CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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 sweaty basketball players 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.

“Are you okay?” I ask tentatively as I walk over to her. There are three stalls in here, but they’re empty. Footsteps echo then fade down the hall.

She shakes her head. I reach her, place a hand on her lower back, and gently rub. She flinches, and inches away from me.

“Are you not feeling well? Do you have a headache from last night or something?”

The door creaks, and we freeze. It closes again, but I don’t hear anyone come in. The ladies’ room is silent; it’s just us.

She swivels around, grabs my shirt, and tugs me into a stall. “I can’t fake this.”

My shoulders drop. My limbs feel heavy. I’ve pushed her too far. “The engagement?”

“No. That’s fine. The pretend engagement is fine,” she says, staring straight at me. I’ve never seen her brown eyes so intense, like she’s about to scale a sheer wall. They don’t waver at all.

I knit my brow. “Then what is it?” I’m genuinely curious because if she’s not talking about our pretend relationship, I have no damn clue what it is she can’t fake.

Her grip tightens on my shirt. Her jaw is set. She huffs through her nostrils. I’ve never seen Charlotte like this. “What did I do wrong?”

“Last. Night,” she seethes. Each word has its own breathing room.

“What about last night?”

Her eyes float closed, but she looks pained. She takes a deep breath and opens them. The hard edge seems to fade somewhat. “You’re just pretending like it didn’t happen.”

“No,” I say quickly, trying to defend myself. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

But, in fact, it is what I’ve done all day. It’s exactly what I’m hoping to accomplish.

“It is what you’re doing. It’s what you did at breakfast. We just brushed it under the rug, and that’s not me,” she says, her tone fierce, reminding me of one of the very many things I admire about Charlotte—her toughness, her tenacity. “You didn’t let me talk, and I need to know. I told you I’m a shitty liar, and I meant it. I’m rubbish at lying. Even last night, when I said the thing about my dad being a nurse—that was still true.”

This is yet another thing I like about her—she’s so damn honest.

“Okay, so what do you need to know?” I ask, and nerves don’t just skitter across my skin. They fucking descend on me like flying monkeys.

The evil kind.

As if there’s any other variety.

She rolls her eyes. “Are you really this dense, Spencer?”

I hold my hands out wide. “Apparently I am. Why don’t you just spell it out for me? What do you need to know?”

She twists the fabric of my shirt in her hand, pulling me closer, and in a split second, the gap between us narrows. We were a foot away before—enough space to fend off the hormones. Now, they’re back. Swirling. Circling. Gripping. The temperature rises once more.

“Are you not attracted to me?”

My jaw falls. My head rings. She must be crazy. “Are you serious?”

She nods. “Answer the question, Holiday. Is that what the whole ‘let’s just focus on being friends’ thing is about?”

“You’re gorgeous. You’re beautiful. You’re stunning,” I say, rattling off compliments like a salesman on a street corner. “I also don’t want to ruin our friendship. It’s too important.”

She shakes her head. “You still didn’t answer the question.”

“I said you were beautiful.”

“You said that about the Hopper, too. Are you attracted to the Hopper?”

I swallow. I try to string words together, but all that exists in my head is the film reel of last night. Of what I did to her when I was home alone with my hand, and my fantasies, and all the fucking things I want to do with my best friend. Because I am wildly attracted to her—I’ve learned that during the last forty-eight hours. Like, stratospheric levels of attraction. Like, the power-an-airplane-around-the-world kind.

“Do I look insane?” I ask, and my voice is strained. I hate that she’s asking, and I love that she’s asking, and I am strung so goddamn tight right now because this whole day was supposed to be about us being friends.

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

“Yes.”

“No. You don’t look insane. You look annoyed. Just like me. So I guess we’re both pissed.”

“No. I’m not pissed,” I say, and I wrap my hand around hers and uncurl her fingers, then I slam her body against mine. “I’m not pissed. I’m fucking turned on. Because I’d have to be insane not to be attracted to you,” I tell her in a harsh whisper.

Her eyes light up like sparklers. Like I’ve said the one perfect thing. Her irises dance with mischief and joy.

“You are?” All that anger is stripped from her tone. She’s soft and feathery, and that voice wafts over me and makes me want her even more. Makes me want to hear her say other things in that voice.

“Yes.” I speak through gritted teeth. With my hand around her waist, I somehow yank her closer, then I drag a finger along her jawline. “But you’re not supposed to be attracted to your best friend like this. That's not how it works. I’m probably going to have to get checked into a facility to deal with the amount of attraction I have for you. I’ll ask them to remove it, and they’ll say, ‘Sorry, sir, it’s spread across your entire body and we can’t take it out.’”

Her smile grows wide. “Really?” she asks, but it’s hardly a question, more like a statement of wonder.

Now that she’s got me going, I won’t back down. It’s not in my nature. “Don’t make me prove it,” I say, egging her on.

Her eyes sparkle. “Prove it.”

“Challenge accepted.”

In seconds my hand snakes up her skirt, and she gasps when it registers what I’m doing. My fingertips climb up the soft flesh of her thighs, and when I reach her panties I flick my index finger across the cotton panel. They’re damp, and my dick does its best impression of the Empire State Building. I groan. Never taking my eyes off her, I slide one finger inside her panties. Her shoulders shake and my blood heats as I run that finger across her wet, hot, slippery pussy. I bring it to my lips and suck off her wetness. She tastes like all my fantasies. This time, my groan echoes. It rumbles across the ladies’ room, and Charlotte trembles in my arms.

She watches me lick her off my finger, and this is the moment when there is no question. When everything is clear. She parts her lips, and says, “There’s something I want to prove to you, too. Tonight.”

“What is it?”

Before she can answer, the door creaks open. I break apart from her, and she smooths a hand over her shirt, then her skirt. Just so she knows, so there’s no fucking doubt at all, I bring my finger back to my mouth, and I suck it one more time. With my eyes locked on hers, I whisper, so fucking hot.

She shudders, and her lip is quivering. I brush my finger against her lower lip, then push it past her teeth. Instantly, she draws it into her mouth and sucks.

I stare at her, burning up everywhere. I take my finger out, nip the corner of her mouth, unlock the door, and back out. I give a quick wave to Mrs. Offerman.

She blinks, then fixes on a smile and waves.

I return to the family knowing one thing for certain—I have no clue what is going to happen when Charlotte comes over tonight.