Drilled by K.M. Neuhold

Chapter 10

RIDGE

When I wake up all alone in my bed, I have to wonder if last night was just a dream. I sit up groggily, finding my underwear down around my thighs, dried cum crusted to my legs and in my pubes. I cringe. I guess that answers that.

I look over at Apollo’s bed and find it completely bare, all of his things gone. My heart jolts, and I jump out of bed, tugging my underwear up in one motion. He wouldn’t, would he? Sure, he scares easy, but that was sex, not the gross talking he hates. Well, just a little talking.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I mutter, rushing out of the cabin. I stutter to a stop on the porch, finding all of his things hung over a makeshift clothing line. Apollo is sitting at the fire, looking in my direction with a raised eyebrow.

I shrug. He can’t blame me for jumping to conclusions. I give myself a second to let my heart rate slow to normal, and then I return inside the cabin to grab my shower things. Fuck, I would kill for a nice, hot shower this morning. Better yet, a bath to soak in with lots of bubbles to restore my soul.

I sigh as I make my way across the lawn to the showers. Unlike before, I don’t linger anymore, always keeping one eye peeled for that spider’s family, back for revenge.

It’s no bath, but even a few minutes under the cool spray of the shower is enough to make me feel more myself. I take my time drying off, part of me dreading facing Apollo this morning.

What if getting the full story doesn’t change anything?

Eventually, I can’t stall anymore, so I get dressed, put my stuff away, and go to join him at the fire.

“Morning,” he says gruffly.

I can’t fight a cautious smile. He’s talking to me, that’s a start.

“Morning.” I reach for one of the paper coffee cups and make myself a cup of instant coffee. “How did you move me without waking me?”

Apollo snorts and gives me a really? look. Okay, that’s fair. I have always been a heavy sleeper.

“You thought I was gone.”

“Can you blame me?” I take a sip of the coffee and try not to cringe.

“Guess not,” he agrees.

“So, what are we going with?” I ask. I never have been good with the dancing around shit game. “Sex-insomnia? That would be a fun one.”

“What are you talking about?” He frowns, immediately annoyed with my antics.

“Oh, I know, caught up in the moment?” I offer another suggestion.

“I don’t know what you’re going on about, but let’s not bullshit. What happened last night can’t happen again. You were engaged to my sister.”

I tsh out an unamused laugh, trying to hide any trace of the disappointment I’m feeling. “Also a classic,” I say, nodding.

“For what it’s worth, I…” Apollo stops and drags a hand through his short hair. “I don’t know if I would’ve been able to figure out how to do things differently either if I were in your shoes back then.”

“So you forgive me?” I ask, letting hope creep back in. Getting naked with Apollo is fucking fire, but if I’m at least getting our friendship back, I can live with it. I can more than live with it.

He grunts. I’ve spent enough time translating his various animal noises to know that this one means yes, but don’t push it.

I can do that. I can definitely do that.

“So, getting started on the roof this morning, I assume?” I ask when I finish my coffee.

“Nah, I’ll take my chances,” he deadpans, and I snort, snagging a Pop-Tart out of one of our food bins and shoving half of one into my mouth.

“I don’t know, sharing the bed was kind of fun,” I tease with a half-full mouth, waggling my eyebrows at him.

Apollo’s eyes light up with amusement, but his lips don’t move. I’ll get him eventually. I miss that damn hard-won smile of his.

We grab our things and get the ladder over to Cabin One. I flip open my toolbox and rummage for what I’ll need. A laugh bursts from me when I find a box of condoms and a bottle of lube rubber-banded together with a note attached.

We thought this might cum in handy;)

XO,

Stone

“Thanks, guys,” I mutter, pocketing the note and putting the condoms and lube back to grab the hammer I had been looking for before.

Somebody won the bet. Not that they’ll ever know. If Apollo is as good at keeping secrets as he is holding grudges, he’ll take last night to his grave.

“You coming?” he calls down, looking over the side of the roof.

“Coming.”

APOLLO

There are bruises on my ass cheek in the shape of Ridge’s fingers. I know because I nearly slipped and fell—otherwise known as pulling a Ridge—in the shower this morning while trying to get a better look at them.

When I woke up with him sound asleep on top of me, for just a second, the last twenty years had never happened. Not just our falling out, but the years when he dated my sister, the time I spent convincing myself that eventually I would get over my stupid crush and it wouldn’t hurt to see him with Anna, every wrong guy I dated in the meantime…none of that existed. Until it did again.

I carefully moved him off of me and got to work drying my things out, picking out the least damp of my clothes to wear today. And, after an examination of all the evidence from last night all over my body—from dried cum to finger-shaped bruises to love bites—I spent the next hour giving myself a stern talking to. No matter how mind-blowing last night was, or how much I kind of get what happened the night before the wedding and I’m starting to sympathize, especially no matter how much I really fucking saw Ridge first, the fact remains that he was engaged to my sister and that makes him off-limits. I just can’t do it to Anna, no matter how fucking good he looks on his hands and knees a few feet away or how right it felt to give in to all that shit we’ve apparently both been bottling up for too damn long.

“I did that beach thing we used to talk about,” Ridge says casually while we both work, the morning sun heating rapidly as it beats down on us.

It takes me a second to figure out what he’s talking about. A fond sort of nostalgia hits me when I remember when we were eighteen or nineteen that we used to talk about spending a summer in Florida, beach-hopping. A different beach every day until we hit every one in the state.

In truth, it was Ridge’s idea, and he was psyched about it. I wasn’t that into the idea of sand in my ass crack or screaming kids with sunburn running around us, but I wasn’t going to turn the idea down. My chest twinges knowing he went alone. Or…did he go alone?

He figured out he was gay fifteen years ago. He’s probably had dozens of boyfriends in the meantime. Did he take one of them? Did they collect change for a month so they’d be able to wash their clothes at a laundromat? Did they camp in Ridge’s rank car with no air conditioning? Whoever the guy was, did he listen to Ridge belt out painfully off-tune eighties music and fall a little in love with him? Did Ridge have more fun with him than he would’ve had with me?

“I went alone,” he says like he just read every last one of my embarrassingly petty and jealous thoughts.

“Mm,” I grunt, refusing to let any amount of relief show on my face.

Ridge can date people. He should date people.

“You were on a date the other night with that mechanic.” The words fall out of my mouth at the same time my brain processes the information. Porter was right.

He looks up from what he’s doing and gives me a crooked smile, a hint of challenge shining in his eyes. “Tallahassee, yeah.”

“Mm,” I hum again.

“We didn’t fuck,” he says conversationally, returning to hammering the new shingle into place. I look up, shamelessly enjoying the sight of his bicep bulging as he swings the hammer. “If you must know, I wasn’t in the mood after seeing you there.”

“Gee, thanks,” I mutter.

“I wasn’t in the mood to fuck him after I saw you,” he clarifies, and my throat tightens.

“Ridge…” I growl his name like a warning.

“No more sex, yeah, got it.” He waves his hammer dismissively. “Even though I think Anna would understand, but whatever.”

Easy for him to say, it’s not his sister. Besides, it’s not only about Anna. If the two of us can actually have a shot at being friends again, it’s not worth it to ruin it with sex. Relationships never last, but our friendship if we can put the past in the past? Yeah, that’s the much safer bet.

I don’t bother to fill him in on any of that. He’ll figure it out on his own, and I’m not about to sit here and try to convince him. Instead, I double-down on my efforts to get this roof in tip-top shape because there’s no way my resolve will hold if I end up sharing a teeny-tiny bed with him again.

While we work, Ridge tells me all about the beach-hopping adventure and a few places where he’s lived over the last fifteen years. I listen and grunt occasionally to let him know I’m paying attention. I forgot how much I missed his ability to talk for hours and pass the time without any expectation for me to do the same. Damn, he gets me.

We finish the roof and have a couple of hours left to finish up what would’ve been done on Cabin Six yesterday if I hadn’t been an ass. By the time we’re done, the sun is starting to set. Even without it, the evening maintains a heavy, humid feeling, the air too thick for the sweat to dry on our skin, leaving us both drenched and sticky, using our dirty shirts to wipe our faces.

“Let’s go somewhere,” Ridge suggests unexpectedly once we’ve finished cleaning up for the night.

“We’re in the middle of the woods. Where do you want to go?”

He grins mischievously, and I hate to admit it, but that familiar playful look, his obvious plan for adventure, has me feeling just a little giddy too.

I give a sharp nod and gesture for him to lead the way.

I follow Ridge into the woods. It takes a few minutes to realize we’re headed in the same direction we went the other night, toward the lake.

“Tell me about something I’ve missed in the last fifteen years,” he prompts as we walk. There’s enough light this time that we both manage to dodge low-hanging branches and gracefully step over exposed roots and fallen logs.

“Anna has a mess of kids.” I’m not sure why that’s the thing I choose to share. Maybe to remind both of us why we can’t fool around again.

He chuckles. “One, is that the official name for a group of kids, like a murder of crows? And two, how many is a mess? Is she getting ready to be on one of those wacky TLC shows or what?”

“It is the official name. Spend five minutes with them, and you’ll understand why. And there are three. They’re pretty good kids if a little loud most of the time.”

“That’s awesome. She married?”

“Yeah. He’s a good guy too.”

“Good.” He slows his steps as the trees start to thin. “What about you?”

“No, I don’t have any kids,” I deadpan. We’re walking side by side now, and he reaches over to give my shoulder a playful shove.

“I mean, has there been anyone special? In a decade and a half, there had to be someone.”

I stop walking and look at him, racking my brain for a single man who has even existed in my life other than Ridge. Sure, there were frenzied hookups and disappointing dates, there were moments of hope that were quickly extinguished, and plenty of guys who might’ve worked if only I were someone else. But none of them really existed, not like Ridge.

“Nah,” I answer, turning my attention to the lake, the water calm and glassy in the fading light of the day. “Are we going to swim or what?”

I strip my shirt over my head without waiting for his response. I drop it onto the ground, and he grabs my arm to get my attention.

“You know, Anna wouldn’t have to know,” he says, and I frown. “It’s like pirate code or whatever.”

“I'm pretty sure pirate code was that they wouldn't tell anyone when they had to eat crew members.”

“Hm, well, tell you what, I'll eat your ass, and we won't tell anyone.” He gives an exaggerated wink, and my scowl twitches, dangerously close to cracking into an amused smile.

He notices the momentary near lapse. Of course he does. Ridge grins triumphantly.

God, he hasn't changed one fucking bit. I wish he had. It would be so much easier to keep hating him if he wasn't so determined to be exactly like the lighthearted, silly-as-hell best friend I've been missing all these years.

“Are you trying to seduce me or annoy the absolute fuck out of me?”

“It can be two things,” he says with a shrug, tugging his own shirt over his head and making a pile next to mine. “The offer is on the table, okay? No pressure.”

“Right,” I mutter, joining him in shedding the rest of our clothes.

He splashes into the water with a peel of laughter that echoes through the trees, causing birds to scatter into the air.

I follow right behind him, although noticeably less boisterous. I grunt when the cool water envelops my legs. The bottom of the lake is muddy, squishing between my toes as I wade deeper. A few feet ahead, Ridge dives under the surface, dragging his hands through his soaked hair to push it off his face when he re-emerges.

He smirks at me, floating there in the moonlight like every fantasy I never should’ve had.

“You know, I—” I don’t get the chance to find out the rest of that sentence, his words getting lost on a shriek. He splashes wildly, making my heart rate skyrocket.

I launch myself toward him, cutting through the water as fast as I can to save him from the alligator someone flushed down their toilet or the lake monster or whatever the fuck has him screaming like that.

He calms as soon as I reach him.

“What? What was it? Are you okay?” I dart my eyes around the inky water in search of the problem.

“Something touched me,” he says with a dramatic shudder.

“Something touched you?” I repeat in a flat voice. “We’re in a lake. It was probably a fish or a plant or something.”

“Okay, yeah, but what if it was…” He goes quiet and raises his eyebrows at me like I’m supposed to know what the fuck he’s talking about.

“What if it’s what?”

“You know,” he insists.

“I really don’t.”

“The…” He swims close, looking around cautiously before whispering right next to my ear. “The ghost.”

I sputter a laugh. “The ghost?” I ask at a normal volume, trying not to notice just how close Ridge is or the fact that I can feel his legs brushing against mine under the water.

“Dude, you don’t know. This is probably where that kid drowned.”

I fight back laughter. “Right. That makes sense. Wait, shh. Do you hear that?” He goes quiet, waiting expectantly for whatever he’s supposed to hear. I slowly move my hand toward him under the water.

He screams again when I wrap my arm around him. The laughter that rumbles from my chest this time is cut off by the water he splashes in my face, making me sputter and cough.

“You dick,” he complains, swimming backward to put some space between us. The humor dancing in his eyes takes all the edge off the name-calling.

“It wasn’t me. It was Casper.”

Ridge splashes me again. “Give this to Casper for me then.”

“You’re fucking asking for it,” I warn.

“Am I?” he taunts, sending another little wave in my direction, spraying my face with fresh droplets of cool water. “What am I asking for?”

I growl and dive forward, grabbing onto his leg as he tries to get away. A slippery, dangerous tussle ensues with both of us swallowing more lake water than anyone ever should and nearly drowning each other multiple times before we eventually flop down on the shore, naked and out of breath, neither of us able to keep from laughing.

“Hey, Pol,” he says as we both look up at the half-cloudy sky overhead, patches of stars covered by gray expanse.

“Yeah?” I ask.

Ridge’s pinky brushes against mine, sending a little electric shock through me. It’s less contact than we shared last night, that’s for damn sure, but it manages to rock me all the same.

“I missed you.”

I turn my head to look at him, but he stares stubbornly at the sky. I want to tell him I missed him too and that he’d better not walk out of my life again because the last fifteen years were fucking torture. None of those words make it past my brain-to-mouth filter. Instead, I give a low grunt.

He chuckles and grabs my hand fully. “Aw, you big softie,” Ridge teases because he gets me. He always has.