The Friend Zone Experiment

Chapter 1

1

When Renee woke up, she wasn’t in her room at home. It took her a moment to remember where she was. Then she smiled.

She sat up and leaned back against the plush velvet headboard, looking around with pleasure at the suite her boyfriend had booked for the fortnight. There hadn’t been time to check it out last night. She’d only been able to shuck off her shoes and dump her bag in a corner before Jason had distracted her.

It was the penthouse suite, with a wraparound terrace—the most expensive set of rooms in the hotel. Fresh white carnations were set out in a black vase on a side table by the bed. Next to the flowers was a card—Renee leaned over to look at it—saying how delighted the hotel was to be hosting global pop sensation Jason Tsai. Morning sunshine streamed in from the adjoining conservatory.

It was the kind of place Renee wouldn’t have splurged on even in the days when she was spending on her father’s dime. Despite Dad’s wealth, he had an appreciation of the value of money that ruled out certain extravagances.

Jason had a different attitude, but then, it wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it. His last album EXTRA.ordinary had been a huge success in China, Hong Kong, and his native Taiwan, as well as across Southeast Asia.

“Wang Leehom for the TikTok generation,” the South China Morning Post had called him, to Jason’s chagrin. He liked to think he was in a class of his own.

And he was , Renee thought loyally. Their relationship wasn’t public—his fans wouldn’t be happy about it, and Jason had his endorsement deals to think of. But she sometimes entertained herself with imagining the reaction of people back home in Singapore to the fact she was dating Jason Tsai. It would impress her parents’ friends and her old schoolmates more than anything else she’d ever done.

She got out of bed, wriggling her toes in the carpet, and wrapped herself in a crisp white hotel bathrobe, before wandering out to the sitting room.

Jason was taking a phone call out on the terrace, already dressed in a Comme des Gar?ons hoodie and distressed jeans. Behind him unfurled the lush green expanse of Hyde Park. The city skyline rose up beyond, prosaic and beautiful in the sun. Brown, white, and grey office buildings, Victorian red brick, the ever-present cranes, and in the distance, the geometric glass shapes of the City’s skyscrapers, looming over the squat onion dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Renee’s heart rose. She never got sick of London. She might have been born in Singapore, but she’d chosen this city.

She was admiring Jason’s ass in those jeans when he turned and she saw he was frowning. His face cleared when he met her eyes. He said something into his phone, wrapping up the call, and came in.

“Good morning, handsome,” said Renee.

“Morning.” Jason smiled. A little thrill of anticipation shivered through Renee.

Sometimes she worried about their relationship. Her business kept her busy, but Jason was on another level. He was always touring, or recording, or visiting his parents in their giant suburban house in California, festooned with photos of him at every microstage of development—from kindergarten concerts in Taipei, to his first day at elementary school in Walnut Creek, to that weird Korean magazine shoot he did when he debuted, where he was draped suggestively over a horse.

It was hard to connect the way Renee felt one should in a serious relationship. There were video calls, but either they spoke when it was nighttime for her and Jason had just woken up—and he was not a morning person—or it was nighttime at Jason’s end, which tended to lead his mind towards the bedroom.

Renee had nothing against FaceTime sex in principle, but it was hard to get in the mood when it was the middle of the afternoon and Jason was booked in between a call with suppliers and a session with the tax accountant. And then his feelings got hurt, and she felt bad…

But now they were going to have a whole two weeks with nothing to do except focus on each other. Jason was in town to shoot a music video, and he’d extended the trip so they could have a holiday.

It was going to be amazing. Renee would make sure of it.

Jason sat on the sofa opposite her. “How do you look so good when you’ve just gotten out of bed?”

“Thank my dermatologist,” said Renee. “Are you hungry?” She picked up her phone, navigating to the hotel’s online menu. “They serve these gorgeous breakfast spreads here, with cute little waffles. I saw them on Instagram. Are you off carbs at the moment? We could get you an English breakfast—or ooh, grilled lamb kidneys, that’s interesting. Or we could go out? Have you thought about what you want to do while you’re here? Don’t laugh, but I made a spreadsheet.”

Renee swiped away from the breakfast menu on her phone, bringing up her spreadsheet. “There’s so much you never get around to doing when you live in London. I thought we could do a champagne flight on the London Eye? Kind of cheesy, but fun?”

Jason held up his hands, laughing. “Hey, slow down.”

“Sorry,” said Renee, penitent. “You must be jet-lagged. We can get room service and chill. Whatever you want to do.” She set down her phone, smiling up at him. “I’ve been really looking forward to this.”

“Yeah. Totally,” said Jason, but his eyes slid away from hers. He rubbed his thighs, clearing his throat. “Listen, Renee…”

Renee waited, but nothing further was forthcoming. Jason avoided meeting her eyes.

Foreboding swept over her, like the shadow of a passing cloud.

“What is it?” she said. She glanced at his phone, in his front jeans pocket.

Maybe something had come up. He was going to have to fly off early, or reshoot the music video… “Was that your manager on the phone?”

“No,” said Jason. “I was talking to my mom.”

This wasn’t surprising; Jason spoke to his mother daily. It was one of the things Renee liked most about him. And it meant the call was probably nothing to do with work.

Warm with relief, she said, “You guys are so cute. How is your mom? Are her feet better?”

Jason blinked. “Her feet?”

“You know, the warts on her feet,” said Renee. “We’ve been texting, she told me about them. She said they were caused by the wind entering her liver or something. She was using these weird herbal plasters to get rid of them, but she was running low, so I got some shipped from Singapore. They were a different brand, though. Did the plasters work?”

There was an ominous wrinkle between Jason’s eyebrows. “Why are you texting my mom?”

Renee felt cold suddenly, insufficiently protected. She wished she’d got dressed before coming out into the sitting room. She pulled her bathrobe closer around her, folding her arms. “Her friends at church have a son who’s coming over to do his Ph.D. in London. She wanted advice on where he should stay. Should I not text your mom?”

Jason’s forehead smoothed out. “No, it’s—I didn’t realise you guys were so close, that’s all.” He attempted a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

He was picking at a stray thread protruding from an artistic rip in his jeans. Renee’s hands itched to stop him. She would have done it any other time, but somehow she was reluctant to touch him just then.

“I didn’t mean to overstep,” she said. “Your mom texted me first, so I thought…”

“I said it was fine,” said Jason, with a trace of impatience. “Mom will talk to anyone. She’s still in touch with my high school janitor. They trade gardening tips.” He rolled his eyes.

Renee laughed, though she could hear the ring of nervousness in it. She couldn’t tell what, or who, had made Jason impatient. His mom, because she was too gregarious? Or Renee, because of whatever it was she’d done to send this bright morning off course?

It must be the tiredness making him cranky. They’d gone to bed upon arriving at the hotel, but sleep hadn’t been Jason’s top priority last night.

He was coming straight off an intense few months of touring and publicity. Renee needed to be supportive.

“Mr. Vazquez?” she said lightly. “The one who sells Jason Tsai memorabilia on eBay?”

“He rescued her dying bonsai once, so now it’s like she owes him her life,” grumbled Jason. “He’s probably got dibs on my firstborn.”

His mood seemed to be passing. The tightness in Renee’s chest eased.

“That might not be so bad,” she said. “Our kid will be a bonsai master.”

She knew immediately it was the wrong thing to say. Jason’s face twitched.

She could change the subject, try to smooth things over. Instead, Renee said, a hollowness opening in her chest:

“Jason, what’s wrong?”

A muscle spasmed in Jason’s jaw as he came to a decision. He squared his shoulders, letting out a breath.

“Mom was hassling me about this house she wants me to buy back home,” he said, gesturing at his phone. “She’s been nagging me a lot lately about settling down. It’s made me think about the future, and what I really want.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, and looked her in the eye.

“I want you to know, you mean a lot to me,” said Jason. “Nothing’s ever going to change that.”

“What do you mean?” said Renee, but she already knew.

There would be no lingering over lavish hotel breakfasts, feeding each other cute little waffles; no ambling around her city with their hands in each other’s pockets; no champagne flights on the London Eye or anywhere else. Jason having to cut their holiday short for work would have been the good outcome.

“Look, Renee,” said Jason. “I love spending time with you. You’re gorgeous, you’re smart, you’re funny. But what you and I want out of life, it’s too different. I don’t see us working out long-term.”

He sighed, glancing away, before looking back at her. “I’ve known this for a while, but I wanted to wait till we could talk in person. I felt you deserved that much from me.”

Renee still had her arms wrapped around herself. Her fingers dug into the flesh of her arms.

“Why did we have sex if you were only planning on dumping me?” she blurted, and then was furious at herself for betraying so much. It was a pathetic thing to say to someone who had made it abundantly clear he didn’t give a shit about her feelings. She wouldn’t have said it if she wasn’t so off-balance.

Jason looked pensive, his eyes distant and melancholy. Renee recognised his expression: it was the exact same one he had worn in his recent campaign for Celine. She’d passed a blown-up version in half the MTR stations and shopping malls of Hong Kong on her last trip there. This somewhat undermined its impact now.

“I should have said something last night,” he admitted. “But it was so good to see you again. And you were so excited. I didn’t want to, you know, ruin the vibes.”

Renee’s jaw was starting to ache. “You could’ve thought more about my feelings and less about the vibes .”

“This isn’t easy for me either,” said Jason. “But we’ve got to face facts. What future do we have? My career’s back in Asia. If there was a plan for you to move back to Singapore eventually, maybe we could have worked things out. But you say you like it here. You don’t want to go back.”

“You know what it was like for me there.” Renee’s mouth was dry. She had to swallow before she could get the next words out. “With my family.”

“I get it.” Jason was transparently keen to steer clear of her family, a topic liable to upset Renee at the best of times. “But this isn’t sustainable. You see that, right? We’ve been drifting apart for a while anyway.”

“I’ve been trying,” Renee said, hating the self-pitying wobble in her voice but unable to stop it. “It wasn’t easy to make the time for this vacation, with the new launch for Virtu coming up. But I cleared my diary for you.”

Jason hated it when girls cried. Renee had thought it was cute when he’d told her this on their third date. It hadn’t occurred to her then to wonder how many girls had cried in front of him, and why.

“Oh yeah, your launch,” he said, in an ill-advised attempt to redirect the conversation. “What is it, your fall/winter collection?”

It was October, far too late to start marketing an autumn/winter collection.

“It’s our new homewares line,” said Renee. She’d talked incessantly about Virtu at Home on their calls. But why should Jason have any recollection of that? It was only the thing that had consumed her life for the past eight months. “I’ve been planning to expand the brand beyond womenswear for a while. I showed you the samples. Your mom liked the bowls, remember? I was going to send her some.”

Jason had the grace to look embarrassed. “Sorry. I’ve been busy.”

Renee softened. “I know you are. I know what it’s like. I find it hard to let go of work, too.”

It was a bad idea to let her guard down. She kept forgetting she and Jason were no longer on the same side.

“And I’ve always admired your passion for your business,” he said smoothly. “But let’s be real, Renee. You can’t afford two big careers in a relationship. I need someone who will be with me, who’ll put me first. Can you honestly say you’re willing to do that?”

His face was blurry, famously perfect cheekbones and all. Renee wiped her tears off on her arm, furious at her dumb eyeballs for betraying her. “It’s not like you’ve put me before your job. Or are you the only one who gets to expect that?”

“Let’s not do this.” Jason got up, to make it clear he, at least, was done with the conversation.

“I’ll always care about you,” he said. “I’m just not in love with you anymore.”

Renee registered the authenticity, the gentleness with which Jason charmed interviewers and fans alike. It wasn’t working on her this time, but that didn’t matter. She didn’t matter to him anymore, except as a problem to get rid of.