Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone #3)(43)

A core part of our relationship was us not hitting on each other. She flirted with me, yes. But that was just who she was. There’d been times she’d told me how hot I was and reiterated that she didn’t date in the same sentence. It didn’t mean anything. She had been very clear that she was uninterested in dating. That’s probably why she felt so comfortable spending so much time with me—because I wasn’t trying to sleep with her.

I was painfully aware that if I brought it up, tried to talk to her about the way I was feeling, I’d run the risk of losing the friendship. Even the conversation about crossing the line was crossing a line. Afterward there would always be the knowledge that I wanted more, even if we never acted on it. It would change things—and I was terrified of changing things. I couldn’t lose this.

Becky moved her stack of papers into a neat pile and leaned forward on her elbows. “So what’s it like hanging out with Vanessa?” She grinned. “Do you guys get VIP treatment? Is it the coolest thing ever? Does she get mobbed when you go places and you have to be her bodyguard and peel strange men off her?”

I shook my head. “She signs autographs now and then. I don’t really see that side of her. We do normal things. She’s just like everyone else,” I said, slipping a paper clip over my stack of corrections.

Becky gawked at me from across the table. “Okay, but she’s totally not. People love her. They pay money at cons just to be able to take, like, one picture with her, and you just get to hang out with her all willy-nilly and you’re not even freaking out about it?!”

“I very much appreciate that I get to hang out with her. Willy-nilly.” I circled a typo.

She gave me crazy eyes.

I loved messing with Becky.

She blinked at me. “You don’t get this, do you? Your neighbor is America’s sweetheart and I feel like you’re not fully appreciating this. She was a judge on a panel with Tom Hanks once and they called her ‘the nice one.’ She had a cameo on that one Gordon Ramsay cooking show and he refused to yell at her—Post Malone has her name tattooed on the inside of his lip!”

I looked up at her. “She’s met Tom Hanks?”

She stared back at me, horrified. “Why don’t you know any of the things?!”

I stifled a grin. I didn’t know about Tom Hanks—or the Gordon Ramsay show, come to think of it. And I didn’t know what the hell a Post Malone was either.

I was fully aware that Vanessa was a celebrity. But to me she was just…Vanessa. She was grounded and normal. Most of the time I forgot what she did for a living entirely—something I think she preferred. She didn’t like to talk about her channel.

Admittedly, there were times when we were out that I noticed she was being recognized. Even if people didn’t approach her, I could tell they knew who she was.

I could never be on camera like that, my life so exposed, no anonymity. I don’t think she particularly enjoyed that aspect of it, but for her, raising money for ALS trumped privacy. I guess if you found something important to you like that, it would be worth it.

“I don’t need you to tell me how lucky I am or how incredible Vanessa is,” I said. “I am well aware.”

Becky was shaking her head at me, rendered mute by how totally uncool and uninformed I was. She let out a disappointed sigh at my unwillingness to gossip about this and went back to her subpoenas.

The occasional celebrity surprises aside, it occurred to me that I officially knew more about Vanessa and her family in two short weeks than I had known about Rachel and hers after eight months.

I’d had a lot of time to think about that relationship since it ended, and I was coming to conclusions that I wasn’t thrilled about.

Part of me knew that Rachel had probably been purposely cagey about her real life, and that’s why I didn’t know her better or catch on to what she was doing. But the other part of me was starting to wonder how much of a role I had played in that. Because the reality was I didn’t care enough to dig.

I made no effort to meet her friends and family or to visit her in Seattle. If she didn’t text me for a few days or answer my calls, I barely noticed because I didn’t have time to talk to her anyway.

I wasn’t blaming myself for what Rachel did. But Vanessa was right about what she said all those weeks ago. I didn’t have balance. My life only allowed for a once-a-month girlfriend who was a stranger to me after almost a year of dating because that’s all I’d made room for. And that I did have to take ownership over.

And there was something else. A small but niggling voice that told me that maybe I liked it this way. That maybe Rachel was another manifestation of the control I seemed to need, a symptom of a bigger problem. That making work my number one focus was a way to protect myself from getting too close to someone who might end up hurting me. Leaving me, like Dad had. And the funny thing was Rachel did end up leaving me. But the more I really thought about it, the more I realized that I didn’t care.

I was indignant and angry about it, but on principle, not because I’d been in love with her, or even close to it. Did I choose her by design? Because I knew somewhere buried in my subconscious that she couldn’t get near enough to my heart to damage it?

I couldn’t shake the thought. I didn’t like this. At all.

Vanessa said that childhood trauma always messes with your relationships. And I was starting to think she was right.