King of the Friend Zone (Power of the Matchmaker)

by Pratt, Sheralyn

  “We’re both better than Jon,” Hunter muttered. “I’m just so mad at Esme for not seeing through him. She’s smarter than that.”

  “Like you’re smart enough not to fixate on something you can’t change, right?”

  Hunter grunted, staring out the window and trying not to punch it. “I don’t even know what ‘stay busy’ really means.”

  “Focus elsewhere,” Luke said. “Especially on stuff you’ve given up on because of Esme. Do that stuff. Remember that everything good in your life doesn’t come from her, and some things are actually better without her.”

  Hunter shook his head. “What does it say about me that I can’t even think of one thing when you say that?”

  Luke shrugged. “You like surfing. When was the last time you went?”

  That was actually a good question.

  “Go surfing,” Luke suggested. “Start there and see where it leads you.”

  Huh. Why hadn’t Hunter thought of that? Next day off, he was making the trip.

  Chapter 40

  “I’m going to be in DC at least another week,” Esme said into her laptop’s camera. “Minimum.”

  On her screen, Jon frowned. “Can’t you telecommute? Why do you need to be on site?”

  “Because there are too many ways this can go wrong,” she replied. “I need to stay here to run interference.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  Esme shrugged. “Well, I don’t like that you look at other women’s breasts all day, but I’m dealing.”

  He shook his head. “One has nothing to do with the other, Esme. I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too,” she said in reflex. “But this is my job, and sometimes trips like this happen. Not often, but they do happen.”

  “I thought it was your job to stop this stuff from happening.”

  She bit her tongue, careful to respond to his words and not his tone. “I do a lot of preemptive things to try to stop things like this from happening, but what I’m doing now is actually what’s in the contract. It’s my job to make sure this controversy doesn’t result in the company folding.”

  “And that’s going to take a week?”

  “At a minimum,” Esme said.

  He appeared to process that. “I guess I really don’t understand what you do.”

  She tried for a lighter tone. “I’ll walk you through it any time.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Well, I guess since you’re not going to be here tonight, as planned, I’ll find something else to do.”

  If that was his attempt at a guilt trip, he was going to have to work harder than that. Esme’s skin wasn’t that thin.

  “Sure,” Esme said, ignoring his self-pity. “Go out with the guys. Have some fun.”

  Jon’s unreadable face looked at her on the screen.

  “I’m serious,” she said. “You deserve it.”

  “Go out with the guys?” he repeated, his voice flat. “Have fun? Are you sure you’re talking to the right boyfriend right now?”

  Esme bit back the first words to come to mind as her temper flared. After all she’d done, there was no way she was letting him get away with low blows like that.

  “And with that, we’re done,” she said, reaching for her mouse and positioning the cursor to end the call. “Good night, Jon.”

  Maybe he said good night, maybe he didn’t. Esme honestly didn’t care so long as he didn’t hear the next words out of her mouth after she disconnected.

  Sometimes a little bit of space wasn’t a bad thing. At least that’s what she told herself as she flung herself onto the hotel bed and did her best to focus on Roger’s problems instead of her own.

  Chapter 41

  Luke was right. It had been way too long since Hunter had gone surfing. Santa Cruz was only a ninety-minute drive from San Francisco, but he hadn’t made the trip in months. Things always popped up to keep him in town…things that usually started with a phone call or a text from Esme.

  But, as Luke had pointed out, those were a thing of the past. Hunter’s schedule was now wide open for surfing.

  The beach was as good as it ever was with the post-Labor Day crowds. Kids were back in school and family vacations were over. It didn’t leave the beach empty by any means, but he wasn’t tripping over a different Disney character towel every other step when he arrived, either.

  The blissful fatigue of overworked muscles had Hunter riding to shore to re-fuel. A gallon of water, a few sandwiches, and about thirty minutes of resting in the sun should get him ready for round two.

  Man, he missed the beach. Yes, San Francisco technically had beaches, but Hunter considered them more to be death traps. Rescue calls to the ocean were often the most depressing. People saved up all year for a vacation, only to show up, be naïve, and die for it. If Hunter never worked another call like that again, that would be just fine.

  Of course, those kinds of calls happened everywhere there was a beach, but at least in Southern California people had fun before they got into trouble. In San Francisco things pretty much went from bad idea to bad result in a matter of minutes with no fun in between. When most people thought of beaches, they thought of getting in the water. They thought of other water they’d spent time in and reasoned that standing knee-deep in a beach in San Francisco was safe and peachy.

  It wasn’t. The water in the San Francisco Bay was its own special beast—a siren that called, then tried to pull you out to sea and keep you. Hunter would take Santa Cruz any day. He’d even take the polluted Venice Beach over San Francisco. The water might be gross, but it wasn’t overtly trying to kill you.

  In fact, now that Hunter was thinking about it, he couldn’t really think of many reasons at all to stay in San Francisco now that Esme was out of the picture.

  Maybe he should move.

  The idea occurred to Hunter as he picked his board up out of the water and made his way to his towel. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought about moving, but it was the first time he hadn’t dismissed the idea outright.

  He loved the sun. He loved the beach. He loved not wearing a jacket in the middle of summer. He loved surfing. There really wasn’t anything he didn’t like about Southern California outside of the traffic, but he had to deal with that in San Fran too, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. Only one thing had kept him in San Francisco over the years, and that was no longer in the mix. Well, she was no longer in the mix; the feelings that had kept him there still were.

  So stupid.

  But maybe distance was the answer.

  Yes, he would miss the guys at the station and his side work with Luke, but he’d still see everyone. His parents lived in San Francisco so it wasn’t like he wouldn’t come back all the time. He’d still keep in contact with everyone that mattered.

  Luke would survive without him or find someone else to help. Daryl was madly in love and spending more and more time with Kambri, so the timing was pretty much perfect there. That left Shauna and kids like Kenny she sometimes brought his way. But there were other guys at the gym who could pick up the reins on that. Hunter certainly didn’t have any type of special touch with at-risk youth that any other person on the planet couldn’t replace or improve upon.

  He could move. He could really move, and everything would be totally fine. He could become a beach bum on his days off and walk around the city with a 0% chance of running into Esme or the memories that filled nearly every place he went back home.

  I’d be free, he thought, resting his board in the sand next to his towel. He’d have a clean slate. He could start over.

  The thought speared him through the heart even as he knew it was the right thing to do. Not only could he start over, he needed to start over.

  “Hunter?” a female voice called right as he reached for his cooler.

  Hunter tensed. Who in the world knew him in Santa Cruz?

  He was tempted to ignore the woman—whoever she was—but the tap on his shoulder and the repeat of his name pretty much made it impossible. Wh
en he turned around, he saw a very familiar face—not because he saw it on the local news every day, but because the woman happened to be Esme’s best friend.

  “Hey, Grace,” he said before his eyes landed on the man standing behind her. Her husband, Ash. Hunter had met the guy a few times and so far he hadn’t found a reason to hate him. But today was a new day, full of possibilities.

  “What are the chances, huh?” Grace said with a smile. “We all live in San Fran and have to come all the way down here to cross paths.”

  “What are the chances?” Hunter repeated. Some sarcasm slipped through and he chose not to care. “What brings you two down here?”

  Grace jerked a thumb at Ash. “My man here insists that I’ll like surfing, but so far I’m having more fun watching him. I’d rather work on my tan.”

  At the mention of a tan, Hunter’s eyes moved down to see Grace was wearing a bikini under a half-transparent cover-up, and he brought his eyes right back. Ash let him know that he’d caught the glance…and was letting it slide. This time.

  Hunter cleared his throat and decided it was best not to comment on Grace’s tan as he met her eyes and said, “To each their own, I guess.”

  Grace nodded. “Esme tried to teach me to surf a few times, but I always managed to derail the situation before we ever actually got boards to a beach.”

  Part of Hunter had been waiting for Grace to bring up her best friend. It only made sense. Esme was one of the few people they knew in common. Of course she would bring her up.

  That didn’t mean Hunter knew how to respond.

  “For the record, I’ve been cheering for you all along,” Grace said with a hint of pity in her eyes, and Hunter felt himself bristle.

  “Yeah? Are you a Red Sox fan, too?”

  Behind Grace, Ash laughed at the joke while Grace’s face stayed thoughtful.

  “It’s kind of funny how you can’t see things clearly when you’re standing right in the middle of them,” she mused. “That was me not too long ago, and Esme saved me from being an idiot. I was with a man who was ‘safe’ but who didn’t really fill my soul, and Esme helped me see things for what they were.”

  “That’s nice,” Hunter said, picking up his water and taking a big drink. Maybe if he drank long enough Grace would get the hint and leave.

  Or maybe she would wait him out.

  When he recapped the bottle, Grace was watching him. “We both know you love her. That toast you gave was insanely romantic.”

  “It was humiliating.”

  “Potato, poh-tah-toh,” Ash muttered, and Hunter actually smiled for a second. But only for a second.

  Grace ignored them both. “What I see, that neither of you seem to see, is that she loves you back. I’ve known she loves you since the day I met her back in college.”

  Hunter used grabbing a sandwich as an excuse not to make eye contact as he answered. “Sure, she loves me. She’s just in love with Jon.”

  Grace shook her head. “No. She’s in love with you and sold on the idea of Jon.”

  “Uh-huh,” Hunter drawled. “Is that why she got engaged to him in record time?”

  “Yes,” Grace said as if it should be obvious. “That’s exactly why. He crosses off everything on the movie-boyfriend checklist, and she’s had the added bonus of you being there as a boyfriend supplement up until a few weeks ago. So of course everything looked perfect on her side. There was no concrete reason to say ‘no’ to Jon’s proposal at the time it was offered, so she didn’t.”

  Hunter unwrapped his first sandwich and took a bite. “If you say so.”

  “I do,” Grace said in a tone that let Hunter know she wasn’t walking away anytime soon. She had her piece to say and she was going to say it.

  Might as well get it over with. Grace could talk, he could eat, and when all the sandwiches and words were gone, they could both go their separate ways and never have this conversation again. It was as close to a win as he was going to get since Grace was already on her soap box talking.

  “Now that you’re out of Esme’s life, she’s going to catch up with the rest of the class pretty quickly. She’s already started.”

  “Not likely,” Hunter said, taking another bite.

  “Inevitable,” Grace countered, her dark eyes watching him closely.

  “Hon,” Ash said, reaching for her hand. “Maybe we should—”

  “No,” she said, brushing her husband’s hand away. “I owe Esme when it comes to this, so I’m going to be nosy and awkward right now.”

  Behind her, Ash gave Hunter a shrug of helplessness and Hunter shrugged right back. If there was one thing Esme had taught him it was that if you wanted peace, sometimes you had to let a woman say her piece. Ash had tried to step in and run interference. Hunter appreciated that, but he just needed to ride this one out until Grace got everything out of her system.

  “So tell me how you see this whole mess,” Hunter said to Grace.

  Grace’s dark eyes bored into him, making him feel a bit like a kid again. “The mistake I’ve seen you make over all the years is giving Esme the excuse to not take you seriously. She’s never seen you apply yourself to dating. She’s only seen you be cold and push women away, which is enough to feed her fears that you would do the exact same thing to her if she put herself out there.”

  “That’s stupid,” Hunter said out of reflex. “She knows she’s different. I would never treat her like that.”

  “And therein lies your second mistake,” Grace said sagely. “You do treat her differently, but in a way that lets her take you for granted every step of the way. No offense, Hunter, but you’re kind of like a loyal dog that comes whenever she calls yet snarls at everyone who isn’t her.”

  “That’s…” maybe a little true, he conceded silently.

  “Whatever level of game you have with women, she’s never seen it, which has given her all the time in the world to tell herself that any romantic thoughts related to you are unrealistic. You trained her to look elsewhere for that, which is why Jon is in her life right now.”

  “But Jon is the kind of man she wants,” Hunter argued.

  “She doesn’t know what she wants because she’s never really been without the things she wants,” Grace replied, and Hunter had to admit that he liked the way she was talking. It made him preen a bit.

  But that didn’t make her right.

  “Look, I appreciate the words of hope and inspiration, but Esme’s made her choice, Grace. It’s my job to respect that. Just like you’d want Ash to respect your decision if you decided to break up and move on.”

  Grace’s mouth fell open, her expression aghast. “Are you kidding? If I walked away from Ash, I would expect him to fight tooth and nail to get me back. I’d want him to fight dirty, move heaven and earth, and destroy the competition until I had no choice but to kiss him silly. Because if he’s not going to fight for me, why in the world would I want to give him another chance?”

  Huh. Hunter had never thought of it that way before. But still, his situation wasn’t the same.

  “But you’d only want that if you were still in love with him. If you weren’t, you’d want him to disappear like Jon and Esme want me to disappear.”

  “Jon,” Grace said with force. “Jon wants you gone. Not Esme. Esme is teetering close to a breakdown.”

  Hunter highly doubted that, but it didn’t mean the thought of her losing it a bit without him didn’t make his heart pound a little faster.

  “I’m telling you that if you made a show of moving on and having fun without her, she would lose her mind outright and come running.”

  Hunter shook his head. “Women. Always about the subversive tactics, aren’t you?”

  She didn’t look the slightest bit offended. “Yes! We use them on men because they work on us. A lot of men never pick up on that, but it’s true. The whole world of romance would be a lot less complicated if men learned to be a little more covert and women learned to be a lot more direct.”

  “
Like you’re being right now,” Hunter muttered.

  “Exactly,” Grace said with a smile and Hunter sent a look to Ash.

  “You have your hands full with this one, don’t you?” he said and Ash smiled.

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said with a smile that had his wife visibly swooning.

  The dude was smooth. Hunter had to give him that.

  “You could push Esme’s buttons so easily right now,” Grace continued, as if they hadn’t said anything. “Go on a few dates to places where she has memories with you and post pics of you having fun. It will drive her insane.”

  Hunter finished his sandwich, talking around the final bite as he chewed. “And why would I want to drive her insane?”

  “Because then she’ll have to think about why she’s being insane.”

  Hunter looked from Grace to Ash. “Does this make sense to you?”

  The other guy shrugged. “Women do this stuff to each other all day long. It’s how they get each other’s attention, and also why they flip out when we” —he threw up some air quotes—“‘ignore’ it when they do it to us. But things like knowing someone they’re at odds with is having fun with new people really gets under a woman’s skin.”

  Grace nodded her head emphatically. “You should be going to all of your favorite places with the hottest people you can find and posting the pictures all over social media.”

  “But I don’t do social media,” Hunter argued. “She’ll know it’s fake.”

  “No,” Grace argued. “She’ll know that she was never able to get you to use social media—despite her best efforts—but that somehow your new group of friends got you onboard overnight.”

  “That’s stupid. She’ll see right through it.”

  “She’ll be too annoyed to see through it,” Grace argued. “Right now she feels guilty because she knows she hurt you. What you need to do is make her realize how much she is hurting by taking guilt off the table.”