The Friend Zone (Game On 2)

“So we have a few good months before you take the baking world by storm. What are you going to do here?”

I let myself relax against the booth seat. “I’m going to hang with Fiona. She goes to college here, and so Dad is living here too for the time being. He has an apartment in New York City and a house in LA, but Dad has always been overprotective of Fi and doesn’t trust her to be on her own.”

Gray frowns, pausing before taking another bite of chicken. “But he doesn’t worry about you?”

“Naw, I’m like rubber, always bouncing back. Fi’s the fragile one.” I shrug. “It’s always been that way. ‘Don’t worry about Ivy; she’s the steady one.’ ‘Protect Fi’s feelings at all costs; she’ll break if you don’t.’ Frankly it’s bullshit. Fi and I are more alike than not. But that’s how our parents see us.”

“I get that,” Gray says. “It’s what parents do. ‘You see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions.’”

“Did you just quote The Breakfast Club to me?” I ask, amused.

“Good catch.” He grins, which draws my attention back to his mouth. It’s lush—sweetly curved yet still masculine. Even when relaxed, his lips hold a smile. “So you’re going to live with Fiona?”

“Yep. Fi’s living in the guesthouse behind my dad’s house. I’ll stay with her.”

Gray sputters on his drink. “Wait. Your dad has a house big enough to include a guesthouse, but you two won’t live with him?”

“Fi refuses to ‘live with Dad.’ But she loves the guesthouse so…” I shake my head. “I know. We’re odd ducks.”

“You’re a cute duck.” Gray reaches out to muss my hair. His touch is warm, familiar in attitude, yet a completely new thing for me. I can’t help but stare at him, much as I’ve done since he picked me up.

He catches my look and simply grins. “I know.”

“What do you know?” My voice has gone oddly soft, warmth and happiness spreading through me.

Pink washes over his cheeks as he leans forward, bracing his forearms on the table. And I notice another thing about him, his body is always moving in some fashion. “Okay, this is probably going to sound insulting,” he says, “but it isn’t meant to be.”

“Already, I’m totally reassured,” I deadpan.

He grimaces, but doesn’t hold back. “When I was sixteen, I bought my first car. My truck. It was a piece-of-shit 1983 Ford F100.”

“Not liking the sound of this, but go on.”

A smile grows on his face. “It was a junker, but I could imagine what she’d look like some day.”

“She?”

“Yeah, she. Would you pay attention to the story, Mac?”

“Sorry.” I’m grinning. “Go on.”

“So I spent the summer at Drew’s house, fixing it up with the help of Drew and his dad. John Baylor was awesome that way. He’d oversee, teach me and Drew what we needed to do, but left it up to us to learn. We rebuilt the engine, fixed the body, found a new interior for her. Day came that the truck was done.” Gray’s expression turns inward. “God, she was perfect, shiny black with a cream interior. I sat in my truck all day, just looking at her lines, running my hands over the leather bench seat. I couldn’t stop staring.” His eyes meet mine, and I find I’m holding my breath. “Because the dream was finally real.”

My throat constricts, and I swallow hard. “Cupcake…”

Gray flushes deeper pink, and he picks at the edge of our chicken basket. “It’s corny, I know. But I thought of that.” His gaze flicks up to mine. “You’re finally here, and I can’t seem to stop staring.”

Suddenly it’s too much. The squiggly red lines of the retro Formica table blur as I blink down at it.

“Shit,” Gray mutters. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was a compliment, I swear. I’ll take it back if—”

“Don’t you dare,” I snap, lifting my head to glare. “It was the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

His smile is lopsided and a bit unsure. “Then we’re going to have to work on improving that record.”

I know he’s trying to lighten things up, and he probably regrets telling me that story. I kind of regret it too, because he’s turned me into a ball of mush. Staring back at this insanely gorgeous, sweetly thoughtful man who is now my friend, I feel a twinge of loss. From early on, I’d put him firmly in the friend zone, not wanting to develop deeper feelings for a guy I know is a player and treats me like his best pal. And that was okay, because I want Gray’s friendship. I cherish it.

Only now I wonder if I’ve made a mistake. Would we have been more than friends if I hadn’t drawn that line in the sand? But what-ifs don’t matter; we’re friends now, and there is no way I’d risk ruining that by dreaming of more. Besides, in a few months I’ll be back in London with a whole ocean between us.

Smiling back at Gray, I discreetly put a hand to my aching chest and try to press that sense of loss away.

Three

Ivy

When Gray pulls into the circular drive of my dad’s home, he lets out a slow whistle. “That’s some house.”

It’s a monstrosity. One of the new Southern mansions that attempts to look like a chateau but uses sandstone brick and terracotta tiles, and has an obvious newness about it that will never fade into gentility. I know it pisses my dad off that we refuse to live in it, but he’s rarely home and the place literally echoes when you walk inside it. Fi and I are holding out hope that he’ll give up the ghost and find himself a nice townhome more suitable to our small family.