Asking For A Friend

by Blakely, Lauren

  “Ouch!” Lola says, wincing.

  “Is that from experience?”

  “Girl, spatulas hurt, and I don’t mean hurt so good.”

  Peyton clinks glasses with Lola, then me. “Let’s drink to spatulas used for burgers and not for safe words or spanking.”

  “Amen,” I say.

  We drink, and Peyton sighs happily. “I feel so much better than I did the last time we were here.”

  “That calls for another round,” I say.

  After we order, Peyton picks up her phone and mutters that she needs to answer a text from Tristan.

  While she types, I whisper to Lola, “It’s so obvious.”

  “Like lipstick on a collar,” she whispers back.

  Something is brewing between Peyton and her best guy friend, and I can’t wait till she figures it out.

  For now, I don’t ask again if she’s into him. I can tell she’s still not ready to share that or, frankly, to face it.

  She’ll only be ready in her own due time—for spatulas and safe words and friendship that might become more.

  * * *

  When we’re heading out, Truly calls me over to the bar. “How’s it going, being queen of your domain?”

  “I’m getting a tiara. I channeled you, and I got a new job,” I say, still beaming from today as I give her the highlights.

  “Rock star,” she says. “Take a curtsy, please.”

  “If you insist,” I say, then do as instructed.

  “And I also insist on you coming to a costume party I’m hosting here in a few weeks. It’s a fundraiser for some animal rescues in the city.”

  “I’m RSVPing right now, and I already know who I want to be,” I say, then I head home to see my dog.

  And my guy.

  Because on the way, I call Linc.

  “Hey, Clark Kent. You better get your butt to my place or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  “Just ‘or else.’”

  “Hmm. Is this a good ‘or else’ or a bad ‘or else’?”

  “It’s a naked ‘or else,’” I say.

  Fifteen minutes later, he’s waiting on the stoop when I reach my block.

  He meets my gaze, looking as cool and sexy as a hero in a book when he says, “Hey, Betty Boop. What’s entailed in a naked ‘or else’?”

  I sidle up to him, setting a hand on his firm chest. “Or else I was going to come to you, strip you naked, and reward you for being so hot and sexy by getting on my knees.”

  “That doesn’t feel like a traditional ‘or else.’ Feels like either way, I’m winning.”

  “That’s why I knew you’d like my naked ‘or else’ demands.”

  When we’re inside my place, I strip him to nothing and drag my fingers down his body, savoring his muscles, his strength. Taking him in my mouth, I give him his reward.

  It feels like mine too, because I love giving him pleasure.

  He’s given me so much.

  And he rewards me tonight too, flopping to his back, pulling me onto his face, and devouring me until I’m lost in the sensations that wash over me.

  Afterward, we curl up, arms and legs tangled together.

  “Have you ever wanted to try dripping candle wax on me?” I ask.

  He laughs. “No, but if you want to, I’m game.”

  Laughing, I shake my head. “Nah, I’m good with the hair pulling and the occasional spanking.”

  “Occasional Spanking,” he muses. “Is that going to be a title in your new line of books?”

  I drag my nails down his chest. “No, but that would be a good chapter heading.”

  He wraps an arm around me. “You and your crazy ideas. So many of them are really good.”

  I prop my chin in my hand and regard the man next to me. “You’re a good idea. Like banana bread.”

  “You’re a great idea, Amy,” he says, brushing his soft lips over mine and kissing me tenderly, lovingly.

  I murmur as he bestows gentle, open-mouthed kisses across my neck, my shoulders, and up to my earlobe. Shivers dance across my body as he maps my skin.

  This man gets me.

  In every way.

  When he stops, I frown. “Don’t stop kissing me. Don’t you know I’m an attention monster?”

  As if on cue, Inspector Poirot leaps onto the bed, tail wagging, tongue lolling as he burrows between us, flips to his back, and offers a belly for petting.

  “Fine, he’s the real attention monster,” I say.

  “He takes after you.”

  “And I take that as a compliment.”

  Linc draws me closer in his arms, his free hand petting my dog.

  I regard the two men in my bed. Could this have worked out any better? My guy and my pup. I run my hand down Linc’s chest. “Question for you.”

  “Hit me.”

  “Is it possible to get the guy and the gig and the friends and the dog and this awesome life? I’m not asking for a friend.”

  He grins and drops a kiss to my lips. “You know the answer.”

  The answer is yes.

  I’m living it, and I’m glad I asked for me.

  Epilogue

  Linc

  I don’t normally wear contacts, but when I do, I rock them.

  Especially when I add a leather jacket, black jeans, a bunch of rings, and a pocket chain thingy, which Baldwin insisted was the height of costume fashion.

  The man knows what he’s talking about.

  I drag my hands through my hair, making it puffy, as Amy likes to say.

  Because tonight, I’m Dax Powers.

  As I regard myself in the mirror, I can see the resemblance. Maybe I even owe my cartoon doppelgänger my thanks, because if it wasn’t for him, I’m not sure I would have found my way to Amy Summers.

  But then, it seems impossible that I wouldn’t have.

  Amy enchanted me from the get-go, and everything about us feels inevitable. Especially when I pick her up for the costume party and nearly stumble against the wall when I see her.

  I’m gobsmacked.

  She’s full-on Betty Boop, if Betty Boop were a strapless-leather-dress-wearing vixen. With pink thigh-high boots.

  She holds a slice of cake. “How’s the resemblance?”

  “Uncanny, and it’s turning me on so much that I think I do have to address my cartoon sexual reawakening issues,” I say.

  “We can do that after the party. Also, have I ever told you how glad I am that you’re Dax Powers?”

  I smile. “Only nearly every day.”

  She pouts.

  I slide a hand around her waist and kiss her. “And it never gets old hearing it, Betty Boop.”

  At the costume party, we mingle with her friends and mine and ours.

  Baldwin is dressed in flannel as a lumberjack, complete with a few days’ growth of beard across his jaw. He drapes an arm around me and another around Amy. “And tonight, I do believe I’ve met my Prince Charming,” he says, gesturing with his eyes across the bar to some guy who looks like . . . hell if I know.

  But Amy does. She bounces in her pink boots. “That’s Flynn Rider. He’s perfect for you, Baldwin.”

  My friend stares at the man as if hypnotized. “I know. Believe you me, I know. I’ve had a crush on Flynn Rider forever, and I’m going to take him home tonight.”

  He leaves us and makes his way to the man across the room.

  “I can’t wait for the Flynn Rider report,” she says, then brings me to the bar to meet her brother and his fiancée. We chat for a bit about movies and books, and then Amy introduces me to Quinn when she arrives.

  She’s dressed in silver, with her belly a sparkly disco ball. “I’m getting rounder by the hour, it seems,” she says, rubbing her glittery center of gravity.

  Her husband, Vaughn, is decked out in seventies Saturday Night Fever garb. “The countdown is on. The hospital bag is packed. We’re ready for when the baby says go.”

  “Because my sister packed the bag seven months ago?”
Amy asks.

  Vaughn shoots her you can’t be serious look. “Don’t you know your sister? She prepped an overnight bag a few hours after the positive test.”

  Quinn rolls her eyes. “Did not. A few hours after the test, I was tracking you down and delivering news you never expected.”

  He smiles at her like he’s the happiest guy. “The best news ever.”

  Amy pokes Vaughn’s arm. “You better call me the second the baby is born. Promise me you will. I need to come to the hospital right away and start spoiling my niece or nephew.”

  “That’s a promise. I know it’ll mean the world to Quinn,” Vaughn says to Amy, then kisses his wife’s cheek.

  When the party ends, Amy and I walk through the streets of Manhattan, talking about the best costumes of the night and what we’d want to wear next time.

  Because there will be a next time.

  And another.

  And another.

  That’s the best part of us. Every night with her feels like a new chapter in a fantastic book.

  But every night also feels like another stop on the train ride we’ve been on from the start.

  Only, I have a feeling it’s going to speed up and make its way to a brand-new destination very soon.

  I make a note to go shopping.

  And to go shopping soon.

  Another Epilogue

  Baldwin

  A few months later

  I smooth the front of my button-down shirt with the purple paisley print, looking at the gorgeous man in front of me, and I don’t mean the one in the mirror. “How do I look?”

  James is leaning a shoulder against the doorframe, and he arches a brow. “Is that a serious question?”

  “Yes. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Because you literally just turned away from the mirror.” It would be undignified to pout. And maybe ungrateful, considering how much this man brings to my life. “I want to know how I look to you . . . I’m vain like that.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” But he grins as he pushes off the doorframe and saunters closer. “Like the fact that I’m sure you want to look good not only for me, but for our double date with your friends. And trust me, you do. I wouldn’t have picked out that shirt if I didn’t think you’d look hot enough to make an ice cream truck melt.”

  I grin too, a little wickedly, and smooth my hand down my shirtfront again. “I do love ice cream trucks.”

  “Among other things,” James says, doing the eyebrow thing again. Then he shifts, like he remembered something. “Oh, before we go out tonight, I have something for you.”

  I park my hands on my hips. “Seriously? How many gifts are you going to give me?”

  “As many as I want.”

  I smile. “Fine. I’ll just have to deal with that.”

  James grins at me over his shoulder as I follow him to our living room—ours because James lives with me—and he grabs a gift bag from the coffee table.

  When he holds it out to me, I take it and reach inside, giving an appreciative murmur when I feel the ceramic. “Please tell me it’s the skull creeper mug I saw at that cute shop in the Village.”

  And it is. God, I love creeper mugs, and he knows it. And I love this man too—Flynn Rider, aka James Hardaman. I hope he knows how much.

  “I am going to give you an epic thank you tonight for this little prezzie,” I tell him. “And because I love you.”

  “Baby, I love you too. And I love your thank yous.”

  He’s more than just my boyfriend, and it’s not because we live together or because I get thoughtful gifts out of it.

  It’s because he gets me, and I get him. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.

  I just took a number of trains to reach this destination. But I’m staying at this stop.

  We leave, and I hold my boyfriend’s hand as we head to meet Amy and Linc for dinner.

  And Another Epilogue

  Amy

  I march across the squeaky hardwood floors at the gym. Pop music blasts through the sound system, and I talk over it into my headset.

  “Are you ready, ladies?”

  The ladies shout back, “We’re ready!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “We’re sure!”

  “Because today we’re going to learn how to hula-hoop up and down your whole body. This is one helluva party trick.”

  I shimmy my hips back and forth, the hoop swaying effortlessly around my waist as I talk to the class.

  I proceed to demonstrate how to send the hoop down to your ankles and back up to your armpits.

  Lisa rocks it. So does Paige.

  Well, not at first.

  They are newbies after all.

  But they’re making progress in my class, and I’m proud of them. They’ve been taking it for a few months now, and one of my favorite parts of them being here comes next.

  When class ends, the three of us meet up with Linc, because my fantastic, sweet, sarcastic, smart, swoony boyfriend volunteers to babysit every time Lisa and Paige take my Hula-Hoop class. It’s seriously ovary-melting to see Linc playing with his baby niece.

  Today when the three of us meet him at Dr. Insomnia’s, he’s drinking a cup of coffee, bouncing Katherine on his knee and reading to her.

  Okay, that does it.

  I’m definitely going to have to grab him, take him home, and do bad things to him, because that is tamale-level hot right there.

  I don’t even want to have kids yet (though I do love babysitting Quinn’s little girl), but I’m overheating like a fried egg on a summer sidewalk.

  Then I see his phone and what he’s reading to her.

  It’s the political thriller he edited.

  I shoot him a no you didn’t look. “You’re reading the baby a thriller?”

  “She’s a toddler. Also, I read it like it’s a kid’s story.” He clears his throat and, in a singsong voice, croons, “John Cross never intended to be an assassin, but he turned out to be a damn good one.”

  Lisa huffs then bonks Linc on the head. “You’re dangerous.”

  He laughs, rolls his eyes, then says, “Don’t get your panties in a twist, ladies. I was just putting you on.” He clicks to the home screen of his app, then shows us an illustration of a boy wizard. “I was reading Harry Potter to her because everyone should read Harry Potter.”

  “That is true,” I say, and decide I still plan to do bad things to him.

  I tell him as much after his sister and her wife leave with Katherine. “You were pretty foxy reading to a little kid. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have baby fever. I’m not trying to follow in Quinn’s footsteps yet. But the point is—you’re smoking hot when you read to kids.”

  “I’m smoking hot when I read to you. Want a little story time with the thesaurus later?”

  I say yes, of course, since it’s my favorite book, especially the way he reads it to me.

  One More Epilogue

  Amy

  A few months later

  The cinnamon candy melts on my tongue.

  My taste buds break into a jitterbug.

  “C’est magnifique.” That’s the only word to describe the candy at a sweet shop in Paris.

  “Told you it was incredible. Do I ever lie about sweets?” my sister Tabitha asks.

  “Not about sweets,” I say with a wink.

  She nudges my elbow. “Or anything. For instance, this guy you brought to Paris is a total keeper.”

  “He can hear you, you know,” I say, since Linc is busy devouring a chocolate truffle a few feet away.

  “Yes, I am a keeper,” he says around the candy in his mouth.

  “And what about you, Tab? Have you met any keepers?” I ask my sister as we thank the shopkeeper and make our way onto the streets of Montmartre.

  “Maybe I’ve met a handsome Frenchman who keeps me busy late into the night,” she says coyly.

  “Maybe you better tell me everything.”

  “I will. Next time I see you,” s
he says, then gives Linc and me both cheek kisses. “I must return to work. Au revoir.”

  She heads off into the curving cobbled streets, and I imagine my sister is having her very own fantastic romance too. “I’m going to extract that story from her tomorrow,” I say to Linc.

  “I’ve no doubt you will. For now, want to go to An Open Book?”

  “Yes. You’ve been keeping it from me,” I tease.

  He laughs. “Exactly. I’ve been hiding the fact that your favorite bookstore just opened a Paris shop.”

  He whisks me away to the sixth arrondissement, where we arrive at the emerald-green storefront of a bookshop.

  I hum with happiness. I’ve been dying to see this place since I heard the city of love was snagging its very own version of this American bookstore.

  We go inside, wandering the aisles, running fingers along spines, inhaling the smell of new books.

  I pick up paperbacks and hardcovers, indulging in a few pages of each. I remember the time I went with my brother to this shop in New York, feeling a pang of envy.

  Today I feel pangs of hope and possibility. Soon, these shelves will carry the books Linc has worked on in the last year, and mine too.

  “Look at this!” I whisper excitedly when I come across a romance I’ve been wanting to read.

  “Or look at this,” he says.

  And when I turn around, my eyes pop out on springs.

  The pang in my chest? It turns from hope to glee.

  Linc is on one knee, with a velvet box flipped open and a hopeful expression in his gorgeous blue eyes.

  I gasp, and I want to say yes, yes, yes right now.

  But I wait for him to speak first.

  He clears his throat and looks at me with passion and honesty in his blue eyes. “Amy Summers, I started falling for you the day I met you, and every day that I discover new things about you, I fall further and harder. I love you ridiculously, and you’re an incredibly good idea. I want us to keep falling together for the rest of our lives. Will you marry me?”