Friend-Zoned (Friend-Zoned 1)

Oh woe is me!

Lola is sweet but can be terribly naive. She is twenty five and a bit of a drama queen. She is short; about 5 foot nothing. Her chocolate brown hair is layered down to her shoulders and she has sweet deep brown puppy dog eyes. So when she asks for my delicious cupcakes, she gets my delicious cupcakes.

Lola starts, “So, get this. I drag my ass out of bed to do some grocery shopping this morning. I’m waiting at the checkout. It’s so early I can’t even see color yet. I look up and that bitch Nicki is my checkout girl. She smiles and says I just want you to know the whole time you were with Alex, I was bangin’ him, too. ”

Oh. No. She. Didn’t.

The look on my face must have conveyed this because Lola continues, “Uh, yeah. So I say to her I hope you always used condoms like I did because I found out he’s carrying!”

I burst out laughing and ask, “Is that true?”

She chuckles and replies, “I have no idea. Her face was so pale, she looked like she was gonna be sick! Then she says, ‘He said I was the best he ever had, he said you’re like a corpse in bed’. So I reach over to my groceries, open a can of chopped tomatoes and dump em on her head!”

I’m laughing so hard I’m clutching my stomach, I can barely breathe. Lola looks at me and starts laughing just as hard. Then she stops, looks up slightly, scrunches her face and says quietly, “Yeah, I’m probably banned from there. I need to find a new place to get my groceries. ”

I smile, “That’s the least of your worries! Tell me it was worth it. ”

She smiles big as she responds, “Totally worth it. ”

Lola used to be a little too sweet. That is until she met Mimi. Mimi fell in love with Lola the second she met her. She took our little friend under her wing and gave her a new motto.

Don’t Take Shit!

So, over the course of the last year, I’ve seen Lola blossom from a delicate flower into a durable weed!

That sounds bad, but trust me, it isn’t.

“So,” Lola says while counting stock. “Meems tell me you’ve got yourself a new friend. ” She says friend like she wants to follow it with smoochy kisses.

God, Mimi, you suck.

Using my stern mom voice I utter, “Not. A. Word. ”

She sounds exasperated when she replies, “Oh, Come on Teeny! You cannot tell me you don’t see what I see when you look at him. ”

I sigh deeply and admit, “I do! I know he’s Mr Beautiful and, by the way, you should see his brother who is Mr Gorgeous. The guy spoke to me and I almost peed. I was so nervous and my neck did that stupid itchy red thing and he was all suave with his deep bedroom voice and…Gahh!”

Turning my back to her, I walk my way over to the staff room. I’m almost there when I hear Lola.

“Why don’t you ask him to lunch?”

Hmmm, I might just do that.

***

Two days later

I sit at the front counter and stare and the business card which stares right back at me. Mocking me.

Nik’s email address is on the card. I could just send him an email asking him to lunch or coffee.

So why is this so hard?

Stop being a chicken and just do it. You know you want to see him.

I log in to my email, start writing, and chicken out at the last minute. I save the email to the draft folder in case I change my mind.

Rawr Raaawr