King of the Friend Zone (Power of the Matchmaker)

by Pratt, Sheralyn

  Turning to the room, Hunter raised his glass.

  “So here’s my toast to the happy couple!” he said with mock cheer. “My wedding present to them is that they will have to deal with me as little as possible in the future. I’ll avoid them like the plague, at their request—”

  Esme touched his arm, her voice soft as she said, “Hunter, that isn’t what we asked.”

  “Not what you asked,” he said, plenty loud for everyone to hear as he pulled away from the contact. “But it’s what he asked, and you have his back, so it’s where we are, isn’t it?”

  In all the years Hunter had known Esme, he’d never seen a look on her face like the one she had now. He didn’t have time to study or decipher it, but she wasn’t happy. That was for sure. He looked back out at the group.

  “Now I don’t want you all blaming Jon for calling a spade a spade in all this,” he continued. “I mean, I may not have gone about things like he has if I were in his position, but I get it. I’m a sexy fireman. I probably wouldn’t want me around either. So tonight, in lieu of a toast, I’m going to make a promise.”

  Hunter raised his glass. He was the only one.

  “Jon never wants me to see Esme again, so I’m going to give him a reason for making that demand that all of you can get behind.” He turned and sent a sour smile to Jon. “From this day forward, I promise that every time I see Esme, I’m going to tell her I love her and to choose me. On top of that, if she looks even half way open to it, I’m going to kiss her.”

  That got a few surprised gasps from the peanut gallery. Finally. A reaction. Anything was better than silence.

  “I mean, let’s be real. I’ve wanted to kiss her every day of my life, but never wanted to risk our friendship over an unwelcome kiss. But now that we’re not friends anymore, there’s nothing to lose, right?”

  He raised his glass a little higher. “So a toast to the happy couple. May they get their wish of never crossing paths with me again. Because if they do, well then, things are going to get awkward, aren’t they?”

  No one raised their glass. Hunter’s dad looked mortified and…was his mom crying? Yeah. He was pretty sure she was crying. At least someone was. Once upon not-too-long-ago Hunter would have put money on Esme crying at the thought of not seeing him again, but that was clearly a load of crap.

  She had Jon now. Boring, vanilla-wafer Jon with the seven-figure income and the fancy medical degree—the kind of man Hunter always knew he could never be.

  “To Jon and Esme,” Hunter said then downed the champagne before heading to the exit.

  No one followed him. Not even his own mother. It felt wrong. He’d never felt more alone in his life, and the sensation had him waiting by his truck for a few minutes to see if someone—ideally a certain someone—would feel compelled to follow him and talk.

  But no. No one followed him out. They were all still inside with the happy couple.

  As they should be.

  “Idiot,” he muttered to himself, then got in his truck and drove home.

  Chapter 27

  How. Dare. He?

  Everyone was gone—even the employees. Only two cars were left in the vineyard parking lot, but Esme was still too mad to drive.

  “It’s done,” Jon was saying in that calm doctor voice of his as she paced the pavement. “And as you can see, it’s all for the best. I wasn’t wrong.”

  Esme didn’t know who she was more mad at, Hunter or Jon. But Jon was the one standing in front of her at the moment. “I told you to let me handle him, Jon.”

  “Well, that clearly wasn’t working,” he drawled.

  “It was!” she snapped, barely able to look at him. “We’d dialed everything back. We were doing everything you asked, and he wasn’t fighting it.”

  “Because he wanted to stay close to you,” Jon argued.

  “He was stepping back!” she all but yelled. “We haven’t called or texted in over a week because of you. Do you know how big of a deal that is? Hunter and I have texted every day since texting was invented. He stopped out of respect for us. And then you respond by cornering him and making a demand I specifically told you not make?”

  “I understand why you feel the way you feel, Esme, but I had to do what I feel is best for us.”

  Esme forced herself not to scream in frustration. “My and Hunter’s parents are inseparable, Jon. They do holidays together, and you just made it so now they have to choose which of their kids get invited, or whether they have to split their holidays up now.”

  “For good reason,” Jon snapped back. “You heard Hunter tonight.”

  Yeah. Yeah, she had. Part of her still fell into vertigo when the words looped in her mind, but she couldn’t think about that right then. She had a fiancé to chastise.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We would have figured that out. What you did was incredibly selfish. Not only that, you did it after I specifically told you not to. That doesn’t show me a whole lot of respect, Jon.”

  “It needed to happen,” he said firmly. “It was the right thing to do.”

  Esme squared off across from him and looked him in the eye. “Is anything that breaks my trust the right thing to do?”

  He shook his head. “I should have known you’d take his side on this.”

  Esme barely kept a grip on her temper. “His side? What side is that, Jon?”

  “The side where you drag this out forever until it never gets done.”

  “It was getting done,” she said between her teeth. “As much as I hated it, and as wrong as it felt, it was getting done. I was handling it.”

  “Not from where I was standing. You’ve been acting weird all week.”

  For the first time since she’d met him, Esme wanted to choke Jon—literally choke him. “I know that your training as a doctor encourages you to make bold choices with confidence, but handling delicate situations is my wheelhouse and I’m the one in all of this who is familiar with all the dynamics. I needed you to trust me on this.”

  “All the dynamics?” he countered. “How many times did you swear to me that Hunter wasn’t in love with you?”

  Esme’s mouth opened, but words disappeared as her heart gave an uneven kick in her chest.

  “See? You didn’t know, did you?”

  Had she? She’d definitely thought about it more than once, and there had been months and years of her life when she’d hoped. But had she ever known?

  “Personally, I don’t even know how it’s possible that you didn’t know. That would take some serious blinders, and from what you tell me about your job—”

  “Stop,” Esme said. “If you’re about to insult my ability to do my job based on Hunter, then you need to stop right now.”

  Jon shrugged. “All I’m saying is that it’s your job to see things like this coming. So pardon me if I’m confused that everything happening with Hunter right now is some sort of surprise to you.”

  This fight is over. Get away before either of you crosses a line, a voice in the back of her head kept repeating.

  If clients were talking like this, Esme would be quick to step in and de-escalate. That was one of the purposes of a third party with no stakes in the game. When words started flying like this between her clients, Esme’s job was to anchor them all back down into relevant points that could be discussed rationally.

  But she and Jon didn’t have a third party around to intervene, which meant the only other way to de-escalate what was happening between them was for one of them to concede or leave.

  And Esme really didn’t feel like conceding.

  Yes, doing so would keep the peace, but she and Jon hadn’t earned that quite yet.

  “You realize I have to talk to him,” Esme said, sending Jon a searching look. “To Hunter.”

  He grew very still. “Are you serious? After tonight? After everything he said?”

  “Yes,” Esme said without apology. “You can thank yourself for that. If we would have done this my way, the closure wo
uld have happened organically, but now we’re dealing with a blunt-force trauma instead.”

  “Hunter is a big boy and he can work through that with other people at his side. He doesn’t need you.”

  “Have you ever thought that I need to see him?” Esme said carefully. “Have you stopped to think that this is my best friend we’re talking about, and that I’m not the kind of person who can sleep at night knowing someone is hurting because of me?”

  Jon’s expression softened as he reached out. “I know it’s hard, but—”

  “But nothing,” Esme said over him. “You made an executive decision to do something despite me specifically asking you not to. You don’t get to choose how I react to that, and you don’t get to choose what I do next. Do you understand?”

  “No,” Jon said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “If you go see him now, Esme, he’s going to proposition you.”

  “Are you saying that you don’t think I can handle myself if he does?”

  “No—”

  “Then what?” Esme challenged. “Believe it or not, I’m less happy with him than I am with you right now, and I think we both know that if you propositioned me right now the only thing you’d get is a solid slap.”

  That point seemed to hit home with him, so at least that was something.

  “I know this is all cut and dry in your mind, Jon, but Hunter was right about one thing. There’s twenty-seven years of history here, and he deserves way more than a harsh cut-off delivered by you behind my back. I don’t care how you feel about Hunter, he deserves better than that.”

  “So let his mom console him—”

  “No!” Esme all but yelled. “You’re not hearing me. I need this. Me. Not Hunter. Me. I need to treat my friends better than this, and you need to learn that about me before you decide that Luke needs to go or Ash needs to go.”

  “Those guys aren’t in love with you,” he argued and Esme shrugged.

  “That’s what you think today, but maybe someday down the line, you’ll change your mind. Then what? Am I going to see a repeat of this disaster, or are you going to trust me?”

  When he hesitated in his response, Esme shook her head.

  “See? You don’t trust me, and that’s a problem, Jon. A big, big problem.”

  “I trust you.”

  “You do?”

  He sighed. “Of course I do.”

  “Prove it,” she said, grabbing her keys and her purse. “Go home while I go talk to Hunter.”

  “Esme—”

  “I’m not asking your permission,” she said firmly. “I’m telling you. I’m going to find Hunter and we’re going to talk—not kiss or start dating—talk. Because I need it. Understand?”

  It couldn’t be more clear that Jon wasn’t done arguing, but he seemed to be catching on to the fact that she wasn’t negotiating on this. He fidgeted with something in his pocket for a moment, jaw set and eyes narrowed, as he processed what she was saying. Then he pulled out his keys and walked around to open the driver side door.

  “I guess I can’t stop you,” he said before getting in and pulling out of the vineyard without another word.

  Well, that had ended about as well as possible, considering the circumstances.

  Esme took several slow, calming breaths, waiting until his taillights were long gone before getting in her car and driving away herself.

  Chapter 28

  DARYL

  Esme:

  Sorry to bug you

  so late, but any clue

  as to where I can

  find Hunter?

  Daryl:

  Haven’t seen him today.

  Gym?

  Esme:

  I went by. It’s dark.

  Daryl:

  Then I’ve got nothing.

  Good luck!

  LUKE

  Esme:

  Hey, Luke. Is Hunter

  with you?

  Luke:

  Keeping it real? I

  don’t know if I should

  respond to this.

  Esme:

  So you know where

  to find him?

  Luke:

  I plead the 5th.

  Esme:

  I need to talk to him.

  Luke:

  …That’s not a good idea

  right now.

  Esme:

  Please?

  Luke:

  He says the two of you

  have nothing to talk about

  and he hopes you enjoy

  eating vanilla wafers for the

  rest of your life. (???)

  Esme:

  Is he drunk?

  Luke:

  No. Just really, really mad.

  It’s not a good time. I say

  that as your friend.

  Esme:

  Objection noted. That

  said, I repeat my request.

  Where can I find him?

  Tell me, or I’ll haunt

  you all night.

  Luke:

  Fine.

  He says you know where to

  meet him.

  He’ll be there in 10.

  Chapter 29

  Hunter was sitting on the edge of the grass at the Palace of Fine Arts, his truck ten or so feet behind him as if he was ready to make an escape at any moment. Esme was still a ways off when he spotted her coming, but he didn’t move or acknowledge her in any way. He just sat there.

  It shouldn’t have been awkward to sit next to him. It was. Still, she acted like it was any other day as she breathed out a, “So…”

  “So,” he repeated.

  “That happened,” she added.

  “It did.”

  Esme shook her head. “What a mess.”

  Hunter shrugged.

  “Why didn’t you wait to really talk to me about what Jon said? You had to know it was him overstepping and overreacting. I’d never cut you out like that, Hunter.”

  He kept his eyes on the grass. “You had his back on every overreaction up to that point.”

  He had a point. Still… “So you decided to pick up everything you could find and throw it into the metaphorical fan to create a maximum mess out of all of this?”

  “Ruffling feathers is my gift.”

  Esme didn’t want to chuckle, but she did. A little. “Well, you outdid yourself this time.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment.”

  “I don’t care.”

  For several awkward seconds they sat next to each other in silence before she stated the obvious. “I’m mad at you right now.”

  “Yeah? Sounds like a personal problem.”

  A classic Hunter brush-off. Esme knew how to deal with those. You plowed right through. “We need to talk.”

  “No. We really don’t. I’ve said all I need to say.”

  “Is that why you won’t look at me?” Esme asked, leaning forward to catch his eye. He kept his eyes locked on whatever blade of grass he currently found fascinating.

  “I don’t regret it,” he said after a while.

  “Regret what?”

  “The toast. Saying I love you. Any of it,” Hunter said before taking a deep breath. “I’m so mad that I can’t even look at you, but I’m glad that at least now you know.”

  The vertigo was back, twisting her stomach as she gripped onto the grass to anchor herself. She let out a shaky breath. “You…meant that?”

  “Of course I did, Ez. I wouldn’t lie about something like that just to be dramatic.”

  Of course he wouldn’t. She knew that. But…love? She blinked, fighting back the lightheadedness that seemed to wash over her. “How come you never told me?”

  Hunter chuckled bitterly. “Are you kidding? Are you forgetting how well I know you, or the infinite number of times I had to sit through you and Ali and Stacey and Grace or whoever else talking about your dream men and your hearth throbs?”

  Yeah. Actually, she kind of did…but maybe for different r
easons than Hunter did.

  “You like men who are well-read,” Hunter offered. “I’m dyslexic. You like men who are educated; I barely squeaked through high school. You like men who have money so they won’t marry you for yours; I’m a fireman. You like dark and mysterious looks; I have blond hair and blue eyes. Shall I go on?”

  Yes, Esme had said all those things. And yes, she’d said them to get under Hunter’s skin because he was always such a cocky pain. He needed someone to take him down a few notches and remind him that every girl wasn’t his for the taking. Never once had he appeared to take her words to heart, though. He’d always used whatever Esme said to get the leverage on another girl in the group who would coyly declare that she preferred brawn over brains and didn’t care if a man could read or not.

  Then he’d go make out with that girl while Esme pretended she was totally fine with it.

  It was totally cool. Whoever Hunter kissed was none of her business. That’s what she always told herself whenever she saw Hunter with a flushed-faced girl.

  “Hunter…”

  “You want a man with an 8-to-5 job,” he continued. “Something low-risk where he clocks in and clocks out, and you don’t have to worry if he’s coming home or not. You want a man who has traveled the world and maybe even speaks a couple of languages. You want a man whose idea of a vacation is a leisurely tour of France’s wine country where you sip and lounge and relax. You want an equal, and that isn’t me, Ez.”

  “Hunter, you’re a great guy!” she said out of reflex.

  “Sure,” he agreed. “Just nothing you want. So what are you doing here, Ez? Jon can’t be happy you’re here since he knows I’m going to tell you I love you and to choose me.”

  Okay. Maybe she had been less ready to hear those words come out of his mouth again than she’d anticipated. Suddenly it was like she could feel her heart beat in her brain and her throat was dry. She did her best to ignore it.