Chapter 51: Chapter 51 – Natalie: You want to bet?

As soon as Julia disappeared into the bathroom, I told Hugh, “I am so worked up right now. Being naked. Talking about all this stuff. Having you right next to me. Take me right now. We have time. You can be quick.”

“Uh… I think that would be a little rude to our guest.”

“Screw her,” I said. “You know what, you can wait for us to knock out these quests, and I’ll call her mom to come pick her up. Then you can stay the night.”

“I know you’re not suggesting that we kick out your friend who is dying of cancer just so that we can have sex. That doesn’t sound like you at all. What’s going on?”

I glared at the closed bathroom door. “She’s been a little witch all afternoon. First of all, she made me be naked.”

He cleared his throat, and I looked at him.

“Who made you be naked?” he asked.

If I was to make an accurate list to answer that, the first two people on it would be Hugh and me in some order, followed by Julia as a distant third, but I wasn’t interested in being either accurate or reasonable.

“Then,” I said, “she wouldn’t even consider any of the mounting pile of evidence that the system is, in fact real, and basically called you a charlatan!”

“And we care because…?”

“Because you’re going out of your way to help her, and not only does she show exactly zero appreciation, but she actively insults you. She’s an ungrateful little witch!”

He shrugged. “I’m not doing this for her gratitude and I don’t care what she thinks of me. I care what you think of me, and I care about, if at all possible, helping her to not die. Period. As long as she does what she needs to do to level, I don’t give the tiniest bit of a crap about anything else.”

I glared at him.

“I can’t help but think that there’s more to your anger,” he said. “I mean, I get that you’re embarrassed to be the only one naked right now, but you’ve never gotten angry about that before. And you’ve been more than willing to cut Julia a lot of slack up until this point given her situation. Which I totally get and support, by the way. Sure, call her on it if she goes too far with anything, but I can’t begin to imagine what she’s going through. She has every right to ‘be a little witch’ as you so eloquently put it.”

“You’re on her side, now?”

“Of course not. I am now and always will be on your side. If I thought what you’re saying is really how you feel, then I’d be all for finding her a ride home.”

“For the love of God, will you stop being so damn reasonable?”

And then I started crying, and he pulled me into a tight hug. Ugh. I hated being emotional, but there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. I wasn’t sure how long we sat like that before more words started spewing from my mouth.

“She’s dying, Hugh. My best friend is dying. And that’s what she is, my best friend. I never replaced her. I mean, I’m sure that she had a new bestie five minutes after stepping foot into her new school, but it was never that easy for me, you know?”

“I know,” he said, patting my back.

“Then there were my eyes, and I hoped, you know? And I still do hope. But I also just wanted things to be like they used to be, that she and I could be friends. But everything is so damn awkward and strained and … just awful. I want my best friend back!”

Then, I felt a tap on my back. I turned, and Julia was standing there. As Hugh released me, I thought, “Oh God, she heard all that.”

“Let’s get one thing straight,” she said, her eyes glistening as much as mine. “I never replaced you. I had many friends over the years, but I never once referred to anyone other than you as my best friend. And I never pinky swore with anyone else.”

I barked out a laugh.

She turned to Hugh. “I have said and thought some extremely unkind things about you, and, honestly, I don’t understand what the fuck is going on here. I just don’t. None of this makes a lick of sense. But you have literally done nothing at all to prove to me that you have anything but the best of intentions. I’m still going to keep my eyes open, but this is me apologizing and saying that I’ll try to be more open minded about you in the future.”

“It’s not a problem,” he said.

She turned back to me. “Now, will you please come here?”

I stood, and she pulled me into a huge hug. And it was … a lot of things. Weird, for one, being in such close contact with another girl while naked, especially considering that I was still so turned on. And also nice to just feel like she still cared about me and that things might just turn out okay somehow. And fun because me naked hugging Julia had to be exciting for Hugh, right?

“Hey,” Hugh said after the hug had ended, “Are you two hungry? There’s more of that chicken in the freezer, and I can fix some more of that pasta while the two of you catch up.”

“He gives out magic blue panels and cooks, too?” Julia observed. “Maybe he is a keeper.”

I laughed, glad that she was making a real effort. “I’m sorry about all that stuff I said earlier.”

“No, I was being a bitch. It’s good for you to call me on my bullshit. No one else in my life is at the moment.”

After a little more conversation in that vein – me apologizing and her apologizing and both of us apologizing for apologizing – we got down to planning the quests.

“You’re sure you’re okay with all this?” I asked.

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“It’s fine. I’ve done embarrassing stuff before. None of this will traumatize me. Hell, it might even be fun. Who knows?”

“About Matt and Alan. They are really cool guys and I can’t imagine them being, you know, aggressive, but I can’t help but think it might be better for Hugh to stick around for that one. Maybe he could wait up on this level? If he stands at the far end of the railing, he’d have a view of the guys’ door. He’d be mostly out of sight but could rush down and break in if they pulled you inside or tried anything.”

“You’d be okay with your boyfriend seeing me naked?”

“Honestly,” I said, “I like making him happy, and I can’t help but think that seeing you would make him really happy. There’s a reason all the boys chased after you.”

“I don’t care one way or the other. I just thought you’d be scared of me stealing him away from you or something.”

The truth was that I did feel that way. Yesterday in the restaurant, I had resigned myself to how this would go. Julia would start doing quests, and Hugh would fall for her. I mean, what guy wouldn’t compared to me? I just kind of really hoped that, between all the stuff that he and I had already shared and my Bi-Curious skill, maybe they’d let me still be a part of things instead of breaking up with me completely.

Both of them would deny that that would ever happen, though, so it made no sense to bring it up. I’d just have to prepare myself and enjoy what I had for as long as I could.

“Like that would happen,” I said, feigning a smile.

Then, I had a thought, and a real grin took its place.

“In fact,” I said, “I bet seeing your body won’t even give him a hard on.”

“That’s not really a fair bet. He’d just be seeing my butt for a second and from a decent distance. Not exactly the most erotic thing in the world.”

“You have my permission to do anything outside of actually touching him that you want to in order to try to turn him on.”

“Now, that sounds interesting. What are the stakes?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “What do you want?”

She grinned. “If I win, you have to masturbate with me. This whole jilling off in front of you thing is kind of wigging me out. Doing it together would be awkward as fuck, but at least I wouldn’t feel like I was just putting on a show for my oldest friend.

Ugh. I so didn’t want to risk having to do that, but I had an ace up my sleeve that she didn’t know about, Hugh’s control skill.

“Deal,” I said. “And, when I win, you have to stay naked until just before time for you to leave tomorrow.”

That was fair stakes. I wouldn’t have to be alone in embarrassing myself, either.

“Wait,” she said. “Before I agree to this, how do I know that he’s not just so small that it would be difficult to tell if he has an erection? His pants haven’t been tented this entire time, and you’re butt ass naked.”

Hey! Had she been checking out my boyfriend?

I held up my hands a good distance apart. “He’s this big. I swear it.”

“No way.”

“Pinky. Swear.”

“God! You are a lucky girl,” she said. “Well, I guess we have a deal, then.”

“Deal,” she said.

We shook on it.

After that, we went to the kitchen to tell Hugh about wanting him to watch her from the upper landing. He was reluctant, of course, but immediately understood the safety concerns and agreed.

As we were getting the table ready – we pulled it over to the couch for the extra seating, but space was definitely tight on the two topper – Julia excused herself to the bathroom again.

I went over and whispered in Hugh’s ear, “If you make sure not to get an erection while watching over Julia, I will make it worth your while.”

“Interesting. In what way?”

“Just trust me. You will appreciate it.”

“Done.”

This was going to be fun.

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