The Friend Zone(101)

“I know—can’t wait to get you in bed,” she whispered.

I grinned. “We’re talking about sleeping, aren’t we?”

We laughed against each other’s lips, and I kissed her deeply, right there on Evelyn’s porch.

Fuck, I never got enough of my wife. She was the sexiest woman alive. I loved every inch of her. I loved her stretch marks and her scars, the specks in her eyes and the birthmark on her neck. All her flawless imperfections.

I was grateful every moment of every single day that Brandon brought me to her. She was my everlasting gift from a man I’d never forget for the rest of my life.

I broke away and put my forehead to hers. “So you want In-N-Out for lunch and steaks for dinner, right?”

She nodded and put her hand over my heart where the tattoo of her name was. “Josh? I think I could be ready again to keep trying. Should we start talking about surrogacy? Carmen is still down for it, right?”

I knew why she was asking. She still wanted to give me my baseball team. But my dreams had changed.

Seeing the strain of the in vitro process and how much it took out of her emotionally and physically—I just wanted her to be happy. I wanted her to enjoy our son. She never complained, but I knew she was tired of the doctor’s visits and the hormone injections and the disappointment. If she was up for it in a few years, maybe we’d try again or look into the other options. We were young—we had time. But I didn’t want her to do it for me because she thought she owed it to me. She’d done enough.

I put my hands on her face. “Let’s take a break, Kristen. I’m happy where we are. And if this is our family, I’m good with that.”

The relief was visible in her eyes. “Are you sure?”

My mouth curved up into a smile. “I’m very sure. I have everything I need.”





A Note from the Author




When I sat down to pen this novel, I knew I wanted to write a story that felt real—a story that could include hangry, neurotic women who actually get periods, and the men who love them (lol).

With infertility being a serious and prevalent issue, I felt like I had a responsibility to tell this not only compassionately, but also authentically. So for this I went to someone who lived it.

While Kristen’s love story with Josh is fiction, her infertility journey is inspired by real events.

Kristen’s character is based on my best friend, Lindsay, and her struggle with infertility. I talk about it now with her full permission, the same way I wrote about it.

Lindsay had a full hysterectomy at the age of just twenty-nine after dealing with debilitating reproductive issues for years. While she was able to conceive her two children naturally (and much like Kristen, without medical intervention and to her complete surprise), she dealt with secondary infertility due to severe uterine fibroids. She had all—if not more—of the physical and emotional challenges Kristen experiences in my novel. Much of what I wrote was verbatim, as Lindsay described it to me.

You may or may not have seen your own infertility journey in these pages. The thing I realized doing research for this book—and the truth you might already know if you’re going through this yourself—is that there is no universal story to tell. No two experiences are the same, and any measure of this challenging diagnosis is heartbreaking to endure.

What does unify these stories are the feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, guilt, and despair that come with this very common, but often not discussed, health issue. And so that is what I strove to tell in The Friend Zone.

Just one final note.

Kristen’s happy ending was never about getting pregnant. It was about her allowing herself to be loved, despite what she felt were shortcomings. It was about her recognizing that she wasn’t defined by her ability to have children, and that her worth went beyond the state of her uterus. That was her happily ever after.





Acknowledgments




There are so many people to thank for this book becoming a published reality.

First and foremost I have to acknowledge my crit buddies and beta readers. These people trudged through some seriously awful shit before it became the book you just read. A special shout-out to my very first beta reader, Kristen McBride, who was reading my stuff before it was cool. And yes, my main character is named after her in thanks. You took one for the team, gurl. You’ve earned it.

Thank you to Joey Ringer, Hijo, Tia Greene, Shauna Lawless, Debby Wallace, J. C. Nelson, Jill Storm, Liz Smith-Gehris, G. W. Pickle, Dawn Cooper, Andrea Day, Lisa Stremmel, Lisa Sushko, Michele Alborg, Amanda Wulff, Summer Heacock, Stacey Sargent, George, Jhawk, Abby Luther, Patt Pandolfi, Bessy Chavez, Mandy Geisler, Teressa Sadowski, Stephanie Trimble, and Kristyn May.

To Naomi, my oldest daughter, who loved to hear my story ideas and encouraged me to write them down and then in typical teenager fashion rolled her eyes and said I’d probably not even mention her in the acknowledgments—I showed you, you salty bitch.

Thank you to the people who lent their expertise so that this story could be authentic: Valerie Hales Summerfield (ICU nurse), Terry Saenz (emergency room nurse), Suzanna and TJ Keeran (California firefighter paramedics), and my OB-GYN who answered some really random reproductive health questions without any explanation on my part.

To my best friend, Lindsay Van Horn, who seriously didn’t read shit because she only does audiobooks but who was the inspiration for Kristen and the cheerleader I needed along the way. Also, she sent me a congratulatory Potatogram upon the news of my book deal, with zero knowledge that I’d written that into the novel. Damn if I don’t know her.