Chapter 14
Let’s pretend I didn’t do that.
Imagine I have amazing self-control and didn’t masturbate to the thought of my business partner last night.
As she orders scrambled eggs, potatoes, toast, and black coffee at Wendy’s Diner the next morning, I can’t help but wonder if she knows she starred in my fantasies, riding me like a cowgirl.
Then reverse cowgirl in the middle of the night, her hair spilling down her spine, my hands on her ass.
In the shower this morning, too. I went down on her then, and she tasted absolutely heavenly coming on my tongue. So, yeah. That’s the thing about slippery slopes. Take that first step, and the next thing you know, you’ve completed a jerk-off hat trick to your bestie.
But I’m on the wagon now. Straight and narrow. Those three times worked like a charm, and I’ve got her out of my system. One hundred percent. Scout’s honor.
She wears a short gray skirt, a purple T-shirt, and her hair is knotted in a loose ponytail. I have no clue what’s on underneath, and I’m not even thinking about her bra and panties. See? I’m cured.
“And for you?” the waitress asks me.
“I’ll have the same. But well-cooked, bordering on burnt for the eggs,” I tell her, and she nods and walks away, past the open kitchen.
The guy at the table next to us turns the page in the New York Post. A prep cook slaps butter on the griddle and it sizzles. The lights shine brightly, revealing every scratch on the faded mint-green Formica table and every nick on the beige tiled floor.
This is the morning after, and as the door opens with a jingle, a quartet of dudes a few years younger than me walk in. They partied too long, and are wildly hungover—it’s obvious in their eyes.
Wendy’s is a stark contrast to Gin Joint’s nighttime enchantment. The diner air is thick with the scent of regret. I don’t know if it’s coming from others, or from Charlotte.
She fiddles with her napkin.
“Head still hurt?” I ask, since she’s quiet today.
She shakes her head. “Totally fine.”
“Water helped?”
She nods. “Always does.”
“Good. But just to be safe, we need the full hangover prevention pack,” I say, since that’s why I took her here. “Nothing rebounds you better after a night of drinking than diner food. It’s a medically proven fact.”
She manages a faint smile, and the waitress returns quickly with the coffee pot, pouring two cups. Charlotte wraps her hands around hers. “Is it now? Even though I didn’t have much to drink.” Her tone is lackluster.
I don’t let it deter me. The more I talk, the more we banter, the better the chance we can get back to who we were before. “There was a study just last week in the Journal—”
“About last night,” she begins, and the wheels of the conversation screech to a halt with those three dreaded words.
But I’m nimble. I know how to dart and dodge. I hold up a hand like a stop sign, shaking my head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But—”
“No, buts. Everything is fine.”
“What I’m trying to say is—”
“Charlotte, we both had some cocktails, and hey, I get it. I look better to you when you’re wearing beer goggles.” I wink, going for self-deprecating humor because I don’t want her to feel bad in the least for what almost happened.
The corner of her lips quirks up, but that’s all. She’s not wearing lipstick this morning. She hardly has on any makeup. She still looks pretty. She always does, night or day, rain or shine.
“They were gin goggles, but even without them—”
I reach for her hand, wrap mine around it, and squeeze it in a nice friendly gesture.
I need to reassure her. “We’re friends. Nothing can change that.
Nothing is ever going to get in the way of us being friends.
Well, unless you marry a total douche someday.
So don’t do that,” I say, flashing my trademark grin and trying desperately to steer this conversation away from us, lest she figure out what my hand has done three times in the last twelve hours.
“Don’t you marry a total bitch,” she says with narrowed eyes, and that’s my Charlotte.
She’s back, and she’s just like me. She’s not going to let last night’s weirdness in the cab derail the best relationship either one of us has ever had.
Though weirdness might not be the right word.
More like hardness, wetness, and hotness.
Which are exactly the words I shouldn’t be using as I think about her.
“But the thing I wanted to say about last night is about us being friends.”
“Me too!” I say, with far too much enthusiasm, but she’s just uttered the magic words. Friends. Us. I have to latch onto them so we don’t lose sight of what we are. “Our friendship is the most important thing to me, so let’s just keep being friends.”
Her features freeze, as if a mask has slid into place. She fiddles with her ring, and the strangest thing is, my heart seems to beat faster as I watch her play with it. She doesn’t have to be wearing it now, but she is.
“Yes. Friends. That’s the most important thing,” she says in a monotone.
“Like we talked about last night, right?” I say, reminding her in case her gin goggles performed a blackout trick on her brain. “Binge watching TV shows, eating gummy bears or lemonheads, and drinking tequila or wine.”
She nods. “Right. Absolutely,” she says, and flashes me a smile that doesn’t feel real.
“We should do that again. Since we can,” I say, like a card player sliding chips into the pot to bet I can just be friends with her.
“Sure.”
“How about tonight?” I say, upping the ante again. I am going to blow my own mind at how good I am at just being friends.
“Okay.”
“My house?” Doubling down. Big time.
“Really?” She arches an eyebrow. “You really want to just hang out?”
“Of course. We were saying last night that we should.”
She shakes her head, and I’m not sure if it’s amusement or some sort of resignation. She takes a breath, adjusts her ponytail, and shrugs. “Fine,” she says. “Friends don’t let friends eat gummy bears alone. I’ll bring the bears.”
“I’ll eat the green ones for you.”
She shudders. “Hate the green ones.”
“And I’ll get the wine. If memory serves, you prefer a chardonnay with your bears?”
“I do, but maybe virgin margaritas tonight instead?”
I toss my napkin onto the table with a flourish. “Touched for the very first time,” I say, and again, maybe I should have thought first before those words came out.
Mercifully, the waitress arrives.
“Here are your eggs,” the waitress says, setting down the plates. “Well-cooked. Just like you asked for.”
Those last words echo loudly as I realize what I’ve just done. What I’ve asked for with my cocky mouth. My big ideas. My I-can-pull-anything-off attitude.
I just invited Charlotte into my house tonight. There aren’t enough innocent images of kittens or baby ducks in the universe for me to deal with the danger in that decision.
* * *
We spend the rest of the meal planning for the week ahead at The Lucky Spot.
Neither one of us breathes another word about tonight, or last night, or our fake relationship.
When we stop by The Lucky Spot and spend a few hours working before Jenny handles the Sunday afternoon shift—and before we head to the museum—we manage the slide back into being friends and business partners so smoothly, it’s as if last night never happened.
But once we set foot in the museum, something changes.
Handsy Charlotte has left the building. Sure, she’s still playing my fiancée, but she’s not as committed to the role as she was last night. I have no clue if my mom or Mrs. Offerman can tell, but as we stare at an Edward Hopper painting, I do my damnedest to make sure no one knows.
“The painting is beautiful,” Mrs. Offerman says.
“Yes, it is,” I chime in.
I wrap an arm tightly around my fake fiancée, plant a quick kiss on her cheek, and say, “Like you. By the way, have I told you how pretty you look today?”
Charlotte tenses, but manages a thanks.
My mother glances at us and smiles.
Emily does not. Emily seems to have zero interest in the artwork, even though this is her intended major.
But that’s okay. I’m returning to the swing of things.
I’m on my game. As we wander through Chagalls and Matisses, I make witty comments, and all the women laugh, including Charlotte.
When we’re out at the sculpture garden, I’m confident Charlotte and I are on solid ground, and we’re good enough at playing pretend.
Until Emily turns to her. “How long have you been in love with Spencer?”
Charlotte stiffens, and a burst of red splashes across her cheeks.
“I mean, were you attracted to him first before you started dating?” Emily continues. “Because you’ve been friends forever, right? So was it just one of those—”
“Emily, dear. Some things are personal,” Mrs. Offerman says, cutting in.
The teenage girl shrugs like this is no big deal. “I’m just curious. They went to college together. I don’t think it’s that weird to want to know if they were into each other back then.”
Charlotte raises her chin. “We’ve always been friends,” she says, then presses her hand to her forehead. “Excuse me.”
She takes off.
My mother glares at me, and all I can think is, she knows. Her eyes track Charlotte’s exit through the glass doors into the museum, and instantly my mother beckons me. I close the gap. She speaks low, out of the corner of her mouth. “She’s upset about something. Go after her. Comfort her.”
Right, of course. Super Fiancé to the rescue. Moms always know best.
I rush after Charlotte, through the door and down the hallway, catching up to her as she reaches the ladies’ room. I call out to her, but she’s got her hand on the door, and she pushes it open.
The door swings shut, and I stop.
For a second.
The hallway is quiet, far removed from most of the museum traffic. I push on the door and follow her in. She’s at the sink, splashing water on her face.