by Sara Ney
“Was she your girlfriend, though, or were you just datingggg?” Phillip teases.
“Shut up, asshole—I’m serious.” Blaine shoots him a glare so salty, Phillip shrinks down in his seat. Then he turns that look on me. “You can’t just start something because your life sucks, ruin ours, then decide you don’t want to do it anymore. It’s done—you forfeit, Phillip and I are the last men standing, and you can just sit back and watch me win.”
“Hey, hey now, girls, let’s not fight.” Phillip tries to smooth Blaine’s ruffled feathers. Our friend doesn’t get pissed often, but when he does—watch out.
“I haven’t ruined anything,” I grumble, knowing that’s a lie.
“I broke up with my girlfriend!” he shouts in outrage, and rightfully so, though I wouldn’t dare admit it.
“You wouldn’t have broken up with her if you actually loved her. You loved the idea of her, but you didn’t love her. Huge difference.”
Blaine considers this, shrugging. “Fair enough. No one twisted my arm to dump her, but I did, so sorry, loser. You forfeit, that’s the end of the game for you. We’re in, you’re out.”
“Fine.” My nod of acceptance is jerky and slightly spastic.
“Good.” Phillip smirks, having won this argument. “Now let’s talk about this chick, Abbott, whom we’ve never heard of. You said she lives in your building?”
“Yes, across the hall.” I shift in my seat. “We kind of became friends and then…you know the rest.”
“You actually love this chick?”
I bristle at his use of the word chick but keep my lips sealed shut; Lord knows I’ve use far worse words to describe the women they’ve dated in the past.
“I think so.”
“You must if you’re willing to come to us with your tail between your legs and give up everything you have just to date her. I mean, is she even a sure thing?” Blaine shoves several olives into his mouth like he’s hungry but doesn’t want to order an actual meal, determined to survive on garnishes alone.
My laugh is sardonic. “Not. At. All. In fact, I’m pretty sure she hates me right now. I haven’t actually seen her in a few days. She’s avoiding me.”
“Why?”
“Because after we had sex, she told me we’d make a great couple—which we totally would—and I told her I couldn’t date her.”
Phillip shudders. “Ouch.”
“Yeah.” Blaine cringes. “Bet that went over like a lead balloon.”
That’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one. “Let’s just say if looks could kill, I’d be a dead man. And I have no food in my fridge anymore, so I’m also a man who’s been starving for the past few days.”
“Oh, tell her that—I bet she’d take you back in a heartbeat if she knew you needed her as a food source.” Phillip’s sarcasm is barely humorous.
Blaine taps his chin with the tip of his forefinger. “Can she take him back if they aren’t a couple?”
“No, but she can forgive him for being an ass.”
“Correction: she can forgive him for being a bastard.”
We raise our glasses and toast, wishing me luck as I try to win Abbott’s heart, and her forgiveness.
26
Abbott
I have been avoiding Brooks for days. It wasn’t my intention to completely stonewall him, but let’s be honest—looking into a man’s face after he tells you he isn’t interested is a kind of torment I want no part of.
Saying the words I think we would make a great couple was hard enough. Having him reject them?
Awful.
Humiliating.
And so, I’ve been avoiding him, hoping I know his routine well enough not to bump into him.
It’s childish because we’re supposed to be friends, but I don’t have the guts to see him.
Honestly? I’ve been depressed since I told him to shove off, which is the reason Sophia is sitting across from me on the sofa, cross-legged, spooning ice cream directly from the container.
“You want a bite?”
“No thanks, I’ve already eaten half of the cookies and cream. I feel sick.” I groan, holding my stomach, pointing the remote control at the television but not really seeing what’s on it. Who even cares?
“So, hypothetically…” Sophia begins for the hundredth time (she loves hypothetical scenarios and has been blasting me with them since she walked in the door). “If Brooks were to knock on your door and ask to see you, what would you do?”
“I’d slam the door in his face.”
The spoon Sophia has halfway in her mouth pauses, her throat humming out an unconvinced, “Hmm.”
“Hmm, what? I would.”
“Yeah, no. I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care what you believe. I don’t want to see him.”
She’s doubtful. “Don’t want to see him, or aren’t ready to see him?”
“Is there a difference?”
Sophia is right—I do want to see him, but I’m just not ready. The stinging still hurts, my heart and my soul and my pride still hurt. I thought I was strong enough that a thing like this wouldn’t affect me this way, but it does.
Because I love that jackass.
“Of course there’s a difference, but I get it if you don’t want to see him. Shit, if you want, I can break into his place and kill all his plants.”
My chin goes up a notch. “He only has one plant.” Not that I would let her kill it, or break into his place.
I don’t hate the poor guy.
I’m lonely and I ache for him; plotting revenge might take a bit of the edge off temporarily, but I’d still be crying myself to sleep tonight.
“Babe, you okay over there?” Sophia softly asks, reaching over and placing her hand on mine. Giving me a pat with a hand that’s very cold because it’s been wrapped around the ice cream container for so long.
“Yes.” Sort of.
“Okay, so hypothetically, what if…Brooks knocked on your door and begged your forgiveness—what would you do?”
“Nothing. He doesn’t have to apologize for anything. It’s not a crime to sleep with someone and not want to be in a relationship. It’s called casual dating. Fuck buddies. Friends with benefits.” Potato, potahto, it’s all the same thing.
“Brooks Bennett is not your fuck buddy. You’re actual buddies who just so happened to sleep together and then the bastard left you hanging.”
“Stop trying to make me feel better.”
I close my eyes, trying to remember what he said to me in the hallway, trying to remember the way he watched me and the expression on his face after I told him to go live his best life.
“Are you breaking up with me?”
I laughed at him. “We’re not dating, remember? You went down on me once, slept with me once, and now I doubt you were even going to let me spend the night. Probably some rule about that.” I threw everything he’d told me back in his face.
“Abbott, I can’t be in a relationship, but I also don’t…” He paused, struggling to find words. “I don’t want…this.”
Can’t be in a relationship.
Can’t be in a relationship?
Why?
What hold do his friends have on him? Is he in the mob? Does he owe someone money? Is he on the lam and bad guys are out to get him?
“I don’t want…this.”
This.
I sit in silence, listening to the sound of my best friend licking ice cream off a spoon then digging into the bowl for more, Desi mewing beside her, begging for a bit of a treat. Sophia pats my cat on the head, fluffs her hair, but doesn’t give in to the pouting kitty.
Hard-ass. She and Desi have a love-hate-love relationship, much like everyone else has with my temperamental cat.
“I don’t want…this.”
He might not want things this way, but this is what he’s getting. I might have been okay with being in the friend-zone at the beginning, but I’m not okay with it now.
Line drawn.
I
will not be crossing it.
And I’ll do that by staying on my side of the hallway. I just need him to stay on his.
“Has the bastard tried to call you?”
I haven’t told Sophia that not only has Brooks tried to call, he’s texted and knocked on my door in an effort to contact me. Just yesterday, I sat on the floor in my little entryway, back against the door as he knocked and knocked and knocked.
I could hear Brooks standing on the other side for fourteen minutes, fourteen long, excruciating minutes before he gave up and went back to his place. Fourteen minutes before I could open my door and steal to the elevator in an effort to run errands.
“Don’t call him that,” I snap, lost in thought.
“Sorry.” She pats me on the hand again, Desdemona now curled in her lap, purring like a motor. “I love you. I hate seeing you hurt.”
“I know.” I love her, too, and I’ve never been afraid to tell anyone how I felt about them until Brooks rejected my sentiments.
“I think we would make a great couple…”
Far from a declaration, perhaps, but still packed with meaning, and it took a lot of courage for me to say.
Why did I say that to him? WHY? Guh, I’m such an idiot.
I mull this over, over and over again, tormenting myself by reliving each moment on a loop.
Then.
There’s a loud knock at the door I wasn’t expecting, and I start.
Sophia pauses, spoon mid-lick on her tongue. “Are you expecting anyone?”
“No, but you know Nan pops in from time to time.”
Sophia reaches for her phone and checks the time. “I’ll get that in case it’s a murderer. You’ve already had a shitty week—we don’t need anything else traumatic on your plate.” She giggles at herself all the way to the door, yanking it open before I can protest. Instead of calling out my objection, I bury my head beneath the blanket, dread pooling in the depth of my belly.
“Oh.” A brief silence. “Ohhh.” Another pause. “I-I really don’t know if she will…I’ll have to ask. Give me a second—I’ll be right back.”
The door clicks closed and I crane my neck to watch as she walks back into the living room then begins pacing.
“What are you doing?” I frown. “Who was that?”
“Uh. That…” She points to the entryway. “Was Brooks.”
Brooks? I rise, wipe my palms on my pajama bottoms. “What do I do?”
Shit, what do I do! I’m not ready to see him, especially like this.
“No.” I’m shaking my head a bit too aggressively. “I don’t want to see him.”
“Abbott, you have to—you can’t avoid him forever. Plus, he’s really cute.”
“Sophia! Like that matters.” She is so ridiculous.
“Right, but he’s not at all how I was picturing him!”
“Give me a break—you’ve been googling him for weeks, and don’t lie and say you haven’t.”
“Fine, I was—but he’s way better in person.”
“Please go tell him to leave.”
“No.”
“Sophia!” She can’t hold me hostage in my own apartment.
“Rip it off like a Band-Aid. The sooner you get this over with, the sooner you can get on with your life.”
“I am getting on with my life.”
“You’re hiding.”
So? So! I’m entitled to show a little fear and act like a coward every now and again—I’m human, dammit, and I get scared like everyone else.
But.
She is right.
I care about Brooks, and there will come a point where I will have to face the music.
Sophia walks over and puts her hands on my shoulders. “If you want me to stay, I will.”
My head shakes. “It’ll be fine. And…we can’t leave him out in the hallway forever.”
“Are you for real?” Sophia smirks. “I think he’d wait out there all night if we let him.”
Part of me wants to. It would serve him right for acting like such a…dumbass. The other part? Misses him like crazy though it’s only been a few short days since I’ve seen him.
“Let me go grab my shit and I’ll go.” She kisses me on the cheek. “If you don’t text or call and tell me how it goes, you’re a dead man.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah—she’s threatened me a million times before.
“Okay, I will.”
I fluff my hair in the small gilded mirror on my living room wall, pinching my cheeks and pushing on my eyelashes with my forefinger to fluff those, too. Nothing can be done about my outfit; Sophia is already seeing herself out and letting Brooks in, the gentle footpads of his gait sending a thrill of anticipation down my spine.
I have no idea what he’s going to say, but I’m tired of not knowing what he’s been doing.
He looks…
Tired.
He looks like…
How I feel.
Worn out.
“Hey.” He greets me, hands stuffed into the pockets of a pair of dress slacks. “Thanks for not having your friend tell me to piss off.”
I tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear and blush. “I couldn’t avoid you forever.”
Brooks forces a smile, and my eyes travel the length of him. The poor thing looks exhausted.
“Long day at work?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, I was working late.”
“Oh.” Lord, this is worse than I thought, my extensive vocabulary suddenly fleeing and leaving me with nothing. “Everything is good, I hope?”
“It’s good. Work is work.” He’s staring at me with such intensity I can’t look him in the eye anymore, glancing at the carpet then the windows, finally at Desdemona.
My nose twitches. “It smells like you might have been at the bar.”
Chagrined, he runs a hand through his hair.
Hair that needs trimming.
A face that needs a shave.
“I was at The Basement, with the guys, um, talking about…you.”
“Me?” This surprises me; I hadn’t considered he tells his friends about me the way I’ve told Sophia about him, and I want to pry for details—as I would have done days ago, before things got weird between us.
“Yes, you.”
“You were talking to your friends about me?”
“Yeah, I was. And I’m not drunk, if you’re wondering.”
I can tell he hasn’t had much to drink; his eyes aren’t red and he isn’t acting goofy—two telltale signs he exhibits when he’s imbibed far too much liquor.
I don’t know what to do with myself, standing in the middle of the living room, so I sit back down on the couch, knees pressed together primly, back ramrod straight. Hands folded across my lap.
“You were at The Basement with your friends and you didn’t wear that ridiculous jacket of yours?” He always has that jacket on when he’s meeting with those guys, drinking and doing whatever it is they do in secret.
Secrets he won’t share.
“I gave the jacket back.”
My mouth gapes; I’m not sure what to say. He loves that jacket—why would he give it back? Is he going to tell me or do I have to ask?
“I, um…” He takes another step into the living room, large form dominating the feminine space, his hands still firmly jammed into his pants pockets. “I had to.”
Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask…
“Why?”
Brooks’ smile is one of relief and his shoulders sag, hands reappearing; I remember those big hands cupping my derriere and stroking my hair, and now? They’re massaging the pressure points of his temple, frustration palpable.
I put him out of his misery. “What is it you want to say?”
Say you’re sorry and you miss me and you made a mistake. Please, Brooks. Please tell me you miss me.
“I love you, Abbott.”
I love you, Abbott, I love you, Abbott, I love you, Abbott.
Holy Hannah, it’s a good thing I’m sitting down, be
cause I would have tipped over if I heard those words standing up.
“I don’t understand.” Sure, there are a million better ways I could have responded—oh, say, for example I love you, too! or I care about you, Brooks.
But I chose to go with, “I don’t understand,” so we’re both staring at one another confused. What is he supposed to say to that? Gee, thanks?
He takes a step closer, then another, until he’s standing in front of me. Goes down on his knees so he’s not towering above me and takes my hands in his big, warm ones. Grasps them and squeezes.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry and I love you and I shouldn’t have said what I fucking said, but I can’t take any of the words back. All I can do is tell you how I feel and hope we can go back to being friends even though I fucked everything up.”
“No,” I say slowly, my head giving the barest hint of a shake.
Brooks backs up a few inches, as if I’ve tried to burn him. “You said we were friends. Friends don’t just give up on each other.”
“You gave up on me.”
“No I didn’t—I was confused, and scared, and I had a few things to decide before I could tell you how I feel.”
“Ah, the rules.”
“Yes, exactly. The rules.”
I’m silent while I think. “So where is the smoking jacket?”
“It’s in a better place.”
“What, did you burn it?”
“No—I gave it to Blaine and Phillip because I lost the bet we had.”
“The bet?” I knew there was something more to his disappearing than he was telling me, knew there were conditions he had to abide by and that by hanging out with me, he was breaking them. But I didn’t care—I only wanted to spend time with him.
“I can’t tell you the name of what’s going on with my friends, but I can tell you I lost the game we were playing and it was worth it.”
Game.
Shit, now I want to know more. These table scraps he’s leaving me aren’t feeding my insatiable curiosity.
“What does it have to do with the jacket, though?”
“I had to wear it when we had our meetings.”
“Why?”
“Because…it was fun. No real reason. We actually only smoke in them on patios—they don’t allow it at The Basement. Mostly we just put cigars in our mouths but didn’t light them.”
