by Lauren Layne
“What are you doing here?” she asks. Her voice is a shade too loud for the circumstances, which tells me she’s well on her way past tipsy. “Um—”
“Just kidding,” she says, before I can answer. “I know exactly what you’re doing here. Same thing as me!”
She does this goofy little thrusting thing with her hips, and I laugh, because she doesn’t at all seem pissed about the way we left things.
“Slim pickings tonight, at least on the guy front,” she says, glancing around before coming back to me. “At least until now.”
Her eyes lock on mine meaningfully, and only then do I realize that I was too quick to let my guard down, because the speculative look in her eyes makes it clear what she has in mind.
A one-night stand.
“Come on,” she says with a little tug on my arm. “I promise I’m not going to trap you into buying me dinner again. I just want some fun, you know? With someone as hot as I am.”
I look her over, and she’s right about one thing.
She’s definitely hot. Breasts are displayed to perfection in a tight blue shirt that ends just a couple inches short of her jeans’ waistband, displaying a smooth strip of flat stomach.
She’s gorgeous and fun, and all but guaranteeing a night of no-strings-attached sex, and…
I can’t.
I need to get laid, yes, but I need to do so in order to stop thinking about Parker, and doing it with Parker’s friend?
Not the right thing to do. For any of the parties involved, least of all Lori.
She sees the moment I’m going to reject her and gives an aw-shucks snap of her fingers. “Oh well. Worth a shot. Fear not, Olsen, I’ve got myself a brunet backup plan.”
“He’s a lucky guy,” I say, meaning it.
She winks and starts to walk away, before turning back and giving me a curious look. “Question.”
“Sure,” I say, taking a sip of my drink.
“When I asked you out, and you said yes…that was about Parker, huh? Somehow?”
I open my mouth, but no words come out.
“And when you broke up with me,” she said. “That was about Parker, too?”
Still no words.
Lori’s smile is slower, more confident. “And just now, when you turned down my offer of sex?”
I nod slowly, figuring I owe her the truth. Yep. That was about Parker, too.
“She’s my best friend,” I say, lest Lori get the wrong idea and think that by about Parker I mean I have some sort of romantic interest in her.
Because that’s not what this is about.
Sure, for a weird moment there in Cannon Beach, things had felt kind of…intense. But she’s still Parker.
Lori lets out a self-deprecating groan. “Oh my gawd, how could I have been so freaking blind!”
Then she seems to perk up, her light blue eyes pinning me. “Though,” she says, “not that I’m even close to being as blind as you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
But Lori’s already walking away from me and gives a little dismissive wave of her hand over her head as she sidles up to some beefy dude by the wall.
“Whatever,” I mutter.
I turn back to the bar, relieved to see that my original targets are still here. Just because I have no intention of taking Lori up on her offer doesn’t mean that I’d turn down an invitation from any of these lovely anonymous ladies.
Anonymous sex is exactly what I need right now.
In fact, it’s all I’ve ever wanted. And damn Parker for messing that up with all her Sex should be fun and You should be able to talk to the person after bullshit.
Sex was sex.
Talk was talk.
The two were kept completely separate, as Parker and I had just so disastrously demonstrated.
And as for feelings? That shit didn’t belong in there at all.
In the end I settle on the shorter of the two blondes, a friendly publicist who’d recently accepted a new job in Austin, and has made it abundantly clear that she’s looking for a last hurrah in Portland before relocating.
The girl practically has no strings attached written across her cute, perky butt.
Five minutes later, I’ve settled up our bar tab and waved goodbye to John, who’s also looking to be on the verge of getting lucky, and I’m about to escort Ana with one n back to my place when my phone vibrates in my back pocket.
I take it out with the intention of silencing it, but my thumb freezes when I see the name on the screen.
Parks.
It’s been so long since she’s called me, texted me, talked to me, that, for a moment, my face breaks out in a smile, until I remember the state of our friendship:
Deteriorated.
I tell myself to ignore it. Tell myself to focus on what’s simple, like Blondie here.
But my brain doesn’t listen, because then my thumb swipes across the screen, and I lift it to my face, although I don’t actually say anything.
Don’t know what to say.
“Ben?”
I skid to a halt then, because I’d know that voice anywhere. It’s her crying voice.
Automatically, the sound of it brings out the I will slay dragons for you instinct in me.
Even now.
Especially now.
I will slay dragons for you, Parker.
“Tell me,” I say.
“It’s my mom.” Her voice is tiny. Scared.
My heart drops.
“The cancer came back. It’s…it’s really bad.”
“Where are you?”
“At my parents’. You don’t have to come, I just…I wanted…I needed—”
“Shut up, Parks. I’m on my way.”
And just like that, I know. Know that I’d do anything—anything—to get my best friend back.
“Who was that?” Ana asks when I hang up.
“A friend.”
“Sounded like more than a friend,” she says indifferently, taking a piece of gum out of her purse.
I stare at this tiny blonde as my brain buzzes.
It strikes me as utterly ridiculous and yet completely undeniable that this virtual stranger is the one who opens my eyes to the biggest, most crucial truth of my life:
Parker is more than a friend.
Has perhaps always been more than a friend.
The realization turns me upside down, inside out, and yet…
I can never let her know it.
Not unless I want to lose her all over again.
Chapter 29
Parker
I don’t know what made me call Ben instead of Lance.
I only know that when I open the front door of my parents’ house and see Ben standing on the porch that I’ve made the right decision.
A realization he only confirms when he steps into the foyer, closes the door, and without a single word, takes me into his arms and holds me.
I let out a shuddering breath, and for the first time in an hour, I feel…well, not good…but I feel like I can survive this.
Like I can survive anything as long as Ben’s here.
My fingers clench, tangling in the fabric of his shirt. I rest my head on his shoulder and let myself remember what it feels like to breathe. For the first time in hours.
No, for the first time in weeks.
He smells like other women’s perfume, but I don’t even care. I care only that he’s here.
That he came.
After everything we’ve been through, after the way we’ve spoken to each other, after the immature way we threw away years of friendship over a stupid squabble, he’s come, and he’s here and he’s holding me.
My eyes water, and his hand moves over my hair. “Don’t cry.”
But of course I do. I sob. Just like he knows I will.
And he lets me, never uttering stupid it will be okay platitudes. He doesn’t make weird soothing noises. He just holds me.
Eventually I manage to pull back enough to
let out a huge slobbering noise, and he glances down at his white shirt, which is now smeared with black eye makeup and the faint beige tinge of my tinted moisturizer.
He points at his chest. “Well, here’s one thing I haven’t missed.”
I smile faintly.
“I’ll get the industrial-sized tissue box,” he says, running a hand down my arm before heading toward the bathroom. Then he pauses. Turns back. “Parker?”
“Yeah?” I say, wiping my eyes with the sleeves of my sweatshirt.
He points to his stained shirt again. “It’s the only thing I haven’t missed.”
I meet his eyes and melt a little at the warmth there. At the apology written all over his face.
And just like that, we’re okay again. I know it down to my bones.
I sit on the couch, and in a moment he comes back with the box of tissues, dropping it into my lap before he sits beside me. “Where are your parents?”
“Upstairs,” I say, staring at my hands. “Last time we went through this, my mom was so brave, so positive, but this time…” I swallow. “She’s been in her room ever since they learned the news.”
I stare at my hands before continuing. “My dad had to be the one to tell me. And when I went up to see her…all we could do was cry.”
This, of course, starts me crying all over, and Ben once again does the holding thing that he’s so good at.
“It’s in her lymph nodes,” I say when the latest crying jag subsides. “They’re going to start treatment immediately. Some experimental mumbo jumbo that they’ve apparently had some success with, but they’re still throwing around the word prognosis,” I manage.
Six months. Maybe a year.
Ben releases me then, leaning forward.
His hands are clasped tightly together, and then he bows his head, squeezing his eyes shut.
Belatedly I realize that I’m not the only one torn up by this news. He loves my mom, too.
I put a hand on his back. Letting him know that I’m here for him, just like he’s here for me.
“She’s strong,” he says. “She’ll fight it.”
“She will,” I say. “I just…God, Ben, I don’t know that I can do it all over again. Watching her hair fall out, and her throwing up, and shrinking and shrinking and so pale.”
“She’ll get through it,” he says, shifting toward me and holding my hands. “She’ll get through it because you’ll be there with her every step of the way. As will your dad. And me. And Lance,” he says, although I suspect this last one is more of an afterthought.
All of my thoughts over the past month bubble up in my chest, and I feel the need to talk.
Because there are things I need to tell Ben.
Things I don’t know how to express, but my heart is full of stuff, both grief for my mom, and myself, but other things, too.
Important things.
Things that I’m just now beginning to understand.
“Ben, there’s something that I should—”
“You should call Lance. He should be here,” Ben says at the exact same time.
He smiles. “Sorry. You first.”
But my courage has failed me. Here I am trying to tell Ben that I think I might—that I have these feelings…and he’s reminding me to call my boyfriend?
The worst part is, he’s right. I should absolutely call my boyfriend. Not only for Lance’s sake, but because I just got Ben back. I can’t risk losing him again with stupid admissions.
And so I do exactly what he says.
I find my phone. I call my boyfriend.
And try very, very hard to bury feelings that will destroy everything.
Chapter 30
Ben
ONE MONTH LATER
Parker and I are back to normal.
She’s still living with Lance, of course, so the roommate element isn’t there anymore.
But everything else is just like it was before we started hooking up.
There’s the joking, the laughter, the easy conversation.
The carpooling. Parker picks me up every morning for work in her hippie car, drops me off every evening, and conversation doesn’t lull the entire time.
Just like before.
The Blantons invited me for Christmas, and I was tempted. Especially given Mrs. Blanton’s cancer treatment.
But, in the end, I’d gone home to Michigan. My first Christmas at home since graduating from college.
It had been an important one.
A chance to make a fresh start, not just by letting go of my reliance on Parker and her family, but also a fresh start with my family.
I think I made progress. Over the holidays I made an effort to get on equal footing with my siblings—to establish that just because I didn’t take the path chosen for me didn’t mean I wasn’t a success.
My mom is still struggling a bit with my decision to eschew law school despite “all her sacrifices,” but I made definite progress with my dad and stepmom. Enough so that I’m actually looking forward to when they come out and visit over Presidents’ Day weekend in February.
All things considered, my life is as good as it’s been in a long time, ignoring, of course, the not-so-minor fact that I have very real, very complicated feelings for my best friend.
Feelings that eat at me when I’m all alone late at night, when the dark loneliness is begging me to tell her how I feel.
But then I see her the next day, and she has some cheerful anecdote about how she tried to make Lance breakfast and exploded avocado smoothie all over the ceiling, and I remind myself that if I care about her—and I do, more than anything—the best thing I can give her is her happiness.
And her happiness is Lance.
Which brings me to the news I’m about to spring on her…
Parker’s already in the driver’s seat when I get to her car after work, tapping away on her phone.
“Hey, karaoke tonight?” she asks as I climb into the car.
“Sure,” I say, fastening my seat belt. “Who’s going?”
“You, me, Lance, of course.”
Of course.
“Plus, Lori and that new guy she’s dating. Lori’s sister. Oh, and this girl from work, Eryn.”
I frown. “I thought we hated Eryn.”
Parker holds up a finger. “We used to hate Eryn. Now we think Eryn maybe just needed a friend.”
“Got it. Well, Eryn’s in luck, because it just so happens I’m an excellent friend.”
“Definitely,” Parker agrees. “You are. Except, of course, when you—”
I put a hand over her face to shut her up, then drop some of the folders I’ve been carrying in her lap.
She glances down. “What’s all this?”
“There’s this cool trick I’ve heard about,” I say. “It’s called…oh, now I’m forgetting…oh yeah, reading.”
She ignores me, already flipping through the assortment of brochures and pamphlets and getting the idea quickly.
Parker glances up. “Business school.”
I lift a shoulder. “I’ve decided it’s time to start embracing the fact that I love my job, and that I want to challenge myself. I was thinking maybe this could be, like, my do-over, since I was pretty average in college. I want to be good at something.”
Her face is elated as she listens to me, and I can’t help it, I think my chest puffs a little, because she also looks proud.
She returns to the brochures, riffling through them more quickly now. “Have you thought about what your specialty would be, or are you going to start general, and—”
She breaks off and I tense, knowing what’s going to happen.
Parker looks up, and this time her face is confused. “These are all in Seattle.”
“Yeah,” I say, shifting in my seat and trying to play it casual. “They’ve got some great schools up there, and—”
“And they have some great schools here. In Portland,” she says stubbornly. Cutely.
“But Seattle is only a
two-hour drive,” I counter. “Close enough for an easy weekend trip.”
Hence its appeal. Close enough to be, well, close to Parker. To be there for her. But far enough to give us both a little bit of distance.
Far enough to get over her. I hope.
“But what about your job?” she says. “You just said that you—”
“There’s a spot for me in the Seattle office. They said it’s mine if I want it.”
“You’ve already talked to them?” Parker looks stunned. “How long have you been thinking about this?”
I hear the question she’s not asking:
You didn’t tell me?
I understand her confusion. Because once upon a time we’d told each other everything, but now that I can’t tell her everything, I have to be, well…careful.
It’s self-preservation.
And maybe it’s completely selfish, but going to Seattle is one way that I can continue to be Parker’s best friend and to maintain all of the best parts of our friendship without completely destroying myself in the process.
“Well, I’m happy for you!” she says. “And I love Seattle! I’ll come up all the time, and you can take me to Pike Place Market, and we can—”
I see the tears welling up, and put a hand over hers. “I just need the change, Parks. You get that, don’t you?”
She sniffles. Squeezes my hand back. “Yes. And if this is what you want, I’m happy for you. Truly.”
I smile, because I know she means it. Because over everything we’ve been through, that’s one rather crucial detail we’ve each learned about the other person. That we’ll put their needs first. Always.
We both jerk our hands away when we realize that we’re all but holding hands in our office parking lot. So, okay, not everything’s exactly like it was. We don’t touch anymore. Or when we do, accidentally, it gets weird.
By tacit agreement, we don’t talk about my possible Seattle move for the entire ride home, focusing instead on the latest recall of my company’s running shorts that apparently have been linked to a rather unfortunate rash.
“Lance and I can pick you up tonight for karaoke,” she says. “Seven?”
“Nah. I’ll meet you there,” I say.
I’m doing pretty good with the Lance-Parker relationship. As well as can be expected. But I avoid hanging out with just the two of them as much as possible. Again, it’s a self-preservation thing.