The Friend Zone(39)



I hated my fucking rules.

At 4:00, he came back inside and sat next to me on the sofa.

“I’m on my period, so…”

He snorted. “Good to know. Thanks for the info.” He opened a Coke with a pith. “So what’re we watching?”

I stifled a smile. “I’m just returning emails. I wasn’t really paying attention.” I closed my laptop and slid a hand across his thigh. “You know, we can do other stuff…”

I was used to getting creative with my sex life. Three-week-long periods didn’t give me much choice, and I didn’t see why my partner had to abstain in the meantime. And I really wanted to touch him. Even if it was just sex. I just wanted to be close to him.

But when I reached for his belt buckle, he stopped me. “No. If you’re not having fun, neither am I.”

“Who says I won’t be having fun?” I smirked, trying to get my hand free.

He held it firm. “Kristen, no. That’s not why I’m here.”

I looked at him. “Then why are you here?”

He gazed at me with those deep-brown eyes. “To hang out with you. You said we’re friends with benefits, right? This is the friends part. I want to spend time with you.”

My heart tugged.

He has to go.

“Well, I have plans tonight. So I can’t hang out with you,” I said, sitting back into the sofa.

The corners of his lips went down a fraction of an inch. “Okay. When are you leaving? Want to get some dinner? Or watch something before you go?”

I got up. “I’m leaving now, actually.”

The light drained from his eyes, and I instantly wanted to throw my arms around him and take it all back, ask him to stay and snuggle with me on the sofa and eat Chinese food out of takeout boxes and be my boyfriend.

But I couldn’t.

This. Could not. Be. A. Relationship.

He pushed up from the sofa. “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” He didn’t look at me before he left.

I buried my face in my hands. What the fuck was I doing? I had to cut him loose. This was torture.

This was ridiculous.

I just wanted to be normal with him. I wanted to treat him the way he made me feel. Give him all my attention and kiss him and hug him.

Tell him I’m in love with him.

But that would be me luring him into a dead-end attachment that would be a waste of everyone’s time. Or worse, him rejecting me once he knew the truth about my health issues. And neither of those was acceptable.

With Josh, I could have a sex-only arrangement with strict boundaries…or I could have nothing.

I grabbed Stuntman, got in the car, and went to Sloan and Brandon’s house. She opened the door wearing her painting shirt, her hair piled on her head in a messy blond bun. “Oh, hey.”

She went back to her stool in front of her easel in the living room. She was an artist. This painting was of a little girl in a poppy field.

“Where’s Brandon?” I asked.

She pointed the remote to the TV and muted her crime show. “He’s in the garage.”

“I slept with Josh.”

She whirled on me, eyes flying wide. “What?!?”

“Yeah.” I dropped onto the sofa, clutching my dog. “Tyler and I broke up. I slept with Josh. It was fucking incredible. His penis is glorious. I’m dick whipped and in love with him, and I don’t know what to do. I think I fucked up.”

She looked absolutely horrified. The color drained right from her face. She didn’t know what to do with “dick whipped,” I think. She’d never had a one-night stand or even slept with someone who wasn’t her boyfriend.

I gave her a minute. I knew she’d catch up.

Once she rallied, she sat down next to me. “And you think you fucked up—why?”

I put my face into my hands. “I like him so much. So much, Sloan. And he’s all sweet and wants to hang out with me. He asked me if we could be exclusive. I told him no, that it’s purely a sex thing for me, which it’s totally not. But what else can it be?”

I looked at her, and I could feel the desperation practically seeping from my pores. “I mean, if he actually likes me, I have to shut this thing down. We can’t be together. He won’t be with someone who can’t give him kids. I’d rather die than tell him I’m about to have my uterus taken out. And I’m not in the business of leading men on, right? So I should end it, shouldn’t I? Right?”

She stared at me like I’d gone mad. “God, I’ve never seen you like this,” she breathed.

Maybe I had gone a little crazy. This was not my normal MO. Guys didn’t get me worked up. Ever. Sloan was in virgin territory with me on this.

“You know what he did the other day?” I went on. “I went to FedEx to drop off some boxes. And when I came back, he was in the kitchen with Stuntman. I guess he knocked over a soda and Stuntman walked through it, so he needed a bath. So Josh washed him, and I come into the kitchen and he’s standing there, no shirt, with Stuntman wrapped in a towel, and he’s cuddling my wet dog. I swear to fucking God, Sloan, I’ve never seen anything sexier in my entire life. The man is literally perfect. How is it possible that I’ve managed to find the perfect man and I can’t have him?”

Abby Jimenez's Books