"Hey Little Pea."
Rachel's face was buried into her pillow, crying her eyes out. But she looked up to smile and laugh when she saw her old friend, Jordan, standing in her doorway with a goofy smile on his face. She should have been downstairs, finishing the last touches of her party but didn't have it in her. Despite the vixen's dower mood, she responded with a smile of her own and could feel her heart fluttering in his presence as it always did. But, despite the strong attraction, Rachel had long since resolved to never act on her feelings for Jordan.
It was sad. Rachel thought they could have been a wonderful couple, but they had missed their moment, and now his friendship was something she considered too special to jeopardize with romance. The fact that she considered him off limits, however, didn't stop all her boyfriends from getting jealous of him. There was a closeness between the two foxes that her romantic partners never seemed able to match.
"Hey Big Pea." Rachel responded while protectively wrapping herself with her long, bushy tail.
Big Pea and Little Pea was their nicknames for one another. They had called each other that ever since kindergatern when, in a school play, Jordan and Rachel had played the roles of "Big Pea" and "Little Pea" respectively. Playing on the nicknames their friends would often refer to them collectively as 'The Pod' as in, 'like two peas' in a pod.
"How are you holding up?" He asked, even though he already knew the answer, with a little concern in his voice. Jordan let himself into her bedroom, striding in confidently like he belonged, before sitting beside his lifelong best friend on her bed. Most guys would have been gravely overstepping themselves by inviting themselves into her room like this. But Jordan was different, not only had they known each other forever, she knew he would never try anything. Like her, he considered their relationship too special to risk.
Jordan wrapped a tender, comforting arm around her shoulders. The kind of comforting arm that caused her conviction to falter for a moment, and Rachel leaned into him. Rachel's bushy tail wagged back and forth happily as she buried her snout into his neck inhaled deeply, enjoying his comforting scent. She tried to convince herself it was simply the fox's familiarity, not because of any mutual attraction, that caused her body to respond this way. Jordan did bring a... a sort of nostalgic contentment to her. It reminded Rachel of road trips to the beach where they were stuffed like sardines in Jessica's old Bug, or the bittersweet memory from Senior prom when she'd almost kissed him... but didn't. Every so often she wondered if he had moments like that, moments when he could have made a move but... didn't for some reason.
"I'm... I'm fine." She lied, nodding her head, trying to convince herself as much as him.
Jordan saw right through the lie, but he didn't press it. He knew that Rachel was in for a hard road after having her heart broken like this. The day before she found her fiancé just a month before their wedding, and on Valentine's Day of all days, cheating on her with her sister of all people! Jordan knew that kind of betrayal ran deep. He was confident that Rachel, probably the strongest woman he knew, would recover, it would take time. He wished that he could take the pain away somehow, but also knew it was impossible. Time would be her only healer. For now, he would simply have to settle for being there for her, however she needed him most. It was what made Jordan such a good friend and, Rachel thought, such a good boyfriend for any girl lucky enough to have him.
"By the way, I don't know if you meant to leave these in that heart shaped candy box downstairs, but I figured you hadn't." He said, reaching into his coat pocket, pulling out a stack of papers. They were stapled together as if someone had bound a homemade book. It seemed familiar to Rachel, but she couldn't quite place it.
Rachel curiously reached out to take the stack of papers, wondering what it was for a brief moment, before her face flushed in embarrassment. She couldn't believe that Jordan had found this. "Oh my god." She muttered, holding a hand to her mouth with a loud laugh, half of embarrassment, half out of real mirth. Jordan had just handed her the 'love coupons' that the vixen had made for her ex and then stuffed in a box of chocolates to give him later. It was supposed to be his Valentine's Day gift, but when they had so painfully and suddenly broken up, she had tossed it on the snacks table downstairs without even thinking; just wanting to be rid of it.
The idea of 'love coupons' was cheesy, some might even say juvenile, but she lived for little romantic stuff like this. Some coupons where PG, such as: "I owe you a kiss under the stars" or "One 15 minute back rub". Others were much rancher and would have proved even more mortifying had anyone else at the party have found them. "One blowjob, redeemable on your birthday." for instance, or "One session of anal sex, with one day's advance notice." Rachel flipped through them, sadly imagining engaging in each act with her fiancée for a moment until she got to the very last one. She didn't recognize it as one she had made and looked closer at it. Sure enough it didn't belong: it fell from the book easily, it hadn't been stapled, and the note was written in Jordan's handwriting. She looked at the note closer, and her cheeks immediately flushed beneath her fur.
"I owe you one steamy, passionate night of post break-up rebound sex." It read.
She looked up at him with a stunned look on her face, while Jordan looked at her with his big goofy smile. It quickly faded from his face, however, as he misread the look on her face for hurt feelings. "Listen, I'm sorry, Rachel... I just meant it as a joke. I didn't mean-"
"Does that mean I can't redeem it then?" She asked, a sudden sense of bravery coming over her.
Now it was Jordan's turn to look surprised. He spluttered wordlessly, the fox was stunned and not sure how to respond. He wanted to scream 'yes', having yearned for the vixen's affections for so long, but also not wanting to seem too eager or worse yet misreading his friend and confusing her joke for a real come on. Jordan certainly did want to make good on the coupons offer, however. While his hadn't been nearly as dramatic as Rachel's, Jordan was also going through a tough breakup at the moment. And like Rachel, he had always wanted something more than friendship from their relationship. Correctly reading the look on his face, she hesitated no longer and leaned in to kiss him full on the lips, stuffing the coupon in his pocket.
"Consider it 'redeemed.'" she whispered in a lustful tone.
For along and awkward moment, it felt like kissing a brick wall. Jordan seemed too stunned to respond to her aggressive advances in any meaningful way at all. He quickly warmed up, however, responding with a pent-up passion he'd been aching to express for years now. He reached out for her and wrapped his arms around her, a hug that she had longed for so many years, while their lips locked and their tongues danced. They fell back on her bed together, a small moan crossing her lips as she savored what she had been looking for so long. They kissed for a very long time, savoring the moment in each other's arms. They almost didn't want to have sex just then, the moment was too good. But eventually need overwhelmed them and they mutually broke off the kiss.
