the Nicholas thing was about, but she couldn't think why her cousin's visage should make her feel even more guilty on top of that. Still, she decided to let that devil in bright red on her shoulder named Simone be her guide. She'd work out all the difficulties later, she told herself.

Meanwhile, Miguel was steadily berating a completely unapologetic Reese for his interference. "What the hell was that, Reese? Why are you being so difficult about Kay and I spending time alone in my room?"

Reese put all his mirth on pause to consider the question. The answer he came up with surprised even himself. "Because you've acted like such an ass with Kay since I met the two of you freshman year and I'm not sure that you deserve what you seem to finally want right now."

Miguel looked at him in shock. "What are you talking about?! You're the one who said she had a crush on me, you're the one who was gossiping about her to me, which nearly ended our friendship, I might add."

"Bull," Reese said succinctly, cutting off Miguel's tirade. "I told you she had a crush on you, not so that you could decide one night to let your hormones have your way with her, but so that you wouldn't hurt her." Reese softened his tone. "Miguel, you have got to be one of the most self- centered people I know, and as your best friend, I think it's hilarious, and for some reason, most women seem to think it's charming, but for Kay, it's just one aspect of a person she appears to be in love with. And it's the aspect that's keeping you from returning that affection, or at the very least being straight with her about how you feel so she can move on. Instead, you string her along, happy to have her devotion, as long as it doesn't require any reciprocity from you."

Miguel couldn't believe it. He hadn't wanted to admit it to himself, but he really had had no clue as to why Kay had so easily dismissed him more than a month ago, he only knew that he wanted things to return to the way they were. At least, that's what he'd wanted before tonight. "Yeah well, what if I'm willing to give this whole reciprocity thing a try?" he asked Reese.

Reese gazed at him steadily, attempting to mimic countless movie scenes, in which a person can see if another person is serious by looking into their eyes. He realized that movies were a load of crap; he had no idea whether Miguel was serious or not. "Hey, she's your friend, Miguel, but if you screw this up again, I wouldn't bet on being able to fix it with that wide grin of yours or those big brown eyes either."

With that, Reese happily trotted back to get into his deep slouch on the sofa while a stunned Kay watched as he flopped down on her nicely arranged pillows and blankets. "I won the coin toss, Kay," Reese said absently as he flipped on the TV.

"Huh?" she asked him.

"I. Won. The. Coin. Toss," Reese repeated patiently, as if he were talking to a small child. "That means I get the couch and he get to cram into that tiny room upstairs with Miguel. Too bad."

Kay smirked to herself. Miguel walked into the room with two cokes. "Come on Kay, we.."

"We lost the coin toss, riiiiiight." Kay said as she rolled her eyes. She followed Miguel up to his room.