The Cheat Sheet: A Romantic Comedy

by Sarah Adams

  That day, I found my old friend again. The friend I knew before the accident who was so full of life and energy, except even better. She was healthier, she had these incredible, soft, feminine curves that had not been there before, and her knee had healed up enough that she was able to work as an instructor at the studio she now owns. Unfortunately, she had a boyfriend then. Don’t even remember his name, but he was the reason I didn’t ask her out on the spot.

  We picked back up with our Tuesday tradition, and I’ve been barrel-rolling into the vast, never-ending hell hole known as the friend zone ever since. I’m afraid I’ll die in this friend zone because she’s constantly reminding me that she’s not interested in anything romantic. Almost every day she says a terrible phrase like:

  “Just friends.”

  “Practically my brother.”

  “Incompatible.”

  “Two amigos.”

  Anyway, that’s why I did it. I couldn’t bear to stand back and watch her lose something important to her when I could easily fix it this time. So I’ve secretly been paying her rent, and she will be furious if she ever finds out.

  I make a mental note to check in later with ol’ Mr. Landlord just as Bree’s finger falls away from my mouth. “Seriously, don’t worry! I’ll figure something out like I always do. But for now, I’ll take some ibuprofen and ice it between classes. I’m okay. I promise.”

  Because I’m only her friend, I have no choice but to hold up my hands in surrender. “Okay, I’ll let it go. I won’t ask if I can give you money anymore.”

  She tips a cute, snooty chin. “Thank you.”

  “Hey, Bree?”

  “Yes?” she asks suspiciously.

  “Do you want to move in with me?”

  She groans loudly and lets her head fall back against the couch cushion. “Nattthaaaannnn. Let it go!”

  “Seriously, think about it. We both hate your apartment—”

  “You hate my apartment.”

  “Because it’s not fit for human habitation! I’m a thousand percent sure there’s mold, the stairs are so sticky but no one knows why, and that SMELL! What even is that?”

  She grimaces, knowing exactly what I’m talking about. “Someone suspects it’s a raccoon that got in between the walls and died, but we can’t be certain. Or…” Her eyes dart. “…itmightbeadeadhuman.” She mumbles that last part, and I consider holding her hostage and forcing her to live in my clean, mold-free apartment against her will.

  “Best of all, if you lived here, you wouldn’t have to pay any rent, and then you wouldn’t need to make as much from the studio.” It’s a loophole, a way for her to cut costs without accepting a single dime from me.

  Bree holds my gaze for so long I think she’s wavering. “No.”

  She’s a needle, and I’m a full balloon. “Why? You already practically live here. You even have your own room.”

  She holds up a correcting finger. “Guest room! It’s a guest room.”

  It’s her room. She makes me call it the guest room, but she has spare clothes in there, some colorful throw pillows she added herself, and several items of makeup in the drawers. She sleeps here at least once a week when we stay up too late watching a movie and she’s too tired to walk home. Yeah, that’s the other thing—her apartment is only five blocks down the street (yes, five blocks makes a huge difference in a big city like LA), so we’re practically already roommates, just separated by hundreds of other roommates. Logic.

  “No, and I’m serious—drop it,” she says in a tone that lets me know I’m inching up to pushy-asshole-best-friend territory and I need to cool it.

  Some might be tempted to think my full-time job is pro athlete. Wrong. It’s forcing myself to behave inside this grey area with Bree where I’m wild about her on the inside and nothing but a platonic guy-friend on the outside. It’s a cruel form of torture. It’s staring at the sun and not blinking even though it burns like hell.

  Oh, and did I mention I accidentally saw her naked a few weeks ago? Yeah, that hasn’t helped. Bree doesn’t know, and I don’t intend on telling her because she’d get super weird about it and avoid me for a whole week. We each have a key to the other’s apartment, so I let myself in like I always do, but this time I had forgotten to tell her I was coming over. She walked out of the bathroom butt naked and then went back in without ever seeing me standing there in the hallway, jaw sweeping the floor. I turned around immediately and left, but that beautiful image is burned—no, something better than burned…engraved, transcribed, memorialized in my memory forever.

  “Give me one valid reason why you don’t want to live here, and I’ll let it go for good. Scout’s honor.” I hold up my right hand.

  Bree eyes it, tries not to smile, and then folds down my pinky and thumb. “You’re not a Boy Scout so your honor means nothing, but I can’t move in with you because it would be too weird. There, I gave you an answer. Now you have to drop it.” Bree hops up from the floor, and this time I let her go. Her curly ponytail swings behind her, loose wisps clinging to the sweat on her neck as she walks into the kitchen.

  I follow behind, not ready to drop the topic of conversation quite yet because I think I finally found the real reason. “Who would it be weird for? You or Martin? Surely he knows he has nothing to worry about between us.” I strongly dislike her boyfriend. He doesn’t deserve her. I mean, I don’t deserve her either, but that’s beside the point. What kind of douchebag would be okay with his girlfriend living in a hazardous building and not offer for her to move in with him?

  Bree’s eyes leave mine, her mouth twisting to the side. She’s debating something, and I lift my brows to encourage her. “Bree?”

  She spins away, and her wrist full of ever-present, colorful braided bracelets dives into her monstrosity of a purse. “Did I mention I have something for you? It’ll cheer you right up after your breakup with Screechy…I mean Kelsey.” She chuckles to herself over her little quip, and I try not to let her see me smile. I couldn’t care less about my breakup with Kelsey. I’m more concerned about why she’s trying to change the subject right now.

  She digs and digs and digs through her bag, and I know what’s coming. Bree has a trinket obsession. If she sees something that reminds her of one of her friends or family members, she buys it and stuffs it in that Mary Poppins satchel to bestow upon us later. I have two whole shelves of items she’s given me over the years. Her sister Lily has three shelves. We made a bet once to see who had more “Breenkets,” as we call them, and I lost. Lily beat me by seven.

  Finally, she finds what she’s looking for, and out of her bottomless bag comes a miniature-sized magic eight ball.

  Her rainbow nails place it delicately in my upturned palm, and she quietly says, “Number eight. You know, because you’re number eight on the team.” I’ll set it next to my number eight playing card, number eight shot glass, and number eight birthday candle. “Also, Martin and I broke up.”

  Wait, huh?

  The world stops spinning. Crickets silence. Everyone, everywhere on the planet turns to look at us. I, however, have to try very hard to remain neutral. Somehow I instinctively know that my reaction right now is crucial if I want to keep the status quo of our friendship. Don’t mess things up, Nathan.

  “Since when?”

  “Last night. We broke up after the game.” Her answer comes out fast. “Well actually, I broke up with him after the game. He was fine with it though. It was pretty much mutual.”

  I can’t believe this. “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

  She shrugs, her attention focused on sliding her bracelets up and down her wrist one by one. “Just didn’t think about it.”

  “Lie. No one conveniently forgets that they broke up with someone they’ve been dating for six months.”

  She grits her teeth and rolls her eyes to me. “Fine! I just didn’t want to, okay? It wasn’t a big deal. Martin and I barely saw each other, and…he was boring. We were boring together. No sparks. I just coul
dn’t do it anymore.” Bree says all of this looking completely nonchalant, while I have to remind myself to keep breathing—slowly, in and out, like a normal human and not like I’m short-circuiting on the inside.

  Because this—right now—is the very first time we’ve both been single at the same time in the last six years. Somehow our relationships have staggered themselves out into an almost humorous cycle.

  And now…we’re both single.

  At the same time.

  And I’ve seen her naked. (That thought has nothing to do with anything, it just pops into my head randomly from time to time.)

  If I leaned in right now and kissed her, would she let me? Would she cringe? Or would she melt into me and that would finally be the end of our platonic friendship? These are the questions that keep me awake at night.

  I don’t get to find out the answers, though, because Bree suddenly snatches her purse from the counter and throws it over her shoulder. “Okay, well, now you know. So, I’ll see you…sometime,” she says, backing away from me with a curiously flushed face.

  I follow her to the door. “Tomorrow,” I say, closing my fingers around the magic eight ball. “I’m picking you up tomorrow for Jamal’s birthday dinner, remember?” My teammates love Bree, call her the Sharks’ little sister. I refuse to ever call her that.

  She trips backward over a shoe and catches herself with a hand on the wall, her long honey-brown ponytail whipping her in the face. “Tomorrow? Oh yeah, I forgot. Sounds good!” She’s being so strange. Or…more strange than normal, I should say. “Well…I’ll see you tomorrow then!”

  I grin as she tries to leave through the front door, but her purse gets caught on the handle, yanking her back a step. She yelps then frees herself and runs out the door.

  With a sigh, I look down at my newest Breenket. “Well, magic eight ball, what do you think? Should I tell my best friend I love her?”

  I turn the ball over, and the message reads: Reply hazy, try again.

  The next day during practice, it’s clear that Bree’s singledom announcement has taken up all the available space in my head. I can’t focus on drills. I screw up too many passes. Jamal—the top running back on our team—has started calling me butterfingers, and it’s catching on like wildfire. Everyone thinks it’s hilarious because I’m never like this. Coach is concerned and thinks I have the flu. He sends for a team physician to check my temperature on the sidelines in front of everyone. I feel like an idiot.

  “I just have something on my mind,” I tell Jamal later when practice is over and he’s badgering me with questions about why my game was so off today.

  He grunts a laugh as he finishes buttoning his shirt. I’m already dressed and sitting on the bench in the middle of the locker room, waiting to go into the media room to answer questions with the press about our upcoming game.

  “Does it have anything to do with you breaking up with Kelsey?”

  My head flies up. “How’d you know about that? I only broke up with her yesterday morning.”

  His patronizing smile says, You’re an idiot. “She announced it on her Instagram last night, along with a link to a gossip article on In Touch Magazine’s website.”

  “Dammit.” I should have known better than to date her. Kelsey is a model who at first seemed nice but then, after closer examination, turned out to be a spotlight hunter. Though, honestly, I can’t say I really care when a woman only wants to date me for the attention it brings her. I only date other women because Bree is always dating other men. But currently she’s not…and since I can’t seem to find a woman even remotely as amazing as Bree, I feel like it’s time I quit looking anywhere else.

  Plus, I’m sick of my girlfriends being rude to Bree. It’s like watching someone try to swat a butterfly—cruel and depressing. Suddenly, I’m worried about that article for other reasons. Kelsey can talk shit about me all day, but if she even mentioned Bree’s name once, I’ll have my lawyers all over her faster than she can blink.

  “Did you read the article?” I ask Jamal as he preens in the mirror.

  He lets out a guttural laugh that tells me I’m not going to like his answer. “Oh yeah I did. And you’re going to hate it.”

  My back goes straight. “Does it mention Bree?”

  Jamal takes one look at my ready-to-fight demeanor and shakes his head. “No, but you’re pathetic, you know that? Look at you, ready to ruin someone to avenge the woman you’ve never even kissed. Dude, you need to get a grip. Either go after Bree, or be done with her. Clearly you’ve got some pent-up frustration that’s starting to affect your game, and that can’t happen right now, because…playoffs, bro. PLAYOFFS.” He’s shaking his fists in a desperate attempt to make me understand. As if I didn’t already know the playoffs are important.

  I ignore Jamal. “Just to be clear, though, the article doesn’t mention Bree?”

  He gives me a flat look. “No. Your object of desire is safe from slander. You, however…” He laughs like friends do when they see a booger stuck to the side of your face but don’t intend to tell you it’s there.

  Again, I ignore him. “I couldn’t care less about the article, then.” My image has never been important to me. All I care about is playing a good game. “Besides, we only dated for a few months. I doubt she could come up with that much dirt on me.” Mostly because I’m boring. I don’t party. I don’t drink during the season. I go to bed early and wake up early.

  Jamal looks like he’s about to burst from jubilant anticipation. His smile is grinchy, his eyebrows are lifted, and now maybe I’m a little nervous about what Kelsey said. He claps me on the back on his way out of the locker room. “Come find me when you’re ready to read it, okay? I don’t want to miss seeing your face when you do.”

  As Jamal is leaving, another one of my teammates walks through the locker room and heads for the shower while laughing at whatever he’s looking at on his phone.

  “What’s up, Price?” I ask with a head nod even though he’s not looking at me.

  He laughs bigger and passes by me. “Not you apparently!”

  I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean, but something tells me I’m not going to like it when I find out.

  “OH MY GOSH, I’m drooling. Imani, grab me a mop so I can clean up this puddle.”

  “Shhhhh, she’s gonna hear us. Keep it down, you dodo!”

  “I don’t care if she hears, she needs to know it’s unbelievable she’s not jumping that piece of—”

  I clear my throat and fold my arms, tapping my foot like I remember my mom doing—although I refuse to think of myself as these girls’ mom because I’m absolutely not old enough. I’m more like their big sister. Yeah, their super cool big sister who they’d be lucky to hang out with!

  “Hand it over,” I say, hand outstretched toward the group of sixteen-year-old ballet students hovering ominously around a phone. And yeah, now I feel like their mom.

  “See, Hannah, you and your big mouth went and did it.” Imani rises from their little huddle in the corner of the studio where they were waiting for class to begin and pads gracefully across the hardwood floor to me.

  The pink and blue bejeweled phone case lands in my palm, and I look down to find a photo of Nathan in a sexy ad of some sort, wearing nothing but his uniform pants and a really awesome pair of black cleats. His abs are rippling under the studio lighting, and there’s more than a little sheen reflecting off his taut skin from all the oil that’s been rubbed on him. I’m not even sure what they are selling here, but I’m willing to spend all my savings on it.

  I swipe out of the photo even though I want to copy and paste the URL and text it to myself. “First of all, you girls shouldn’t be looking at this. He’s almost twice your age!”

  “So! Sexiness knows no age.” Sierra—also sixteen—is the one to shout that little gem.

  “Believe me, it does. Just ask the law.” They all roll their eyes. Sixteen-year-olds are terrifying. “And second of all, this is 100% photoshopped. He
doesn’t look like this in real life.” He looks better.

  Hannah points aggressively at me. “Bite your tongue! He’s the hottest man in the world and everyone knows it. And we want to know how you can be best friends with that god among men and not hit it.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “Ew, don’t say hit it. Where did you learn to talk like that?”

  “You’re avoiding the question,” says Hannah. She’s the ringleader of sassiness in this class.

  I cross the floor of the long slender studio to reach the sound system in the back corner. Remote in hand, I rise onto my toes and spin around to face the little fresh-faced jury now lined up by the floor-to-ceiling mirror, arms folded. These tiny babies mean business.

  “I’m not avoiding the question. I’m just not dignifying it with an answer! Plus, it’s an inappropriate class conversation. My business with my friend is my own, not yours.” I want to boop each of them on the nose to drive the point home.

  “But you love him, right?” asks Imani.

  I put my hands on my hips. Ugh, more mom posing. “If I answer you, can we start class?”

  “Yes,” the Spice Girls of ballet answer in unison.

  “Then no, I do not love him, Sam I am. I do not love him in a car, I do not love him in a bar. I do not love him with a hat, I do not love him with a cat,” I chirp adorably while twirling and whimsically conveying this lie in a way I hope they’ll understand.

  Their frowns are deep. They think I’m so uncool.

  There is no way I’m giving these girls what they want: the truth. Telling them how I actually feel about Nathan would be like throwing thousands of Pixy Stix into a room of toddlers. They’d go nuts and I’d never have peace again. There’s also the very real possibility that they would find a way to contact him and tell him everything I say. Better to lie and pretend I don’t care about Nathan in that way.

  “That’s so boring!” one of the girls moans. “What’s the point of even having a hot best friend if you’re not going to bang him?”