The Friend Zone(15)

She looked disappointed, but she seemed to believe me, which at the very least lessened my guilt at running out on her. I should have never asked her out in the first place. I just wasn’t ready. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

I picked up a pizza and some Stone Brewing dark ale and headed to Kristen’s, actually looking forward to going back over.

It occurred to me that this was what I should have been doing tonight from the very beginning. I didn’t have to work at hanging out with her.

When Kristen opened the door holding Stuntman Mike, she was in curlers.

If I ever had any question whether she was remotely into me, her complete and utter lack of an attempt to impress me was the answer. She did not give a fuck.

I actually liked that she was herself in front of me. But the implication didn’t thrill me. It meant her feelings toward me were totally platonic. For all intents and purposes, I might as well have been the gay friend, or a brother or something. I was friend zoned, hard, and this was the proof. The more I got to know her, the more this bothered me.

She must really be serious about Tyler.

She plopped down onto the couch and put her laptop on her lap. “Wanna watch something?”

After moving her neat invoice pile, I set the pizza down on the coffee table. “Sure.” I sat down next to her and opened a beer for her.

There was something intimate about being in her house at night. The energy was different. The light was dimmer, and things seemed quieter. And I wasn’t there to work, which was a definite change in dynamic.

She took the beer I opened for her. “Thanks.” She gave me the remote. “I’ve gotta finish this billing though.”

“How about Death Proof??” I asked, opening the lid on the pizza box. “You’ve already seen it, so you won’t miss anything.”

“Perfect.”

I scrolled through Netflix and found it. We sat there with Stuntman Mike between us wearing his BITCHES LOVE ME shirt, drinking beer and eating pizza through the first half hour of it. Then she did a final tap on her laptop and shut the lid.

“So what was wrong with her?” she asked, propping her feet up on the coffee table.

“Who?”

“Your date.”

I shrugged. “Nothing in common. And I’m just not ready to date, I think.”

“Then why’d you ask her?” She looked at me, balancing her beer on her thigh.

“She was a yoga instructor. Yoga pants.” I bounced my eyebrows.

“Well, you are an ass-man.”

“Plus, I was being mobbed. I panicked.”

She snorted. “Do you realize how bendy she probably was?” She took a swallow of her beer. “You messed up, dude.”

I smiled, putting my beer to my lips. “Eh, I’ll be all right. Besides, women like that are too much work. The better looking they are, the crazier they are.” I’d had far too much experience with this.

“That’s not a universal rule. Sloan is hardly crazy at all and look at her.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. She seems like she could go off the deep end if the right guy pushed her. Brandon’s just too mellow to unleash the fury, I think.”

She laughed. I loved it when she laughed. Like a little reward.

“Well, your yoga instructor was a vegan, so at least you know she wouldn’t have boiled your rabbit. You smell good, by the way,” she said, like an afterthought.

“Thanks.”

She smelled good too. When she’d given me back my shirt, some of her perfume still clung to it, even though she’d washed it. Tart apples. I didn’t want to admit how many times I’d put that shirt to my nose. I didn’t want to admit that I’d wished a few times I could put my nose to her neck to see if it smelled different on her skin.

I reminded myself that she was taken. The good ones always were.

What I had sitting next to me was the “cool girl.” That rare woman who was gorgeous without being nuts. The girl in high school who hung out with all the guys, but she never dated any of them because none of them was mature enough for her. That girl who had a boyfriend who went to college and picked her up in his car after school. She could beat you at beer pong and had a football team who would kick your ass for saying one wrong word to her, but she’d never let them because she could handle herself.

“What?” she asked. “You’ve never seen a woman in curlers before?”

I was staring. Just sitting there, staring at the side of her face like a fucking creep. “I was just wondering what you were like in high school.”

“Less sarcastic. Skinnier.”

I smirked. “Drama club? Sports?”

“Orchestra.”

“I pictured you as head of the debate team for some reason.”

She nudged me. “What about you?”

“I wasn’t into sports. I just kind of got through it. Not very memorable.” I drank my beer. “What kind of guys did you date?”

She looked back at the TV. “College guys, mostly.”

I knew it.

A cell phone rang from the end table to my right and Kristen bolted up straight. She put her beer on the coffee table and dove across my lap for her phone, sprawling over me.

My eyes flew wide. I’d never been that close to her before. I’d only ever touched her hand.