“So – did you two do it, then?”
Eric almost fell off his stool at this.
Zoe giggled at his embarrassed expression. “Come on, you can tell me. Am I or am I not your best friend?”
“I don’t think that gives you the right to poke your nose into my private affairs.”
“But I always tell you what I get up to with my boyfriends!” protested Zoe.
Eric got off the stool and began to walk away. “Exactly.”
Ignoring his sarcastic tone, Zoe followed him. “Come on, tell me! It’s driving me mad!”
“Mind your own business.”
“Please! Please?” begged Zoe as she grabbed hold of him, an exaggerated pout on her lips.
“What difference does it make if you know all the details?” he sighed.
“None whatsoever, it just gives me something to gossip about. I did it with Clover, remember?”
“If you think I’ve come here to discuss intimate stuff about Steffy, you can think again.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” snapped Zoe, starting to lose her patience, “I don’t want to know everything!”
“Well you asked Clover for all the details.”
“Yeah, but she’d just got it on with a film star from Hollywood! And anyway she never actually told me, the bitch!”
“Why all this interest in Stephanie? You’ve never given me the third degree before. You didn’t seem particularly interested in the other girls I went out with.”
“This is different, this is special. She’s the woman of your dreams, isn’t she? Or at least she was when you were twenty.”
Eric began to sort through some of the collectibles on display in the showcase. “That was years ago, we’ve both changed since then.”
“Uh-oh,” said Zoe, shaking her head and looking totally unconvinced. “That sounds a bit weird.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought you were over the moon but instead it’s starting to sound like you’re putting the brakes on. Hasn’t Steffy lived up to your youthful expectations?”
“We’ve only been on one date, for God’s sake!” said Eric, rolling his eyes.
“Well sometimes that’s all it takes.”
“I’m a big believer in rationality, remember? I need time to figure out if I really like a person.”
“But when you were a kid you fell in love at first sight.”
“It might have been better if I’d just been struck by lightning,” he muttered. Zoe returned to the counter, deep in thought. After the argument with Eric, she had spent all night thinking about what she had really felt after seeing him walking off with Stephanie Parker and she had felt so bad that she’d promised herself she’d behave like a perfect friend for the rest of her life. She didn’t want her own regrets to make her jealous or bitter or spiteful towards one of the people she loved most in the world, nor did she want to continue being treated like an object by men. She wanted to start seriously working on herself – to try and become a better person, stop hanging out with people who didn’t deserve a moment of her time and be a better friend to her friends.
She wanted Eric to feel free to ask her for advice or to let off some steam any time he wanted to. He was a special guy and he deserved a special girlfriend.
When she caught up with him, she started again. “Listen, I just wanted to remind you that you can tell me anything. If you need advice, reassurance, whatever, I’m here,” she said, seriously. “Agree?”
“Is there something I should be forgiving you for?” said Eric with a puzzled look, and Zoe took his right hand and stroked the plaster on it.
“This, for example. If I’d given you a hand with the work yesterday, instead of wasting time with Evan, you wouldn’t have hurt yourself. I felt really guilty about it.”
Eric didn’t move, just stood there staring into space, his hand abandoned in hers. “It doesn’t matter. It was just me being clumsy, as usual.”
“Yeah, Mr Troublemaker!” cooed Zoe, giving him a slap on his wrist.
“My mother should never have told you that nickname,” he muttered, adjusting his glasses.
Zoe laughed heartily. “She only told me as revenge for you not going home to her for Christmas.”
“You used your whole arsenal of dirty tricks to persuade me to spend that evening with your family instead of mine. It should have been you she punished you, not me!”
“But I know how to make you forgive me,” said Zoe, pursing her lips and fluttering her eyelashes. “I’m adorable and irresistible, aren’t I?”
Eric grunted.
“Am I interrupting something?”
At the sound of those words, they both turned around to find Stephanie staring at them with a puzzled look on her face. Zoe realized that she still had hold of Eric’s hand, and so she slowly released it. She wasn’t doing anything wrong and therefore didn’t intend to behave as if she had been caught with her fingers in the till.
“Hello, Steffy.”
The girl looked from one to the other, a tight smile on her lips. “I was just passing and I thought I’d drop in for a quick chat. Have I come at a bad time?”
“Of course not.”
“You were absolutely right to come,” Eric said, smiling at her. “You okay?”
“Yes, of course. I have a job interview in twenty minutes and I’m early.”
Eric walked around the counter to join her, and Stephanie leaned over to give him a kiss on the cheek, very close to his lips. Zoe realized that they were not yet intimate enough to kiss each other on the mouth in public, and for a brief moment she felt heartened. Then, scolding herself for acting crazily and remembering her good intentions, she moved away to give them a bit of privacy.
The shop door opened and Zoe set off towards the customer, but Eric rushed in front of her, apologizing to Stephanie before abandoning her there alone in the middle of the room. Seeing the sad look on the girl’s face, Zoe walked over to her.
“There is always a steady stream of people here. They’ve managed to whisk him away from you in less than a minute.”
“Yeah. But I can’t expect him to devote all his time to me and to stop him from working,” Steffy shrugged. “I turned up here without letting him know I was coming, so I wasn’t expecting him to only have eyes for me – and it’s now clear that he doesn’t.”
The last sentence, spoken with a hint of bitterness, made Zoe raise her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
Stephanie stared at her, “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“Did you and Eric ever go out together?”
“What?” Zoe was stunned. “Me and Eric… no! Why do you ask?”
“You seem very close. When I came in just now, neither of you noticed the door opening and… Well, I mean, I just want to make sure that I’m not facing any… you know, unfair competition.”
Unfair competition? If I had wanted Eric, you’d have already lost him, girlfriend!
That thought appeared so suddenly in Zoe’s head that it gave her the creeps.
She couldn’t feel that she was in competition with Eric’s girlfriends. That was crazy! She laughed, but it sounded a bit hollow.
“We’ve been friends for a long time.”
At that moment, Eric returned and Zoe dragged him into the conversation. “Can you reassure your girlfriend, please?”
“About what?”
Stephanie interjected, giving him a hesitant glance. “I’m sorry – I embarrassed Zoe by asking her if you two had ever been a thing.”
Eric took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with one hand. “What made you think that?”
“You seem to be very close.”
“Anyone would be close after being friends for ten years.”
Zoe stepped back when Steffy took hold of his hand. It wasn’t the first time that one of Eric’s girlfriends had looked at her suspiciously for the complicity they demonstrated when they were together, but it was the first time that one of them had confronted the situation head-on. She had to admire her for it: it was obvious that she really cared about Eric, and Zoe couldn’t help but be happy for them.
“Don’t worry, I’m going out with someone too, at the moment,” she said.
“Oh, cool! I mean, I’m happy for you – I wasn’t trying to insinuate anything, I hope I haven’t said anything weird!” exclaimed Stephanie, almost breathlessly. “You’re just so pretty that it makes me feel insecure, you know? It sort of makes you wonder if any guy would be interested in an ordinary girl after spending the whole day with you.”
Zoe dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand. “Thank you for the compliment, but there’s no need to be worried. Eric has known me for ages, and if nothing has ever happened between us I would imagine that it must be because he’s immune to my charms.”
She tried to catch Eric’s eye, but he looked terribly uncomfortable. He turned and smiled at Stephanie. “And anyway, you’re beautiful girl, too,” he said.
“Thank you. I’m sorry if I’ve embarrassed you.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Listen, Zoe? We’re going to the opening of a new restaurant tonight. Why don’t you come along with your boyfriend?”
Zoe hesitated. She looked at Eric, who looked as if he had just swallowed a live toad, and shook her head.
“Thanks, but I really can’t tonight. Enjoy the evening by yourselves.”
“I’d really like you to come, honestly. After that blunder of mine a moment ago, the least I can do is try and be friends with you. I’d like to get to know the people who are important parts of Eric’s life, and you’re certainly one of them.” Stephanie looked at Eric searchingly. “You wouldn’t mind if Zoe came, would you…?”
“I don’t really think Zoe wants to spend the evening with us. I’m sure her boyfriend has made other plans for tonight.”
Zoe’s mobile phone began to vibrate in her skirt pocket. She pulled it out and gave a sigh. “Speak of the devil…”
She walked away from them to answer the phone, but Eric caught up with her before she could.
“Come with us,” he said in a serious voice. “We’ve never been on a double date, before.”
“Can you put up with Evan for the whole evening?” she asked.
“Maybe if I get to know him better I’ll end up liking him,” said Eric in the same tone before returning to Steffy.
Zoe felt a strange sensation as she answered the phone.
Eric was right – they had never been out together with their respective partners before. It seemed that their relationship existed only outside their own romantic liaisons.
Yet it was natural to introduce your partner to your friends. That was what Clover had done with Cade, and Liberty had done the same with Justin. She and Eric, however, had never officially presented any of their amorous conquests to one another. Perhaps because none of them had ever seemed worthy of the privilege?
She suggested having dinner with two friends to Evan and, as she’d expected, he wasn’t too happy about it. They had only been out as a couple a few times and he was more interested in devoting their time together to doing other things. Feeling slightly annoyed, Zoe found herself insisting. She wanted a normal relationship with a guy and an evening with friends was her idea of normality.
Sensing that he might end up not even getting to first base that evening if he decided that he didn’t want to go along, Evan agreed to have dinner with Eric and Stephanie and Zoe hung up with a satisfied smile.
“He said ‘yes’,” she said as she walked back over to them.
“Fantastic – we’ll have fun!” smiled Stephanie. Zoe couldn’t tell if the girl’s enthusiasm was genuine or dictated by a desire to repair the faux pas she had committed earlier. Obviously, she didn’t want to antagonize Eric’s best friend but it was equally understandable that she didn’t trust her completely.
Zoe found herself looking forward to the evening ahead – after all she would have the opportunity to study Eric’s new flame and decide whether she really was suitable for him or whether she should consider her an enemy like all the others. But above all, she would be able to observe her shy and reserved friend in a situation outside of their own friendship. And that was something she was very curious about.
*
What a dumb idea.
How could he have pushed her into accepting that reckless invitation from Stephanie? He should have made her understand that she wasn’t welcome and pretended that he wanted to dine alone with his girlfriend… but the idea of making Zoe feel like a third wheel seemed absurd even to his brain cells.
Did Zoe understand now why they had never been out on a double date before? For him the reason was clear, but apparently that little detail had never occurred to her before this evening. At that precise moment, though, she must certainly be thinking about it, given the lacklustre conversation that was taking place at their table.
He and Evan had nothing in common. All the football player spoke about was sports and cars, two topics that Eric had always found tedious. Without Zoe acting as an intermediary and without Stephanie’s forced cheerfulness, silence would have fallen on the group a minute after they’d been served with their starters.
The two girls were pretending to share a camaraderie that didn’t really exist. In reality they were observing each other like two cats competing for the same fillet of fish, although for quite different reasons, and that made for a heavy atmosphere.
In short, it was a disastrous evening.
Eric understood Stephanie’s doubts about his relationship with Zoe – he had already been through the same thing with previous girlfriends. All of them, without exception, ended up feeling threatened by the looming presence of his best friend, even if Zoe didn’t actually do anything to fuel their suspicions. It wasn’t her fault that she was gorgeous and sexy as hell and that he couldn’t help but desire her every time he laid eyes on her. Although he worked hard at not showing the world how he felt, even a corpse would have picked up the vibrations that his body gave off whenever he was around Zoe. As long as the corpse wasn’t Evan, of course – all he could come up with were a few monosyllables and a whole load of lascivious glances at Zoe’s seductively tight pants and white T–shirt that left a glimpse of velvety skin, from her neck to her shoulder which would have been enough to awaken the vampire in anyone.
Every time Evan looked at her or touched her, Eric felt as though he was going to die of jealousy. The effort of not staring him out, or stabbing him with a fork every time he reached out to her, or telling the pair of them off like some bitter old prude each time Zoe gave Evan a peck to keep him quiet was killing him.
To counteract the bitter taste of bile in his mouth, he focused as much as possible on Stephanie, who looked as pretty and fresh as a daisy in her peach-colored dress. It really was a shame that Zoe was so ingrained in his head and in his heart, because Steffy was a sweet girl who really cared about him and clearly wanted to please him and to show him how happy she was to be going out with him.
Why couldn’t he just fall in love with her? It would have been so much simpler.
Zoe glanced continually in their direction, partially sating her curiosity, intrigued as she was with the idea of seeing him in action with a girl.
Eric knew what was going on and that was why he was trying to behave as naturally as possible , even though he felt uncomfortable playing the role of the boyfriend in the presence of the woman of his dreams. But that wasn’t the only reason why Zoe was watching them.
Knowing her as well as he did, Eric guessed that what really bothered her was being monitored by Stephanie as though she were some kind of explosive device. Some of his former girlfriends had tried to break them up and Zoe wanted to make sure that this newcomer wasn’t yet another threat to their friendship.
Eric would have laughed at that nonsense, if he had only had the strength.
“So did you get the job?” Zoe was asking Steffy, as they waited for dessert.
“Yes! As of next week I’m going to be Dr Leitman’s assistant.”
“Doctor? Weren’t you a sort of scientist?”
On hearing that, Eric stared at Evan, a sarcastic quip poised ready on his lips. The chump had a brain as big as a peanut.
Stephanie, always polite, feigned amusement. “I am. It’s not just doctors who are called ‘doctor’ – a lot of graduates are called ‘doctor’ too.”
“The name Leitman sounds familiar to me,” said Zoe.
“He was one of our professors at M.I.T., but nowadays he’s completely dedicated to research, and I will be working for him.”
“I must have heard his name when I was helping you with your studies,” said Zoe, smiling at Eric.
“Probably. He was my favorite teacher back then.”
Stephanie looked at Zoe.” Did you study at Boston too?”
“No, I worked in the campus cafeteria. Eric came in every day at the same time and when things were quiet I used to go over and sit with him and give him a hand.” Zoe looked down at her empty plate. “I wasn’t really helping him, I just listened to him going over his notes – physics and computer science have never been my forte.”
“What did you graduate in?”
“Oh, I didn’t go to college.”
“Zoe knew what she wanted to do when she was twenty,” said Eric, intervening to try and prevent his friend from feeling embarrassed. At the mere mention of university, Zoe always tensed up. “She worked really hard while half the guys on campus spent all their time getting wasted at parties and joining weird secret organizations. Her dream was to move to New York and attend one of the most prestigious courses in photography in the United States. She was right to go her own way – she didn’t need a degree to become the talented photographer she is now.”
Zoe’s sweet smile threatened to send him into raptures even though he hadn’t said what he’d said with the intention of making himself look good in her eyes. Zoe had always felt inferior in front of people like him who had a degree in some subject that was considered difficult. She had nothing in common with graduates and that made her feel left out when people started talking about college and prompted her to seek general approval by focusing on her other skills.
“I just partied the whole time!” laughed Evan, who certainly seemed to have no problem showing his weaknesses. “I went to college for a year, then I left to play football.”
‘You went to college? You?!’ thought Eric in amazement. “So what faculty did you attend?” he asked, trying to restrain the level of sarcasm in his voice.
“Ah, I don’t know – one of them. I can’t even remember, my dad picked one out for me.”
“I thought it was strange,” said Eric, letting out a tired sigh.
He was grateful when the waiter brought them the dessert. Only a few more minutes and they would be able to leave, finally.
“Eric tells me that you’re going to be doing a special in-store photo shoot in the next few days,” said Steffy while she took a spoonful of cake.
Zoe nodded. “Yeah. We’re going to do a racy calendar for the girlfriend of one of our customers.”
“And the customer is Brooke Samuels!” exclaimed Evan.
Zoe and Eric gave him dirty looks, but Stephanie didn’t notice.
“Seriously? The Hollywood actress? That’s fantastic!”
“It will be, but it’s information that we only usually give out once we’ve finished when we’re working with a particularly well-known client,” Zoe said, giving her a meaningful look. “You know, for privacy.”
“Oh, sure. I guess it’s a hassle to have to deal with all their fans crowded outside the door.”
“Exactly.”
“You should be used it. One of your colleagues is dating an actor, right?” interjected Evan.
Stephanie stared at Eric. “Liberty or Clover?”
“Clover,” sighed Eric. Since Mr Muscle couldn’t keep his mouth shut, he might as well clarify the whole situation immediately. “She’s seeing Cade Harrison, who has worked in the past with Brooke Samuels. That’s why she’s coming to us tomorrow.”
“Cade Harrison, wow! He’s absolutely gorgeous!”
“The story was all over the papers. How come you didn’t know about it until now?” Zoe asked, puzzled.
“Oh, I don’t usually pay much attention to that type of gossip.”
“Just like Eric. Do you always have your head buried in a book all day too?”
Thanks to the radiant, happy smile on her face which diluted the content of her words, Zoe’s slightly sarcastic tone went unnoticed, but Eric noticed it and grimaced.
“That’s why we are such a well-matched pair,” he said. “We’ve got the same boring interests.”
At his words, Stephanie’s eyes lit up, sparking a twinge of guilt in him. He knew that he had only really complimented her in order to take some petty revenge on the other girl at the table.
How sad.
“I quite like the world of showbiz,” Evan said, finishing off his dessert in a flash. “Those guys get a boatload of perks, who wouldn’t want to be in their place?”
“And do you have any aspirations in that field?” asked Eric, getting more and more bored.
“I never really thought about it seriously, even though I always enjoy appearing in the newspaper after a game. But I’m pretty excited at the idea of being one of the models for the calendar. Hey, I’ll get to meet two famous women!”
“Excited, really? I had no doubt about that whatsoever.” His mumbling earned him a kick under the table from Zoe, who was trying to hold back her laughter. The idiot, of course, didn’t pick up on the sarcasm in his voice.
A very good-looking but rather gaudily dressed woman passed by their table and stopped dead when she saw Lewis.
“Evan? Is that you?”
He looked up and his face broke into a smile. “Luanne?”
As the two, speaking almost simultaneously, embraced and kissed one another on the cheek, Eric looked over at Zoe, who was staring at the newcomer like a scientist observing a cell culture under a microscope.
Whatever degree of interest she actually felt for her partner of the moment, Zoe – his beautiful and smart Zoe – always seemed to end up feeling increasingly threatened by other women.
How ridiculous – that bleached blonde with fake boobs wasn’t even half as pretty as she was.
Evan, though, seemed to appreciate her and his slightly lascivious interest in her neckline made Zoe get up from her chair.
She walked over to the pair of them and placed her hand on Evan’s back, sliding it down his spine in a gentle caress which was aimed at attracting his attention.
Eric could not speak for Lewis, but his body reacted immediately and unmistakeably. He looked away from the pathetic scene and tried to concentrate on his dessert, even though it felt as if he were eating shards of glass.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” Zoe said sweetly. In less than two minutes, she had already started competing with the new arrival – it usually took her longer. Did that mean that she liked this nobody more than others?
“This is Luanne. She was my old college girlfriend,” explained Evan. “Lu, this is Zoe. We’ve been dating for a few days.”
Zoe and Luanne reached out and shook hands. If they had been in a science fiction movie there would have been the sizzling sound of high voltage sparks flying from that handshake.
“She’s jealous, huh?” Stephanie murmured in his ear, distracting him.
“Who are you talking about?”
“At a guess I’d say both of them are, but mostly Zoe. When a man’s ex-girlfriend and his new girlfriend meet for the first time, they’re always pretty hostile. They observe each other and wonder what he found so interesting in ‘the other girl’.”
“Well, personally I can’t see anything exciting about that woman,” Eric said. “Perhaps it’s my affection speaking, but I don’t think Zoe has anything to be jealous about.”
“You’re very loyal,” Stephanie said as she stroked his cheek and gave him a quick kiss on the mouth. “And you’ve got no reason to be intimidated by Zoe’s boyfriend either, you know? He is so…”
“What? Stupid? Vulgar?” proposed Eric, with a grimace.
“I’d probably have been slightly more magnanimous in my description, but I’d say you’ve hit the nail on the head!” she laughed.
Unable to help himself, Eric glanced again in the direction of Zoe, who continued to drape herself over her little toy in order to mark her territory. Feeling more and more irritated, Eric suddenly got up from the table.
A puzzled expression on her face, Stephanie looked up at him. “What’s the matter?”
“I just need to make a quick phone call,” he improvised. He gave her a kiss on the head, to reassure her. “I’ll be right back. And then I would like to go, if it’s ok with you – I really don’t want to spend the whole evening with them.”
“I agree,” she smiled, her green eyes glinting mischievously.
Eric walked to the exit and, once outside, leant against the stone wall of the restaurant.
What a rotten evening. He would need to convince Stephanie not to have any similar ideas in the future. Their relationship had to run parallel with his relationship with Zoe, otherwise it would be a total waste of time.
Hadn’t he decided to go out with another woman so that he could forget about his colleague?
Seeing her showing an interest in that idiot just to avoid being pushed out of the way by Miss Silicone Tits made him mad. Zoe Mathison with her fantastic figure, Zoe Mathison who could have any man she desired, whose brain was as keen as her face was pretty, was so desperate for attention that she ended up making a fool of herself. He had always hated that about her and his ability to put up with it had dropped off sharply over recent weeks.
He was finding it increasingly difficult to control his feelings.
He took a deep breath to calm himself down, then went back inside. Luanne seemed to have vanished, but Evan and Zoe were still standing up and that gave him hope that the end of the evening was in sight.
“We’re leaving,” said Zoe, without looking over at him. Evan was smiling from ear to ear… and had a conspicuous bulge in his pants.
On the verge of throwing up, Eric pulled back Stephanie’s chair as she stood up and helped her put on her jacket. “Yes, we are too.”
They left the place in silence and, once they were outside, Steffy smiled at Zoe.
“Thank you for accepting our invitation, it was nice getting to know you better.”
“It was for me too,” said Zoe, looking somewhat distracted.
Evan handed her a helmet, then climbed up onto a huge motorcycle that Eric hadn’t noticed before. “Get on, baby. We’ll be home in a jiffy on this bad boy.”
“Does he even know how to ride that?” Eric asked Zoe, his fists clenched in his pockets.
“Sure. He goes a bit too fast, but… who wouldn’t with a bike like that?” Zoe climbed on behind Evan then turned towards him. “See you tomorrow!” she shouted over the noise of the revving engine.
“If you’re still alive,” Eric muttered, taking Stephanie’s hand as they headed for the taxi stand.
“It wasn’t a great idea of mine, was it?”
Eric tried to smile at his girlfriend. “It doesn’t matter, it’s over now.”
“I’m sorry. I felt bad about the impression I’d made on Zoe and I just invited her on impulse to try and make up for it,” Steffy said, biting her lip and sounding mortified. “I shouldn’t have asked her that stupid question about the two of you being together, I should’ve asked you or just have minded my own business. But I wanted to know whether I should be worried about her or whether I could trust her.”
“Fear Zoe?” said Eric with a bitter laugh. “Didn’t you see the kind of man she likes?”
“She does have rather unusual taste.”
“Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.”
Stephanie stared at the road ahead, suddenly looking melancholy. “Listen, I hope I didn’t give you the impression that I’m some kind of crazy jealous fruitcake, but it’s hard for me to trust people. Years ago I fell in love with a guy who was really close friends with this other girl – they’d been family friends since they were at kindergarten together. As far as he was concerned she was like a kid sister or something, but then we started dating and she got jealous and she kept throwing spanners into the works until we eventually split up. I hated the way she was always meddling in our relationship and it ended up driving me nuts, but at the same time my boyfriend was still too attached to her to tell her to buzz off – he didn’t want to hurt her,” she said as she observed him from under her long lashes. “So can you understand now why I wanted to make sure that Zoe wasn’t another rival? Us women always tend to make the same type of mistakes in love, and this time I just really want to avoid doing that…”
Eric was silent for a moment, feeling more guilty than ever. But if Steffy needed reassurance about there not being anything going on between him and Zoe he could give it to her without lying. He was the one who was hopelessly in love with Zoe, not the other way round, and he was determined to remedy the situation with Steffy.
“You heard what she said today – if nothing has ever happened between us in all the years we’ve known each other, you have nothing to worry about,” he said, gallantly opening the door of the taxi for her, then following her in and sitting beside her.
“I’m really happy to hear that,” she murmured with a smile, pulling him closer to her.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
Steffy looked at Eric, a clear invitation in her eyes.
“The night’s still young. You want to come back to my place?”
He hesitated a moment, feeling confused, and then the image of Zoe on that pig in heat’s bike appeared in his mind.
“Good idea.”