I opened my eyes a little and glanced at my alarm clock – 8:00am. I was pretty sure we were supposed to go to the studio today, but probably not until eleven like usual. I'd had the weirdest dream.

I heard a soft moan next to me and my eyes widened. I rolled over and saw a mess of red hair spread across one of my pillows. Oh my God. But she slept in here a lot, so there was nothing to freak out about. I lifted up the covers a little and looked underneath.

Oh my God, there was a lot to freak out about. It wasn't a dream. Lexi was there, in my bed, naked. We had sex. I had sex with my best friend. What the hell was I thinking?

She looked so beautiful, sleeping next to me. I touched her cheek softly. I couldn't help it. She was gorgeous.

Bad idea. I woke her up. I froze. What was I supposed to say? Was she going to say something? She looked like she was internally panicking just as much as I was.

"Um…breakfast?" she said, holding the sheets close to her body to cover herself and avoiding eye contact with me.

"Yeah, I'm starving," I agreed quickly. Anything to get out of there.

We both pulled our clothes on at world-record speed and hurried out of my bedroom and down to the kitchen. I knew we should talk about this. And we would, eventually. But there were two people I needed to talk to first – Nate and Jason.

Nate was already in the kitchen when we got there. He nodded some form of acknowledgement to us without actually looking up from the newspaper. The only page he ever read of the newspaper, at least – sports. Lexi poured two cups of coffee and handed one to me.

"I'm going to the gym, bye," she muttered and kissed me on the cheek before grabbing her gym bag and disappearing outside.

Did a kiss on the cheek mean something? She wasn't mad? That was what she normally did – was she cool with this?

"Shane, how can you sleep next to her and not…" Nate started, as usual.

"I did."

"What?"

"I did," I repeated, still trying to believe it myself. "We did. We had sex."

His face lit up like a little kid on Christmas morning. "Jason, get in here!"

"What's up?" Jason ducked his head into the kitchen.

"Sit down," Nate ordered him, a wide grin still plastered across his face. "They finally did it."

"You slept with Lexi?!" Jason practically shouted.

He sat down at the table with us. He was obviously as excited as Nate. At least somebody was enjoying this, I guess.

"Was it awesome?" they both asked at the same time.

"Can you just be serious for a minute, please?" I begged them.

Jason laughed. "Dude, you have to tell us. How was it?"

I really didn't want to admit it. All it would do is add another layer to this complicated mess I was in. But I knew they wouldn't be any kind of help until they got the answer.

I rested my head in my hands. "It was incredible. Like…the best, ever."

"I knew it!" Nate shouted triumphantly. "I knew she had to be awesome in bed!"

"So you finally realized that you're in love with her," Jason smiled at me. "About time. What made it click?"

"What the hell are you talking about? I'm not in love with Lexi."

They both started laughing at me. What was their problem? They were supposed to help me figure out what the hell to do, and they were taunting me?

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not," I repeated.

"Shane, how do you feel when you see Lexi?" Nate asked.

What was he getting at? "Happy?"

"How happy?"

"Um…really happy?" I replied. "If you're trying to make a point, I'd appreciate it if you could just make it already."

"I mean, if you're having a really, really bad day, and then you see her, how do you feel?" he asked.

"I don't understand the question," I said, obviously annoyed. "I mean, everything's perfect when I'm with her."

"Yeah, exactly," he nodded.

"But she's my best friend…"

"Shane, you're my best friend, and I don't have sunshine and rainbows coming out of my ears every time you walk into a room," Nate said. "If I'm pissed off, I'm still pissed off when you get there."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Dude, why do you think you dump every girl after one date because of stupid little bullshit reason?" Jason asked. "Like, she ordered a hamburger, or her eyebrows weren't identical the way she plucked them, or she had a freckle that was darker than her other freckles…"

Those all seemed like valid reasons to dump a girl to me. Probably because he was using actual examples. "I'm just picky when it comes to women."

"Yeah, really picky," he agreed. "Because if they're not Lexi, you're not interested."

"That's not true."

"Name one flaw that Lexi has," Nate dared me.

That was easy. She does plenty of things that annoy me. She always says she isn't hungry and then she ends up eating my food. She puts about a million packets of Splenda in her coffee – I don't even know how she drinks it that sweet. She makes me listen to Britney Spears in the car all the time. She drags me to the mall and makes me sit around while she tries on the same shirt in six different colors. But I just don't think of those things as flaws, I guess. They're annoying, yeah, but they're kind of cute, too, and it's the little things like that, that make me…

"Oh my God, I love her."

"Don't sound so excited…" Jason said sarcastically.

What the hell was I supposed to do now? At some point last night, I'd come to terms with the fact that I had feelings for her…but love? I'm not even sure I've ever been in love with anyone before. Was it supposed to be this scary? I felt like I was going to puke. I don't think that's what love is supposed to be like.

"This is terrible!"

They both looked at me awkwardly. "I don't really think that's a normal reaction, dude."

Of course they wouldn't get it. Anything that involved sex could have no downsides in their minds.

"I'm going to lose my best friend," I told them.

"No, you won't," Nate assured me. "It will be even better."

Maybe it could be. I don't know. I loved the idea of being able to kiss her, really kiss her like I did last night, any time I want. Whenever I thought of the future, I never thought about having a wife and kids – I thought about sitting on the couch with Lexi, watching a movie and eating popcorn, like we'd done every Sunday night since we were twelve. But maybe they weren't mutually exclusive.

"But what if she doesn't love me back?"

A/N: Pleeeeease review. I see you people adding it to your alerts and not reviewing…