The Friend Zone

by Abby Jimenez

  “Yeah. There were things I wanted to buy for him that I couldn’t find online. So I started making them. People go nuts for their little dogs. The business does well.”

  That I could believe. Just with the amount of orders she’d already given me, I could tell she made a decent living. It was pretty impressive.

  I tilted my head. “They’re kind of useless though, aren’t they? Little dogs don’t really do anything.”

  She scoffed. “Okay, first of all, he can hear you. Second of all, he’s a working dog.”

  “What, a personal support animal?” Everyone seemed to have one these days. “Doesn’t count. A dog that hangs out with you isn’t a working dog. That’s not a job.”

  “And what exactly would count?” she asked.

  “A police dog. A search-and-rescue or service animal. A protection dog. A hunting dog.”

  She looked at me, dead serious, and put a hand on Stuntman Mike’s head. “He’s a hunting dog.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s an insult to hunting dogs everywhere.” I dug for my cell and pulled up a picture of my buddy’s Lab with a duck in his mouth. “This is a hunting dog.”

  She looked unimpressed. “Yeah, that’s a dog that hunts ducks. Stuntman hunts women.”

  I snorted.

  “What? I’m serious. He’s lady bait.”

  I glanced at him. He was pretty cute.

  She put her cheeseburger on the coffee table and pulled her dog into her lap like a floppy teddy bear, cradling him like a baby. His tongue rolled out and hung from the side of his mouth. “How about this? The next time you go to the store, take him with you.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t take him to the store.”

  “Why?”

  “Uh, because he’s not a service animal?”

  She laughed. “Stuntman can go anywhere. He’s wearing clothes. He’s not a dog—he’s an accessory.”

  I chewed a fry thoughtfully. “So I just walk him in on a leash?”

  “No, you put him in a bag.”

  I shook my head with a laugh. “I’m cool buying tampons, but I’m not walking a tiny dog into a store in a purse.”

  “It’s not a purse—it’s a satchel. And if this were entirely dignified, don’t you think all the guys would be doing it? It’s a core part of the strategy. Men don’t own dogs like this. They own dogs like that.” She pointed to my phone. “It’s adorable. Trust me. You’ll be a chick magnet.”

  I didn’t care about being a chick magnet, but I liked the idea of having an inside joke with her for some reason. “Okay. You’ve piqued my interest. I’ll test your theory.”

  “And if I’m right?”

  “Then I’ll tell you that you were right.”

  She twisted her lips to one side. “No. Not good enough. If I’m right, you pose in some website pictures with my dog satchels. I need a male model.”

  Oh God, what have I gotten myself into? “Somehow this whole deal feels like I’m the loser.” I chuckled. Whatever. I was a good sport.

  “How are you the loser? I’m giving you the opportunity to use my highly trained hunting dog to lure scores of women into your bed.”

  I smirked. “You know, without sounding like an asshole, I don’t really have a hard time getting women.”

  She tilted her head. “Yeah, I can see that. You have the whole sexy fireman thing going for you.” She waved a hand over my body.

  I took a drink of my soda and grinned at her. “So you think I’m sexy, huh?”

  She pivoted to face me full on. “There’s something you should know about me, Josh. I say what I think. I don’t have a coy bone in my body. Yes, you’re sexy. Enjoy the compliment because you won’t always like what I say to you, and I won’t care one way or the other if you do or don’t.”

  * * *

  Two days later I was back at the station. I’d just sat down in the living room after cleaning up the kitchen by myself for half an hour. The rest of the crew liked to hit the gym after dinner. There weren’t enough weight benches for everyone. As the probie, I had last right to anything, let alone the limited workout equipment, so TV it was.

  Brandon came into the living room with a water bottle and dropped into a recliner. “Shawn lost the book I loaned him.”

  “What book?” I asked, flipping the channels.

  “Devil in the White City. I swear to God, every time I loan that guy something, he either loses it or damages it.”

  “Did you check the bathroom?”

  “It’s the first place I looked. Keep an eye out for it, yeah? I bet he set it down in the apparatus bay or something. I’m probably going to have to buy a new copy,” he grumbled.

  “Why’d you let him have it?”

  He waved a hand. “Eh, I don’t know. Shame on me, right?” He shook his head. “Hey, how’s the side job?”

  I smiled, thinking about Kristen. “She’s cool as hell. She hung out with me in the garage a few times both days, just bullshitting. She’s hilarious.”

  No offense to Brandon, but Kristen was turning into my favorite co-worker. And if I had to get bossed around, I’d rather it be by her any day.

  He laughed. “Uh, I was asking about the job. But I can see where your mind’s at.” He grinned like he’d just won some bet. “I knew you’d like her.”

  I gave him a sideways smile. “What do you know about her?”

  Brandon was probably the one guy friend I could talk to about this. He wouldn’t give me shit. And God knows I’d sat through enough talks about Sloan.

  He shrugged. “What do you want to know?”

  Everything.

  “I don’t know. Just tell me what you’ve seen. You’ve known her as long as you’ve known Sloan.”

  He thought about it for a second. “Well, let’s see. She’s smart.”

  I could see that about her. Good with math. I’d watched her figure out the totals on a few phone orders in her head, tax and all.

  “She’s competitive. Doesn’t like to lose. The couple of times Sloan and I hosted poker, Kristen played and she made it to the final table both times. And those guys are pretty good. She’s driven.”

  “How solid do you think her and her boyfriend are?” I asked. “They’re moving in together, so it’s serious, right?”

  This was what I really wanted to know.

  He gave me a raised eyebrow. “I know she’s faithful to him, buddy.”

  I wasn’t implying that I hoped she would cheat. But now I was curious. “How do you know?”

  “I mean, I’ve never seen anything to lead me to believe she’s ever messed around on him. And she doesn’t seem like the type. She’s too principled.”

  I liked that she was loyal. A lot of women cheated when their men were deployed. I saw it often enough when I was on tour. The long separations took their toll. It said something about her character that she stayed the course, but at the same time, I didn’t like that it meant they were probably pretty serious.

  “You think she’ll marry him?”

  He grinned, shaking his head. “All right.” He picked up the remote from the arm of my chair and put the TV on mute. “You want to know what I think?” He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands, going into squad leader mode. He was about to level with me. “I think she’s not as into this guy as she could be.”

  Now here was something. I sat up. “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know. A hunch. Body language. Sloan. Any relationship that doesn’t have the best friend behind it is going to have challenges. And I didn’t get the impression Kristen was super in love with him. It seemed one-sided between them. That’s just what I got when I saw them together. But that was almost a year ago. Things might be different now.”

  I tapped my finger on the armrest and stared at the Marine Corps tattoo on Brandon’s forearm. Mine was on my chest. We’d gotten them at the same time. “She doesn’t have any pictures of him in the house. Not one.” Girls like to put up pictures. It had
to mean something that there weren’t any.

  “Eh, there’s plenty on her Instagram.”

  I deflated again.

  He gave me an amused smile. “Look, buddy, you know how it goes. You come off tour and you don’t have a place of your own so you move in with your girl. It could just be that. Convenience. Or it could be they’re really in love. You want my advice?”

  I waited, looking at him.

  “Stick around. One of two things is going to happen when this guy comes home. They’ll either break up or they’ll get married. And if they break up, you’ll be the first to know. There’s no deadline. You like hanging out with her.” He shrugged. “So hang out with her. Be her friend.”

  Her friend. I could do that. That was easy enough. Anyway, what choice did I have?

  SIX

  Kristen

  I stood in the door of my garage, holding a plate, looking at a shirtless muscular back bent over a half-constructed staircase.

  This was why I hadn’t wanted him here. I knew it was going to be a problem. I had a boyfriend and I was attracted to this guy and now Josh was going to be out here, half-naked and sweaty every time I needed something from the garage.

  This was a pleasant upgrade from Miguel, for sure.

  Josh had been working for me for a week. He’d already done five orders and he’d done them well. He was a fairly decent carpenter. I got four more orders last night, just enough to keep him busy and shirtless in my garage until he went back to his real job for a forty-eight-hour shift the day after tomorrow.

  He turned and gave me one of his million-dollar smiles. Straight white teeth, crooked upturned lips on one side. His hair had that messy thing going on, like a grown-man version of a cowlick. Then he saw what I was holding, and he deflated like a popped balloon. I made my way down the steps and shoved the plate in front of him. “I made lasagna.”

  He looked at it suspiciously. I couldn’t cook. I didn’t pretend I could. He was well aware of this. This was a Stouffer’s lasagna that I’d heated up, so technically I did make it.

  I’d made a few things I’d shared with him over the last week. Some very soggy mac and cheese, a sad-looking sandwich, and a hot dog I’d boiled in water. I mean, if I was cooking for myself, I wasn’t going to not offer him some. That would be rude. After all, he’d fed me once and he was in my home.

  Or maybe the rude thing was making him eat my cooking. I couldn’t tell which was worse.

  “Thanks.” He took the plate. “It smells good,” he said almost hopefully. He always ate what I gave him, but he’d also brought a lunch today and announced it loudly when he got here.

  “Want to come inside and eat at the table?” I asked.

  He checked his watch and wiped his head with the back of his hand. I’d set up the fan, but it was still easily eighty-five out here, even with the garage door open. “Sure.”

  He handed me back the plate and turned to put on a shirt while I watched the contoured muscles of his broad back disappear under the gray fabric. I averted my eyes when he turned back to me so it didn’t look like I had been staring the whole time.

  On the way inside, Stuntman jumped at his feet. Josh scooped him up and held him for a minute, letting him lick his face.

  The little thing was a roller-coaster ride of emotions. He seemed to take to Josh though. He hated Tyler. In fact, I was worried how it would play out once Tyler moved in. Stuntman wouldn’t even let him sit on the bed. Even thinking about how that was going to go launched me into a manic cleaning spree.

  I wondered if Stuntman would let Josh sit on the bed. I bet he would.

  That thought made me want to clean too.

  Josh washed his hands in the kitchen sink, grabbed a Coke from the fridge, and pulled up a chair at the table. He took a bite and made a face.

  “What?”

  “It’s still a little frozen.” He gulped hard, wincing.

  I got up, collected his plate and stuck it in the microwave.

  He wiped his mouth with a napkin and swallowed some soda, looking like he was trying to get the ice crystals from his teeth. “Why don’t we make a deal? While I’m here, I’ll do all the cooking.”

  I shrugged, leaning on the counter. “I’d be offended if I wasn’t so fucking practical.”

  He laughed and his dimples creased. God, he was a good-looking man. I, on the other hand, looked like a bum.

  My guilt response to the attractive male in the house was to make as little effort at looking presentable as humanly possible.

  I had no way of controlling what thoughts about Josh ran through my head. That runaway train had already left the station. But I could control what I projected. My clothes were my outward way of saying, “Nope, not interested,” while internally my imagination was naked and disrespecting my relationship with Tyler in every way possible.

  My hair was in a sloppy pile on my head and I had dressed like I was about to play a mean game of volleyball. I picked the shirt with the hole in the armpit on purpose.

  “Hey, I wanted to ask you for a favor,” Josh said. “Can I use your guest bathroom to take a shower later?”

  Josh, naked in my shower. “Sure.”

  “I’ve got a date, and I don’t want to have to drive home and back.”

  “And do we have Stuntman to thank for this date?” I asked, hoping I sounded adequately unaffected by this news. As I should be. The microwave beeped and I handed him back his plate.

  “You were right. He’s a hunting dog,” he mumbled.

  “What was that? I couldn’t hear you.” I grinned.

  He gave me a sideways smile. “He’s a hunting dog. Are you happy?”

  He’d taken Stuntman to the Home Depot on my challenge and he’d come back saying only, “Let me know when you want to do the photo shoot.”

  He put an exploratory finger into the center of the lasagna, testing the temperature, and seemed satisfied. He put his finger in his mouth to suck the sauce off it and started eating. I put my own plate in the microwave and leaned back on the counter to wait.

  My cell phone pinged.

  Sloan: Are you behaving yourself with your cute carpenter?

  I grinned mischievously.

  Kristen: Nope. He just put a finger in my lasagna.

  Sloan: WTH?!

  I snorted.

  Sloan: Okay, now my eyelid is twitching. Thanks.

  Triggering Sloan’s nervous eye twitch was like hitting the bell on a strongman game. I loved it. You’d think after twelve years she’d be desensitized to my sense of humor, but she never failed to get flustered.

  Sloan: Remember, you can look but you can’t touch. Unless you break up with Tyler

  I narrowed my eyes. She’d love that.

  Kristen: Not a chance.

  Sloan’s prejudices against my boyfriend boiled down to, “I just don’t see it.”

  It wasn’t him and me she couldn’t see. It was him and us.

  I guess I kind of got why. I mean, Tyler didn’t ride a motorcycle. He didn’t hunt. Didn’t care for poker. Preferred an expensive glass of wine to whiskey or beer. Liked theater over movies. Brandon and he had very little to discuss the one time they met except for the Marine Corps, and Tyler’s job was so specialized they couldn’t even really connect on that front.

  Tyler didn’t fit into Sloan’s vision of our future, full of pool parties and barbecues. He was more of a cocktail-party and charcuterie-plate kind of guy.

  I didn’t like charcuterie plates. They always had weird stuff on them.

  I took my lasagna from the microwave and sat down across from Josh.

  “That party is coming up soon,” he said. “Do you mind if I got ready here then too? It’s thirty minutes in the wrong direction if I go home.”

  Sloan had a dinner party planned for stuffing wedding invitations into envelopes and putting together the wedding favors. It was a mandatory bridal party activity and in typical Sloan fashion, she wanted everyone dressed to the nines to take pictures for Inst
agram.

  “Sure. Wanna share an Uber? I want to drink.”

  “Yeah, sounds good.”

  I smiled. I liked that we were going together. Aside from being fodder for my fantasies, Josh bore the distinction of being one of the few people who didn’t annoy me. I liked spending time with him.

  A dangerous circumstance to be sure.

  My cell phone rang and I answered it, leaning over in my chair to grab my order clipboard off the counter. I wrote the order down and hung up.

  Josh gave me an amused smile. “Wow, you’re so different on the phone. So professional.”

  “I only cuss on business calls when I’m upselling my Son of a Bitch and Crazy Little Fucker shirts.”

  Josh chuckled and cut another bite of lasagna with the side of his fork. “What did they order? Any stairs?”

  A part of me hoped he asked because he liked coming over and wanted a reason. That same part of me purposely dropped lasagna on my shirt as penance. If I had one more inappropriate thought about Josh, I was going to have to see if I had some old curlers to put in my hair.

  “He has my stairs in every room of his mansion already,” I said, wiping the red sauce stain with a napkin. “Dale’s my best customer. He’s got six Maltese and millions. He owns a strip club in downtown LA. Spent two years in prison for tax evasion. I love the guy. Every month he orders twenty-four shirts for his dogs. He likes me to deliver them in person.”

  His handsome brow furrowed. “You deliver goods to a felon by yourself?”

  I gave him a cocked eyebrow. “He’s eighty-three. He’s lonely. And how dangerous can an arthritic old man with a ponytail and a dog named Sergeant Fluff McStuffs actually be?”

  He chuckled. “Fluff McStuffs? Do all little dogs have stupid names?” He took a drink of his soda.

  I balled up the saucy napkin and picked up my fork. “You should name any dog according to how it will sound while yelling his name and chasing him down the street in a bathrobe.”

  He laughed so suddenly Coke dribbled down his chin. He choked a moment and I handed him a napkin.