Laura must have gone back to sleep. She woke with a start and had to process exactly where she was all over again. Thank God it was a Sunday and neither of them had to rush off somewhere. She wasn't expecting brunch and a romantic stroll around the park but it was nice to have the time to gather herself before the no doubt deeply uncomfortable conversation she was about to have. She wondered where Jake was. He was probably still asleep in some dive of a motel room head to toe with the drummer of the band. Then she was surprised not to feel even a twinge of guilt. Jake was her lover, her friend, her confidante and she had slept with the one person she should absolutely not sleep with but where was the guilt? What was wrong with her?

Jake was such a decent guy. It was ironic really. Jake, the musician, bass guitarist in a struggling indie band, was reliable and down to earth and ... safe. Whereas, Nathan, an accountant with a steady salary and a nice apartment (these were Egyptian cotton sheets she was lying in, if she was not mistaken) was reckless and untrustworthy and ... dangerous. They were so different but they were such good friends and now Laura had really put a spanner in the works. How were any of them going to survive this one?

Laura had known Jake forever. Since he was a skinny kid with a mop of sandy hair and braces. But Nathan had appeared fully formed; age seventeen and as hot as hell. She was only a sweet and innocent twelve but even then she had been able to see just how dangerous this divinely beautiful boy was. He cut a swathe through his senior year at High school, and her brother and Jake had been delighted with this new member of their posse. Their cool factor went up ten fold overnight. Nathan came with a reputation and he cemented that reputation almost immediately by stealing the head cheerleader from the quarterback. He swore to his friends that he had done nothing at all and she had pursued him relentlessly until he finally gave in, but they had all seen the looks he would throw her in class and not many girls would have been able to withstand that. He dumped her a couple of weeks after she dumped the quarterback and the legend was born.

But Nathan Cross was more than just a player. Ryan and Jake would never have befriended him and stayed friends if that was all he was. He was clever and funny and above all loyal. He loved his new friends fiercely and stuck by them over the years. He was nice to Ryan's kid sister. Oblivious to her growing crush, he would hang out with her in the TV room and make her laugh by telling stupid jokes. Nathan was always at their house, eating cheerios straight from the box, or lolling on the sofa his long legs spread out. But none of them ever went to his house. They met his mother just once. She had screeched to a halt outside school in a beat up old mustang and started yelling out of the wound down window. Laura had caught an impression of long tangled black hair and a hand covered in rings before Nathan had leapt into the car and they had driven off.

Laura's crush grew in intensity over the years but Nathan never showed any sign of reciprocating and she gave up, content to burn secretly for him and let Jake sneak up on her. All through her first year at College she had the occasional hook-up and saw Ryan and Jake and Nathan in the holidays and sometimes at weekends and then in the summer vacation she spent a day with Jake, driving to the beach and by the time the sun had set, they were an item. Ryan had pretended to be mad, but his protective anger hadn't lasted long and really, there was no need. Jake was a genuinely nice guy and Laura and he were sweet together and the whole thing made sense. Nathan said he was happy for them and left it at that.

There had been an incident, a few months before Laura and Jake got together. Laura did her best not to dwell on it, but occasionally it would come back full force, almost like shell shock. They had all gone snowboarding that Christmas. Laura had come up from College and the guys had taken time off work - well Ryan and Nathan had, Jake had a much more flexible schedule. Some other friends had come too and there had been a party crowd at the lodge they rented. One night they had been playing drinking games and someone suggested hide and seek and somehow, Laura and Nathan had found themselves squashed in a cupboard together. When Laura allowed it she could still remember the heat of Nathan's body and the thud of his heart against her cheek. They hadn't spoken, just stood pressed together with Nathan's fingers slowly digging into Laura's arms and his breath ruffling her hair. Someone had wrenched the door open and yelled excitedly and Nathan had pushed her towards the light as if he were desperate to be rid of her.

Remembering this now she summoned the courage to open her eyes fully. Nathan was staring back at her, his navy blue eyes lit by the morning sun.