Fuck Buddy
Scott Hildreth
DEDICATION
To have a lover is one thing. To have a best friend is another. To have your best friend and your lover happen to be the same person is magical.
This book is dedicated to anyone who has had the luxury of falling in love with their best friend. There’s nothing on this earth that can compare.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
THIS BOOK IS A WORK OF FICTION.
All names, incidents, and occurrences in this book are a figment of the author’s imagination, and are depicted in a work of fiction. Any likeness to fact is pure coincidence.
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, are coincidental.
Fuck Buddy 1st Edition Copyright © 2016 by Scott Hildreth
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author or publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use the material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the author at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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PROLOGUE
With my face buried in my pillow, I cried quietly, hoping not to wake either of my parents. I never would have guessed girls in fourth grade could be so hateful.
A light tapping on my window startled me. I wiped my tears on the shoulder of my nightgown, pulled the wrinkles from the fabric, and walked to the window. After pulling the curtains to the side and peering through the glass, his smiling face caused me to do the same.
“Open the window,” he whispered.
I turned the lock, pushed against the frame carefully, and stepped to the side.
He grinned and pressed his finger to his lips. “Shhh.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
“Bad day, huh?” he said as he climbed in the window.
I chewed against my bottom lip, embarrassed for the tears I continued to shed. “Yeah.”
“Girls are stupid.” He brushed his long blonde hair away from his eyes. “Except for you.”
“Boys are stupid, too.”
“Are you still sad?” he asked.
I nodded.
As we both stood at the side of the bed, he held out his hand.
I took his hand in mine and squeezed tightly. Together, we fell onto the bed, hand-in-hand. He was different than the other boys. He was different than everybody. We were best friends, and one day I hoped he would ask me to be his girlfriend.
We silently laid on our backs holding hands for some time. I stared up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling until I gathered the courage to speak. When I finally developed the nerve, I turned my head to the side. He did the same.
“Do you want to be my boyfriend?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
I rolled my head to the side and gazed up at the ceiling, feeling foolish for having asked.
“But I’ll be your best friend forever,” he said.
“Pinky promise?” I asked.
He extended his pinkie.
I did the same.
And we swore.
Best friends for life.
CHAPTER ONE
OLIVIA
“Since when do you not have yogurt in here?” he asked.
I tossed the empty cottage cheese container into the trash and glanced over my shoulder. “Since you ate the last of it yesterday. I’ll get some more when I go to the store.”
Standing barefoot with his head shoved so deep into the refrigerator it was well out of view, Luke looked the way he did on any other day. Dressed in board shorts and an old tee shirt, at first glance he resembled most of the other surfers in southern California. His skin was deep bronze in color and he had the muscular structure of an athlete. With his handsome looks and a tasteful sleeve of tattoos down to one wrist, he could have had a career as a model if he chose to. Instead, he spent his time surfing and building the occasional custom surfboard for whoever he deemed worthy of his time and effort.
“I wasn’t here yesterday.” He cleared his throat and pushed the refrigerator door closed. “And if I would have taken the last one I would have said something.”
As he turned around, his hair fell into his face. Long and brown with occasional strands of dirty blonde from exposure to the sun, it was one of his many appealing features, but arguably not his most attractive. He brushed it away from his eyes as he walked past me and toward the wire basket of fruit sitting on the kitchen counter.
I tried to remember when he ate the last cup of yogurt. “Those aren’t oranges, they’re Cara Cara’s, the pink ones.”
“Even better,” he responded. “I love these things.”
My coffee in one hand, and my bowl of cottage cheese in the other, I grinned. “Me too.”
He tossed his head toward the countertop. “You’re out of oranges, Liv.”
With my mind still slightly foggy from my previous night’s drunken escapade, I stood and stared at him, slightly jealous of his late winter tan. I envied the color of his skin, but realized when we were much younger that there was nothing I could do to ever become as dark as he was. With a mother who was half-Japanese and half-Chilean, and a southern California native for a father, he and his three siblings were adorned with an odd mixture of skin tones and hair colors. One of his sisters had light reddish-brown hair and the other a much lighter dirty-blonde, but both were fair skinned. His younger brother’s hair was brown, and he had a very dark complexion similar to Luke’s.
“See how I did that?” he asked.
“What? Grabbed the oranges?”
“No, told you I was eating the last one. I’m polite like that.”
I cocked my head to the side and watched him pick at the peel of the orange with his thumb as he walked past me and toward the living room.
Grinning at my memory of the Mission Beach Surf Shop tee shirt he was wearing, I followed him into the living room. Several years prior, we had spent a day at the beach – he surfed and I baked in the sun – and when it was time to go, his shirt was nowhere to be found. The restaurant on the boardwalk wouldn’t let him in without one, so we went to the adjacent surf shop to buy one. Initially we argued about the color of the shirt – he claimed it was a shade of gray, and I swore it was light pink. We both loved how the shirt fit him, so he bought it regardless. The comments that followed further confirmed his colorblindness, but everyone that knew him was fully aware of his deficiency when it came to identifying colors.
I sat down at the end of the couch. “So, how was surfing yesterday?”
San Diego’s population was 1.5 million, but even as populated as it was Luke was well-known as a surfer. He was better than almost everyone in southern California and without a doubt could surf professionally, but he refused to do so. To him, surfing was sacred and would never be turned into a sport or competition. Somewhat of a local celebrity – and the recipient of more offers from women than he could possibly act upon – he chose to be single immediately following the breakup with his one and only girlfriend. He was twenty years old at the time.
As much as he was able, Luke lived a life of solitude and kept to himself. I had been in and out of many rel
ationships, none worth the time I devoted to them, and not a single one produced a fraction of the satisfaction my friendship with Luke did.
Outsiders viewed him as antisocial, withdrawn and unfriendly, but they didn’t know him the way I did. I understood why he was the way he was, and further knew him as being none of those things. Luke was kind, caring, funny, and wanted nothing more than to be allowed to live life in the manner he was comfortable with.
It didn’t matter if a person knew Luke well or simply encountered him by chance, everyone agreed.
Luke was different.
He stopped in front of me and began to peel one of the oranges while resting the other between his upper arm and chest. He glanced up, met my gaze, and caught me admiring the few day’s growth of beard on his face.
“First things first. The date, let’s hear it,” he said.
I did my best to change the subject. “I like the little beard thing you’ve got going on.”
“I haven’t had time to shave, it’ll be gone tomorrow,” he said dryly. “The date, Liv. Spill it.”
Although I found cottage cheese grotesque to look at or think about, I always enjoyed eating it. I stared blankly into my bowl as I considered how much of the previous night’s events I wished to share with him. The longer I studied the small curds, the less I wanted to eat it, and the more disgusted I became over my failed date. I set the bowl on the table and picked up my cup of coffee as he turned toward the kitchen. In a moment, he returned with both oranges peeled, separating one of them into sections as he glared at me.
I wrapped my hands around the warm porcelain cup and peered toward the bowl of spoiled milk curds. “Cottage cheese is so ugly.”
He slipped a section of fruit into his mouth, and upon swallowing it, cleared his throat as if to demand my attention. “The. Date.”
I raised the cup to my mouth and tilted my head back slightly as I took a drink. As I met his gaze, he pressed against the orange with both thumbs, pulled another section free, and poked it past his lips with the tip of his finger. As he chewed, he playfully tossed the uneaten orange into the air and caught in the other hand without shifting his eyes away from mine. Everything he did, he did with grace. I sometimes wondered if it was the martial arts his father made him study when we were kids or if it was the surfing that made his movements so fluid like. Whatever it was, I was grateful for it – watching him do almost anything was pleasurable.
Although I felt I needed to drink the entire cup of coffee, I lowered my cup and smiled. He cocked one eyebrow and pulled another section of orange free. I sighed heavily as if disgusted to talk about the date. To be brutally honest, I was.
“We met at the bar,” I said. “He was married, and I left after maybe twenty minutes.”
He widened his eyes as the side of his mouth curled up slightly. “That’s it? You texted me a fucking thesis last night and you’ve sworn off Tinder because of that?”
I stared blankly at his bare feet. Even his toes were perfect. I glanced at my feet. Little sausage-like stubs surrounded the tips of my sandals. I had a reasonable amount of self-esteem, and I was well aware that I was pretty, but there was no doubt my fat little toes would prevent me from joining Luke if he ever chose a career in modeling.
“Well, it was just, I don’t know. I think maybe I reached a point that all the lies and the bullshit were just too much. I’m sick of it. You know, every guy I met on there was a liar.”
He poked the last piece of fruit into his mouth. “You’re meeting people you don’t even know. Men who can claim to be anyone or anything. All they want is to get laid. What did you really expect?”
How about great sex and a wedding ring?
He walked to the kitchen and quickly returned, flopping down on the couch beside me. I sat and sipped my coffee, not sure if I even wanted to answer his question. I had tried online dating on and off for the last four years, and in the past year had been on no less than a dozen dates from my Tinder matches alone. From a relationship standpoint my life was an absolute disaster.
For a long moment he glared at me, which was something he often did when he wanted me to continue talking about something I wasn’t necessarily willing to talk about. Eventually he grew tired of waiting and broke the silence. “Really? That’s it? Nothing weird or funny happened?”
Lacking the desire to continue talking about it, I sat silently, hoping it would satisfy him enough to move on to another subject.
“How’d you figure out he was married?” he asked.
I set my cup of coffee down and picked up the bowl. One glance at the cottage cheese and I felt like I was going to barf. The three hours of grieving after my botched date was wreaking havoc on my stomach. I had come home angry and disappointed with myself. A bottle of wine and two romantic comedies later and I was ready for bed – and to swear off dating. Lying in bed, half-drunk and irritated, I texted Luke a few rambling paragraphs explaining my disappointment with mankind in general.
I extended my arm and offered him the cottage cheese. “You want this?”
He shook his head lightly as he reached for the bowl. “I’ll eat it. But what I want is for you to answer the question. All of a sudden you’re done dating, and all you can say is that he was married.”
I gave my signature response. I shrugged.
“He sure wasn’t the first married guy you met on there.”
“It’s just…I don’t…I don’t know,” I stammered. “He was so perfect. He had a great job, a nice car, seemed to have his shit together, and he was so fucking good looking.”
“A hot married guy.” He chuckled.
I nodded. “I just kept staring at him, thinking it was all too good to be true. I guess in the end, it was.”
“Sorry it didn’t work out.”
I pursed my lips and shrugged in return.
“So, once again, how’d you find out he was married?”
I tapped my index finger against the ring finger of my left hand. “His ring finger had an indentation on it from his wedding ring. I noticed it, asked, and he answered truthfully. He said they were arguing. I mean, really. Who doesn’t argue?”
“Everyone argues,” he replied.
I shrugged. Again.
“Other than being married he sounds perfect,” he said in a sarcastic tone.
Yeah, he was. He reminded me a lot of you.
CHAPTER TWO
LUKE
My incompatibility with others made coexistence almost impossible, however, living a life free of conflict was simple for me. I had one true friend, I rarely offered an opinion to anyone, and I didn’t involve myself in other people’s business. My embrace of technology consisted only of a telephone, and I had no desire to ever watch television or utilize any facet of social media. As a result, my thoughts and my life remained private, allowing me to live without much influence or objection from outsiders.
Keeping my mind occupied was important to my mental health, and my entertainment came from watching people, reading, and above all, surfing. For me, surfing was more than a leisure activity or sport; it had become part of who I was. It kept me alive, and allowed me to focus on being instead of doing. It was my belief that my continued existence was reliant upon surfing as much as it was anything else.
No two waves were ever alike, and each day of surfing was an experience different than the last. Although waiting for a wave allowed my mind to wander, often leaving me with thoughts of activities or events well beyond my grasp, paddling for a wave filled me with hope, and finally catching a wave was one thing and one thing only.
Cleansing.
Cleansing to my mind, spirit, and soul.
Scrubbing my mind of the lingering sexual desires that seemed to so freely inhabit it was much more than something I hoped for, it was a necessity. Without surfing, I had little doubt I would be able to exist amongst the masses of inhabitants in the state I so proudly called home. Surfing allowed me to live a life between each wave I caught, one with minimal des
ire to do anything else but catch the next wave.
Summer was now in full swing, and although Liv and I often ate dinner at her home, we had been doing so more frequently since she swore off dating. I enjoyed our meals together, and always looked forward the odd conversations we had.
I peered across the table and admired her choice of clothing. Shorts, flats, and a tasteful turquoise tank were a simple choice, but seeing her arms exposed satisfied me greatly. She told her stories with her hands, tossing them about as she spoke, and I enjoyed watching her lean muscular arms as she did so.
“Being single sucks,” she said.
It seemed I ate a Liv’s home more frequently than my own. If it wasn’t for her, I would probably be forced to survive on fruit, vegetables, yogurt, and cottage cheese.
“So how long has it been?” I asked.
I watched intently as she silently finished cutting a piece of chicken, picked it up with her fork, and let the utensil dangle loosely from her fingertips as she gazed beyond me for a moment.
She grinned. “Three months, four days, and roughly twenty hours.”
Liv’s recent anti-dating stage initially left her with a large hole in her schedule. After a few days of sulking, she filled the void by spending all of her free time with me. I found it hard to believe three months had passed, but time often seemed to slip away from me without so much as being noticed.
I tried to contain myself, but laughed regardless. “You sound like a recovering alcoholic, not a single woman.”
She shrugged and bit half of the piece of chicken from the tip of her fork. I thought of the night I had received the drunken text messages from her, and what had transpired in my life since then. It truly seemed that it had only been a matter of weeks since it happened.
My mind wandered to the time we had spent together since her swearing off of internet dating. “Hard to believe it’s been that long. It seems like, I don’t know, maybe a few weeks have passed.”
I attempted to convert the meals we shared into the amount of weeks that had passed and eventually gave up. “You know, I think one of these days I’m going to look up, and poof! Life’s going be over with.”
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