Going for Broke: Oakland Hills Friends to Lovers Romantic Comedy (Friends with Benefits)

by Gretchen Galway

  “But you never talk. Like you did when you went for a walk,” Billie said.

  “So we talked. Why should that bother you? What are you afraid of?”

  Billie started to chew on a hangnail, caught herself, and shoved her hand in her lap. Hiding things from Jane made her feel sick. But bringing them into the open might kill her.

  She could ease into it, though, and take it step by step.

  “I’m afraid of you getting hurt,” Billie said. “Because you want Ian. Because you’re not over him.”

  There. She’d said it. Half of it, anyway.

  Jane stared. “Is that what you think?”

  Billie nodded. Her digestive system wasn’t feeling any better than it had earlier. Her stomach and intestines had stopped waltzing and were now doing the cha-cha.

  “Ian can’t hurt me,” Jane said.

  “He’s brilliant, rich, gorgeous, and nice. He visits his mother regularly. He visits our mother regularly. Of course he can hurt you,” Billie said. “Much more than Andrew ever could.”

  Jane shook her head. “That is not true.”

  “Why else have you needed to avoid him all these years? You’re not afraid of anybody, but Ian, oh no, better not be in the same state as that guy.”

  “I had no idea you were suffering from such delusions,” Jane said.

  “You always use big words when you’re trying to hide your feelings.”

  “I use big words when I’m annoyed,” Jane said, “and you’re annoying me.”

  “Why did you break up with Andrew, then? Huh?” Billie put her hands on the table and leaned back, eyes wide as she nodded knowingly.

  “Because he slept with his dentist.”

  Billie stopped nodding. Her mind took a moment to regroup. “What?”

  “And my dentist, actually.”

  “Both of them?”

  Jane closed her eyes briefly. “Same woman.”

  “Oh, you mean she’s your dentist too.”

  “Not anymore,” Jane said.

  “Yeah, good call.”

  “Thanks.” Jane looked over at the fridge. “Any more of the cream cheese left?”

  Still reeling, Billie got up and went over to get it. Seeing the leftover Indian food from last night, she started to offer that instead and then changed her mind, feeling that offering the postcoital-meal leftovers to Jane would be somehow tawdry.

  Instead, she dropped the cream cheese tub in front of Jane and balanced a spoon on the lid. “Want it straight or should I get you a cracker?”

  “This is fine.” Jane popped it open. “I thought Mom would tell you about the dentist.”

  “No.” Billie went over to get herself the crackers. “I actually didn’t talk to Mom.”

  “Then how did you know about me leaving Andrew?”

  “I didn’t. I thought you were upset about—” Oh, damn. “About Ian.”

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  Billie peeked at her over her shoulder. “Have I?”

  “Yes, you definitely have, and I’ve got to say I’m not surprised. It’s worse than I thought. You’re obsessed with him.”

  “Oh, I’m the one,” Billie said.

  “Obviously.”

  Billie didn’t think she was. It was just sex again. The way his distressed jeans strained across his muscular thighs should’ve been illegal. And then he rode in to her rescue wielding a band saw and a crowbar. Her inability to say no was a familiar problem, but it was biological, not emotional. And she wasn’t the only woman to have this problem.

  She looked Jane right in the eye. “Be honest. It wasn’t just the dentists—”

  “Only one dentist.”

  Billie shook off the interruption. “It wasn’t just Andrew cheating. Something about seeing Ian triggered your moving out all of a sudden. If you’d planned it carefully, you would’ve told me about it.”

  Jane sighed, rolling her eyes. “Fine. Maybe. But only indirectly.”

  “The contrast between them was so stark.” That was easy to imagine. How could any woman keep sleeping with Andrew after being reminded of Ian Cooper walking the earth?

  “It wasn’t the contrast. God, you’re so predictable.” Jane leaned forward and grabbed Billie’s hand. “And that, my baby sister, that is why I’m so glad I’m here where I can protect you from yourself. From him.”

  Billie stared.

  “Look at you,” Jane continued. “You don’t even realize how infatuated you are.”

  “With Ian?”

  “Of course with Ian!”

  “You thought I might’ve slept with Andrew a second ago,” Billie said.

  “Only because you had that look.”

  “Look?”

  “The one you get when you’ve slept with somebody and you feel bad about it.”

  Billie felt herself flush. She pulled her hands free and looked down, folding back the cardboard lid to get a cracker she didn’t want. She hated to think she had a particular look for that. “That kind of hurts my feelings.”

  “Oh, Bill, I’m sorry.” Jane leaned forward and put her arms around her. “I’m just worried about you.”

  “And I’m worried about you.”

  “That’s how it works,” Jane said, pulling back, smiling. “We worry about each other.”

  Billie played with the cracker but didn’t eat it. “I did sleep with somebody,” she said softly.

  A spoonful of cream cheese halfway to her mouth, Jane froze.

  “And I felt bad about it because I thought it would hurt you,” Billie continued. She broke the cracker into two pieces, stacked them on top of each other, broke them into four.

  “But why would—who was it—”

  Billie built a cracker skyscraper on her palm. “I did it even though I thought you still might be in love with him.” She bit her lip to keep it from quivering.

  “Holy shit.” Jane lowered the spoon.

  Billie finally looked up. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

  “Don’t apologize to me.”

  Billie felt like shrinking into a ball and hiding inside the box with the crackers. “Thanks a lot. I’m pretty good in bed. I don’t think I have to apologize to him for anything.”

  Jane choked out a laugh. “Jesus, Bill. I meant you. You owe yourself an apology. For giving more than you get. Again.”

  Billie stuck the crumbling stack of crackers into her mouth and glanced at the ceiling, not wanting to elaborate on all the ways Ian had given her plenty. She could only imagine how much more he could’ve managed with a larger mattress.

  “When did this happen?” Jane asked.

  Billie pulled out another cracker and began the procedure of snapping them into pieces again. Now that she’d confessed for apparently no good reason, she didn’t feel like talking anymore.

  Jane sighed. “Never mind. It was obviously last night. We were together all day yesterday. I would’ve known.” Jane reached out and clasped her hand. “Well, what’s done is done. I’m here now.”

  “You’re really not jealous?”

  Pity. Jane had pity in her eyes. “When it comes to Ian, it’s been there, done that. We weren’t compatible sexually.”

  More vividly than ever before, Billie was able to picture Ian in bed with Jane, and she really didn’t like it. “Ew.”

  “I’d rather go back to Andrew,” Jane said.

  “Double ew.”

  “But I won’t.” Jane got to her feet, patted Billie on the hand, and stretched, groaning softly. “That couch in Mom’s sewing room really sucks. I can’t wait until I can sleep in my own bed again.”

  Facing the realization that her sister was moving in, Billie’s brain launched a fantasy of sleeping in somebody else’s bed. In a loft in Emeryville, actually. Somebody her sister wasn’t, it turned out, in love with.

  “This is just what we both need,” Jane said, patting her again, this time on the shoulder. “I need to get over Andrew, you need to get over Ian. We’ll help each other through
it.”

  “I don’t need to get over Ian.”

  “That’s the addiction talking,” Jane said. “If you didn’t have a problem with him, you never would’ve slept with him.”

  “But that makes no sense!”

  Jane gave her a sad smile. “It does to me. Which is exactly why I’m going to keep you away from him.”

  Chapter 31

  On Monday, after a week spent mostly out of the office, Ian was swamped. Just getting through the most urgent emails took five hours, much longer than they should have, because his thoughts kept drifting to Billie, to their recent night and all the years before.

  This was a woman he’d known since she was a kid but had never really known. He’d always liked her, sure, he’d thought she was funny and easy to be around, the perfect company on a long drive through Friday getaway traffic, or a hike in the Marin headlands, even if she tended to be late. He would’ve said they were friends, old friends, even good friends.

  Now he wondered if he’d been honest with himself.

  On Sunday afternoon, Billie had sent him a text, warning him that Jane had moved in and he had to stay away.

  Jane had also sent him a text, warning him that she’d moved in and he had to stay away.

  The text messages, interestingly, arrived less than a minute apart. He could imagine the two of them typing away, side by side, not knowing what the other sister was doing.

  Jane’s didn’t bother him except as an inconvenience. She seemed to think it was her job to keep him away from Billie, but she didn’t have any legal or moral authority to enforce her will.

  It was Billie’s warning to stay away that gnawed at him. Hadn’t she enjoyed their time together? She’d insisted she didn’t regret anything. She’d seemed to like it. Her body had seemed to like it. The slightest memory of that night caused his eyes to slide away from his laptop and gaze, unfocused, at the ceiling, imagining her little cries, her laughter, her taste, her nipples.

  Again the nipples.

  He couldn’t think straight. Which bothered him. Growing up, he’d received compliments about his good looks, and he’d always been a decent athlete, but it was his brain he cared about. It was his intellect that he was proud of. He relied on it, to say the least. To have it malfunctioning so badly for so many hours—he wasn’t used to it.

  Obviously he needed to have sex with Billie again as soon as possible. Wanting her this badly was a distraction he couldn’t afford.

  But that in itself worried him. He didn’t like to become dependent upon anything—even harmless, everyday pleasures. He controlled his addiction to caffeine, for instance, by periodically going cold turkey, refusing himself coffee and soda and even the bars of dark chocolate he kept in his desk, enduring the headaches and brain fog so that he could reset his system. Regain control. After a month of abstinence, he would allow himself a small reintroduction of his favorite stimulant with one cup of green tea per day. Then two. And then, very gradually, he’d allow himself sips of full-octane coffee, his true love. About a year later, when his consumption reached danger levels again, he’d repeat the process, going cold turkey and suffering through.

  Was Billie really so different?

  She certainly stimulated him.

  He hated to think of what going cold turkey would entail. Handfuls of ibuprofen wouldn’t help that kind of pain.

  During another spell of staring at the ceiling, Billie sent him another text. “Meet me at Home Depot nr your office @7,” she wrote.

  He frowned, regretting she hadn’t come in person. Or sent him pictures of her nipples. “Which department?” he typed back.

  “Paint.”

  He was a little embarrassed about how quickly he agreed. He nearly pushed the phone out of his hand when he hit send.

  The paint department of an urban Home Depot wasn’t the most promising spot for a rendezvous.

  Then again, his loft was a short drive from the store. Maybe she’d just been too shy to suggest meeting there.

  Mood brightening, he tried again to turn his attention to his work for the rest of the afternoon. Lorna brought him a printed stack of financial data as thick as his arm, which was sweet of her, but his eyes kept glazing over. Financial research was better than email, but the numbers kept blurring into shapes that reminded him of Billie. It was bad business when spreadsheets literally gave him a hard-on.

  Around six thirty, he bolted out of his chair and left the office for Home Depot, waving at his senior analyst, who was surprised that he was leaving so early again.

  Since he was only a few blocks away, he got there within a few minutes and had to wait for her, pretending to ponder the rainbow of colors on the display as he remembered the way she’d felt in his arms.

  She’d felt perfect, like a woman should feel. Perfect.

  This was crazy. Now he was seeing her body reflected in the plexiglass paint display.

  “Hey,” she said at his elbow. “Come here often?”

  He spun around, his heart pounding against his ribs. Her outfit was a lot more conservative than he’d hoped, mostly black and corporate and full coverage. Blood heating, he imagined that pink bra under her soulless business clothes. All afternoon he’d found himself remembering the way her breasts had filled that bra, her curves spilling out of the feminine fabric. “I do, as it so happens,” he said, embracing her.

  He bent his head to kiss her, not liking how stiff she felt in his arms.

  She put a hand up between their mouths. “We need to talk.”

  Which was practically the last thing he wanted to hear, along with the test results have come in or there’s been an accident.

  “I told Jane we slept together,” she said.

  He decided to add that one to the list. Releasing her, since it was obvious she didn’t want his arms around her, he groaned. “You told Jane.”

  “I had to.”

  Nodding, although he didn’t like it, he picked up a paint brochure with children dancing around an off-white living room. If he ever had kids, he’d paint everything the color of shit and grass stains, like his parents had. That way you never had to worry. You could just relax and enjoy the childhood years.

  “What did she say?” he asked.

  “She thinks I’m infatuated with you.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  She punched him on the arm. Then made an apologetic face and rubbed the spot where her knuckles had landed. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hit you so hard.”

  Any rubbing was better than no rubbing. He smiled down at her. “Are you infatuated with me?”

  Eyes downcast, she didn’t answer right away. Then she looked up, brows drawn together. Her voice dropped to a throaty purr. “I’m obsessed. But it’s only sexual.”

  His mouth went dry. Time to get her to his place right now. For a split second, he actually considered finding a quiet corner inside the store. Behind those hanging room-sized floor rugs, perhaps.

  He caught her by the arm and started marching toward the exit. “I couldn’t concentrate all day. I kept seeing you naked.”

  “Hold on, I need to get the paint.”

  “Forget the paint. I need to get you,” he said. “Naked.”

  “But—oh, you’re right. Who am I kidding?” She skipped along after him.

  Chapter 32

  They were in the parking lot when Billie stopped and pulled her arm free. “Hold on, I thought we’d talk together more first.”

  Ian ran his hand through his hair, which drew her attention to the powerful width of his ribcage and his talented fingers, which wasn’t what she should be noticing. Not quite yet.

  “What else is there to talk about?” he asked, his voice filled with dread.

  Her stomach tensed. Did he have to sound so uninterested in anything other than sex? I mean, she loved that too, but it would be nice if he weren’t so obvious. “Nothing in particular.”

  He looked around them. “This is hardly the place.”

/>   He did have a point. The Home Depot parking lot was wedged between freeways, big-box stores, the bay, high-tech parks, empty lots, new condos, Amtrak trains, vintage Craftsman bungalows, abandoned factories, shipping yards—a zoning-free patchwork of everything, rich and poor, new and old. And it smelled like sewage from the water treatment plant upwind.

  The Champs-Élysées, it was not.

  “I’ll meet you at your place,” she said. When he looked like he was going to protest, she added, “I want my car with me so I can get home.”

  He paused. “You could spend the night.”

  God, she wanted to. The thought of spending hours in his arms in a bed that was wide enough for both of her butt cheeks filled her with warm, wordless happiness.

  Much too much. “No, I can’t.”

  “Because of Jane?” he asked.

  Might as well blame her big sister. She nodded. “I’d rather keep this a secret.”

  “But you were the one who told her—” He cupped her cheek, his touch sending little sparks across her skin. “Never mind. Whatever you want to do.”

  “You go ahead. I’ll follow.” He’d bought the loft recently, and she’d never been inside. “It might take me a while to find a parking spot.”

  “Don’t worry about that. You can have mine. I’ll meet you at the gate in five minutes to let you in.”

  She leaned her cheek into his hand, suddenly overwhelmed by his chivalry. To bring her tea was considerate, to retile her bathroom, very generous, but to bestow his personal, private, secure parking space—

  Was enough to knock her over.

  “Isn’t that where you keep the Ferrari?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

  He bent his head and brushed his lips against hers. “I’ll move it.”

  “To where?” she asked.

  He tilted his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll find a place.”

  “Not on the street,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  She probably shouldn’t insult his neighborhood, but come on. It wasn’t Malibu. “I know how you love that car.” That had been obvious the year before, when he’d first driven her up to Rohnert Park in it. She’d been uncomfortable, almost joking about leaving “them” alone for a few minutes.