A Dev writes:

So, we have a new fic, written entirely by Clom, apart from the title, which comes from me. I can confirm that other chapters have been written but not beta’d yet so there will be more in the forseeable future. No need to fear being left hanging, as we have been doing with so many of our ongoing stories in recent months.

Anyway, shy Spencer is secretly in love with her best friend, Ashley, lead cheerleader and all-round high school royalty. Let the hot but lightly angsty fun commence…

Rating: U, for now.

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Chapter 1

It’s so cliché. It’s so very, very, ridiculously cliché. Being in love with your best friend is so passé, cliché and all those other things. Especially when she’s so resolutely straight and you’re so very not. Especially when she has no idea and you lust after her nightly.

So very cliché.

I can’t really say when I first knew I was in love with Ashley. I mean, we’ve been best friends since we were four. I don’t think you can really be in love with anyone when you’re four but, from the first moment I met her, I was definitely smitten. In fact, I think that’s one of the reasons that my mother doesn’t really like her: she knows that I would do anything Ashley asks, without asking. It’s kind of ridiculous actually, because I know I’m whipped. I’m whipped without even getting the things I want.

And, oh boy, do I want.

Of course, I don’t get. Why would Providence shine on me? It never does. No, I’m that kid in the corner who reads books while her best friend runs the cheerleading squad, dates the captain of the basketball team and fucks.

I’m the girl who hasn’t got the guts to tell everyone she has it hot for her best friend. I’m the girl who will do all her best friend’s homework so that her best friend can go out on a Friday night. In return, though, she’s never once given any indication of giving me up. Ashley is loyal like that: loyal to me at any rate.

“Hey, good lookin’, wake up.” Ashley’s voice rouses me from my reverie in the library. I’ve been hiding here because there’s a pep rally on this afternoon and she’ll want me to attend. I know that I should support her and her cheers. I should be cheered by her cheers. I should gather the pep and pep it to the world as she rallies me to do so.

I find it very difficult. I mean there’s nothing that thrills me more than watching Ashley jump around in a short skirt. For all that I love her and I’m loyal to her as a best friend, there’s nothing about Ashley in a short skirt that doesn’t make a live person shiver in the best way. Unfortunately it’s accompanied by Madison and Sherry and Tonya and Fiona also jumping around attempting to cause pep in short skirts. Those people I’m not so fond of and, frankly, it’s mutual.

I look up at Ashley and smile. “What?”

“Oh God, Spence, it’s a gorgeous day outside and you’re stuck in the dusty library. What’s up with that?”

I nod at her pom poms. “Just saving myself for the rally.”

“You hate rallies.”

Just because I’m loyal doesn’t mean that she’s stupid. Besides, it makes my devotion all the more… devoted.

“I’m as cheerful as the next person,” I say with dubious sincerity. “I’m saving all my pep for this afternoon. Just for you.”

“Right, Shakespeare.” She grins down at me. That smile is a killer. It makes my bones melt into a useless puddle of goo that loosely holds my muscles in place. She smiles a lot and I’m mostly useless. She shuffles down next to me and shoves me over. Her short skirt slides up her tanned thighs tantalisingly and my eyes water as I try not to stare.

I’m in love with my best friend.

It’s not just sexual but, given that we spend at least one night a week in a bed together, it’s hard for it not to be sexual at all. I mean, we’re just in a bed, not ‘in bed’ in bed. That would be my dream come true.

Ugh, I’m so sick of this.

“You do the math homework?”

“Yes, and I’m not doing yours too.” I will end up doing at least half of hers, but I’ll make her do some.

“Well, I did it already so you don’t have to take that attitude with me.” She sticks her tongue out and waggles it at me.

I raise an eyebrow. “Oh, really? Let me see.”

To my surprise, she pulls over her bag and pulls out the worksheet we were given last week. To more of my surprise, it’s finished. Okay, so four of the twenty questions are wrong, but it’s a pretty good effort. My other eyebrow lifts to meet the first.

“Ha!”

“Question fourteen is off. You added there,” I point, “where you shoulda multiplied.”

“Well I never said it was perfect.”

“It’s pretty good.” I hand it back. Mine is perfect and frankly hers is worth a B+ which is the average I usually work out for her. I’m not stupid. If I make her work too good, they’ll know I’ve been doing it for her and then we’ll be screwed. I like our arrangement; she gets her work done and I get a social life. I’m fairly sure she’d drag me out even if I didn’t do her homework. I know she’s not just my friend for my brain. I guess I just can’t help it when she smiles at me like she does.

“See, I’m not useless.”

“I never said you were useless!” I frown at her.

“Yeah, yeah. I know you’re the smart one.” I narrow my eyes and growl at her comment. She laughs. “It’s okay. I’m the pretty one.” She says it with a winsome smile that I return, hiding the fact that she just cut me to the bone.

I watch her get up off the floor and manage to stare at her ass for only about ten seconds. She turns around and, by the time her eyes meet mine, my own gaze is well above her waist line.

“Coming?”

I want to say no. I want to tell her that the ugly one has to stay in the library and hide from the world. I want to yell at her that just because I’m not pretty enough to ever catch her eye in the right way that I can’t be with her at all, but I don’t. I take her hand and accept an assist to my feet.

She doesn’t think I’m ugly. I do know that. I mean, even I know I’m not ugly. I’m average height, just slightly taller than Ash. I’m blonde, but I have hair that does what I ask it to, which is nice. I have blue eyes that people always comment on. I’ve had a boyfriend or two, even a serious one. I dated Daniel for nearly two years, but none of that matters to me. If she doesn’t think I’m the most beautiful person on the planet, then no-one else’s opinion matters.

We walk down the corridor and through the school. There are people all around, finishing up their lunch hour. I don’t notice them because when Ashley is around, there is no one else in my world. We get outside and within seconds someone else does take up my attention.

Him.

He gets her attention and for that reason I hate him. He gets all the parts of Ashley that I don’t get. He gets all the parts of Ashley that I want.

Fucking Aiden Dennison.

I know they sleep together because she tells me. It’s taken me a long time to get used to hearing about Ashley’s sex life without wanting to be violently ill. Now I’ve just learned to tune out and let it all flow over me. It still makes me want to punch a wall, though. I tend to cut her off and so Ashley now thinks I’m a prude of the first order. I’m really not. If she only knew what went on in my mind about her, she’d know I’m anything but.

When she bounds up to him and he kisses her, I try not to make a retching sound. He’s significantly taller than she is. He has those bulging, hairless upper arm muscles that girls apparently like. He looks like an oiled Greek god. He has perfect hair. He’s the captain of the basketball team and, unfortunately for me, he’s also my brother’s best friend. He just fits a little too well into my life when all I want him to do is fuck off.

Worse, he gets Ashley. As I stand here trying not to cry, his hand slides down to cup her ass as he lifts her off the ground and French kisses her. I see his hand squeezing that perfect globe as she squeals and pulls out of the kiss that’s far too intimate for such a public space. She just swats him playfully and tells him to put her down.

Even if I were dating Ashley, I’d never do anything so crass. Her body deserves respect and honour, not fondling for the whole school to see. I hate him so much.

When Ashley comes down out of Aiden’s arms, he gives me that winning smile. I smile back, weakly, and wonder if he knows I hate him. Actually, I don’t need to wonder that; he thinks we’re friends. He thinks we’re good friends. In fact, he comes over and loops an arm around my shoulder, pulling me into a squeeze hug.

“Speeeeeeence, how’s it hanging?”

I endeavour not to vomit on his two-thousand-dollar leather shoes, something that in itself would be a multi-faceted act of satisfaction. Instead, I make my face tighter with the fake smile and say, “Not too bad.”

His attention and arm drop away from me, thank Christ, and back to his girlfriend. It’s amazing how much I can put up with. I hate spending time with the two of them while they act all lovey-dovey and yet I spend a good portion of my week that way. If I want Ashley’s company, I must accept Aiden’s. She does spend quite a lot of time with only me, in the way girls do with their best friends. I’m fairly sure if she knew how I felt about her, she’d spend a lot less time with me.

I stand around, joking with Ashley, Aiden and his basketball buddies. My brother soon joins us and I wish I could say that made things easier. Glen and I used to get along. When we were young kids, we got along really well, in fact. As we’ve grown older, little and big things have come between us. Now I’m a darn sight closer to my other brother, Clay. Clay understands me. He understands my love of learning and books, since he shares it. He understands my sometimes morose and quiet moods and my intense annoyance at our older brother.

Clay has his own troubles, though, and, lately, they’ve made him very distant. It’s Glen who’s been getting closer to me, although not in a good way. I guess it began when Daniel and I were getting serious. Glen decided that he would step in as the protective older brother and that was just annoying. The problem is, in the last year since I’ve been single, he hasn’t backed off. He’s always up in my space, telling me what to do and who to associate with. Now with me being Ashley’s best friend, and Ashley dating Aiden, and Aiden and Glen being best friends, we somehow end up at the same parties together and hang together and go out together. It would almost be easier if Glen was just the plain old protective brother and left it at that. No, he can’t be consistent; that would require some underlying intelligence. He vacillates between being the cool, almost-friend-like guy I hang out with and a Gestapo-like older brother who’s constantly on my case. He switches from one to the other in the space of an instant.

Sometimes I feel like watching my friends and family is like watching a bad teenage television show on some kind of cable channel that thinks it’s a lot cooler than it is. You see, Aiden, in between dating Ashley (long story), dated Madison for a short time. I wouldn’t have called Madison and Ashley close, because I’ve been Ashley’s best friend since we were four, but they’re definitely closer than I’d like. I hate Madison. She’s a bitch and Ashley knows it. But they run the cheerleading squad together and, by default, they rule the school. Madison doesn’t understand why Ashley hangs out with me and I don’t understand why Ashley hangs out with her and Ashley, in her own special way, does exactly what she wants without explaining anything to anyone.

Now Madison dates Glen and they too seem to have joined those who practice PDA. If I thought that watching Ashley – the girl I love – make out with Aiden – the most brainless man on the planet – made me feel ill, it was because I hadn’t seen Glen with his tongue down a girl’s throat. It’s positively disgusting. When Madison shows up in her short cheerleading skirt, her regular flunkies in tow, I try not to roll my eyes. She throws herself into my brother’s arms and he out-does Aiden and Ashley with gusto. I look away and Ashley catches my eye. She and I definitely have a psychic link because she does roll her eyes. She might be friends with Madison, but that doesn’t stop her from thinking the chica is the world’s biggest slut.

Town bicycle. School mattress. The Express Train: everyone’s had a ride. Will be buried in a Y-shaped coffin. Owns shares in KY.

You get the message.

These are the people I spend my days with. If you throw in my crazy parents, and the fact that Clay is now as secretive as a boy can be, the only sane person I know is Chelsea. She’s Clay’s girlfriend and, after Ashley, my next closest friend. Perhaps we get along so well because we’re the only two relatively sane people we know, although she only thinks I’m normal because she hasn’t seen inside my brain.

She doesn’t know I have a sexual fixation on my best friend. She doesn’t know I pine night and day for Ash. No-one knows that, least of all the incredibly beautiful brunette who’s laughing next to me while spitting watermelon seeds at Aiden.

No-one knows.

It’s my little secret. My little clichéd secret.

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Next up: Chapter 2 [U]