Too Blind to See It!

I stood at the door to Zach's apartment, after having left him sleeping in my bed. I needed to check on Phoebe. I hardly slept all night worrying about her. It was amazing to have Zach there though. When I tossed and turned with worry, he'd kissed me and pulled me in tightly. "Everything's gonna be Ok baby," he whispered in his rough sleepy voice. He soothed me till I fell back to sleep and the whole thing repeated less than an hour later. I don't know what I would have done without Zach last night, both to rescue Phoebe and to comfort me after we retrieved her. I could get used to sleeping with him, laying in his arms, my face buried in the crook of his neck.

I took a deep breath getting ready to walk into the apartment. I didn't know what I was going to say to Phoebe. As much as I needed to see her, to be sure she was OK, I was almost scared to face her. My feelings were irrational but I didn't even know if she'd want to see me. I didn't want her thinking I was judging her, yet I needed to make sure she understood how serious this was. Just as I was ready to open the door, if flung open.

"Ahhhh." I shrieked.

"Holy Shit," Travis said at the same time, and we both had a good laugh.

"How is she?" I was desperate for the answer and wanted to know more then just how she was feeling physically.

"It's been a rough night. She woke up around three disoriented. I got her to the bathroom just in time for her to throw up. Jenna she was still so out of it that I had hold her head up for her. Then she cried for like an hour straight. I just held her on the tile floor. I didn't know what else to do."

"Did you get any sleep?"

"That doesn't really matter. What matters is that Phoebe gets better."

"You're a good man Travis."

"If I was a good man I wouldn't haven't treated her the way I did when she came to me in the locker room. I would have convinced her to give me a shot, a real shot and she would have been with me last night instead of … well you know."

"I don't know what happened last night, or what you saw, but I think it takes a good man to come out of this situation admitting you love her and wanting to help her the way you are."

"Maybe. Maybe. I don't know." His exhaustion was showing, as he ran his hand through his short hair. "Do you…do you think after this she's going to be ready to settle down? Do you think she could be interested in just one guy…in…in me?"

He was so tired and so vulnerable, and while Phoebe and I had very different mind sets, different backgrounds and made very different choices my response to Travis was sincere and based on everything I knew about Phoebe. "I've never seen her look at a man the way she looked at you after your fight with Jordan. Travis I think you have a shot. A real shot." I offered no guarantees, but I wanted to offer hope, he deserved that. He deserved a real shot, and I prayed Pheebs would give it to him.

He gave me a small smile and I knew he understood. "Where's your man? We have practice."

"He's still sleeping."

He paused for a moment with a look like he was about to tell me something, but when he didn't I got nervous. "What?" I asked hoping he wasn't leaving anything out about Phoebe.

"He really loves you Jenna," Travis said seemingly out of no where. By the tone of his voice I felt like he was telling me a secret that belonged to his best friend, betraying him in the best way possible.

I already knew, I knew that Zach loved me. Not only by his words which I adored hearing from Zach's own luscious lips, but by the way his eyes sparkled when he saw me enter a room, by the way he was waiting for me to be ready to give myself to him, not pushing me into sex. I mean what man does that? If there had been any question in my mind as to his feeling for me, the night before Zach put himself in harms way to help my best friend. While I had no doubt that Zach loved me, it still made my heart swell and my insides tingle that his friends knew it too, and that Travis would go out of his way to tell me. I smiled at him "The door's open. I'm going to spend some times with Pheebs." He nodded and went to walk past me but I grabbed hold of his shirt sleeve. He turned to look at me. "Thanks Travis…Thanks for everything!"

****

I slowly made my way toward the bedroom where I knew I'd find my best friend sleeping. I hesitated for a moment, took a deep breath and walked in. My heart hurt for the shell of a woman that laid in Zach's bed. She was sleeping facing me, her long black hair pulled out of her face and wrangled sloppily on the top of her head, no doubt by travis. Her skin was pale almost tinged in green and despite her slumber her face held a worried look. She'd been through so much, though I didn't know exactly what she'd been through because everyone felt the need to shelter the princess. What I did know was that my best friend didn't deserve this.

Phoebe had her issues with sex and booze. She was self destructive, and I'll be the first to admit that she invited this kind of trouble on herself, but she was a good person full of life and wise beyond her years. She could take the worst situation and find something good in it, and considering her childhood full of criticism and loneliness, that alone said a lot. Phoebe had always been there for me, always and laying there almost lifeless, the one thing I was completely sure of is that she didn't deserve to be hurting like this.

I walked to the other side of the bed and slid in beside her, worried sick yet hopeful for exactly the same thing, that she'd come out of this a different person. I never wanted to lose the happy-go-lucky Phoebe that made lewd comments and had a smart answer to everything, the person that teased me mercilessly yet gave me the best advice on the planet, because she got me like no one else did. I did want her to change though too, to respect herself, to behave herself, not to abstain from fun, but to calm down, be safe. When it came right down to it I wanted her to change her view on sex. Sex was a gift and I wanted her to respect it and give it to someone who deserved it, not toss it around at bars like she was buying the next round. I wrapped my arm around her, just so she'd know I was here if she needed anything. I pondered the ways in which this ordeal could change her, and the optimist in me hoped that she wouldn't change that much from the situation itself, but a constant presence of Travis would bring about those necessary healthy changes in her life.

After about a minute of lying beside her, she rolled on to her back and let out a moan scrunching her eyes together but never opening them. I slipped from the room quietly and returned with a cool wet wash cloth for her head. "Thank you Travis," she whispered without checking to see who it was in the room.

"Pheebs, honey it's me Jenna."

As if she needed to check for herself she peeked one eye open from under the towel. "Oh," was all she said, but that one simple word revealed a world of disappointment.

It took me a moment to realize why she would be disappointed with my presence. But once the lightbulb went off I tried to soothe her. "He was here Pheebs. He was here all night with you, and he'd still be here, but he had to go to practice."

The corner of her mouth turned up in a small smile. "I thought it was a dream Jenna." Her voice cracked, so I grabbed the bottle of water next to me and let her sip through the straw. "I thought it was a dream," she said again her voice more clear this time. Her eyes were still shut as to not let any light in and save her the pain of dealing with the brightness. "I hoped it wasn't though."

"It wasn't a dream. He went into that building for you, him and Zach, and he stayed up all night taking care of you."

"Oh God," she moaned. "He saw me like that?" The worry in her voice was evident.

"He did, but he loves you. He said so himself. He loves you Phoebe."

"You're so naive Jenna. This isn't one of your fairy tales. This is real life honey and men like Travis do not fall for women like me."

Well one thing hadn't changed, she was putting up that protective wall around herself. Not letting herself believe it, so she didn't get hurt. "I'm not going to argue with you about it. He was here last night, all night. He wouldn't even let me be the one that stayed with you. Give him more credit than that, at least give the man a chance to love you."

We fell into a silence, and I wrapped my arms around her again. I hoped she was considering what I said, letting it seep in, adjusting to the fact that a man loved her. He wasn't just any man either and she knew it. I hoped she knew it, I hoped she'd let him love her. Just when I thought she'd fallen back to sleep, her voice filled my ears again.

"I think you should take your own advice Jenna."

"What?" I had no idea what she was talking about. I assumed she mean Zach, but Zach and I were together. I loved him, I'd told him so only the night before, but I'd felt it for as long as I'd known him and I would have done almost anything to get him to love me. Now he did, but before I could dismiss her comment as being induced by the groggy fog she was in that morning, Phoebe offered up an explanation.

"You do the same thing as me. I hold Travis at arms length, offering my body, but not my heart. You do the same thing with Zach, only you offer him your heart but not your body. You're like the pot calling the kettle black. Maybe your way is more acceptable to society, but really when you completely love a man don't you give him everything? It's your fairy tale. Don't you want to offer your whole self to him Jenna? Maybe you need to give Zach a chance to love you, really love you."

**** Zach's POV

I'd been without sex for a long time, a LONG fucking time. First it was Allison. I'm not an idiot, all the signs were right there. I'm not sure she even tried to hide it. I knew she was cheating and I couldn't bring myself to touch her let alone make love to her. A better man might have fought for her, to keep her, but the changes she made to herself in appearance and attitude were repulsive. After the initial shock of finding her fucking Del Zotto in our bed, I didn't want to hit him like I should have, I wanted to thank him. I'm thankful she's out of my life, not draining my bank account, fucking up my apartment with doilies and peach colored paint, and I'm thankful I don't have to look at her big lips and fake tits any more. Harsh? Maybe, forcing what we had long after any flame had died just made me hate her. Hate might not be the right word, disgust, disdain, contempt, maybe those words fit better.

With Jenna it's different, SO completely different. I wanted to have sex with Jenna; I wanted to touch her body in places that made her quiver and I wanted to be the first man inside her, to make love to her. The thought of it made my knees week and my groin ache. I wanted her more than I've wanted any woman. For months I'd fought my urges to push Jenna, to touch her like a man touches a woman he loves. She has those long smooth legs and often wore nothing but a t-shirt and short boy shorts that showed them off. Her long blond hair fell over her shoulders and smelled like strawberries. She was gorgeous, but as beautiful as she was, that wasn't the biggest attraction. Some guys would have wanted her because she was a virgin, and I'm not going to tell you that that little fact didn't drive me completely insane, but it went beyond that. Jenna and I had a connection, an amazing connection. I loved her, and I wanted to be closer to her physically. I wanted to have sex with her. I'm a 25 year old guy, of course I did, but I also wanted to make love to her. To show her how it feels to be that close with someone, that being in love with someone and making love is the most amazing experience.

When Travis and I got home from practice, I let him go to my place where Phoebe would be staying for a couple of days, and headed to Jenna's. The door was unlocked, and I walked through her apartment quietly until I came to her bedroom. From the door I had the most amazing view. She sat on the center of her bed, in her worn NJ Devil's T-shirt, her bare legs wrapped up like a pretzel. Her hair was off her face, scooped up in a shaggy bun and held there with a pencil. Her lap top and a notebook sat in front of her and between her teeth was a yellow number two pencil. It was a sight to behold, it was the most unintentionally sexy thing I'd ever seen and I pinched my eyes shut engraining the vision of her to memory before I opened them and took her in again. Watching her like that, innocently writing a paper or working on an article, well it was sexy as hell and my body let me know it. Fuck being a red blooded male. I'd hoped to slip away and take care of the ache between my legs before she noticed me, but luck was not on my side. Or maybe it was, because when she caught sight of me, she leapt from the bed and landed in my arms giving me a long drawn out kiss that did nothing to relieve my straining cock, but felt so damn good.

"I missed you," she said and then giggled. "And it looks like you missed me too." She looked down between us, my erection pretty obvious.

"Um hm, something like that. I'm just going to…" I turned wanting her to know that I would take care of it myself, but she stopped me.

"NO!" she squealed. "Unless…" Her eyes drifted to her feet. "Unless I didn't do a good job last night."

I grabbed her into my arms and kissed her mouth urgently. "You did an amazing job last night. Having you touch me like that…" I closed my eyes tightly. "Well I don't know that I have the words. But it's hard Jenna. It's so fucking hard not to touch you the way I want to. I'm trying to be a gentleman here. I'm trying to do the right thing."

She looked up at me with her big blue eyes and a look I had never seen before coming from her, almost needy. "You don't always have to be a gentleman Zach."

I pinched my eyes shut again. "I'm not sure you get it. Jen. I'm not sure you get what I'm saying. I want you to touch me, God I do, but I want to touch you too. I want to make you feel as good as you made me feel. You're here and you are hardly wearing anything and one thing leads to another in situations like this and I don't want to push you to do something you don't want to do."

She flung her arms around my neck and pressed her barely clad body up against mine. Her nipples were hard and poking my chest through the thin fabric of her shirt and that's when my body figured out what my mind had already noticed. She wasn't wearing a bra. I think that was the moment that the damn broke…

My hands gripped her hips as my mouth devoured hers. I guess she gave me just enough the day before that it made me want her so much more. Her enthusiasm poured into the kiss, her tongue battling mine for dominance. Feeling that energy from her, I just couldn't hold back and in one fluid motion I gripped the bottom of the shirt and pulled it over her head. I needed to feel her against me I wanted to feel her breasts, her nipples against my bare chest and before I knew it my own shirt hit the floor. I just held her against me for a moment, trying to regain some sense of control. If she could have known the lust flowing though me she likely would have run the other direction instead of encouraging me with her fingers working their way around the muscles of my back. "Jenna, I love you, but I'm a man, and I'm not going to lie, I want you, I want you so damn bad." I almost hoped it would scare her. It was her "out", a warning and I almost expected her to push me away and say no, but her lips went to my neck and she pressed her body against my erection and I was lost in this amazing woman that seemed to want me as badly as I wanted her.

I held her at arms length, it made her uncomfortable for me to look at her without clothes, but she had an amazing body, and seeing her like this was breath taking. My eyes met hers and I cupped her face. "You're beautiful Jenna, I don't think I've ever seen anything more beautiful than you right here right now." I Let my hand move down her neck slowly over her collar bone and breast to her stomach until both hands rested on the waist band of her little lace boy shorts. She looked at me almost scared so I kissed her softly. "Trust me Jenna. I love you. I'm not going to hurt you, and if you tell me to stop, I will. I promise." I waited for a moment until she whispered a soft, "I want this Zach. I do."

I couldn't keep the smile from my lips until she brought on another kiss, this one hot and lusty. I moved her a few steps backwards until her legs hit the edge of the bed, our lips still in a heated battle. Slowly I inched her panties down her hips over thighs and knees until they fell freely to the floor and for the first time I was seeing her, all of her. I wanted her so badly that I had to close my eyes tightly to hold myself back. My own jeans still intact I guided her back on the bed, this was my moment. The first opportunity she had allowed for me to show her how it feels to be loved, physically loved. I felt like a teenager, like I'd never touched a woman before. I just wanted it to be so good for her. "I love you Jenna" I said as I braced myself over her, then leaned down to kiss her, before I set off on the mission at hand.

I kissed and sucked and nibbled at all the important areas on my way down her body, stopping to pay particular attention to her amazing beasts and their tight pink buds. Jenna's moans served to encourage me and I let my hand gently fall between her legs. I stopped lavishing her breasts to look up into her eyes as my hands touched between her legs for the very first time. Her eyes darkened and rolled back into her head, as she settled into the pleasure between her thighs. She was hot and wet and so fucking tight that my cock ached and begged to be released. I kissed down her body until my mouth found the place that my fingers already wandered. She didn't seem to notice that I'd stopped using my mouth on her, too caught up in the ministrations of my fingers, but she would soon know exactly what my mouth could do for her. If I achieved my goal, she'd never lose track of my mouth again.