What if the right guy to scratch my sexual itch is the one who makes me laugh? The one I can talk to.
What if the right guy…
…Has been right in front of me?
Chapter 8
Ben
Parker’s mostly quiet on the drive home, which doesn’t really alarm me. We’re comfortable with each other’s silences. But she was quiet at dinner, too, and that’s unusual.
“Talk or mute?” I ask.
“Hmm?” she asks, not playing our usual game.
I glance at her more closely. “You’re being weird.”
She cuts me a look across the darkened car. Her expression is unreadable, and that worries me even more. I’m not good at very many things, but reading Parker has always been one of them.
That’s what happens when someone is best friend, carpool buddy, and roommate. You start to know them as well as you know yourself. Better, actually.
“You going out tonight?” she asks.
I shrug. “Haven’t decided. Why, you want to come?”
I’m silently hoping she’ll say no. Not because I don’t want to hang out with her, but because we’ve been “going out” more often than not lately, and while I’ve had a good time—mostly—I wouldn’t mind a quiet evening. Chilling with Parks on the couch with bad TV or a stupid movie sounds way better than getting dressed up and talking to strangers.
Still, one of the things about having a female best friend is that when she asks you to be a wingman, you’ve got to do it the way you would for a guy friend.
But there’s also an extra obligation of protection. She’d kill me if she knew it, but my reasons for tagging along aren’t so much about helping her get laid as they are making sure she doesn’t end up with some asshole.
So, no, I don’t want to go out tonight. But if she’s going, I’m going.
“Nah, I think I’m staying in,” she says. “I’m too full to even think about putting on anything other than pants with an elastic waist.”
“Second helping of lasagna catching up with you?” I ask, relaxing a little now that she’s not being all quiet and weird.
“Says the guy who had three.”
I pat my stomach. “I would never offend your mother by eating anything less than an obscene amount.”
Parker’s mom is a decent cook, but it’s not really about the quality of food so much as the homemade factor. I don’t miss much about home, but I do miss home-cooked meals. Of course, family dinners at my house weren’t quite as pleasant a
s they are at the Blantons’.
I could never decide which was worse, the lectures that ensued whenever I sat down to eat at my mother’s house, or the awkward silences as my dad tried to figure out how to talk to us when we were kids.
Parker’s fallen quiet again, and this time I let her stew.
Back at home, we both head into the kitchen, her to put leftovers in the fridge, me to get a glass of water.
I assume based on her quiet mood that she’s going to retreat to her bedroom, but instead she sits at our small kitchen table, tapping her fingernails and staring at a random spot on the wall.
I roll my eyes, pour her a glass of water and sit across from her. “Spill.”
Her eyes flick to mine and her lips purse, and I can tell she’s debating whether or not to follow my instructions.
“Fine.” I hold up my hands. “I’ve done my best-friend duty. I’m not going to beg you to talk. Call Lori or Casey if you want to be coaxed into it.”