A Friend Like Me

And I'll sing it more than once
That you are the one I love
After all of the things we've said and done,
You are the one I love
You Are The I Love - Jon McLaughlin

“Joe,” I whispered, as if saying his name confirmed he was there.

All of my bags lay forgotten as I sprinted towards Joe, flinging myself at him; Joe momentarily lost his balance from the impact. Forgetting my worry that he didn't love me anymore, I kissed him full on the mouth. Seeming to recover, Joe groaned in surprise, but wrapped his arms around me and kissed me back so enthusiastically that I was lifted slightly of my feet, my toes barely touching the floor.

“I got your letter,” I informed him, breaking our kiss.

Joe pressed his forehead against mine. “You did?” he said.

“Yeah.” I smiled wider. “Thanks for making my life more rom-com-esque, by the way. But the grammatical errors took away from it.”

“Wait…like what? I thought that was grammarly great!”

I laughed, burying my head in his chest. I lifted my head and looked at his smiling face. “Firstly, 'grammarly's' not a word. Secondly, 'a lot' is not a word, either. There's a space in between.”

Joe let out a soft chuckle and pressed his lips to mine for a moment. “Ava….” His hands drifted up to my face, cupping it. My hands gripped his sides as he kissed me again.

“We have a lot to talk about,” I said, pulling away.

Joe nodded. “I know,” he said, but kissed me, anyway.

Breaking our kiss for a second, Joe sat down on the couch, pulling me down with him. I straddled him and kissed him softly.

“I missed you so much,” Joe said.

I was about to tell him that I missed him, too, but Joe's lips were on mine again. His arms wrapped around my middle as he gently pushed me down onto the couch. As if to confirm just how much he missed me, as if to make up for lost time, Joe's kisses got more and more aggressive. And to show that I myself was all for making up for lost time, I kissed him back.

His weight was gently pressing down on me and it was something I definitely couldn't define as not enjoyable. In fact, it almost drove the things we needed to say out of my mind. Things I needed to say and things I needed to know.

But, really, how could I just talk when Joe's lips were moving against mine so hungrily, his hands drifting down my face to my waist?

Besides, I haven't talked to this guy for five months (not counting the failed video chat and phone calls).

“Joe,” I began when his lips left mine, “we need to…to…Joe…”

My voice drifted off as Joe kissed his way down my lips, along my jaw, and down my neck. Eliciting a soft sigh from me, Joe's body pushed down on me and I fought to keep my sanity.

“Joe…” I tried again, but my voice dissolved into an incoherent sigh again as Joe sucked on a spot on my neck, his hands sweeping my hair to one side so it wouldn't be in the way. One of his hands drifted down my leg and slung it around his waist.

“Joe…JOSEPH!” I gasped as his hips rolled against mine, his lips guaranteeing a mark on my neck. I clutched his shoulders tightly as he kissed my neck, sucking on my skin.

Grinning and apparently satisfied, Joe went back to kissing me on the lips, his fingers lingering on the hem of my shirt.

“Joe,” I said breathlessly, pulling away. It was challenging and it took every ounce of willpower I had.

But someone had to stay sane and stop things from progressing into…well, things involving me breaking my own purity ring.

And it's obviously not going to be Joe, judging by the way he was kissing me and how he was responding to me kissing him.

“We need to talk,” I told him.

“Yeah, talk,” Joe echoed absentmindedly, looking at me through half-lidded eyes, his slightly swollen lips pulled back into a dazed smile. Although it wasn't that surprising that he was that out of it, considering that he probably had no blood remaining in his head.

Joe lowered his head and his lips met mine again.

Summoning up the little willpower I had left, I pulled away and said, “Joe, no. Stop. I'm serious, we need to talk.”

I gently pushed Joe up to a sitting position. I scooted to the end of the couch, away from the middle, where Joe was, and hugged a pillow tightly, like it was a Joe-shield and prevented me from throwing my arms around Joe.

Joe sat up, losing that dazed look (well, quasi losing it). “What's wrong?”

“Joe,” I said softly, “we need to talk. There's so much we need to talk about and I'm scared that if we don't talk, I'll just – I'm scared that I'll lose you again.” My voice cracked on “again” and I was on the verge of tears from everything that's happened and everything that lead up to this.

Joe moved to me and took the pillow away from my arms, taking my hands in his. Letting go, he stroked my face, wiping away a stray tear with his thumb. “Hey, don't cry. I'm here now. And I –”

“Joe, hold on,” I said, interrupting him, squeezing his hands. “I – I need to tell you this. I'm so, so sorry about everything I've done to you these past few months. I should've told you about Prague the minute I got that letter.” I took a deep breath. “I was wrong, Joe. I never should have kept all of those grudges and I –”

“– no, Ava, it's fine,” Joe interjected, “really. We're both to blame here. It's not just you.”

“But I didn't tell you about Prague and –”

Joe had put a finger to my lips, shushing me. “Shh, Ava, I need to tell you this, too. I'm sorry for leaving you and for every single thing that's went on because of me. And I know you got the letter, which means you already know this, but” – he looked right into my eyes and squeezed my hands gently – “I love you.”

It took everything I had to not throw myself back into Joe's arms and take him, not a care on the world about the ring hugging my left ring finger.

I have it so bad for this boy. Bad, bad, bad.

My smile widened. “I love you, too.”

Even though all I said were four monosyllabic words, they felt so right and sort of…lifted the weight off of my shoulders.

The one thing I've kept from him these past few years was out there and…well, he wasn't running away. He wasn't looking at me oddly and I didn't launch us into an awkward situation.

I leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on Joe's lips.

“I have to go unpack,” I said, pulling away.

“Screw it,” Joe replied, going in for another kiss.

I leaned back, giggling. “And…and I have to take a shower.”

Joe opened his mouth to say something, but I added, “Alone, you creep.”

“I wasn't going to say that!”

“Oh, come on. Yes, you were.”

“No. But if I was, I would've said that our moms used to bathe us together, remember?”

“Yeah, when we were around three or four. Besides, we had like…bathing suits or something.”

“Hey, you're always talking to me about water conorvitation!”

“Conservation.”

Joe grinned and pressed his lips to mine for a brief moment. “Okay, okay. I was kidding. And I wasn't going to say that, honestly.”

Brushing my lips against his cheek, I stood up. “I'll go unpack now.”

“Wait!” Joe called after me as I dragged the suitcases to my bedroom. “You're just going to leave me here?”

“Yeah!”

Joe jogged over to my room and helped me hoist the luggage onto my bed sideways.

“That's mean,” he commented, crossing his arms, raising his eyebrows.

Laughing, I wrapped my arms around his waist. “I'm your best friend. I'm supposed to be mean to you.”

“No!” Joe protested with mock agitation, taking me into his arms. “You're supposed to do best friendly stuff, like…like ignoring your unpacking to be with me.”

“I'm with you right now,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, see? And you're ignoring what you're supposed to be doing!”

“Ah, okay. Let go of me and I'll go back to unpacking. My clothes are getting wrinkled.”

“No.”

I ducked out of his arms and stuck my tongue out at him childishly.

I was reaching for the first bag when Joe declared, “I'm going to sit on these until you…uh…you kiss me or something!”

And sit on the bag he did, making sure to cover all of my luggage with his legs, arms, anything.

“Stop, Joe! Get off!” I tried weakly pushing him off as I laughed.

“Never!” Joe proclaimed.

I pecked his lips. “There.”

Joe grinned at me and sprung off the bags.

“See how easy that was?” he declared, pulling me into his embrace. He grinned down at me before planting a kiss on my lips.

“Joe,” I said in between kisses. “I have – to – un…pack…”

“It can wait,” Joe mumbled before leaning his head down to kiss me again.

Giggling madly, I leaned away from him. “Seriously, Joe, I'm happy to see you too, but I have to unpack.”

Joe gave an extremely melodramatic groan. “Oh, fine! What am I supposed to do, then? Help you?”

“No. You'll just take my clothes out haphazardly.”

“I was not! Whatever 'haphazardly' means…”

I laughed, pushing him playfully. “Okay, just…stand there or something.”

Joe leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, grinning. “I missed you, Summers.”

I looked at him, really looking at him for the first time in months. “I missed you, too.”

Unable to keep still for very long, Joe was by my side again as I unpacked everything. He kept asking me, “Are you done yet?” until I told him that he was being a distraction.

“Joe,” I said, folding the last of my shirts into my drawer. “You're being a distraction.”

“You're almost done!” Joe said, then when I closed the drawer: “You are done!”

I stifled a yawn behind my hand. “I'm gonna go get some rest, okay?”

“Don't tease me like that!” Joe exclaimed, wrapping his arms around me from behind. “You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?”

I tilted my head back, craning my neck to look up at him. “Yup,” I said, popping the “p.”

Joe squeezed me more tightly, saying, “Aww, look at us! We're being all cute!”

I slipped out of his arms and sat down on the bed.

I had to admit, torturing him like this was fun, but there was a lot we still needed to talk about.

“There's still a lot we should talk about,” I said.

Joe nodded and sat down next to me. “I know.”

I was resting my head on Joe's shoulder when he suddenly blurted out, “Will you be my girlfriend?”

I jerked up my head to look at him.

“What?” I said, unsure on whether or not I heard him right.

“I – never – just…will you be my girlfriend? Like…can we be more than best friends?” Joe stammered, scratching the back of his neck.

He took a deep breath though, and probably wanted to do this correctly, because before I could even respond, he took my hands in his and said, looking deeply into my eyes, “Can we make this all official-ish? Like…I don't want to refer to you as just my best friend, like I've been for seventeen years. But I mean, if you don't want to be my girlfriend, then –”

“Joe, yes,” I told him, resisting the sudden urge to giggle at his…well, his awkwardness. “I've waited for this for six years now and I do not want to just go back to best friends after this.”

Joe beamed. “Well, good. Because I did not go through all those months just to settle for what I had in the first place.”

At that point, I didn't care that my smile was probably going to eat up my face. I was finally out of the whole “friendship” zone!

…And honestly, this whole thing's worth fighting for.

This time, I was determined not to take this for granted.

I leaned in and kissed Joe on the mouth to confirm that this wasn't a dream my eighteen-year old self was dreaming, or that I wasn't in Prague, fantasizing about what could've happened between us.

I pulled away and looked into Joe's eyes when I did. I wished that I could've pressed paused at that moment and stayed there forever, but somehow, I knew there'd be plenty more moments like this in the future.

I don't know how I did – I just did.

“I love you,” Joe said, using one arm to hold me against him. “I love you so much.”

I buried my face in his neck to hide my colossal, inane smile and the blush that I was sure was forming on my cheeks.

“You have no idea,” I said breathlessly, “how long I've waited to hear you say that.”

“Was it worth it?” Joe said.

“Definitely. Say it again?”

Joe one-arm hugged me more tightly. “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you! There, that's four times. Actually, no, like more than that.”

“I wasn't going to come here in the first place,” Joe said after a while of comfortable silence. “I thought…I thought that you really didn't want so see me anymore, you know? I saw you in Prague, just kissing James, and…”

“And?” I egged him on.

“Well, and then you sent me that message, so I knew that you didn't – that you still wanted to be with me, you know?”

I nodded.

“And like…James was just so right for you that it just made sense. Like, he even had a British accent. Who can compete with that? Seriously. But before you say anything, I'm not jealous! Well, I mean, anymore. Because I'm the one with you now and he's…off somewhere with his British accent.”

I rolled my eyes at him, laughing.

“Charming, Joseph,” I said.

Joe grinned at me more widely and pulled me closer. “I'm just glad that everything's back to normal again. Like, it's just like last time…except I can do this.”

Then he kissed me again.

{∞∞∞}

“Wait,” I said, pulling my hand out of Joe's, stopping just outside the restaurant I was supposed to meet everyone in.

When we were leaving my apartment, Joe had laced his fingers through mine.

I drew back away, because I didn't want pictures or whatever popping up on Perez Hilton. However, Joe just put his hand in mine again and declared, “Ava, I went like half of a year without seeing you. I don't care about paparazzi. I'm going to hold your hand.”

“What?” Joe asked, looking at me with a dazed smile.

“I – are you sure we should just tell them?” I said hesitantly.

Joe nodded. “They're not going to react too badly, probably.”

Nodding, I slipped my hand into his.

Surely enough, when they spotted our interlaced hands, my mom and Joe's mom said in unison, “Aww, you guys! Since when?”

“Uh, well, since – since today, if you're talking about the officially-ness of it,” Joe said, blushing.

“'Officially-ness' isn't a word,” I said to him as we sat down, causing Joe to blush harder.

Joe grinned at me sheepishly before talking again. “I mean…I just…I've seen her my best friend for years and I just saw her now as…something more than that a couple of months ago.”

Which is basically an extremely simplified version of what we've gone through the past seven or eight months.

In an effort to talk about something else, I said, “So, Nick, what's going on with you and Vanessa?”

“We're taking things slowly,” Nick said, ever the private guy (unlike Joe).

“Hey!” Joe said proudly. “Well, if you need any help, you should ask me or Ava.”

Nick looked at him oddly, eyebrows raised.

“No, thanks,” he said coolly. “I don't need help from two people who took seventeen years to get together.”