Let's Be Just Friends (A New Adult College Romance)

by Camilla Isley

  ###

  Dear Reader,

  I hope you enjoyed Let’s Be Just Friends. If you loved or hated my story—I value your opinion—please consider leaving a review on Goodreads and/or on the retailer website where you purchased the book. Reviews are the biggest gift you can give to an author, and word of mouth is the most powerful means of book discovery.

  If you’d like to discover what happens next to Rose and Tyler, and if you’d like to meet new exciting characters, keep reading for an excerpt from the second novel in the Just Friends series Friend Zone. Or you can join my Readers’ Group and get the second book for free at once. Tap here to learn how.

  Thank you for your support and happy reading!

  Camilla

  Friend Zone Excerpt

  One

  Rose

  Now

  Inside the Smithson’s country house, Rose followed Ethan up the stairs and down a corridor with too many white doors to count. He stopped in front of one toward the end, pausing with his hand on the handle. “You’re about to have a glimpse into my teenage lifestyle,” he said, and flung open the door.

  Sprawled on Ethan’s bed was a bulging middle-aged man, fast asleep and snoring.

  “Rose, meet Uncle Frank.”

  Rose giggled, taking in what she could of Ethan’s room before he closed the door. As it clicked shut, they tiptoed away, careful not to wake the sleeping man.

  “We’ll have to take one of the guest rooms.” Ethan turned on his heel and headed back toward the beginning of the hall.

  He opened a random door. Before Rose could get a peek inside, a roar of rage escaped his lips and he rushed into the room. Rose made to follow him but stopped dead on the threshold. She raised a hand to cover her mouth as she stared at the scene before her eyes in shocked silence…

  Two

  Alice

  Seven Months Ago

  Jack had beaten her to the library. He was waiting inside the small reading room, head bent over his laptop and a cute frown on his face. He hadn’t spotted her yet, so Alice paused and studied him through the glass door.

  Even seated, it was easy to tell Jack was tall; all basketball players had to be. Not to mention playing varsity sports gave him a lean, flat-muscled body all too visible under his tight t-shirt and faded jeans. Dark eyes and hair, high cheekbones, and a straight nose made her best friend dangerously gorgeous. And his mouth… it was made to keep girls awake at night, which unfortunately it did—too often.

  As Alice leaned closer to the glass, a dark lock slipped out from behind her ear, startling her. She still wasn’t used to being a brunette. What would Jack say? Would he like it? Only one way to find out. Alice grasped the door handle and her chest tightened. He would reject her. Telling Jack the truth now was a bad idea; she should wait. Yeah, definitely wait. Today was a regular work-on-your-group-project-and-not-tell-Jack-you-love-him day.

  Alice pushed the door open. “Hey,” she greeted Jack.

  “Hey, Ice.” Jack looked up from behind his laptop. “Whoa!” His dark eyes widened in shock, and his gaze made Alice’s stomach flip. “What’s up with the hair?”

  “Change of style.” She dropped her messenger bag on the floor and sat in the chair next to him. “Ethan dumped me.” Alice pretended the news was trivial as she set up her laptop on the table.

  “So you dyed your hair black?” Jack tousled his fringe, perplexed.

  It was a habit of his, one that made Alice want to run a hand through his soft curls every time he messed them around. The gesture exposed more of his biceps, too, making Alice wonder what kissing him would feel like if she were free to lock one hand in Jack’s hair, pull his lips to hers and wrap the other hand around the marble-like smoothness of his arm.

  She mentally slapped away her hands, and said, “I was tired of the fake blonde. Like it?” Alice hoped the makeover would stir something in Jack, but he ignored her question point-blank.

  “What happened with the dude? You’ve been dating him for what… three, four months now?”

  “Remember when I told you about the night of Georgiana’s birthday party?”

  “Your former sorority big sister?”

  “A big sister is for life, even if she graduates and moves on to grad school. But, yes, her.”

  “She’s hot.” Jack smirked. “You should introduce me.”

  “Can’t do. She’s in Paris with her boyfriend until next semester.” Alice rolled her eyes, and Jack laughed.

  “So? What does Georgiana have to do with Ethan dumping you?”

  “Well, he’s her brother, for one—”

  “Seriously?” Jack made a mind-blown gesture.

  “Yeah. We were at that hip sushi restaurant downtown for Georgiana’s birthday and Ethan ditched me at the table to go flirt with this other girl. But then he showed up at my place later and apologized, and I thought we were okay. It was business as usual—and then he ghosted me for a month straight.”

  “That’s awful.”

  Jack was clearly trying and failing to keep his lips from twitching. Ghosting was his favorite breakup strategy.

  Alice ignored his distracting lips, and said, “The radio silence was driving me mad, so last night I confronted him. He didn’t even try to deny it.”

  “The ghosting part, or that he’s seeing someone else?”

  “Either. Both,” Alice admitted. “At least he was honest.”

  “Do we know the other woman?”

  “No, but she’s a grad student, too.”

  “Hot?”

  “Yeah, she’s hot.” Alice swatted him playfully. “You’re not helping…”

  Jack waggled his eyebrows. “Want me to seduce her for you?”

  Yeah. Just what I need. “I doubt she’s into college juniors.”

  “You never know,” Jack said, focusing on his laptop screen. With a few clicks of the mouse, he opened the 3D model of a complex molecule they had to design for their Organic Chemistry group assignment. Jack started to rotate the model but stopped to regard Alice with a suspicious air. “Wait, is this girl… What’s her name?”

  “Rose.”

  “How sweet,” Jack said. “Is she a brunette?”

  Alice’s cheeks burned. “Yep.”

  “Hence the hair change?”

  “No. Ethan made it clear I got a one-way ticket to the dumpster. Dark brown is actually my natural hair color. I’ve decided I want to be truer to myself from now on. Starting with my hair, I guess.” And my feelings for you.

  “If it’s any consolation.” Jack knocked twice on the table. “Lori and I are over, too.”

  A melting started in her stomach. Jack’s low voice did weird things to her. Especially when he was saying he was single. Alice had feared Lori would become a long-term problem. And now, poof, she was gone. Was it a sign she should talk to Jack today? And say what? I love you? Nah, maybe a physical approach would be better with Jack. She should just grab his face and kiss that mouth. How will he react if I do that? The thought made her cheeks flame red, and Alice decided to take it slow. She didn’t have to kiss him right now. Better to hear about the breakup first.

  Alice pursed her lips, schooling her face to appear concerned instead of elated as she spoke. “Why? I thought your bio major was a keeper, what with all her talk of med school and her short skirts.”

  Jack snorted. “Until she went from super fun to a clingy nightmare in the space of five dates.”

  “I wasn’t the only one who had a bad night, huh?” Alice suppressed a satisfied smile. Her plan to make a move on Jack had just become much simpler.

  “Mine was horrible, trust me.”

  “Worse than mine? At least you did the dumping.” Jack hated confrontations, in particular with the girls he dated. Hence the ghosting. “What happened? Lori a crier?”

  Jack scowled at her. “It’s not funny. She’s a kidnapper. Batshit crazy.”

  “A kidnapper?” This was a new one. “What did she do?” Alice was genuinely curious
at this point.

  “She picked me up after school because we had a date.” Jack abandoned the 3D model and turned toward Alice. “So I naively got into her car.”

  “Wait—to dump her?”

  “Yeah, my plan was to tell her and leave.”

  “Wow, no ghosting?”

  “Nah.” He shook his head. “I’d run into her too often to pull that off. She’s taking pre-med Chemistry, remember?”

  “No, I’d forgot,” Alice lied, and gestured for him to keep talking.

  “So I got into her car and she drove away. I asked her if we could go talk somewhere quiet, and she told me I’d just read her mind.”

  “She was expecting the ‘Sayonara’ speech?”

  “No way. This is where my tale gets interesting.” Jack grimaced as if in pain. “I noticed she was heading out of town toward the middle of nowhere, so I asked her where we were going. ‘A special place,’ she told me.”

  “Oh gosh.” Alice put a hand to her head. “This story is about to get dreadful, isn’t it?”

  “In a second. The best part is coming.” Jack winced. “I tried to tell her I didn’t have much time, and that we needed to talk. She ignored me and kept driving, insisting I had to see this place, no matter how many times I asked her to pull over.”

  “But couldn’t you make it clear you didn’t want to go?”

  “Believe me, I did. At that point, I had two options: either keep sitting in the car, or grab the wheel and make her pull over by force.” Jack frowned at the memory. “Lori literally kidnapped me.”

  “How long were you in the car?”

  “Close to an hour?”

  Alice let out a low whistle. “Where to?”

  “This is the worst part.” Jack groaned. “She took me to this scenic viewpoint on top of a hill and timed it so we would get there at sunset.”

  Alice almost felt sorry for Lori, except that her total fiasco served Alice’s cause too well.

  “My day is improving,” she said. “Now I can cross myself off the most-humiliated-girl spot. What happened when she stopped the car?”

  “I tried to speak first, but she wouldn’t let me.”

  “Of course not.” Alice chuckled. “What did she say?”

  “She told me she was falling for me, that I was the only guy she’d cared about in a while…” Jack paused. “Her speech ended with the L-word.”

  “Oh gosh, poor girl. And that’s when you told her?”

  “Yep.”

  “And what did she do?”

  “Let me just say the one-hour drive back to the city was… awkward.” Jack sing-songed “awkward.”

  “Well, at least she didn’t leave you stranded on the hilltop.” Alice’s mouth trembled with the effort of not smiling. “I would have.”

  “Nah, Lori might still hope she can change my mind.”

  Alice’s pulse sped up as she asked, “Can she?”

  “No way. If I had any doubts, yesterday’s trip cleared them up for good.” Jack made a gun with his fingers and shot himself in the head. “Worst Friday night of my life.”

  “Really?” Alice couldn’t hide her amusement.

  He nodded. “Really. Ice, why don’t you turn on your laptop and we get going. You can give me more grief later. Deal?” Jack added a stomach-flipping wink.

  “Deal,” Alice whispered, suddenly out of breath.

  As she powered on her Mac, her fingers prickled with optimism. Both their relationships had ended on the same day; it had to mean something. Today was tell-your-best-friend-you-love-him day. She’d wait until they were done with the project to speak to Jack. Or jump him. He was single and wouldn’t stay so for long; this was her moment. After all, how bad could it go? Not as tragic as with Lori. The worst he could say was no…

  Three

  Alice

  Alice burst into her three-bedroom apartment, slamming the door shut behind her. Ignoring her roommates’ questioning faces, she crossed the entrance hall to her room and flung herself onto the twin bed. Alice hid her head under the pillow and suffocated a scream into the bedcover.

  Both her roommates followed her into her room.

  “Are you okay?” Haley asked.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Madison said.

  Alice rolled on the bed so she was facing the ceiling. Still holding the pillow over her face, she muttered something incomprehensible.

  The mattress dipped as her friends sat next to her one on each side of the bed. “You might have to repeat that without the pillow covering your mouth,” Haley suggested, her voice coming from the right.

  Alice lifted the pillow to say, “I just humiliated myself in the worst possible way,” and then hid her face again.

  “How?” Haley asked.

  She pressed the pillow harder against her face and shook her head, refusing to speak.

  Haley tickled her flanks. “Come on, out with it.”

  Alice thrashed in the bed, trying to make Haley stop until she finally tossed the pillow aside. “I surrender!” she yelled. “I’ll tell you everything.” She recovered the pillow from the floor catching sight of Blue, her pet bunny, hopping away from the commotion. Alice straightened up and settled the pillow behind her head, then took a moment to study her friends.

  On her left, Madison. An introverted poet in the body of a statuesque blonde who dressed like a boho hippie. Her long, soft curls were always loose, and a book was constantly in her hands, like now. On Alice’s right, Haley. An edgy computer science geek with a sleek, dark bob and an urban style. Whenever Haley had something in her hands, it was some techie gadget with software in it. They were both smiling at her encouragingly.

  “I hit on Jack!” Alice confessed.

  Madison looked down at her with big eyes. “You didn’t!” she yelped, her grip tightening on the hardback in her lap.

  “I did.”

  “I take it didn’t go well,” Haley said.

  Alice groaned. “Worse.”

  “What happened to our plan of waiting for a gap in girlfriends while you moved out of the friend zone?” Haley asked.

  Madison nodded, but kept silent; she was letting Haley run the interrogation.

  “The gap presented itself sooner than we thought.” Alice told them about the kidnapping debacle. “And you know how Jack is. He would’ve been dating someone else by Monday, so I… I…”

  “Did something stupid and impulsive?” Haley offered.

  Alice nodded.

  “What did you do? You jumped him?”

  “I tried.” Alice moaned with shame. “I threw myself at him, and he was like ‘Thanks, but no, thanks.’”

  Anxiety broke on Haley’s face. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “Me too,” Madison added, looking fretful and worried.

  Haley took Alice’s limp hand, squeezing it. “Did he say why?”

  “He said we’re friends.” Madison and Haley both kept silent, waiting for the rest. So Alice gave it to them. “And that’s when I practically begged him for it. And he just kept saying no.”

  “You begged?” Haley repeated. “Give us specifics.”

  “He said I was his friend, and I countered by saying he has slept with all his female friends. He told me that’s exactly why he doesn’t have many left. So I told him Felicity is still his best friend, even though she’s female and he slept with her.”

  “Who’s this Felicity?” Haley asked.

  “She’s his oldest friend from Indianapolis.”

  “What happened between them?” Madison asked.

  “I don’t know the specifics. Only that at some point they had a relationship that didn’t end well. And Jack was all like,” Alice started talking in a mock dude voice, “It took me two years to be friends with her again after I broke up with her. I won’t screw up another friendship.” She made a finishing gesture with her hands. “End of story.”

  “Hmm. What happened after that cozy little chat?” Haley asked.

  “He told me I was upset ab
out Ethan dumping me.”

  “Which is sort of true,” Madison said. “I still can’t believe my cousin broke up with you.”

  “It doesn’t matter, really. I’m not upset about Ethan, I’m upset about Jack.”

  “How did you leave things?” Haley asked.

  “I followed his lead and pleaded temporary ‘I-was-dumped’ insanity.”

  “Well, at least you didn’t give him the ‘I’ve been desperately in love with you for two years’ speech,” Haley said. “Harder to take back.”

  “No doubt,” Alice agreed.

  “What if Jack was right?” Madison asked. Alice flashed her an incendiary stare, so her friend hurried to explain. “I mean, he’s not exactly boyfriend material, and you don’t want to be friends with benefits.”

  “I know he’s attracted to me—”

  Haley scoffed. “He’s attracted to every good-looking female.”

  “Fair enough, but we have a deeper bond. We’re not just friends.” Alice pointed a finger at them in turns. “You both said that.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Haley conceded. “But put yourself in his shoes.”

  “How so?”

  Haley sighed. “He’s a guy, gorgeous, and he can have all the girls he likes. He enjoys his popularity with the ladies. When he gets tired, or when a relationship gets too serious, he moves on to another girl. But he has you for all his emotional needs. A constant, steady connection he doesn’t risk screwing up by sleeping with someone else. You told me yourself he doesn’t have self-control when it comes to sex.”

  “Well, he does with me.” Alice pouted.

  Haley gave her an encouraging smile. “Which, in a twisted way, tells you how much he cares about you.”

  “He can keep Felicity as his emotional backup.”

  “Felicity is a thousand miles away,” Haley pointed out. “You’re here.”

  “And I don’t think him confiding in his ex would work so great for you,” Madison added. “Do you even know her?”

  “I’ve seen her around campus a couple of times when she came to visit.”

  “Why don’t you talk to her and get an informed opinion?” Madison suggested. “Ask her if it was worth risking their friendship for a shot at love.”

  Alice shrugged. “I don’t have her number.”

  “Mm, helloooo?” Haley said. “Pity we don’t live in a world where finding people on the Internet is just a name search away. I wish there was a website for that, how about we invent it and become gazillionaires?”

  “I’m not friending her on Facebook,” Alice replied stubbornly. “And I’m not talking to her. I can’t risk anything getting back to Jack. I don’t even know if I can trust her—what if she’s still holding a torch for him? I’d pour my heart out to her, and the next second she’d spill everything to Jack. I’d be digging my own grave.”

  “You don’t know that,” Madison said. “Aren’t you curious to talk to the only person who can tell you how the friend-girlfriend-friend cycle really is?”

  “Even if she said being with him wasn’t worth ruining their friendship, it would mean nothing. They may not have been able to make it work, but that doesn’t mean it would go wrong with us, too.”

  “You want to be his girlfriend, and he doesn’t want a girlfriend,” Haley said flatly. “You could be headed down the same destructive path as Felicity if you’re not careful.”

  “What if he broke up with Felicity because he wasn’t in love with her?” Alice insisted.

  Haley x-rayed her. “And he is with you?”

  Alice shrugged. “There’s a deep connection between us, something more than a friendship. If, as you said, he relies on me emotions-wise, what do you call that?”

  Haley blew hair on her bangs making it go all puffy for a second. “Complicated.”

  “It is. But I’m tired of playing the ‘friend’ role, pretending I don’t have feelings for him. I’d rather try and fail, than not try because he’s afraid it could fail.”

  “So what do we do now?” Madison asked.

  Alice lifted up to a sitting position, lying back against the headboard. “We make him jealous.”

  “You were with my cousin for months, and Jack never showed signs of jealousy.”

  “Jack never saw me with Ethan,” Alice said. “There’s a big difference between knowing someone is dating in theory, and seeing it with your own eyes.”

  Madison arched her brows. “So you’re looking for a casual hook up?”

  “Ew. No!” Alice grimaced. “I just want to show Jack what he’s missing.”

  “How?” Haley asked.

  “For once, I’ll shed the geek uniform.” Alice stuck to a conservative dress code in class, and Jack had never seen her dressed to impress. “It’s time he realizes I’m a woman. I could read indecision in his eyes before he said ‘no.’ He just needs a push.”

  Madison scratched her cheek before asking, “No chance you saw only what you wanted to see?”

  “No, I’m positive, and I’m tired of pretending. I don’t want to be his friend. Watching him sleep his way through campus is like dying a slow death. It makes me live in fear one of his girls will eventually stick around, and that it won’t be me. I get anxious whenever he dates someone for more than a month, and I’m not interested in being his emotional fix forever.” Alice waved one hand in the air dismissively. “If he really feels nothing for me, I’d rather find out now and move on with my life.”

  A muffled squeal coming from under the bed shifted Alice’s focus. She bent over to reach the floor and pick Blue up. “This is all your fault,” she told the dark gray bunny as she stroked his soft fur. “If you hadn’t scurried off to his room in our freshman year, I would’ve never met Jack.”

  A flashback of that day forced its way into Alice’s mind.