SIX MONTHS LATER
Working for my best friend is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Granted, it’s not like job offers were falling into my lap after college graduation regardless of how many résumés I sent out and interviews I went on. I might have gotten the job with Trey due to a hefty dose of nepotism, but with a double major in marketing and finance I’m more than qualified to be his assistant. Sure, sometimes it means I’m running to the dry cleaner to pick up his fashionably pressed shirts. Other times it means taking chicken soup to his penthouse suite ten floors above my own apartment because he’s so entrenched in work he doesn’t remember the last time he ate. My job is an equal mixture of managing Trey’s professional life down to the very second and acting like his pseudo-mom. Like when he’s so lost in his work as an app developer, he’s forgotten to shower or shave in days.
I can’t beat the perks, though. Being able to do most of my work in my favorite striped, fleece pajama pants, sipping coffee while binge-watching my favorite shows on Netflix, is definitely near the top of my list. Handling conference calls with lawyers on the East Coast dressed in my robe and fresh out of a shower at too-damn-early-o’clock also makes the top five.
I love Trey’s friendship and working for him. Which is why when he knocks on my door before the sun has risen over another dreary winter day in Portland, I’m able to tamp down the urge to strangle him. Disheveled and dressed in a wrinkled white T-shirt, navy blue athletic shorts, and mismatched ankle socks—one orange and the other black—he shoves his tablet in my face before I have the door fully opened.
“Look at this.”
“What do you want, Trey?” I cover my mouth with my hand, yawning. Good grief, it is freaking early. I’m blurry-eyed, exhausted, and I barely had time to throw on a robe before stumbling to the door.
“Need your help.”
His dark eyes are wild, which only means one thing.
“You finished it?” I’m already reaching for the tablet. His excitement is contagious. I’ve known Trey for years, ever since he and our other friend, Corbin, saved me from a scary encounter with a drunken asshole in a stairwell in our college dorm.
After that, they became my protectors. Then they became my brothers. That was years ago, but the experience bonded us in a way that’s unbreakable.
The only time Trey looks like he spent time in the clothes washer on the extended wash cycle is when he’s near the end of a project.
“Yeah.” He pushes his way through the door, his large and muscled frame entering like he has every right to be here, and not even considering the fact I can deny him entrance.
Which I won’t. I step back before his body shoves me back, and shut the door behind him.
Through another yawn I don’t bother disguising, I shuffle behind him to the kitchen. “How long have you been awake?”
His head is bent, fingers swiping across the screen. He doesn’t look up as he asks, “W-w-what day is it?”
He stutters slightly and I frown. He typically hides it well, his stutter making an appearance only when he’s overly exhausted or extremely nervous. It’s been months since I’ve heard it. It’s also so damn early, I blame the time and him waking me from a really good dream to remember. The dream is now a hazy memory, but I woke up with that heavy, aroused feeling between my thighs.
More reason to curse Trey and his early arrival.
“It’s Monday.”
“Right. Monday. Still January?”
“God, Trey. You’re a wreck.” I shove his shoulder, knocking him off balance, and chuckle as he falls into the barstool I aimed him for in the first place. “Need coffee?”
With laser focus on my Keurig, I pull out a K-Cup from the drawer beneath the machine that brings the elixir of life. I get it settled and grab two mugs.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I think I had some. A few hours ago? M-m-maybe?” I turn just as Trey scratches his cheek. His scruff is out of control and he’s usually cleanly shaven. He scowls at his hand, like he doesn’t understand why his face is scratchy in the first place, and finally sets down the tablet. “I think I need to sleep more. Maybe.”
He shrugs, and it’s adorable. Which is not a word he likes me using to describe him. Trey Kollins is built to be in the middle of a boxing ring. He’s also a huge geek. Brains and brawn with a quirky smile and a protective streak when it comes to me that stretches the entire West Coast.
“Then go sleep.” I fill my mug and set a second in the machine. He might be jittery and need sleep, but it’ll take him hours or days to crash if he’s really finished his current app. “Personally, I’d like to. Can’t this wait a few hours?”
He lifts his head. Eyebrows are scrunched together, and his jaw drops. Right. How dare I, his beloved assistant and friend, not understand his excitement? I know him enough to know he’s shocked at my lack of interest.
“Fine.” I take another sip of my coffee and reach for the tablet, sliding it my way. “What do you need my help with?”
His palms drum on the countertop. “I want you to try this.”
“Never gonna happen,” I mutter.
I’ll never understand how Trey of all people, who rarely sees a woman for longer than a week or two, is for some reason obsessed with creating dating apps. He’ll say it’s because it’s a big moneymaker and he goes to where the dollar signs are, but I think he’s full of crap. Trey likes women, and personally I think the only reason his relationships, as short as they are, don’t work out is because he’s too scatterbrained and singularly focused on his job to remember he has a woman waiting for him when he gets entrenched in his work.
Me, on the other hand? I swore off serious relationships years ago.
This particular app is a spin-off from one he made over a year ago called PerfectMate. He’s been working on building and refining that app into PerfectMatch. For months, he’s been scrambling algorithms and coding and whatever other techie words he uses to do his job that go over my marketing- and numbers-minded brain.
Essentially, he’s been trying to design and create a dating app that’s focused not on short-term physical appeal but on long-term relationships. You fill out a questionnaire that dissects every possible thing about your life and beliefs and interests and goals, and the app creates a ninety-percent-match rate before you ever see a person on your swipe up or down screen.
If there’s a man who matches ninety percent of everything I want in life and is slated to be my forever, my goal is to stay as far away as possible.
“Come on, Caitlin.” Trey pushes away from the counter and helps himself to the coffee I readied for him. “I need help with this. I could have totally messed it all up, or it’s going to be the hugest app in the world for people who want more than a quickie fling.”
“Exactly.” I grin and tip my mug in his direction. “Which is why I am not your girl on this.”
“Yeah, but you’re like the only normal girl I know.”
I’m not sure that’s a compliment, considering how messed up I am when it comes to relationships and men. “Thanks.”
He laughs, and it’s rough and gritty, like he’s smoked two dozen packs of cigarettes and hasn’t drunk water in a month. The smoking would never happen with him, but the lack of water undoubtedly has.
“You know what I mean. Just a month. It’s all I’m asking. See what happens before I finalize the kinks in it. It’s not like you have to marry the guys you’ll meet.” He looks at me with a strange sparkle in his eyes, tilting his head to the side. I know this look: it means trouble. “And who knows, maybe you’ll finally move past He Who Should Not Be Named.”
He’s referencing Jonas. It’s possible I was not Miss Pleasant to Be Around in the weeks following the dissolve of our arrangement months ago. Pushing down the lingering pinch I feel whenever Jonas is brought up, I flash Trey a wink. I’m determined not to go there.
Yet maybe he has a point. Ever since Jonas and I ended, I haven’t hooked up with anyone. And when our friends Teagan and Corbin were married last fall, it was the first time I felt some strange emotion as they recited their vows with tears in their eyes.
Loneliness?
Whatever it was, that same pesky sensation, that niggling feeling at the base of my neck, made a return appearance over the holidays, which I spent with Teagan and Corbin. They were just so darn cheerful.
Maybe I am missing something.
“Well, there’s a bonus,” I tease. “But you don’t need me for this. You have a handful of testers you can use for these kinds of projects, and those who tested PerfectMate. They’d jump at this chance.”
“Please, Caty-bug. At least try it out for my sake, let me know if there’s anything wonky with it or doesn’t work right.” He pouts and pulls his sad puppy dog face on me. The one he knows he can use to get me to do whatever he wants. Damn friends. “You’re my only hope.”
Great. Begging, a stupid nickname I hate and love in equal measure, and a Star Wars reference. The man knows all my weak spots.
“Thirty days?” Oh God. I’m doing this. I’m actually considering this.
“Thirty days.”
I take a hefty swallow of my cooling coffee and cringe, forcing down the chilled flavor. And because Trey would do anything for me, regardless of how crazy or stupid or life-defying, I finally say, “I’ll think about it.”
He throws his arms around me like me thinking about it is the same as me agreeing. In all honesty, it probably is, but I’ll still make the guy sweat out my decision for another twelve hours.
“Thank you, shrimp. You’re the best.”
I shove him away from me. Corbin and Trey have a knack for giving me ridiculous nicknames because I’m a full foot shorter than either of them. “Shut up, geek, and go take a shower. You smell.”
I walk away from Trey, catching him sniffing his armpit right before I leave the kitchen and head toward my bedroom.
I’ll deal with the favor I know I’ll do for him after a few more hours of sleep.
After I go back to bed and wake up again at a more reasonable hour, I spend hours shuffling through spreadsheets, cleaning up Trey’s expenses and collecting tax information for his accountant. Unable to focus on much else, I call it an early day and grab my pink wool coat and cream scarf and head out in search of lunch. I’m not at all surprised when I end up outside Dirty Martini’s, the bar Jonas now owns. Granted, I haven’t been here much in the last few months. Hard to return to your favorite place when your friends-with-benefits arrangement comes to an abrupt termination.
After six months, even that’s all water under the bridge. Mostly. I miss Jonas. And not just the way he knows how to play my body like I was made for him. I miss his laughter and his humor and how easy it was to fall not only into bed with him but into a friendship. Some days the pain of that last moment with him, standing in my doorway, braced to leave but hesitating, still haunts me. There’s still the moment I wish I could have said something, or run to him and throw my arms around him and tell him, Yes. Yes I want more, too. But even on the days when I imagine that scenario, I know deep down it’s not something I’m capable of. So while I miss him desperately, I still let him go so he can find his own happy, which I truly want for him.
It was still a huge shock to my system when I walked into Dirty’s for the first time after our FWB arrangement came to an end to find him leaning over the bar, kissing a cute little brunette on her cheek, and promising he’d be at her place later. She stood up to leave, and he followed her with his eyes until she walked past me on her way out the door. It was then that Jonas caught sight of me at the bar and froze for a brief moment before plastering a grin on his face I knew was forced. He’d then said hello, asked me what I wanted to drink, and eventually told me that the girl was Ashley, the one he’d said he was interested in the morning he left my place.
I plastered on a similar fake smile and forced myself to choke down the martini he handed me, taking my time so it didn’t look like I was in a hurry to get the hell out of his bar for the first time in years since I’d discovered it. And slowly, over time, it’s become easier to walk through the doors and resume a friendship with him.
That doesn’t mean I still don’t check to see if he’s at the bar before I enter. Today, since it’s well after lunchtime, the customers are sparse, and thankfully there isn’t anyone sitting at the tables lining the window where my face is pressed so close to the glass, fog forms on it.
At the bar to the right, there’s a bartender whom I know, and while there are a couple of men dressed in suits at one end, sipping on bottles of beer, it’s the woman across from Tucker who grabs my attention.
Ashley. Jonas’s girlfriend. I’d hate her if she weren’t so sweet and lovely.
After Trey’s proposition earlier, I’m in need of a drink to consider my options. For a second, I debate whether or not to enter. Maybe I should find a new favorite place altogether. Continually putting myself in front of Jonas, able to look but not touch, does weird things to my mental health.
Like, currently making Trey’s app seem like a better idea.
“Whatever,” I mutter to myself. The app is maybe not the worst possible idea ever thrown my way. And this is my favorite place for lunch. With a burst of confidence, I tug open the front door, and as it closes behind me, I’m already unwrapping my scarf.
Even as strange as I’m feeling, I head straight toward Ashley. We’ve run into each other enough now, it’d be weird for everyone if I didn’t join her.
In the month she’s been with Jonas, I’ve never asked if she knows our history. It’s not important, nor is it my business. The benefits arrangement Jonas and I had ended the day he left my apartment, and we’ve now settled into a fairly decent, only sometimes awkward, routine. I show up, we laugh and joke and talk about politics, and I argue with him that nothing in the world beats a West Coast summer. He feeds me, fuels me with a variety of martinis, and then we wave goodbye. Really not too different than we used to be, except now I know those waves and winks we exchange will never again lead to his hands on me.
Which is a bummer in itself because while I’ve apparently accepted we are just friends…I haven’t been able to replace him either.
Perhaps taking a stab at Trey’s app will be a good thing, then. A chance to get back out there, like he suggested, and find a new fling or two even if that’s not the app’s purpose.
“Hey lady, what’s shakin’?” Ashley asks as I drape my coat over the barstool next to her and slide onto the seat.
“Ugh. Life.”
She smiles sweetly. “I hear that. Work sucks, but luckily Jonas is taking me to the coast for the weekend so I can’t complain.”
She’s a pediatric nurse and works early morning shifts at the children’s hospital. From stories she’s told before, she works mostly with cancer patients. I can’t fathom what it’s like to lose a child to such a horrific disease and still be able to smile at the end of her shift. She’s just that good a person.
“Oh. That’ll be nice.” I turn to Tucker, one of the best new bartenders Trey has hired. The man is already shaking my drink up and sliding the empty martini glass in front of me. It’s like he knows the bile is rising in my throat at the thought of Jonas and Ashley going away for the weekend.
Tucker pours my drink, and I instantly grab it, taking a healthy swallow. “Bad day?”
“Stressful one.”
“Anything suit your fancy to eat?” His blond hair brushes his shoulders. He’s young but cute. With his cocky swagger, and bartending to pay his Portland University tuition and his rocking hard bod, I doubt he spends many nights alone.
“Bruschetta to start with, please,” I reply. I don’t need the menu. It hasn’t changed in two years but has somehow gotten better.
I give credit to Jonas for changing their suppliers to using more locally grown, organic ingredients for the boost in flavor.
“Gotcha. Anything good goin’ on for you?”
“Nah,” I tell him as another customer grabs his attention. “Same ol’ same ol’.”
He slaps the bar, grinning as he walks away. “I hear that.”
But for some reason, for the first time, “same ol’ same ol’ ” sounds rather pathetic and boring.