Friends with Benefits (Friend Zone Series Book 3)

by Nicole Blanchard

  At my words, she blinked rapidly, and I hoped she wasn’t going to cry.

  She took another sip, then inhaled deeply. “I can’t believe you said that.” I opened my mouth to apologize, and she shook her head before I could get the words out. “Don’t apologize. You’re probably right. You know he never did any of that stuff in return? He wasn’t like you. He’d never come over if the twins were here. He’d always make some sort of excuse. If he hadn’t dumped me, me having to be here for them 24/7 would have made him bail.”

  I couldn’t say she was wrong, so I didn’t say anything.

  “I guess deep down, I knew we weren’t going to last, but I dunno. I kept holding on because I thought if I was better, then maybe I could change things. Maybe if I was good enough, he would see that and stay.” She shook her head. “It sounds stupid.”

  “You’re right; it is stupid. You shouldn’t have to change yourself for any man. You’re an amazing person. Guys would kill to be with a woman like you. So, fuck him if he didn’t realize how good he had it. I can promise you he’ll come to his senses. He may not let you know it, but he’ll think about you one day and remember what a great thing he had and how he gave it up. He’ll regret it.”

  “You think so?” she asked.

  “Oh, I know it,” I said, hoping she couldn’t hear the gravity in my voice.

  A lengthy silence followed, and I was distracted by all of the ways this could have gone differently. If I’d pushed a little harder, made my move after she’d gotten settled with her sisters, maybe I would have had my chance before she’d met Chris. Now, I was so thoroughly in the friend zone, I doubted I’d ever find a way out.

  “What if I’m bad in bed?” she blurted, and I choked on a sip of my margarita. The tequila burned my throat as it went down.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded. Maybe I was hearing things because fuck if I was going to have this conversation. I needed to be much, much more wasted to listen to the details of their sex life.

  “He met someone else. If he was…satisfied, he wouldn’t have been looking.” Her cheeks were as red as her hair.

  We were having this conversation. Fuck it.

  There were things I wanted to say to her that I’d been putting off for way too long.

  “Sex is easy to come by—even good sex. It’s the people that come along with it that make it interesting. You can have the best sex in the world with someone you don’t give a damn about, but when it’s with someone you care about, it’s different. Better. Easier. You come harder, faster.”

  “I never came with Chris.” She flushed as soon as she’d said the words. “I mean, I did, maybe a quarter of the time. It felt good even when I didn’t, but most of the time, it either took too long, and he got frustrated, or he didn’t care enough to get me off after he was done.”

  I pressed a hand to my heart. “Angel, that’s a tragedy.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “I’ve read that’s normal for a lot of women. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen.”

  “That’s not what I’m hearing from what you’re saying. If he didn’t care enough to take care of you, too, then he was a selfish lover, period.”

  And a fucking idiot.

  But we were both fucking idiots. Because as much as I wanted to say something, tell her how much I wanted to be the man to take care of her, I knew I couldn’t.

  “Maybe.”

  “Definitely. Any guy would love to be with you, Ember. They’d kill to make you come.”

  I could think of a thousand ways I wanted to have her screaming for me without trying. But I drank instead and forced myself to change the subject.

  There’s no way in hell I’d let sex ruin our friendship.

  Chapter Seven

  Ember

  A voice cleared, and my eyes cracked open. Tillie and Molly stood in front of me with their identical stuffed puppies clutched in opposite hands. Tillie was smiling knowingly, and Molly’s other hand was covering her laughter, though it spilled out in staccato bursts.

  “Good morning,” they intoned in knowing voices that had alarms sounding in my already-pulsing head.

  “Good morning,” I croaked. God, it was warm. Was I getting sick? Being sick simply wasn’t an option. I couldn’t miss any more classes or take any additional time off. I pressed a hand to my head. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll make you breakfast, okay?”

  “Why are you and Tripp sleeping together? Are you boyfren / girlfren?” Tillie dragged out the word couple so that it sounded like it was three words instead of one.

  I shot up to a sitting position and immediately wished I hadn’t. A groan came from behind me—a particularly familiar male groan.

  Oh, God.

  I turned and found that they weren’t kidding. Tripp and I were sleeping together. At some point, we must have passed out on the couch, and during the night, I’d wrapped around him like ivy on a pole. He still lay on his back with his mouth tipped open. My movement hadn’t woken him, and his legs were intertwined tightly around mine.

  “Did you break up with Chris?” Tillie asked.

  “It’s way too early for this conversation,” I said as I carefully disentangled myself from Tripp’s hold and got to my feet. The heat suffusing my body began to dissipate. “You two go get dressed, and I’ll try not to throw up everywhere.”

  Their giggles followed them down the hallway. I was already doing a bang-up job at this sole guardian thing. I smacked Tripp on the arm. “Wake up,” I hissed.

  He rolled over and shoved his head into the pillows. The ripple of bare muscle made me realize he wasn’t wearing a shirt. My throat went instantly, painfully dry. I’d noticed Tripp was a good-looking guy, I mean I’d have to be dead and buried not to, but it had never hit me so viscerally as it did at that moment.

  It actually stole the words from my throat. Made me momentarily forget how bad I felt and the fact that the twins were still in the apartment. The powerful knit of muscle and sinew under his skin was a testament to the hours he spent in the gym each day training. There wasn’t an ounce of fat to be found, and I wasn’t sure if I should be jealous or appreciative. I settled on trying not to drool.

  Then I remembered the conversation from the night before and wished the headache would kill me. I couldn’t believe I’d told him those things! I hadn’t even told Layla and Charlie about my sex life with Chris, and they were my best friends.

  I was never drinking again.

  I reached out a hand, and it hovered over Tripp’s sleeping body. Where was the most innocuous place I could touch him that wouldn’t make me think about how he said a guy would kill to make me come? His shoulder? Except, he had great shoulders. They made me think about what it would be like to grab hold of them with him on top of me. His arm? Nope. He had a pitcher’s arms. Strong and heavily-corded with muscles. He was all muscle. Everywhere. My gaze drifted down to his abs. Good God, he had fifty-seven of them.

  I settled on poking him in the ribs with my eyes closed.

  Super mature.

  And also a bad idea.

  He turned at my touch, and all those abs came into full view. I swallowed hard. His hair was matted with sleep and stuck out in odd directions. Tripp wasn’t brawny like Liam or broad like Dash. He was slimmer, more agile, his build well-defined and sleek. All toned arms and long legs. His hair was more dirty blonde than Liam’s and too light to be a true brunette like Dash. He wore it longer on top and in the front. A Japanese-style tattoo sleeve with cherry blossoms and shades of black and gray waves covered his left arm from shoulder to elbow.

  How was it that I’d never really looked at him before?

  His eyes opened, and I jolted back, surprise mixing with embarrassment for getting caught.

  “What are you doing?” he asked while I tried not to stare at the way his stomach contracted as he sat up. His voice was gravelly from sleep, and I felt it touch me in all sorts of delicious new places.

  It was like the fusion of alcoho
l and sleeping together had done something to my brain. There were all sorts of tactile and visual information I’d never paid any attention to before but spending the night next to him had rewired everything. Now I couldn’t help but notice everything I’d been hell-bent on ignoring before.

  “Ember?” he asked when I didn’t respond.

  “What?”

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.

  Everything seemed to shoot back into focus. “I’m not looking at you like anything. I was trying to wake you up. We fell asleep on the couch, and the twins woke us up.”

  “That would explain why my back is killing me. Your couch is sized for hobbits.”

  “It’s not my fault you’re a giraffe.”

  “What did you say about the twins?” he asked, rubbing at his eyes.

  “They think we're a couple.” The horrified tone in my voice was shrill and made my brain pound in protest. “They saw us in here together and woke me up this morning. God, Tripp, what were we thinking?”

  Why did I think those last couple of drinks were a good idea?

  His smile was way too relaxed. Why wasn’t he freaking out? “Well, we did sleep together.”

  “Yes—literally. As in, just sleeping!” I tried not to remember how good it felt to wake up in his arms.

  Tripp cocked his head to the side. “I’m wondering if your horror should insult me.”

  My brain stuttered. “I—what? No!”

  “I enjoyed sleeping with you.” He said it so sincerely, I could only blink.

  Then I frowned. “You’re finding this far too funny, Tripp.”

  He reached out and twisted a lock of hair around his fingers. “Maybe I’m just flattered.”

  I pushed his hand away. He was only touching my hair, but I felt the responding tingles shoot up and down my arms. What was happening?

  “Don’t be stupid. We probably shouldn’t drink like that with the girls around. I don’t want to confuse them.” More like I didn’t want to confuse me.

  Tripp got to his feet and covered the glory of his bare chest with an FSU baseball shirt. “They’re fine. But I’ll make sure to tuck you into bed next time.”

  I decided not to touch that comment with a ten-foot pole. “Don’t you have practice this morning?”

  He whipped around, muttering under his breath. After a frantic scramble for his phone, he sighed in relief. “I’ve still got thirty minutes until I have to be at the field. I guess there’s a first time for being grateful the monsters get up early.”

  “I guess we overindulged a bit,” I said.

  “No such thing, angel.”

  Giggling sounded from the entrance of the hallway, and we both turned to find the twins watching us with broad smiles. They were haphazardly dressed, with mismatching skirts and shirts, and four different kinds of shoes.

  I crossed the room and knelt in front of them. “What are you two laughing at? Did you dress each other?”

  “She picked my clothes, and I picked hers,” said Molly, and her gaze kept flitting to Tripp, then back to me.

  “Don’t we look pretty?” Tillie asked.

  “Gorgeous,” I said. “Do you want me to help you with your shoes?”

  They nodded, and I retrieved the correct mates for their shoes and helped them dress. The giggling and looking at Tripp continued until they were properly dressed. He, of course, didn’t help matters and kept wiggling his eyebrows and winking at them. I tried giving him stern looks, but that only made the girls laugh harder. Finally, I threw my hands up, got myself dressed, and started a pot of coffee.

  The only thing I knew I could do was to keep myself busy and hope whatever weirdness the night before had inspired would disappear. I failed miserably as Tripp appeared out of nowhere behind me and quipped, “Is that coffee?”

  I jumped about a mile high and spun around, coffee sloshing everywhere. The screech that burst forth from my chest sounded like a bird on crack.

  His eyebrows lifted. “You okay there?”

  “Shut up,” I snapped, which made him laugh. I made him a cup of coffee in the hopes that it would inspire him to give me some space. I didn’t know what had happened, but I couldn’t seem to get enough space. “Here.”

  In return, he handed me a couple of tablets of ibuprofen, and I swallowed them back. Maybe they would magically turn everything back to normal.

  “Thanks.” My hands were cupped around my mug, which I held in front of me like a shield. “Sorry, this is…”

  “Weird,” he finished for me.

  “A little,” I admitted. Keep busy. I retrieved cereal from the cabinet and fixed the twins their bowls at the table. The food distracted them, and they no longer made gooey eyes at Tripp and me.

  Thank God for small favors.

  “You don’t have to look at me any differently, Em. You know how much I care about you, and I’d never do anything to jeopardize that.”

  If I were the type of girl who cried at the drop of a hat, and if I hadn’t already leaked out a river of tears, his comment would have softened that rock-solid place where my heart should have been. “I don’t look at you differently,” I protested. “It’s just a lot of change. I’m being silly.”

  He rinsed out his cup in the sink and put it on the rack to dry. I tried to remember if Chris had ever done something as simple as rinsing out his own glass. The only memories I could recall involved him asking me to cook for him or me rushing to take care of things for him. It had never been like that with Tripp, who always seemed to come to my rescue instead of the other way around.

  “Nah, don’t worry about it. We’re friends. We can talk about stuff like that. I can keep your secrets,” he said with a grin that I felt all the way down to my toes.

  I shoved his shoulder instead of responding. “Have a good practice.”

  Tripp nodded to me, then bent down to kiss both girls on their foreheads. I watched as they smiled, eyes bright with happiness at his attention. He was so good to them that it made my chest ache. So good to me, too, as a matter of fact.

  The invitation to dinner hovered on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to pay him back for being there for me, listening to me whine about Chris and rant about my parents, but I knew it was probably the wrong time. It would feel…too intimate after being so close to him all night. I’d wait and offer to cook for him later—when these feelings went away.

  “I emailed my mom and dad about watching the girls when you have class or a shift. When I hear from them, I’ll give you a shout,” he said as he walked to the door. “See you later, monsters,” he said to the girls.

  I had almost forgotten about his promise to talk to his mother. Yet another way I’d be in his debt.

  As soon as he closed the door behind him, the girls turned to me in unison and smiled broadly.

  “Oh, finish eating your cereal,” I ordered. But I couldn’t help it.

  I was smiling, too.

  Chapter Eight

  Tripp

  I tapped the faded, dirty paint on the wall next to the weight-room entrance. The 1,179 had once been a bright garnet with gold trim, I was sure. Now, it was faded, the paint was worn and ragged, and dirty fingerprints covered a near-perfect oval around it. It gave me a chill damn near every time I saw it. So many of my favorite players had been here and had stood in this very spot. Had touched these numbers.

  Now, it was my turn.

  The 1,179 signified the 1,179 miles to Omaha, where the College World Series takes place. Every morning when I was up at five thirty, before the rest of the school, those worn numbers reminded me that I do it for a reason. Each workout, each pitch, and each swing got us one step closer on those 1,179 miles to Omaha. One step closer to achieving my dream.

  One step closer to pro ball.

  I arrived ten minutes early for our five-thirty lift practice with most of the other pitchers. Half split off for bullpens—they’d lift with the rest of the team at the evening practice. The rest of us were in for an hour
-long workout. Being late wasn’t an option. Coach Rick Taylor deemed anything less than five minutes early as “late.” I always aimed for ten, just in case. I didn’t want to be the reason the rest of the guys had to run suicides for the duration of practice. Coach Taylor believed the punishment wasn’t over until someone was puking.

  My best friend Alex sidled up to the weight bench where I was lifting, a mile-wide smile on his face.

  “I don’t know what you’re smiling about,” I said as I began with bicep curls. “One minute later, and your ass would have been grass.”

  Even though we’d been best friends since he joined the team as a freshman the year after I did, we were complete opposites in every way. Where I was lanky and all about precision on the mound, Alex was as solid as a mountain, had at least fifty pounds on me, and was all power, all the time. I was in awe the first time I ever saw him. He grew up in Jersey with a big Italian family and a dozen immediate relatives, whereas it was just my parents and me. He was a diehard Yankee fan, while I lived and breathed the Braves.

  Alex waved away the threat with one big paw. “I’m here, aren’t I? If anyone is going to get reamed, it’s you. You haven’t been answering any of my texts. What’s up with that?” His northern Jersey accent would have been indecipherable to anyone else. It had taken me years to get used to it. Which was funny because he said the same thing about us Florida natives. He still gave me a hard time for each y’all. I gave him a hard time whenever he shouted, “Yeah, buuudddy,” for no reason at all.

  I fell silent for several reps. “No reason; just been busy.”

  “You’re a terrible liar, dude.” He said liar like “li-uh.” “You’re still trippin’ over that sexy-ass neighbor of yours.” He switched to lat raises, shaking his head. “You’re hopeless. Why don’t you just put the moves on her?”

  “I’m not having this discussion.” Again.

  And especially not now.

  “We’re gonna keep having it until you give it up. The girl has a boyfriend.”