He laughs but soon all twenty or so people in the water are chanting for us to kiss.

Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.

Tanner glances to me with an apologetic expression.

“Fuck off y’all,” he says. “We don’t have to prove anything.”

They keep chanting.

“Sorry.” His voice is low so that only I can hear. “Ignore them.”

“It’s fine. We’ve done it before. It’s no big deal, right?”

He still looks hesitant, so I make the move. Pulling his head to mine, I press my lips to his.

It’s two long seconds that my mouth is on his before he kisses me back. Slowly at first, but then his tongue is demanding entrance. My heart hammers in my chest and I tighten my hold around his neck and press my body underwater closer to his.

I kiss him to prove that we’re just friends. That just because society has this idea about guys and girls not being able to be friends, we don’t have to fit into that mold. What we are is something so much more. Something that can’t be defined, but definitely doesn’t mean what they think it does.

With the taste of alcohol and lake water on our lips and cheers among the group all around us, I realize the only thing that I’ve proved is that I was so very, very wrong.

9

TANNER

There are some things men do out of pure self-preservation. We pretend we’re as handsome as Henry Cavill and as funny as Trevor Noah, we joke about how our balls are gonna sag one day (so we don’t have to think about it happening for real), and we absolutely don’t allow ourselves to picture having sex with our best friend.

As Sydney finally pulls back from a kiss that’s left me speechless, my self-preservation dies a hard, blue death. At least they’re still hanging where they should and not down at my knees.

My best friend still has one arm wrapped around my neck and holds the other over her head in victory. “See?”

Yeah, see? Uhhh, wait, what?

Jonah shakes his head. “Damn. I got turned on just watching that kiss.”

I steel my expression when Sydney looks back to me.

“Sorry about that. You know me, I can never back down from a dare or competition.” Her voice is tight and brittle. Awkwardness fills the space between us.

“I’m not sure kissing me was the best recourse this time,” I say with tease in my tone. “I’m so good-looking it was bound to look hot to them even if you and I both know it was just a kiss.”

My words do the trick of chasing away the weirdness and Sydney smiles and rolls her eyes. “You made that kiss look hot? Please, it was all me.”

Fuck yeah, it was.