Defining Love

Chapter 2

Aaron

At seventeen, I'd become a puppy dog of sorts.

Mia Barsetti's puppy dog.

Mia had been my good friend since the beginning of high school. I'd known her in middle school, but we hadn't become friends until the second semester of our sophomore year in high school when we ended up in most of the same advanced classes. She was cute, funny, smart, and refreshingly easy to talk to. Because of homework assignments and often partnering up on projects, we'd end up at each other's houses a lot.

At that time, I'd never really had a friend who was a girl. All my friends consisted of guys I'd grown up in the neighborhood with. All the girls in the neighborhood and I had always been strictly on a wave-and-smile basis. Until Mia, it had never occurred to me that it might be cool to have a girl as good friend.

With her strict parents, having a boyfriend at the age when we first became friends was out of the question. Not that I had asked to be hers, but after being around her alone quite a bit, the thought of kissing her had often crossed my mind. Those thoughts had manifested and gotten a little dirtier over time. Pretty soon, with my raging teenage hormones at their peak, it was all I could think of when I was around her—and even when I wasn't.

By the end of the eleventh grade, I'd gotten to first and even second base with other girls. That helped assuage the growing fantasies I'd begun to have about Mia. The weirdest thing about my relationship with Mia was I could tell her about these other girls without things getting weird. She was cool hearing about them too, laughing, and other times even offering advice. We were just friends, and as much as my horny ass still fantasized about doing other things with her, trying to felt wrong. I cared about Mia—cared about our friendship too much—and I was actually proud of that.

Then Luke, my best friend since the fourth grade, started dating Chloe, one of Mia's dance team members and good friend. That made things kind of weird, but when we all went out together to the show or just hang out at the mall, I had more fun with Mia as just friends than any of the other girls I ever hung out with on dates. It was . . . comfortable. We fit like a glove. There was nothing we couldn't say to each other though hearing her talk about other guys or even running into someone she was "talking" to had begun to feel awkward.

I didn't know how to describe it at the time other than annoying. She could hear about all my trysts and be okay with it, or so it seemed, but hearing about her other guy friends or guys that maybe wanted to be more than friends with her irked me. In hindsight, I know now I was jealous, but I refused to admit it then. Anything more than just friends between Mia and me still felt too weird.

Then it happened. I don't even remember how, but we began to flirt. All I remember was it was shortly after Luke started seeing Chloe. As expected, it changed things. Hearing about her guy friends pissed me off now, and the first time after we'd begun to flirt and I mentioned making out with another girl, things got beyond uncomfortable. So I never did again.

Soon afterward, I knew what I was feeling for her was more than just wanting to be her friend. I could tell the feelings were mutual, which only made me like her more. And then we kissed. It was the summer before senior year, after one of her dance team's competitions at the county fair. They announced the winners, and they were all so excited about taking first place she jumped in my arms. I'd hugged her plenty of times before, but it felt different that time, and without thinking, I kissed her.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening strolling the fair hand in hand and stopping every now and again to kiss. But it wasn't until we got on the giant Ferris wheel that we finally made out good and long.