The Friend Zone

by Kristen Callihan

  For weeks I’ve tried to envision Gray driving this car. Nothing does the reality justice. His hard-packed muscles bunch and twitch, his wide shoulders hunch, and his long legs bend awkwardly. The steering wheel looks delicate under his big hands.

  “Oh, this is so awesome,” I say, barely holding in my snickering.

  Gray turns to glare at me, but his blue eyes are smiling. “This is why you wanted me to drive, isn’t it?”

  “Partially. You just look so cute.” I give his cheek a tweak.

  He bats my hand away with a short laugh. “Little punk. I swear to God, I’m gonna find a way to get you back.”

  “I’m terrified. Truly.”

  We’re soon driving down the highway. Despite Gray’s cramped position, he maneuvers the car with ease. I can imagine him on the field, those quick reflexes of his working in perfect tandem with his body. It must be a beautiful sight. I’ve wanted to view footage of his games, but just as I’ve feared seeing his picture, so have I feared watching him play. Some part of me didn’t want to know. I might have become too shy, too enamored of his talent if I knew those things.

  I roll the window down a bit, and cold, asphalt-tinged air blows in. “I’ve missed the scent of America.”

  He glances at me. “America has a scent?”

  “Yeah. Don’t ask me to describe it, but it does. England has a scent too.” I lean my head against the headrest and watch the world pass by. “Cars feel different when they’re driving on the other side. Do you know how long it took me just to figure out which way to look for traffic when crossing the street?” I sigh, the feeling of homecoming sinking further into my bones. “I loved being in England. But now that I’m here, I realize how much I missed home.”

  Gray’s forearm brushes my knee as he reaches for his iPhone dock. He fiddles with his song selection before sitting back. Tom Petty’s American Girl floods the space. Gray gives me a cheeky grin, and I return it. “Only half-American,” I say. “My mom’s a Brit.”

  He chuckles. “Noted.”

  For the entire song, we don’t speak but simply drive. It’s both odd and entirely normal. I have so much that I want to say to Gray now that we aren’t limited by texting. But it can wait. Something about him puts me at ease enough to just enjoy the moment.

  “Can I ask you something?” he says when the song ends.

  My lips purse. “When someone says that, it’s usually because they’re about to insult you.”

  He chuckles, the corners of his eyes crinkling in good humor. “Fair enough. And my question will probably be construed as insulting.”

  “Mmm.” I fight a smile. I can’t help it; driving down the highway with Gray just makes me happy. “Go ahead then. But beware, I bite when provoked.”

  “Promises, promises.” He grips the steering wheel, the ropey muscles in his thick forearms bunching as he does it. “Why did your dad get you this car? Don’t get me wrong, it’s got great styling for what it is and handles well. But I mean, you’ve got to be what?” Pink races up his cheeks as his gaze travels over my legs. “Six feet tall?”

  He had to bring it up. Of course he did. I don’t think I’ve met a guy who hasn’t remarked on my height. But I act unaffected.

  “Hey, I’ll have you know I’m a petite five foot twelve.”

  Gray grins wide at my joke. It’s a good look for him. Lines bracket his mouth. They’re kind of like dimples but longer. Just as irresistible, though.

  “Cute,” he says, changing lanes with confidence. “So, Little Miss Five-Twelve, why the clown car?”

  I sigh and lean back against the seat, trying to find room for my legs. “I think my dad still sees me as his baby girl. And compared to him, I am small.”

  “Shit, I’m small compared to your dad,” Gray says easily. He’s exaggerating, but not by much. Dad has a few inches on him. Before my dad was an agent, he’d played center in the NBA. He might have gone into coaching, but Dad always liked the kill of the deal better than the stress of the game.

  “Okay, but pink? It really doesn’t seem like your color,” Gray says with a pointed look at my clothes.

  I’m wearing black skinny jeans, a vintage The Cure concert tee, and red Chucks. No, I’m not much for pink.

  “There’s also the problem that he often confuses me with Fiona. As in, one Christmas I got Fi’s coveted Barbie Dream Townhouse, and she got my much-desired make-your-own-alien kit.” I shrug. “Now it’s cars. I’m stuck with a pink Fiat that I can barely squeeze into and little five-foot-three Fi’s swimming around in a black Acura MDX.”

  “Shit.” Gray shakes his head. “That sucks, Mac.”

  “The only consolation is that Fi is equally miffed.”

  “Why don’t you guys just exchange cars?”

  The million-dollar question. I thrum my fingers against the window pane. “First off, he bought us cars. How many kids can say that? We knew how lucky we were in that regard. And we didn’t want to hurt Dad’s feelings. Despite his faults, he’d be mortified if he realized his blunder. Dad tries, you know? He’s just…kind of clueless when it comes to us.”

  Gray nods, but there’s a sadness in his expression that says he’s got no idea what it means to deal with a caring-yet-misguided parent. Until now, we haven’t talked about family. Me, because Gray plans to sign my dad as his agent.

  Not wanting to bring down our happy mood, I give him a smile. “Besides, I’m used to my little powder puff now. And just think—” I give his hard side a nudge with my elbow. “I’d never have seen you crammed into it if Dad had gotten it right.”

  Gray laughs before ducking his head a bit. “Oh yeah, sure, that’s worth all the pain.”

  “You know it, baby.”

  His blue eyes flash with humor and slide over me before returning to the road. “And we might not have met.”

  Something swells between us, warm and tender. It gets me all sentimental, the very thought of not knowing Gray making me weepy. Or maybe I’m overtired.

  Gray clears his throat. “Where am I taking you?”

  “City Diner.”

  When he raises a brow in surprise, I give him a look that must be bordering on feral. “I’m craving a heaping bucket of crispy fried chicken with a side of biscuits like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “And she eats,” he says to the car. “A girl after my own heart.”

  “Just drive, Cupcake.”

  “Easy now, Special Sauce, I’ll get you your chicken.” He’s grinning as he rolls down the window and turns up the radio once more. Wind whips through my hair and music pumps through the speakers. Happiness floods my veins, as light and fizzy as champagne. It’s good to be home.

  * * *

  When I graduated high school I knew exactly where I was going. Off to Sarah Lawrence to soak up college life. The prospect excited me so much I was packing my trunks while still wearing my graduation cap and gown. All through college, I kept my head down, nose to the grindstone, and finished a year early for my efforts.

  Now college is over, and I feel adrift. The friends I made have been flung to the four winds, all of them taking that next step in their lives. It’s a lonely business graduating. So lonely that I understand why many people automatically enroll in grad school to feel that sense of camaraderie once more. But I need an academic break for now. And I’m no longer lonely. I’m here with Gray, who seems to fill up the space around him—literally, because he’s freaking huge, but also with his energy, like he’s his own solar system, a swirling vortex of planets and stars and suns.

  He’s comfortably slouched in the booth where we’re sitting, his long arm draped over the back of the seat. Sunlight glints in his dark blond hair, and there’s a small smile playing on his lips.

  “What?” I ask before taking another bite of fried chicken. A moan might have slipped free. I’ve been craving real fried chicken for ages, crispy, golden, juicy, tasty. In short, heaven.

  Gray full-on smiles. “Just like watching you enjoy the hell out of tha
t chicken.”

  “You make that sound illicit.”

  He chuckles. “You’re making it look illicit.”

  I’m about to tell him to piss off, in the nicest possible way of course, when he pushes his sleeves up to his elbows and something on his inner forearm catches my eye.

  “Hey, what’s this?” I grab his wrist and gently turn it to fully see the tattoos gracing his skin from wrist to inner elbow. They’re mathematic symbols done in indigo ink.

  Gray stiffens a bit, taking a sharp breath. But he lets it out easily and answers with a light voice. “That one there”—he gestures with his chin to the bit I’m tracing with my fingertips at his wrist—“is called Euler’s Identity.” His blue eyes meet mine. “How well do you know mathematics?”

  I grimace. “I got up to calculus because it was a major requirement. But I passed on sheer will and short term memory devices. You might as well be speaking in tongues with this stuff.”

  Gray gives me a quick, understanding smile. “Okay, then in the shortest sense, mathematicians often refer to Euler’s Identity as the most beautiful mathematical equation in the world because of its elegant simplicity and because it links what we call the five fundamental constants, or fields, of mathematics.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” I stroke a finger along the equation, then trail up to another tattoo—a long number sequence full of fractions and letters and a bunch of things that look like gobbledygook to me. “And this?”

  “Ah, that’s a basic proof for Euler’s Formula.” He eyes me with amusement. “I could explain it but—”

  “That’s okay,” I say quickly, and he chuckles. Slowly I stroke the tattoos. They’re well done, the script elegant, almost feminine in some way. And though the proofs and equations are thrown down in a haphazard fashion, there’s a surety to them, as if the whole thing was written free-flow without pause. “I didn’t know you were into math.”

  Gray’s skin prickles, the fine golden hairs on his forearm lifting as I reach his inner elbow. “It’s just something that comes easily to me,” he says with a shrug. “For my mom too. She could have gone into any field—physics, engineering. But she loved history and theoretical study so she ended being a math historian. Euler was an eighteenth-century mathematician and physicist, a genius. Mom kind of had a thing for him.”

  I grin. “That’s cute.”

  Gray leans closer to me. Our heads nearly touch as both of us look at his tattoos. His voice is almost a whisper it’s so soft. “She, uh… She died.”

  My breath slows. “When?” The idea of him hurting over the loss of his mom, and me not being there for him, makes my stomach hollow out.

  “When I was sixteen. Breast cancer.” His throat works on a swallow. “She was in a lot of pain toward the end. I’d sit with her, hold her hand.”

  His thick lashes lower, hiding his eyes from me. “She needed that physical contact. But she was in so much pain. She needed more of a distraction than holding my hand.”

  Gray’s broad chest lifts and falls as he slows his breathing, gets control. He swallows hard, and I rest my hand on his arm, holding steady.

  “One day, I took a pen and told her to give me a lecture. She used to do that with me, expound on the beauty of mathematical theory through proofs, functions, and equations.” He laughs, unsteady. “My bedtime stories.”

  Gray’s hand curls into a fist, and the muscles in his arm bunch. “She drew on my arm. Every time. I’d clean it off, and she’d start all over again. These tattoos. They were her last… I had someone ink over her writing. To keep it.”

  “It’s beautiful.” I don’t think, just lift his arm and press a gentle kiss to his soft skin.

  His forearm tenses, and I find him staring at me with wide eyes. Pain resides there, and a sort of longing too. I recognize it in myself—that need to have someone understand how empty life can feel, as if you’re the only one in your universe.

  Gray holds my gaze for another second then clears his throat. “Shit, Mac, you’re going to have me bawling like a baby soon.” He gives me a lopsided smile.

  Returning his smile, I let him go and lean back in my seat. “So, crazy complex math is easy for you, huh? You never told me your major.” I’m thinking it’s not what I was expecting.

  Gray’s gaze slides away and he takes an extra-big bite of chicken. “Mechanical engineering and nanotechnology,” he mutters around a mouthful.

  And I choke on my drink. “Holy shit,” I say when I can breathe again.

  Gray just shrugs.

  “How the hell did you have time to double major in those fields and still excel at football?”

  He slouches down further in his seat. “Added nano to keep things interesting.”

  “Because you were breezing through mechanical engineering?” I squeak.

  And he fiddles with his napkin. “Yeah, well… Like I said, it’s kind of easy for me. And I really wanted to learn more about nanotechnology. Do you know the cool shit that’s coming out of that field? When you get into the hierarchical architectures of nanostructures—” He stops abruptly, his face a little flushed as if he’s afraid he’s rambling. He is, but I love it.

  “You could have gone to an Ivy League school, couldn’t you?” I ask.

  “This university has the best football program in the country and a very decent physics department,” he says with a small shrug. “No big deal.”

  Stumped by the way he obviously wants to hide his intelligence, I stare. He clearly thinks I’m judging him—he scowls, his big hands curling into fists on the table. “Aren’t you going to ask why I risk playing a dumb jock’s game when I could be more?”

  “I wouldn’t ask that. I know there are highly intelligent men who play football.”

  He relaxes a little. Then runs a hand through his bright hair. “I’m sorry. I am touchy. I don’t like the extra attention. I mean, I’m freaking six-six. I’m a star player on a championship-winning team. I get enough as it is without questions about my IQ.” He laughs, but it isn’t amused. “Anyway, I love football. I love mathematics and science. This way, I get both. And if football doesn’t pan out, I know I’ll have a good future lined up in nanotechnology.”

  “Understatement of the year, Cupcake.” I give his foot a nudge with my own, and he relaxes further.

  “So what you up to now that you’re home, Ivy Mac?”

  We’ve talked about so many things, but for some reason not our plans for the future. Somehow Gray and I have a relationship focused on the present. I think it was easier for us to simply enjoy each other. But when faced with having to tell him my plans, unease bloats in my belly. I’ve mapped out my life but right here and now I don’t want to look at the paths that I’ve drawn.

  I wipe my hands on a napkin before taking a long drink of lemonade. “Technically, I’m not home. You know how for the last year I’ve been with my mom, learning how to run one of her bakeries?” Mom is a first-class baker. She owns and runs three highly successful bakeries around London. Her specialty is breads and cakes.

  Gray nods, and I take a breath, my insides suddenly shaky and cold.

  “In the spring, I’ll return to London and take over her bakery in Notting Hill.” Aside from her Chelsea location, it is her most lucrative store. Letting me run the place is a huge responsibility, and a huge display of trust.

  Absolute silence greets me. Gray frowns as if he hadn’t heard me, but then his chest lifts on a breath and he clears his throat. “You’re leaving again? To live in London?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sunlight hits the side of his face, highlighting the strong lines of his nose and jaw as he turns to look out the window. The curve of his lower lip plumps before he presses his mouth into a line. And then he’s looking at me. “When are you going back?”

  “March.” My fingers curl around the greasy napkin in my lap. “I majored in business. I’ve always liked baking. It all fits. And this way, I can spend more time with my mom. She was so happy to h
ave me with her this past year.”

  He nods, not looking at me but at the ruin of chicken bones scattered in the red plastic basket before him. “That’s good, Mac. Really…good.” He gives himself a little shake, then lifts his head. His smile is wide, carefree. It might be forced. I don’t know. I only feel this weird sense of loss and guilt. But he doesn’t let me wallow.

  “So we have a few good months before you take the baking world by storm. What are you going to do here?”

  I let myself relax against the booth seat. “I’m going to hang with Fiona. She goes to college here, and so Dad is living here too for the time being. He has an apartment in New York City and a house in LA, but Dad has always been overprotective of Fi and doesn’t trust her to be on her own.”

  Gray frowns, pausing before taking another bite of chicken. “But he doesn’t worry about you?”

  “Naw, I’m like rubber, always bouncing back. Fi’s the fragile one.” I shrug. “It’s always been that way. ‘Don’t worry about Ivy; she’s the steady one.’ ‘Protect Fi’s feelings at all costs; she’ll break if you don’t.’ Frankly it’s bullshit. Fi and I are more alike than not. But that’s how our parents see us.”

  “I get that,” Gray says. “It’s what parents do. ‘You see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions.’”

  “Did you just quote The Breakfast Club to me?” I ask, amused.

  “Good catch.” He grins, which draws my attention back to his mouth. It’s lush—sweetly curved yet still masculine. Even when relaxed, his lips hold a smile. “So you’re going to live with Fiona?”

  “Yep. Fi’s living in the guesthouse behind my dad’s house. I’ll stay with her.”

  Gray sputters on his drink. “Wait. Your dad has a house big enough to include a guesthouse, but you two won’t live with him?”

  “Fi refuses to ‘live with Dad.’ But she loves the guesthouse so…” I shake my head. “I know. We’re odd ducks.”