"Is this a little strange?" she asked. She was busy pulling books out of her locker, so she wasn't looking at you. The question was directed at the shelf that held all of her assigned reading.

"What's strange?" you asked, keeping the same distance and nonchalance she was leading with. You rearranged books into your backpack and looked at her from the corner of your eye.

"That we're so good at turning it on and off? Like, when we're here in the hall I just see you as Santana. Everyday Santana."

"Um, thanks?" you said, confused as to what she really meant. You knew that you had to avoid explicit and overly detailed expressions when talking about this in public, but you were still a little behind in her reasoning.

"No, it's not a bad thing," she said a little more quietly, as she came closer to you.

She was standing next to you, her arm lightly brushing against yours. You were both staring the same direction, into the cavernous depths of your disorganized locker. She turned her head towards the door and traced the outline of your figure in a picture that was taped to the inside. It was a picture of the both of you, taken a few months ago. You're both laughing in the photo; your arm snaked around her waist, her arm over your shoulder. Your eyes are closed and your mouth is wide open, and for a minute you tried to remember what was so funny, obviously some fleeting and now forgotten joke.

"I was just thinking how easy it is to be two separate people," said Brittany. "Like right now, in school, I can stand here, next to you, at your locker, and we're still Brittany and Santana; the same Brittany and Santana that have matching schedules and phones and backpacks."

Her voice was growing softer as she spoke, almost at a whisper. You found yourself leaning your head closer, while still staring firmly ahead.

"Or," she whispered, turning her head so that her lips were almost touching your ear. "I could tell you all the things I want to do to you later," she said, in her most seductive tone.

In surprise, your hands found the closest steady surface – the edge of your opened locker – and gripped it as hard as you could, to maintain a little composure. You shut your eyes so you could focus on her warm whisper tickling your ear.

"I could tell you that I'm going to kiss and lick every single inch of you, until you're screaming my name," she said, as she dipped her tongue into your ear.

Then, just as suddenly, she went back to pulling books from her locker and double-checking her homework planner.

"Seriously?" you asked, loudly, finally looking directly at her face. Your knuckles were white from clutching your locker.

"She what I mean?" she answered, with her signature, ten thousand-watt smile, "Two different people."

"Can the other Britt come back?" you asked her. "Like, now?"

She flashed you yet another smile, slammed her locker shut, gave you a quick wink, and whispered in your ear, as she made her way past you.

"Tonight."

You were in a daze for the rest of the day. You barely listened in class, practice came and went and when you were waiting for Brittany outside your pool house, all you could think about were Brittany's lips on yours, her strong and slender legs wrapped around your waist, her blonde hair cascading down her naked back. If you closed you eyes, you could see her straddling your waist, and gripping the back of your neck as she –

"What are you doing?"

You jumped in surprise. Brittany had snuck up behind you and wrapped her arms around your waist. You felt the adrenaline and panic leave your body slowly as you realized that it was just her interrupting very vivid and explicit fantasies about, well, her. You relaxed and slowly melted into her embrace. You leaned your head back, resting it on her shoulders, and you placed your hands over hers as you swayed slowly.

"I was just thinking of you," you said boldly.

She took your earlobe between her teeth and hummed softly. She kissed your neck and your shoulder, and her hands moved to the strip of exposed flesh at your midriff. She took you by the waist and spun you around so you were facing each other, bodies still pressed together. She kissed you. Your hands reached up to her cheeks, and you ran your thumbs from the sides of her nose to the edge of her jaw line.

You broke apart and your noses brushed against each other. Eskimo kisses, you thought.

"Eskimo kisses," she said with a chuckle, and kissed your lips lightly.

You just stared at her eyes. Her vivid, electric blue eyes that scanned your face out of habit, reading your thoughts and gauging your mood.

"So, we have a bit of a problem," she said.

Instinctively you steeled yourself for the worst news. This was it. This was the point where she had come to her senses and was going to stop touching your skin with her fingers, she was going to stop kissing you with those lips, she was going to stop looking at you with those eyes. You wrinkled your forehead and furrowed your brow in preemptive sadness. At least it was good while it lasted, right? you thought to yourself.

"I didn't finish the reading for tomorrow, so I'm gonna have to do a little work while I'm here," she said, apologetically but kissing you between each pause of her sentences, "but then I thought we could (kiss) drink a little of the (kiss) wine I brought and then maybe (kiss) I could stay the night?"

"Stay forever," you said, relieved and elated.

She kissed you again.

You sat up on the guest bed that lived in the pool house and Brittany laid her head on your lap. Her long legs were outstretched on the comforter and she pointed her toes periodically, stretching her calves. Her long blonde hair was splayed across your lap, and you ran your fingers through it, methodically, softly and quietly. She was reading certain passages out loud. The assigned reading was a few chapters from a novel, but you weren't listening to any of the words she was reading, nor did you retain any of their meaning. Instead, as you smoothed and twirled her hair, you listened to the cadence of her voice, the way her mouth wrapped itself around consonants and vowels. You listened to the scrape of 's' sounds against her teeth, and the wide resonance of the 'w's. You noticed the pauses between words and sentences; you noticed her nimble fingers flipping the pages gracefully.

Then you realized you were in trouble.

She snapped the book shut, when she was finished underlining the last important passage, and flipped onto her stomach. Her head was still on your lap, but her hands played with yours now. She took your right index finger and brought it near her mouth. She dragged her teeth across the pad of your fingertip and let it slide, slowly, across her bottom lip. You stopped breathing entirely.

"What to you want to do now?" she asked, looking up slowly, letting her eyes linger on your hands, your breasts, your exposed collarbone and then right to your eyes.

I want to tell you that in this past hour, I just realized that I'm falling in love with you, you thought.

"Oh, I don't know," you said instead, in a tone of mock boredom.

"Well," she said, sitting up and sitting your lap. "I'm sure we can think of something."

She kissed the one spot on your neck that guaranteed her a high-pitched moan, and a tighter grip on her waist. In just a few days Brittany had learned your body better than anyone, and she used it to her advantage.

"Mmmm…" you hummed. "I love this."

Her kisses were slow and calculated. But, she stopped, put her hands on either side of your face and stared you directly in the eyes.

"We're still just in this because it's fun, right?" she asked.

"Of course," you answered a little too quickly. "What else would this be?"

"I just…" she started, now looking down and sitting next to you instead of on you.

She trailed away. This was hard. While Brittany was skilled at reading your every thought just by looking at your face, you were less adept at reading hers. She was holding one of your hands, and gently tracing the lines of your palm, but her eyes were far away, as if she was saying all she wanted to say in her head.

Now you were panicking. If Brittany suddenly lost interest, and you went back to the relationship you had before all of this started, if she brought back the boundaries, if she stopped letting you pull her into a kiss by her belt loops, or if she stopped letting you kiss her neck and intertwine your fingers, if she stopped it all – you now realized – you would lose everything.

Please tell me that you feel something more for me, you thought. Please.

"What?" you asked, instead.

"I just…feel like those guys that don't know what they're getting into. And now I have a girlfriend."

Ouch.

"What? No way."

"Well, what is this then?"

"Things haven't changed, Britt," you assured her, and yourself. "You're my best friend. And I know that we're blurring the lines here, but this isn't like we're dating. At all."

"But when we hang out we just do…this, now," she said.

"This is true," you said. "But can't we just look at this as another thing we can do together?"

"I guess…"

"I'll tell you what," you said, trying to regain some control, coming up with a plan. "What if, we just don't kiss anymore? Actually, what if we just stop doing this all together?"

She looked up at you now. Her eyes looked a little hurt, and worried.

"Is that what you want?" she asked.

No! I don't want this at all. I just need you to want it. To want me.

"It is if you say so."

She grabbed the back of your neck and pulled you into the deepest kiss you two had shared yet. She dipped her whole tongue into your mouth, and pulled you on top of her. Her hands moved down all the way to the small of your back and she pulled your hips into hers. A surprised, and low, resonating moan came from the back of your throat. You pulled away. You tried to catch your breath.

"I don't think I could stop doing that," she said. "And go back to the way things were."

"So what seems to be the problem?"

"That we still need be able to do friend things."

"We do friend things all the time!" you said. "Yesterday we watched that movie."

"Yeah, and I ended up sitting on you and kissing your neck."

"You totally started that."

She sighed. The smirked.

You bent in closer and kissed her again. You both had the perfect rhythm, and you went a little lightheaded at the combination of the scent of her perfume and her hands gripping your ass. Your hips were rocking back and forth steadily against hers, and you knew your skirt was riding up slowly, exposing your lacy and skimpy underwear.

"Mmmm…this are soft, and adorable," she said as she extended her palms and pulled your hips even closer.

You smiled and played with the hem of her tank top. You bent down and kissed the skin that you revealed slowly, inching the hem higher, and higher. You stopped at her ribs, when you heard her breath hitch, and then you swept the shirt over her head entirely. You were left staring at her perfect body, her silk-smooth skin, and her perfectly formed breasts under her turquoise bra.

"It's my favorite," she said with a smile.

"You're my favorite."

She smiled.

You reached your hands behind her back and unhooked her bra. You looked at her breasts and her soft, pink nipples, and you kissed both of them, so soft and slow that you knew – from the bucking of her hips, and the grip of her hands – that she wanted more.

"How does that feel?" you asked her, quietly.

"S-s-s-oooo good," she answered in a whisper, dragging out the sounds of each letter. "Keep doing it."

You did.

A few hours later, Brittany was asleep in your arms, and you made a silent promise to yourself and to her, that you wouldn't tell her how fast and how deeply you were falling in love with her. Not until you knew she would say it back.