His jaw dropped. "Are you…friend zoning me?" he asked, his voice taking on a tone of complete disbelief.
Now it was my turn to laugh. “That's never happened to you before, huh?"
He stared at me, not answering my question. But the way he smirked and chuckled, I was pretty sure this situation was going to be a first for him. Even I was thinking I might be crazy for wanting to do this, but then again, it was for the best. For a number of reasons. Chandler liked things simple, that much I’d gathered. I was nothing but complications.
“You know, you’re right,” he finally answered.
“I am?” I asked, surprised. I watched his face for signs of deception or mockery at my suggestion. To his credit, he actually seemed to be considering my words with thought.
“Yes,” he said, smiling. “And to be honest, I’ve screwed up so many friendships already in the first couple of months here with girls; I think this pact has merit. That way, we can go out, and we don’t have to worry about any awkward romantic tension between us. Have real conversations and just have fun.”
I scrunched my face up at him. For as cocky of a guy as he was, I thought he’d just try to prove me wrong for no reason like Scott always had, just to be contradictory. “That’s rather ominous—just how many girls have you screwed up friendships with by screwing them?”
He shook his head. “Enough to know that this is a good idea. I’ve had a great time tonight, just hanging out, and you like dancing as much as I do. I’d like to be able to get to know you more without, you know, sex hanging over us.”
I focused my gaze for a moment and sort of stared at the water glasses on the bar. That had been too easy. I looked at the sexy beast in front of me. He was so relaxed and agreeable. I was getting what I wanted, which had been the point and yet, now I was not entirely happy about it. He drained the rest of his water as I watched him like a weirdo. Fascinated by the way his throat worked, his strong profile, the way the muscles moved under his olive skin. How his basic man uniform of jeans and a short-sleeved tee fit his lean body. And those eyelashes—I knew women who would kill for them.
“All right,” I finally said, trying to distract myself. “Let’s shake on it.”
He held out his hand before I could. “And besides, we're host-siblings anyway. We can't hook up. That'd be way weird."
“Yeah. Way weird,” I parroted. I couldn’t tell if he was just making fun of me again, going along with my idea as a sort of reverse psychology, or if he really did want to be friends but we shook hands.
"Seal it with blood," he belted.
"With blood?" I asked, dryly.
"Just kidding." He winked.
"You, Chandler Spiros, are officially friendzoned."
“Likewise.” He finished off his water, glancing around the floor and the other dancers.
I took a drink of my own water, hoping that’d cool me off. I still wasn’t entirely sure why he went along with my crazy pact. Maybe he didn’t find me that fuckable, and I was easy to resist? That possibility brought me down a notch, especially after my farewell to Scott.
However, I told myself that right now, I needed to be focused on my studies and living in a foreign country, and getting the full experience. The last thing I needed was an incredibly sexy, six foot three distraction who slept on the other side of the wall, not even three feet from me.
Chandler broke up my thoughts, holding his hand out to me. “You want to get back on the dance floor and keep it going?”
I stared at his hand, then took it. Somehow, his touch felt different. Better, and wrong, too. I plastered on a smile. “Abso-fucking-lutely. Amigo.”
Seven
Chandler
“More wine, hijo?” Doña Maria had called me son since day one of my arrival in Barcelona three months ago, and I didn’t hate it. Especially when she was offering me more wine, which she often did. She was in her late thirties, single, and worked in an office. She had a few odd strands of grey appeared within her mostly black mane that she didn’t bother dying and still had it going on.
“Claro, Mamá,” I answered, handing my glass to her. I mean, more wine, is that even a question? Especially on Wednesday night—which was telenovela night.
Since it was always my early practice day for basketball, we caught the new episode of Victorinos at 8 p.m. without fail. It had kind of been our little thing.
Maria settled back in her spot on the other side of the couch and jarred me out of my thoughts. I glanced at the TV, seeing the show had already started.
Surprisingly, I’d actually learned a lot of Spanish watching telenovelas and Doña Maria correcting me. It was good practice for me and I was participating in Spanish culture: there was nothing manlier than hanging out with your mother. Besides, Doña Maria’s wine rack had been piling up for what must have been years before I arrived in January, so I’d made it my personal mission to put a dent in it before I left in June.
“Salud.” I smiled her way before we clinked glasses. This week’s episode of Victorinos was just beginning, so we were getting caught up on the backstory from last week. Basically, there were three different guys, all named Victorino, and every episode was about how their lives intertwined in ways they couldn’t even see or notice, kind of like Crash or something, but more corny.
I knew the backstory of Victorinos in and out. Once you got into it, it got addicting. By now, I was a bonafide expert on this show.
The first scene began with Victorino number one and his girlfriend, Amelia.
“Mira!” Doña Maria pointed out. “Es Amelia. Amelita.”
Holy fucking shit, she was right. Victorino number one’s girlfriend bore a shocking resemblance to Amy. Or Amelita—little Amy—as Doña Maria liked to say.
Fucking A. I’d spent the entire day—from classes to practice—trying not to think of Amy’s sexy self after dancing into the wee hours with her last night. Yet, somehow, she’d found her way into my consciousness again.
“Amy es muy bonita,” Maria said again, using Amy’s English name, probably to make sure I understood because I hadn’t replied.
I glanced over at Doña Maria and nodded in agreement to show her that yes, I got it, and yes, Amy was fucking gorgeous—the real Amy. And guess who has two thumbs and agreed to be ‘just friends’ with her? This guy.
The “friend pact” was a silly, drunken idea. Yet I’d gone along with it. My logical brain kept telling me that the pact actually had some benefits.
Wouldn’t it be nice to live with someone through June and not have everything go downhill? All my female friendships seemed to go awry as soon as we fucked. Wouldn’t it be a good thing not to have that awkward, ‘Oh we just hooked up…now what is this exactly?’ tension in the air?
Score: Brain, 1; Penis, 0.
See? In spite of my general ludicrousness, I can reason when I have to.
Of course, my cock was telling me something else entirely.
Beautiful…girl…must…pursue her, he said. It was like that Seinfeld episode where Jerry’s penis plays chess against his brain.
I had seen Amy naked for God’s sake! She’d had no clue the curtain was transparent and the floral pattern over it hid very little to my imagination. I knew exactly what she was working with. Or, better yet, I knew what I would be working with when I worked her. Since our shower encounter, getting her voluptuous figure out of my brain had been damn near impossible. She was forever firmly placed in my favorite spank bank memories of all time. She went straight to the Chandler Spiros spank bank Hall of Fame.
All day, I’d been fighting random boners that continued popping up when Amy popped in my head. I imagined working my fingers from her calves, up to those luscious thighs of hers and beyond. And honestly, who could blame me? It was hard not to get hard thinking about Amy’s lush, curvy figure, her thick, long brown hair, but especially those eyes. There was something about them that just hypnotized me. Yes, Chandler, fuck me, they said. I wondered how those beautiful brown things wo
uld look as they fluttered while I went down on her. And I didn’t care if that made me a creep. Any man with a pulse would be thinking the same thing when they saw Amy. I guaran-fucking-teed it.
Score: Brain, 1; Penis, 1.
Unfortunately for my brain, the tie-breakers always went to my cock. I had to have Amy, and I knew it.
That’s just how I functioned, always have. So she wanted to become a challenge for me? She wanted to put me in the friend zone and make me agree to some ridiculous agreement?
Chandler Spiros gets put in the fuck zone, not the friend zone.
Amy could talk about the friend zone all she wanted. Her words were empty when I saw how badly her body shook, and her lips quivered in my presence. The instant I saw her, I knew I would have her. This pact of ours would soon be dust.
A thought gnawed on me though. I’d already concluded that she was one of those girls that had no clue she was hot, which made her even hotter. There was a subtle difference between girls who knew and those that didn’t. It made everything they said and did that much more alluring and effortless because they weren’t trying to attract you, then catch you. I specifically went after girls who weren’t like Amy on purpose. Those girls knew where we stood at all times. No feelings had to be hurt, just a good time for a little while and then move on our separate ways.
Thing with Amy was that I’d actually liked just being around her. Like going out dancing, and the fact that she had absolutely no filter. I wasn’t quite sure what kept me so focused on her. Not just as a challenge for the sake of a challenge because I definitely wanted to hook up—but I also wanted something else from her. I just wasn’t sure what exactly and I couldn’t get her out of my head.
While I brainstormed ways to get into Amy’s pants, I took a strong pull on my wine and tried to get back to watching Victorinos.
Of course, when I spaced back in, I noticed Doña Maria was watching me intently, noticing my lack of attention to the show this week.
“Estás bien, mi hijo?” she asked, her tone of genuine concern. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, sí, estoy bien. Estoy muy bien,” I said, emphasizing the muy. Yep, all good! Nothing to see here. C’mon Maria, let’s just watch the show and drink our wine. Not like I’m coming up with every possible way I can break down my host sister’s defenses or anything like that.
She didn’t look away from me, though. It was like the woman had a ‘Chandler is up to no good’ detector. She nodded toward Amelia on the screen, took another sip of her wine, and added the words that made me question if she also read minds. “Sí. Amy es muy bonita. Muy bonita.” This time, it was Maria who emphasized the muy—twice. How she knew I’d been thinking about Amy was disturbing.
“Sólo amigos,” I added. Just friends, thanks to that damn pact.
“Ohhhh,” she said. She smiled slyly, and nodded over-enthusiastically. “Okay. Amigos.”
Her tone was sarcastic. She took a sip of her wine and winked at me.
There was nothing quite like trying to dodge a woman’s intuition. I’d tried it with my mom, and it had never once worked. She always knew what shenanigans I was up to in high school. Well, shit, my hometown in rural Indiana was so tiny I could barely piss without people knowing. I decided I would shut up and try again to get back to the telenovela.
Just when I was starting to finally get into the episode again, the locks on the door clinked and guess who fucking walked in the door?
“Hola! Amelita!” Doña Maria said, with that warm smile of hers.
“Hola Maria!” she sung in a high-pitched tone as she shut the door behind her. Behind. That was also what my eyes were glued to as Amy turned around. Blue yoga pants hugged her legs and ass. Up top, she wore a couple layers of white tank tops, which made me wonder if she’d just come from yoga after class. She walked toward us on the couch, threw her backpack down, then stood there, hands on hips, and glanced at the TV. “Whatcha doing?”
“Tonight is Victorinos night for Doña Maria and me.” I tried to emphasize that this was a two-person thing. If Amy sat down next to us on the couch, I was pretty sure my not-so-random boner would be coming right back, which was not something I needed to be dealing with right now. Besides, if Amy joined us, the last thing I’d be able to concentrate on for the next hour would be the ins and outs of a Spanish telenovela.
“Awesome! Mind if I join you two?” Her smile was perky, and she plopped herself down between us on the couch without waiting for an answer. Her leg barely grazed me, but that was enough. I had on basketball shorts and a throwaway white t-shirt, but after Amy’s touch, my cock started to pound, growing with every heartbeat that sent it blood. I strategically placed my forearm over my lap to shield it from the women’s view.
“Not at all,” I responded through gritted teeth.
“Want some wine?” Doña Maria asked her. “Quieres vino?”
“Oh, I can’t have wine. I’m only twenty.”
Doña Maria and I looked at each other and cracked up at that one, both breaking into billowy laughter.
“What? What’s so funny?” Amy asked.
“Estás en España ahora, mi hija.” She smiled from her eyes, putting her hand on Amy’s shoulder. Amy glanced at me for a quick translation.
“Drinking age in Spain is technically eighteen,” I explained, still grinning at her. “But the rules are a little fluid when you’re imbibing at home, anyways.” Most Spaniards got their drinking legs early—age fifteen or sixteen. But it wasn’t a culture of getting embarrassingly shitfaced like we did back in America. It was more of a, ‘let’s have one or two drinks to enjoy dinner’ attitude.
“Chandler, vino para Amy.”
“Sure,” I said, to Maria, then shot Amy a look. “And don’t try to act all angelic today after you were throwing back shots the last night.” I winked at her.
She rolled her eyes at my commentary. Really, I was just trying to stall and come up with a plan, because there was no way I was getting up to get Amy a wine glass without revealing the massive erection she’d given me by just sitting next to me. Fuck.
“You know what; here Amy, here. Take my glass. I’ve had a lot tonight,” I offered, and handed her my wine glass.
She accepted it, a little surprised. “Uh, gracias.” She tasted it, a tiny drop, and smiled with approval. “Malbec, my fave.”
“Oh?” I asked, casually.
She nodded, taking another long sip as she watched the show, then glanced over at me every once in awhile as she spoke. “I went on this trip to Mendoza—that’s in Argentina—a few years ago with my parents. We went to this amazing vineyard. My dad let me have a small glass of the Malbec they made there and ever since that trip, it’s been my go-to for wine.” She paused slightly, flicking her gaze at me then quickly back at the TV. “Well, that is, when I drink wine.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway…”
“Huh, cool,” I said, not sure why she was suddenly uneasy. But I stored that detail like my brain was a sponge, like I did everything else about her. Everything little thing I learned about Amy, I couldn’t help but take note of and file away in the memory bank.
Right at that moment, Doña Maria glanced at her watch then stood up. “Dios mio! La hora! Is late.”
We both smiled, because Doña Maria’s accent was awesome. She was no English expert, but she managed a few basic phrases and I’d been helping her with them, too.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I have, how you say, a…date?”
Amy nodded, taking a big sip of her wine. “That’s awesome. Have fun!”
“You have fun too,” she said, and smiled knowingly. “Here, Chandler. Más vino!” She handed me her wine glass and I accepted it.
Amy and I watched Victorinos in silence for a while when Doña Maria disappeared to her room to get ready. It wasn’t lost on me that Amy decided to stay in the middle seat of the couch, her leg hovering millimeters from touching me again.
When Doña Maria came out of her room
, she looked damn good, I had to admit. She wore a strappy, tight black dress that didn’t even reach her knees.
“Wow Doña Maria! Tú eres muy linda!” Amy exclaimed.
Doña Maria smiled warmly. “Oh gracias. Chau!” She blew us a kiss and left, leaving Amy and me all alone.
The moment she left, there was an increased aura of tension in the room now that Amy and I were alone. I could feel her warm body inches from me. My rock hard erection still hadn’t gone down an inch. I kept a poker face of an expression though, staring straight at the TV, not attempting to make any conversation.
Amy seemed to sense my stress and glanced over at me. “Chandler, do you not want me to be here?” she asked, clearing her throat.
“No, it’s fine,” I retorted without thinking, my voice slightly hoarse. I took an automatic gulp of wine then set it down on the coffee table before me, trying real hard to pretend she wasn’t there.
“No, it’s obviously not fine,” she continued, after watching me for a few seconds. “You are acting awkward as hell.”
“Am I?” I shrugged and kept staring at the TV, which I wasn’t paying attention to in the slightest any more. Trying to ignore Amy had the opposite effect. I could feel her eyes on my face.
She nodded, and took a deep breath. “I think the whole ‘pact thing’ we made was kind of drunken. We should discuss things sober. You know, if we’re going to be living together for the next couple of months, it would be best to be civil.”
“We’re not being civil right now?”
“You’re not even looking at me, so no. But maybe civil isn’t the right word. It would be nice to be…not awkward. And there are some specifics we need to discuss.”
I took a deep breath and turned to face her. “Fine.”
“Okay, great!” She smiled. “So I made up this list of rules today in class.”
She set her wine glass down and reached for her backpack on the floor. Then she pulled out a list of what must have been thirty bullet points on a white piece of paper.
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