by Lacey Black
“Where’d ya go? I didn’t see ya at the beach,” I ask, taking a drink of the water the young waitress slides in front of me. She gives me a coy grin, which is rewarded with a wink that makes her giggle, before heading off to her next table.
“I don’t know how you do it. You’ve got more pussy lined up than anyone I know,” he says, shaking his head and watching the waitress walk off.
“Anyway, last night?” I redirect, not wanting to discuss the tail I get or could get.
“Headed up to Lucky’s before I was gonna show at the beach. Brenna was there in that fucking skirt the same size as an Ace bandage, which told me one thing: she was on the prowl. Heard that dick she was seeing left again, so I bought her a drink. One turned to five, which turned into a BJ in the bathroom before I took her home and rocked her world half the night. There was tequila and body shots somewhere along the way, and damn if I’m not hurtin’ this morning.”
The giggly waitress comes back a few moments later to take our order. I’m ready to order my standard when I think about that chicken wrap that Abby always gets. “Grilled chicken, bacon, and ranch wrap with onion rings, please.” Tuck notices my odd choice and raises his eyebrow my way.
When the waitress is done lingering at the table, she heads back to put in our order. “Abby’s rubbing off on you,” he says, his look pointed and direct.
“It looked good last time we were here so I thought I’d give it a try.”
“Mmmmhmmm,” he says, taking another drink of water.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Just that you and Abby seem to spend a lot of time together.”
“We’re friends,” I remind him.
“You and I are friends. Guys and girls can’t be friends, at least not for very long.”
“I’ve been friends with her for fifteen fucking years, dude.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a freak of nature. Anyone else in your shoes would have bagged her by now.”
“Don’t fucking say that. I’m not bagging Abby, nor will I.”
“But you want to,” he says, causing me to choke on air. “Oh, come on, Levi. I’ve seen the way you look at her when you don’t think anyone is watching. You’d make a shitty spy, brother.”
“I don’t look at Abby like that,” I retort, but know it’ll fall on deaf ears. Plus, I’m not really sure I can argue his point. These weird images of Abby and me together have popped up in my head a lot lately, and they’re seriously fucking with me.
“You do. Why don’t you just take her out for real?”
Closing my eyes, I let them drop down to the tabletop. “I can’t. She’s seriously the best thing in my life. I need her to be a part of it, man, and if I take it to the next level, I’ll fuck it all up. Then where would I be? Without her in my life at all, that’s where.”
“So just mess around with her. Like a friends with benefits deal,” he suggests, and I instantly want to punch him.
“Does she look like the friends with benefits type? Besides, Abby’s too good for that shit. I don’t want to play games with her or hurt her, and that’s what I’d end up doing. I’d hurt her, and I won’t do that.” I’ll just keep her tucked away in the friends category until this pesky crush thing I’ve developed is over.
Easy peasy.
God, I sound like her.
“Well, if you’re not gonna screw her, mind if I do? Her ass is fucking fantastic.”
And just like that, I see red. I actually lunge across the table at my friend, ready to throw five years of friendship down the drain, and all because he talked about Abby’s ass like it was his next meal and he was starved.
His laughter permeates my muddled thoughts. “That’s what I thought. Dude, just take her out. Quit fighting the feelings that I know you have, or you’ll end up losing her to some douche who treats her like a fucking princess. Then where will you be? You think she’ll need you in her life as much when she’s got a man who worships the ground she walks on?”
The thought causes the stone in my stomach to drop to my toes. It’s almost painful to think about her with someone else, but I refuse to put myself in the place of that man. Because, in the end, I’ll only hurt her like I do everyone. I’m no good for her, but she has no idea how much I need her in my life. She’s the sun, the moon, and the fucking stars. She’s beauty and goodness.
She’s mine.
But she’s not.
“Whatever,” I mumble as my wrap is placed in front of me.
“Just think about it, man. I’m not saying you have to propose to the girl or anything, but I really do think you’re making a mistake by not trying to see if there’s anything between you guys.”
I nod in consensus and dive into my food, the entire time thinking about my beautiful best friend who’d be eating this exact meal right now if she were here. Thinking of her makes my heart beat faster and the food I’m consuming turn sour in my stomach. I wish there were an easy answer to this dilemma I find myself in, but there’s not. I won’t risk my friendship with her, even if that means she finds someone else who treats her like the amazing woman she is.
But that image just makes me angry.
See my predicament? It’s like a double-edged sword. On one end, I have a woman I’d be lucky enough to call my own. But if things went south with the relationship, then I’d be without my friend. On the other end, I maintain my friendship and risk losing her to another man. At least with that option I’d still have her in my life.
Basically, either way, I’m fucked.
* * *
I pull the taco dip out of the fridge and get ready to head over to Abby’s place. I texted her earlier and told her I had chicken wings in the cooker and whipped up taco dip with fresh guacamole. To finish off the meal, I threw some cookie dough in the oven and baked her fresh chocolate chip cookies.
Her text reply was instantaneous and said that I could come over anytime. I almost dropped everything and went over right then and there, but decided to wait until I got laundry finished. I’m on the schedule Monday night, so tomorrow will involve me catching as much sleep as I can during the day to get ready for the night shift.
There’s a baseball game on my TV, but it’s mostly just background noise. I glance at the score every now and again, but I haven’t been able to sit down and watch more than a few batters at a time.
As I switch my last load from the washer to the dryer, I find myself humming along to the song that reminds me of a certain brunette. She sang along with me last night while I was on stage, and smiled widely when I gave her the acknowledgement that always comes at the end of the song.
Abby actually has the voice of an angel. I’ll never forget the first time I actually heard her sing. She blew me away at the age of ten. I’ve tried to get her to sing with me on stage, but she won’t. Hell no, not my shy, sweet little Abby. She’ll belt it out when it’s just the two of us messing around, but the thought of singing in front of people, on stage, terrifies her.
That’s another thing that’s just hers and mine. I’ll play guitar and she’ll sing with me. I actually recorded her one time with my phone. I got about two minutes worth of video before she caught me. Her face at the end, a mixture of horror and excitement, has kept me company on nights that I’m working late and missing her. I could probably call her and she wouldn’t mind, but I refuse to do that in the middle of the night, even if she works from home and sets her own hours. Instead, I pull out that video and watch her sing, eyes closed and swaying to the silent music that isn’t there because I stopped playing to grab my phone.
That’s between the two of us, though. Don’t you fucking say a word, okay? No one besides her knows I took that video, and I told her I deleted it. But I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
It’s almost four when I gather up my bags and get ready to head across the hall. Locking my door, I balance a grocery bag of food, a platter of dip, plate of cookies, and the small cooker with honey barbeque glazed chicken wings.
I look like your typical twenty-five year old Betty Crocker.
I don’t even knock, just let myself in like always. “Hey!” I holler as I kick the door closed and head into the kitchen. “Why was your door unlocked?” I don’t get an answer, but instead hear giggling. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say the laughter is coming from either Lexi or AJ.
Walking from the kitchen, I head towards the hallway. The layout is the exact same as mine, except the mirror opposite. The first door on the left is the bathroom, which is empty. The door across the hall is the master bedroom. I stop and glance inside, and even though I’ve seen it before – hell, I’ve slept in it before – it makes my dick take notice of the big bed.
Embarrassment courses through me as I realize I’m getting a full-on chubby staring at my best friend’s bed. The pillows that cradle her head, the blankets that slide along her porcelain skin, shit it’s all there, flashing before me like the start of a porno.
Quickly, I clear my throat and head to the last door, the one for the second bedroom. In my apartment, it houses my small weights and a twin sized bed for a spare. It’s the same bed that Jessa slept in last night. Abby’s other room serves as her office. Since she works from home for a big publishing company, she transformed that space into her home away from home during the day.
Inside, I find my girl–no, my friend–sitting at her desk with two brunette heads bent down and looking at something over her shoulder.
“Oh my God, Abs, look at that one! I think that’s a bong he’s holding in his profile pic,” AJ says, causing Lexi to laugh and Abby to groan.
“Gross,” Abby says. “Wait look at this one.”
“Oh, he screams bad boy. Click him,” Lexi exclaims.
“His ears are pierced. A lot,” Abby says.
“I bet he has other things pierced too,” AJ chimes in.
“Hey, don’t knock piercings. Some of them are really…effective,” Lexi quips with a smirk, making me do a double take at my girl’s twin. Shit, there I go again. My friend’s twin.
“There’s a story there, I can tell. Spill,” AJ directs.
“Motorcycle boy in high school had a piercing,” she whispers conspiratorially before giggling.
“Really?” Abby asks curiously, turning towards her sister with a cute little blush. Her hair is different. Even through profile view, I can see it’s lighter, with a caramel colored highlight blended through.
“Oh, yeah. They’re…nice,” Lexi adds with a wink.
Choking on air, I do everything I can to hold in my own laughter. Unfortunately, I’m unsuccessful and three sets of eyes glance over at my position in the doorway. “What are you ladies doing?” I ask, stepping into the room.
Abby looks guilty, while her sisters look amused.
“Internet dating!” AJ exclaims, gleefully.
“You’re gonna try that crap? I would have thought you wouldn’t waste your time and energy on that bullshit, AJ,” I say, stepping up behind Abby. My nose instantly catches a whiff of her shampoo. It takes everything I have not to bend down and run my nose along her scalp.
“Not me, big guy,” AJ teases with a knowing smile. “Abby.”
Abby’s trying Internet dating? My Abby? The earth stops moving on its axis at this startling revelation. Air is sucked from the room by some invisible vacuum. I might even be stroking out right now; my heart is beating so fast and furiously in my chest. My Abby? Internet dating?
What. The. Fuck?
Chapter Five
Abby
Lexi called AJ before we were even finished at the salon and invited her to join us at my place. Apparently, if I was gonna give this whole Internet dating thing a try, I was gonna do it with the help from two of my sisters.
“First things first. We need to settle on which site. Here’s a list of some of the popular ones,” AJ says as she keys in sites into my Internet browser.
The first thing I notice is the sheer quantity of sites she’s pulling up. There’s general dating ones, ones particularly for the wealthy, even sites for finding country boys and cowboys. It’s almost overwhelming right off the bat, and I haven’t even started the process of setting up my profile.
“I’ve already told her we’d use PerfectDate.com,” Lexi tells our older sister.
“That’s a really good one, and from what I’ve found there’s quite a few singles on the site from our area. Not just Jupiter Bay but also Ridgewood and other towns that are within a short drive,” AJ says, inputting that site into the browser next.
“What about this one?” I ask, pointing to one with a catchy name.
“No, you don’t want that site, Abs. That one’s nothing but a bunch of people looking for hookups and sending dick pics,” she says, waving her hand.
“Maybe I want that,” I say shyly, unable to stop the blush.
“Not those kind. The men on there whipping out their dicks aren’t the good ones you actually want to see. Trust me,” she says.
“Why did you bring it up if you aren’t going to let her use it,” Lexi asks, chastising our sister.
“I had a profile on there once, but I was getting hookup requests from just as many women as I was men, so I deactivated my profile.”
“That’s what all of these are? These are ones you’ve tried?” I ask, shocked because, my goodness, there’s a lot of them.
“Not all of them, but some. I kept a list though and would try a new one if I wasn’t getting many results on one of the others.”
“Wow, there’s a lot to this, huh?” Worry suddenly creeps up my spine. Maybe Dad’s right and I shouldn’t do this. There are a lot of crazies out there.
“Don’t get all nervous now, Abs. I won’t let you get into trouble. Dating sites can be perfectly safe and effective at finding your true match,” she says with a smile.
“And how’d that work out for you?” Lexi asks, a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
“Still a work in progress,” AJ mumbles before bringing up the site we agreed to use.
She gets up from my office chair and points. “Sit. First thing we need to do is create your profile. Then, we’ll help you sort through the frogs until you find a prince.”
Turning to face the monitor, I move the cursor until it’s hovering over the words Sign Up. Do I really want to do this? Images of Crystal’s arms and legs wrapped around Levi last night flash through my mind, unwanted and unedited. I’ll never get the picture of the other woman exiting his apartment in the early morning out of my head either. They both keep repeating over and over again, reminding me that I’ll never be what he’s looking for.
I’ll never be who he wants.
So this is the best way for me to squash this little crush I’ve developed on my best friend once and for all. I’ll find someone who enjoys watching cheesy 80’s rom-com movies and eat caramel corn with me, and finally be able to spend time with Levi without the butterflies fluttering in my belly.
Except that Levi likes watching those cheesy movies and the popcorn is always his idea. So maybe I start watching something else. No biggy. I can do this. For my own sanity, I have to try.
I. Can. Do. This.
I create my profile with all of my personal information, as well as my credit card details. Now comes the fun part. Glancing at both of my sisters, they’re anxiously chomping at the bit to jump in and help me write the perfect profile that’ll attract men aged twenty-five to thirty-five in the Jupiter Bay area.
“Profile name,” I say aloud.
“Don’t use your name. Everyone uses nicknames or sexual innuendos like Super69 or BigDaddyDic,” AJ states.
“BigDaddyDic? Why would you want to date someone named that?” I ask.
“Why wouldn’t you?” Lexi retorts with a snort.
I type in the first thing that comes to mind. AngelEyes. I keep my eyes on the monitor and to the next category so that I can’t see the judgment on my sisters’ faces. Occupation? Editor.
“No one uses their real occupation, Abs,” L
exi says.
“You just have to embellish it a bit more. Like a fast food worker might call themselves a culinary expert or a chef extraordinaire.”
“Really? People really lie about their careers?” I ask, flabbergasted at the idea.
“Of course they do! People lie about everything on these things. I mean, I bet sixty percent of the profile pics aren’t even of themselves,” AJ adds.
“Then what’s the point?” I ask. “Why do all of this if the person you’re talking to isn’t even the person you think they are?”
“Listen, Abs, this is great practice for you,” Lexi says. “You want experience at dating and this will get you that.”
“Yes. Your first goal is to set up a profile. Next, we’ll take the quiz, which will help narrow down guys who have the same interests as you. Then, we’ll scan through the guys and see if anyone draws your interest. From there, you strike up conversations,” AJ instructs.
“No talking about romance novels, though,” Lexi adds.
“Right. And Levi. You can’t talk about your male best friend when you’re trying to attract a new male into your life,” AJ says.
So begins the process of setting myself up on a dating site. I answer the questions in the quiz as truthful as possible, even though Tweedledee and Tweedledum are chirping in my ear, trying to make me sound better than I am. The thing they may not realize is that I really am that boring and lame.
After the quiz, PerfectDate.com has matched me up with fourteen potential date candidates. Together, we set out to find out if my future someone is in the mix.
The first two are nixed right away. The first, someone with hair longer than my own. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but it’s just not for me. The second had a culinary expert listed as his occupation, and I just couldn’t stop thinking about him flipping burgers at the local Burger King. Not that it’s not a reputable job, but I keep picturing a thirty-five-year-old man, living at home with his parents, playing video games all day long, and going off to work at the BK every night.
The third guy has potential. Shaggy blond hair that reminds me of the surfer type, with striking blue eyes. His hobbies are completely outdoorsy, and even though that’s not my thing, I can’t get over the fact that I need to start somewhere, right? So, I click the thumbs up beside his profile, which categorizes him for me to make contact with later.