Blurred Lines (10 page)

I like my job. I
really
like my job. And I seem to be pretty good at it, because rumor has it that I’m up for a promotion.

But today?

Today I can’t concentrate for shit.

And I’ve become a clock-watcher. As in, I’ve become one of those sad day jobbers who look at the clock
constantly,
only to realize in outrage that just five minutes have passed since the last time they looked.

Except most people are anxiously awaiting five o’clock. The hour when they can jet to happy hour or yoga, or just get the hell out of Dodge.

Five o’clock means nothing to me. I need it to be eight o’clock.

The time when I’m going to see Parker Blanton naked.

The thought should fill me with dread, or at least panic. She’s my best friend. It should be…wrong.

But after that kiss, I’m pretty sure the only thing
wrong
is that we haven’t thought of this before.

No-strings-attached sex with the hottest girl I know, who I won’t be dying to get rid of after?

Hell. Yes.

I try to turn my attention back to my computer. I’m a product manager on the e-commerce team, one of a half dozen assigned to the men’s golf section.

I fucking love it. I know it’s not cool to get all geeked out on a day job, and I certainly never expected to, but it comes pretty easy considering I didn’t know much about websites before I started here, and knew even less about golf.

My days are made up of brainstorming enhancements for the section, writing the requirements documents for those enhancements, then testing them, et cetera.

There’s something very satisfying about managing the entire life cycle of something, and it’s hard not to pat myself on the back for trusting my gut and not going to law school.

Even if it did put me at odds with the old ’rents.

“Wanna grab a burrito?”

Jason Styles has his palms resting on the ledge of my cube wall, chin resting on the backs of his hands as he gives me a pleading, hungry look.

I glance at the clock. “It’s 11:07. I’ve barely finished breakfast.”

“Exactly,” he says. “We can beat the lunch rush.”

I open my mouth to argue, then close it, shrugging as I lock my computer. Why the hell not? It’s not like I’m getting anything done. Not with guaranteed sex on my calendar for later tonight.

Jason’s right about Burrito King—and yes, it’s called that—the line takes us two minutes instead of the usual twenty. “Let’s eat it here,” Jason says as we wait for our number to be called.

“Avoiding Sandy?” I ask.

Jason’s grunt tells me I’m right.

I shake my head as I fill up my cup with Coke. “I told you, dude. You have got to stop hooking up with girls you work with.”

“How else am I supposed to meet women? Not all of us can just walk into a bar and emerge with twenty phone numbers.”

I ignore this.

“You know, I wouldn’t have this problem if you’d let me ask out Park—”

“Nope,” I say, before he’s even finished the sentence.

“But she’s single now.”

“How do you know?”

“I ran into her at Starbucks the other day. I think she was giving me hints.”

“Trust me. She wasn’t.”

Parker thinks Jason’s a total tool, and I can’t blame her. The guy’s one of my better work friends, but he’s got a bad habit of talking to women’s chests. He’s also got a knack for spending an hour chatting up a woman at a bar, only to get her name wrong at the end of it. And he wonders why he doesn’t get any phone numbers.

“Hey, speaking of Parker…” Jason says.

I whip my head around in the direction he’s indicated. No Parker, but it
is
her BFF Lori.

She seems to sense our gaze, and her face lights up in a smile as she beckons us over.

“She’s so hot,” Jason mutters under his breath as we make our way toward the gorgeous blonde.

“Hey, join me!” she says, gesturing toward the empty chairs at her table. “I skipped breakfast today and was starving but couldn’t talk Parker into an early lunch.”

She’s talking to both of us, but her eyes never leave mine, and I’m struck by the weird realization that this is one of the first times I’ve ever been around Lori without Parker.

Jason and I both sit down, he a bit too close to Lori, but she’s cool and doesn’t seem to mind.

But ten minutes into our lunch, I’m getting distinct vibes of
weird.
Despite Jason’s very dedicated attempt to draw Lori into conversation, she manages to shift everything back to me.

“Were
you
at that concert, Ben?”

“Ben, doesn’t that remind you of the time that we…”

“I’m not sure what I’m doing this weekend. Ben, do you have plans?”

Lori’s always been flirty. I guess I’d always thought it was just sort of her personality.

Now, without Parker around to redirect conversation, I’m wondering if it’s not a little bit more than that.

I finish my burrito and lean back in my chair. Jason is rambling on about how his uncle has a shot at getting Super Bowl tickets.

I glance at Lori—how can you not, when you feel someone’s eyes burning into you?—and she gives me a shy, private smile.

I smile back, reflexively, but one thing is abundantly clear: Parker and Lori’s Monday morning gossip session hadn’t included the little arrangement Parker and I made.

Lori and Parker are tight, and even though Parker and I aren’t a thing, there’s no way Lori would be giving me all sorts of blatant hints if she knew that I was about to see her best friend naked in, oh, eight hours and ten minutes.

Not that I’m counting or anything.

“Yo, Olsen. Where’d you go?”

I glance over at Jason, who’s giving me an impatient look.

“Sorry, what?”

“I was just saying that the four of us should go try this karaoke place my cousin told me about on Friday. Lori’s free, and I’m sure you can talk Parker into it. You in?”

He gives me a look that informs me bro code demands I say yes, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from asking which girl’s going to be the object of his slobbery affection on Friday night.

Still, I’ll confess that I do love a good round of tipsy karaoke, and he’s right—I can definitely talk Parker into it, because she also loves karaoke. Give her a glass or two of champagne, and you’ll be fighting her for the microphone.

“Sure, why not?” I say.

Lori’s smile turns into an all-out beam, and I have the first stab of awareness that my arrangement with Parker has the potential to get a
tad
more complicated than we thought.

I keep waiting for things to turn weird with Ben and me.

I was braced for it this morning when we bickered over whether or not he used my towel again.

(He did. I totally know he did.)

I waited for it while he gamely sang along to my Taylor Swift album with me on the way to work.

I waited for it on the way home while I listened to him rant and rave about how his most recent work project had been put on hold because the funding had been applied to a higher priority project that he thought was “complete and utter bullshit.”

But by the time he helps himself to the chicken Parmesan I made for dinner, deliberately ignoring the salad, my fear has all but subsided.

Maybe we really
can
do this. Because, so far, the looming naked time hasn’t done crap to rattle our friendship.

Now, granted, we haven’t exactly seen each other’s nether bits yet.
That
will be the true test.

I sneak a peek at the clock. Seven fifteen.

Forty-five minutes.

I wait for nervousness or second thoughts to settle in.

Waiting…

Waiting…

Nope. I’m pretty damn excited for this. My lady parts are in
need.

“Hey, you wanna go to karaoke on Friday?” he asks.

“Oh, right,” I say, using my fingers to pick up a long string of mozzarella cheese and plop it into my mouth as I settle at the kitchen table. “Lori mentioned it. Some new place that Jason found?”

“I don’t know that it’ll be any Cody’s,” Ben says, referring to our favorite karaoke bar from college. “But I’m game if you are.”

I shrug. “I’m in.”

I love karaoke. I love singing in general, really.

Ben sits down at the table across from me, shoveling a huge bite of chicken into his mouth. He washes it down with a swallow of beer and then leans back in his chair. “Hey, has Lori said anything about me?”

I glance up at him in surprise. “What, you mean like she wants to meet you under the bleachers after study hall?”

“You know what I mean. I was getting…vibes from her at lunch today.”

I slowly chew my mouthful of salad and then swallow. “Well…she wants to jump your bones, if that’s what you mean.”

He lifts his T-shirt, revealing perfect abs. “Right?” he says. “Who doesn’t? But no, I mean…never mind.”

“What?” I ask, tilting my head.

“I was just curious if you told her about you and me, and our…arrangement.”

“Nope,” I say emphatically, “I was kind of thinking we could keep that quiet. You know, so people don’t start making weird assumptions.”

“Agreed,” he says quickly. “It’s just…I get the feeling she wishes I’d ask her out or something. Maybe I’m being a conceited ass. It’s probably nothing.”

I glance down at my plate. It’s not nothing. His instincts are dead-on.

I feel a little stab of guilt.

Guilt over the fact that Lori is truly interested in Ben as a potential boyfriend, and I’ve been steering her clear of him, only to then go and hook up with him myself.

Still, it’s not like I’ve been vag-blocking her out of spite or jealousy.

I just don’t want Lori to get her heart broken when he doesn’t fall back. Because Lori’s at risk of falling for him.

I’m not. My eyes are wide open. Eyes that maybe,
definitely,
appreciated the flat, ribbed stomach he’d just flashed a few seconds earlier.

I’m only starting to get really into a yummy visual—a visual of me licking the defined lines of Ben’s abs—when a thought hits me.

One that’s way more disturbing than Ben’s six-pack.

“Do you
like
Lori?” I ask.

He pauses in chewing his chicken, and the look on his face is comical. And relieving.

“No,” he says, once he’s swallowed. “I mean yeah, sure, I like her, but I’m not…I don’t—”

“I know,” I say with a small smile. “You never.”

He lifts a shoulder. “She’s great. I’m just not really interested in a girlfriend, even with someone as cool as her.”

“See, that’s what I tell her!” I say, throwing up my hands. “But she insists on her little crush.”

Ben wiggles his eyebrows. “Because I’m irresistible.”

I ignore this. “You’ll tell me, right? If there is a girl that interests you…like that.”

He nods. “Sure, definitely. I’ll keep you updated on that as well as the progress of hell freezing over.”

I dig back into my dinner, satisfied that we’re on the same page on the Lori front.

Although now I’m wondering if maybe I should tell Lori about our little arrangement. Because if she finds out by accident, she’ll be hurt. Not only because I didn’t tell her, but because I’m afraid she won’t understand it.

For the most part, Lori’s pretty good about comprehending that Ben and I are truly just friends.

But learning that we’re also sex buddies might push the limits on just how understanding my friend is.

And it’s not just Lori who’s bound to lift an eyebrow. I have a good feeling that everyone in my life will have some choice thoughts on my arrangement with Ben.

But I don’t care. I find that all I can think about is the fact that in twenty minutes…

Wait. Wait! Twenty minutes? That’s it!

I noisily drop my fork and stare at my nearly empty plate in horror.

Ben doesn’t even pause in his eating as he looks at me. “What’s up with you?”

“I need a reprieve,” I say.

He frowns. “You’re chickening out?”

“No, I just—I need an extra hour.”

He glances over his shoulder at the clock, then back at me. “Why?”

I point down to my plate. Isn’t it obvious?

Ben shakes his head to indicate he doesn’t understand.

Men.

“I just wolfed down an entire plate of chicken Parmesan, heavy on the cheese,” I explain patiently.

“So?”

“
So,
” I say, “
obviously
I need to let the food settle.”

“Sex isn’t like swimming, Parks. You don’t have to wait for thirty minutes before diving in.”

He takes another huge bite, and I stare at him aghast. “You’re telling me you can actually feel sexy immediately after eating a huge meal?”

Ben looks down at his plate. Back at me. “Absolutely.”

“Well, I can’t. I’m a girl. We need time for the food baby to go away.”

“Food baby? Do I even want to know what that is?”

“It’s…never mind,” I say, pushing my chair back and picking up my plate.

“Hold up.” Ben grabs my wrist as I’m moving toward the sink and then uses his fork to stab the last bite of chicken that’s on my plate and pops it into his mouth.

“Unbelievable,” I mutter.

He comes up behind me, taking my plate before I can rinse it, and cleans off both plates himself before setting them in the dishwasher. Loading the dishwasher is one chore he’s quite good at.
Un
loading, not so much.

“You’re not serious, right?” he asks.

“Yes I’m serious! I can’t have sex now. What if I get…rumbly?”

Ben busts up laughing. “Oh my God, no
wonder
you and Lance never had sex. Rumbly?”

I punch him in the shoulder. “Keep it up and my hour reprieve will turn into
days.
”

“Okay, okay, listen,” he says, setting his hands on my shoulders. “I get
maybe
how you could feel that way on a first date, or the first time you sleep with some dude destined to be the future Mr. Blanton. But, Parks, it’s me. That’s the whole reason we have this arrangement, right? So we don’t have to worry about things like food babies, or rumbling, or farting in bed—”

I hold up a finger. “There will be
no
farting in bed. Clear?”

He continues as though I haven’t spoken. “Since it’s just me, you won’t have to worry if you’re at just the right angle that makes your stomach look flattest—and don’t lie, I know you girls do that—and
I
don’t have to worry about what you’ll think of my size. Just kidding on that last one, I know it’s hugely impressive, and—”

I laugh, pushing him backward. “Okay, fine. You win. You promise not to notice my food baby, and I’ll promise not to laugh at your tiny thingy.”

His smile drops in mock seriousness. “You take that back.”

I shrug. “Sorry. I have my theories, and—”

Ben’s fingers wrap around my wrist, and before I know what’s happening he’s tugging me out of the kitchen toward the stairs.

“Where are we going?”

“Where do you think?” he answers.

“But it’s not eight o’clock yet.”

“Close enough, Parks. Close enough.”

Well.

Okay, then.