Love in the Friend Zone

by Molly E. Lee

  “So do you,” she said, squeezing my hand in hers. “If you’re dead set on not telling him the truth, you could at least flirt a little with him. See if he reacts.”

  Maybe she was right. It was only a matter of minutes before Fynn and Katy lived happily ever after—which meant he was already on the exit ramp of my life, and I truly had nothing left to lose.

  I guess a little flirting couldn’t hurt. If I could figure out how to do it.

  Chapter Four

  Fynn

  I’d barely made it into Lennon’s huge kitchen when an all-black wolf-like creature bounded across the space and stood up on his hind legs, hitting my shoulders with his massive paws. Air whooshed out of my lungs as I shoved him off.

  “Hendrix,” I said, scratching behind his ears once I’d gotten him calm. The German Shepherd was just as magnificent as everything in the house, but he wasn’t secluded to this property. He went where Lennon did, and had since he was a pup. Hendrix was famous at these parties, always pulling his own pranks—stealthy at stealing food from unknowing party-goers or hiding their gloves or scarves all around Lennon’s main house in the winter months.

  Patting his head one more time before he dashed off, his nails clicking against the hardwood, I spotted the keg in the corner and filled a Solo cup to the brim. I instantly took a big gulp as I searched the living room for Braylen. Unless she was one of the girls either underneath or straddling a guy on one of the three couches, she wasn’t in there.

  A mess of long brown hair hanging off one of the loveseats had me doing a double take.

  Braylen?

  My heart lodged itself in my throat and adrenaline shot through my veins worse than when Don had bum-rushed me. I walked toward the couple for a closer look. There was no way in hell Braylen would let a guy climb on her like that unless she was so wasted she couldn’t see straight, or if someone had drugged her. There was zero chance in the half hour we’d been separated she’d drunk enough to get that smashed, so that left one alternative.

  I reached my free hand toward the groping guy, prepared to launch him across the room, when someone called my name from behind me.

  “Fynn?” Katy yelled over the music a second time once she’d reached me. “Are you all right?” Her wide blue eyes jumped from me to the oblivious pair on the couch.

  I glanced back at them, catching a glimpse of a four-leaf clover tattoo on the girl’s bare left arm. My shoulders dropped, the fight instinct leaving my system so fast it almost ached. After a second of re-collecting myself, I realized Katy was still staring at me.

  “Um…” I cleared my throat, the tip of my shoe catching the leg of the couch as I walked over to her. I stumbled, but recovered quickly. “Yeah, sure. How’s it going? You having fun?” I managed to ask, wanting to punch myself for the super unsmooth first encounter at the party. All those fake conversations in your head and you went with um?

  “I am now,” she said, and bit the corner of her lip as her eyes trailed me up and down.

  I sighed, realizing I hadn’t totally botched my chance, and then reciprocated her gesture, taking in her tanned legs that went on for miles beyond the hem of her white skirt. Finally, I stopped at her blue eyes, and smiled.

  Braylen for the win.

  I absolutely owed her for this because while I didn’t have a clue what she’d told Katy, it was obviously brilliant. Katy had never looked at me the way she was now. Not in the seven years we’d been going to the same school.

  “Who’d you come with?” she asked, reaching for my beer and taking a sip.

  I licked my lips as I watched her hand the cup back to me. “Braylen,” I said before I could stop myself.

  “Oh yeah, I just talked to her!” Katy smiled but tilted her head. “You two aren’t…”

  “She’s just my friend,” I quickly filled in her unasked question, not completely understanding the sting in my chest as I said the words.

  “She’s a good friend.” A smile lit up Katy’s eyes.

  “The best.” I nodded, realizing we were probably talking about Braylen too much already. I wanted to bring the focus back to her, but Braylen had been my source of conversation topic earlier at school, and without her I was floundering for words.

  “A bunch of us were about to take a dip in the pool. Want to join us?”

  I swallowed hard. Hell yeah, I do. “I’ll grab my suit from my truck.”

  “Perfect!” She bounced on her toes. “I left mine upstairs. I’ll meet you there in a bit?”

  I finished the contents of my cup in two gulps. “Absolutely.”

  Katy grinned, spinning toward the stairs, her blonde hair shifting with her movements.

  I headed toward the front door to go grab my suit.

  “Fynn!” Braylen called once I’d reached the door.

  “Bray!” I spun around and wrapped her in a fast hug. “You are the best!”

  “I am?” Her body went soft against mine as her arms curled around me.

  I released her, keeping one arm over her shoulder as I tugged her outside and toward my truck. “Without a doubt. I’m about to meet Katy in the pool. What the hell did you say to her?”

  Braylen’s lips parted and for a second it looked like she couldn’t breathe as she tensed underneath my touch. I straightened, stopping us in front of my truck. “You all right?”

  She blinked a few times, rolling her eyes. “Yeah. Fine. And I only told her the truth. Mostly.”

  “Mostly?” I dropped my hand, not entirely convinced she was as fine as she claimed to be. I knew she wasn’t a fan of crowds, but I’d assumed Lennon’s place was big enough for her to chill and set her anxious nerves at ease.

  She chuckled to herself. “If she mentions Cosmo just smile and nod.”

  I arched an eyebrow at her.

  “It’s good. Trust me. It won’t take much for her to fall for you.”

  It was my turn to roll my eyes. “I didn’t say I wanted her to fall for me.”

  “Then what do you want, Fynn? Just to nail her?”

  “Of course not!” I snapped. “Dating before jumping to love would be nice.” The bite in her voice sliced straight through my chest and I glanced down to the cup in her hand. “How many have you had?”

  “Not enough.” She took a fast drink. “Sorry,” she said.

  I opened the driver’s side door and snagged the bag I’d brought with both our suits inside. Turning toward her I motioned at the house. “No worries,” I said. She’d have to do a lot more than snap at me to make me stay mad at her, and I was sure it was because of the entirely too long day we had—saying good-bye to the paper and graduating and then my huge request for her help at the party. She must’ve been feeling the pressure more than the party, and I felt like an ass for putting so much on her alone. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s check out the famous infinity pool.” I wrapped her hand in mine and tugged her toward the house.

  She dug her heels into the ground, stopping us. “You want me to come with you?” Her voice was almost a whisper, and I cocked an eyebrow at her.

  “Sure,” I said. “Katy said it was a bunch of people going. And I said I wanted you to have fun at the party, remember?” A sigh left her lips as she nodded. I tucked her underneath my arm again, smiling down at her. “A dip in Lennon’s pool is sure to turn your night around.”

  She chuckled, but it sounded more strained than normal. “If you say so.”

  “I do.” I pushed through the front door, navigating the crowd until I came to one of the opened guest bedrooms down the hall from the kitchen. I glanced over my shoulder, finding Braylen several feet away from me. I patted the duffle bag in my hands, jerking my head toward the room. “I have your suit. You coming?”

  She nodded, snapping out of whatever thought had stolen her attention in her own head. It wasn’t uncommon for her, something I actually loved about her—at any given moment she could go quiet, the wheels behind her eyes turning, clacking away at imaginary keys as a story hit her over
the head.

  I slipped into the room, closing the door behind Braylen when she followed. She jolted when my arm brushed hers as I reached over her to flip the lock. “Are you sure you’re all right?” I tossed the bag on the bed, keeping my attention on her. “The crowd getting to you?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Just…” Her eyes met mine, something churning behind them I didn’t recognize. After a few moments she sighed, and I did, too, not realizing I’d been holding my breath. Damn, I worried about her too much. “You’re right. I’m tense. I need to let loose a bit.”

  I smirked, playfully smacking her arm. “That’s the spirit.” Moving to unzip the bag, she bolted past me, snatching her suit out and holding it behind her back. “You realize I’ve seen that before, right?” I asked, wondering what the hell had gotten into her. Had she already spotted a guy she wanted to impress and was stumbling as nervously as I had when Katy first spoke to me?

  “Not this one,” she said, walking backward toward the bathroom that was in the room.

  “Oh, you got rid of the Star Wars one?” I asked, slightly disappointed. I loved that one-piece suit with Darth Vader’s helmet resting in front of a rainbow. It was all Braylen—wrapping up her modesty and her mad-love of Star Wars in one. Plus, I’d always liked that she never cared if she was the only girl sporting nerd-wear at the beach.

  “I’d never get rid of Vader,” she said, bumping into the door on her retreat backward. “Just found a new one.”

  I shrugged. “All right. I’ll wait for you.” I held up my plain pair of black swim shorts, knowing it would take me seconds to slip into them.

  “Okay.” She hurried through the bathroom door, closing it and locking it like she feared I’d burst in.

  I shook my head as I changed. I’d seen the girl in her pajamas—hell, I’d fallen asleep next to her in her bed more times than I could count. I’d been privy to her Chewbacca sounding snores. Why she was acting bashful now was beyond me.

  “Are you okay in there?” I tapped on the bathroom door after ten minutes had gone by and she hadn’t come out.

  “Yes,” she said but she sounded breathless.

  After another minute, she opened the door and my heart stopped. Like, full on stopped in my chest before sprinting like a gun had gone off.

  Braylen had pulled her brown hair back in a tight knot off her shoulders, fully exposing her long neck. The white straps of her new bikini tied together behind her neck, the red and black checkered pattern covered her more modestly than some swimsuits I’d seen, but it was her flat, bare tummy paired with the black boy-short bottoms that had my mouth dropping. The suit was bordered with a small line of white ruffle trim, and two white bows accentuated each hip.

  “Fynn?” Her voice snapped me out of my stare-fest. “What do you think?”

  I want to see if those ruffles are as soft as they look.

  I took a step away from her like if I touched her it would sear me. “You look like Harley Quinn.”

  She clapped her hands together excitedly. “Yay! I saw this online and couldn’t resist!”

  “Of course you couldn’t.” I hadn’t meant that to come out as gruffly as it had, but damn. She looked hotter than any Harley Quinn I’d ever seen—even the one in Braylen’s favorite movie version, and I didn’t know if she was prepared for the onslaught of guys this would attract. “Here,” I said, tossing her a thick cotton towel. “Wrap that around you while we walk out.”

  She laughed, taking the towel out of my hands but stepping closer to me. “Sure, Fynn,” she said, placing a finger under my chin and closing my mouth for me. Her cheeks flushed red when I didn’t break her gaze. “You ready?” she asked after she’d folded the towel around herself.

  I blinked a few times, thankful she was covered and I was back to remembering where the hell we were and what we were doing. I nodded, opening the door for her. I reached down to guide her by the small of her back, like I’d done a million times before, but jerked my hand away when the image of what rested underneath that towel flashed in my mind.

  We made our way to the pool quickly, the whole time Braylen seeming to walk with a swish in her hips that she didn’t normally have. I tried not to notice, but it was hard not to since she was right in front of me. When we were at the water’s edge, she tossed the towel on a nearby chair and it was like every guy in the vicinity heard it, all turning their heads to gawk.

  Jerks.

  Just because she was showing more skin than usual didn’t give them the right to notice her now. Where were they when she had her vintage Deadpool T-shirts on? I was angry on her behalf because she was my friend and deserved attention from someone who noticed her with her clothes on. She didn’t seem to care, though, because after a fast glance at me, she took off toward the water and did a cannonball, successfully soaking me.

  She popped back up a second later, laughing.

  I pushed the wet hair out of my eyes, growling. “Oh you are so going to pay!” I pointed my arms and dove right by her, the cool water feeling phenomenal against my too-hot skin. I sank to the bottom, opening my eyes to find Braylen’s toned legs steadily helping her tread water. Sneaking up behind her, I snaked my arm under her knees and broke the surface with her cradled to my chest.

  “No!” She squealed, flailing her legs back and forth. “Don’t do it! Please!” Her eyes were clenched shut, bracing herself for what she knew was coming no matter how much she begged. We’d played this game before and I always retaliated by sending her flying across any pool we were in.

  “One,” I teased, lifting her completely out of the water before dipping her back in. “Two,” I continued, repeating the motion. Her brown eyes flew wide as her body hit the water the second time, and the laughter choked in my throat. A jolt of electricity zinged up my spine when I realized her skin was against mine, slick from the water surrounding us. Her arms tightened around my neck, her fingers winding in the hair at the nape of my neck.

  “Three?” she asked in a whisper at the same time I heard Katy call my name from the side of the pool.

  I forced a smile, nodding at Bray. “Three,” I said before launching her into the water beside us. It wasn’t as high or nearly as far as I usually did, but she still squealed and broke the surface laughing.

  “Hey, Katy,” I said as she carefully entered the pool at the shallow end, her glittery pink bikini sparkling underneath the torch lights that lined the area. I swam toward her, sparing a glance over my shoulder at Braylen, whose shoulders dropped before she gave me a discreet thumbs up.

  “Sorry it took me so long,” Katy said, swimming to meet me half way. “I got caught up talking shop with Donna.”

  “No worries,” I said. In truth, I had completely forgotten why I had come to the pool in the first place. I blamed my protective instincts over Braylen at my distractedness.

  I glanced around the crowded pool, which was filled with more than twenty people, most from our senior class. My gaze went past the heads bobbing up and down as they sipped drinks, to the impeccable view of the lake that made up the horizon on this end of the pool. With the invisible edge, it almost looked like we could just swim straight into the lake. As the silence between Katy and me grew thicker, I scrambled for something to break it.

  “Beautiful,” I said, referring to the view but Katy gasped, her hands on her chest.

  “You are too sweet!” She lightly smacked my bare shoulder and I returned my attention to her. “So,” she continued. “Braylen told me a little bit, earlier, but I want to know more. What’s your story?”

  My eyes instinctively sought Bray out upon Katy’s mention of her, and I found her sitting at the edge of the pool, chatting up a redhead dude with a neon-teal polo on, his eyes lined in glitter of the same color.

  “What do you want to know?” I shifted to focus on Katy, resting my elbows on the ledge closest to us, doing my best not to look at her boobs that peeked just above the surface of the water—and with her nickname I couldn�
�t help but picture live grenades ready to kill me the moment I took too long a peek.

  She took a sip of her drink, which looked like something with cranberry juice, and sighed. “I don’t know…where have you been all these years?”

  I tilted my head. “Nowhere?”

  She burst out laughing so quickly a spray of red misted my face. I swiped at the mess and blinked it out of my eyes.

  “No, silly, I knew that!” she said, then reeled in her laughter. “I meant, why haven’t we ever talked before tonight?”

  “Not one to go after a girl who is taken.” I shrugged.

  She fastened me with a look that I couldn’t decide meant she thought I was sweet or pathetic. Damn.

  “That is too cute!” She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes going wide. “Donna, you slut! What are you doing?” She laughed again, pointing behind me. I turned to see what she was laughing at. Her best friend Donna was aggressively making out with a guy whose face I couldn’t see behind all her hair.

  “You call your friend a slut? Is that a girl thing?” I tried to picture Braylen calling me a dick or asshole or something of the guy-slut equivalent. We must have a different friendship than Katy and Donna.

  “She does it to me all the time.” She tilted her head as if no one had ever called her out on the oddity of the dynamic between her and her friend. She had been with Don—a man who respected people on their status or ability to fight—and ran with that kind of crowd. Maybe that’s just how things were in their clique. “We’re only joking.” She flashed me a genuine smile. “Don’t you rip on Gordon and Lennon all the time?”

  “Suppose so.” I chuckled, shrugging. She had me there, and I scrunched my forehead, wondering if I’d only found it odd when I was thinking about being that way toward Braylen? “Are you pumped about UCLA?” I asked, eager to change the subject. I wouldn’t mind enlightening her on the perks of being with a nice guy who could actually carry on a conversation, but I kept fumbling for topics. Which had never been a problem before. Shit, sometimes Braylen and I would have to force ourselves to go to sleep because we’d accidentally talked until the sun came up. Why couldn’t it be that easy now?