“Okay, at the risk of being a total asshole, I think I should tell you this. You’re hot. Like unnaturally pretty Viking style hot.”
“Unnaturally, huh?”
“But I’m guessing you already know this. So, for this friendship to work, you need to know I’m not ever going to sleep with you. I don’t fuck my friends. Ever!”
“Okay.”
“And you need to stop flirting. I get it we have this weird connection, this chemistry that well, quite frankly I’ve never had with anyone else, but if you keep flirting with me, I’m gonna end up broken hearted.”
His brows shoot skyward. “What?”
“I mean it. I fall fast and hard, especially for men who look like that.” I wave a hand in his direction, encompassing all six foot something of him. “But since you don’t cheat on your girlfriend—random attack kissers excluded—and I don’t fuck my friends, you need to quit with the flirting.”
“No flirting. Got it.”
“Alright then. Gabriel Dash Laurier, welcome. You’ve got the job.”
“See? This is why I like you so much. You’re cute, funny, and there’s only one other person in the world who thinks like you—”
“Tiffany Haddish?”
“Me, Lo.” He grins and stands, holding the board steady with his foot. “Me.”
He throws his weight into the lean and rockets forward.
Friends. Fri-ends. We could do this. I could do this. I mean, for reasons the rest of the world can’t figure out, he’s in love with Annie. And me? Well, Gabe makes me feel things. Alive things. He’s special, and I’m so comfortable with him I’m beginning to wonder if we were separated at birth. I would rather have Southern Viking Dude in my life as a friend than not at all.
So ... friends.
Gabe hurtles toward me again, this time when he’s just inches away, he grabs my leg and yanks it down. I scream and slide down the smooth concrete along with him as his board flips up and over the edge of the ramp, clattering to the ground with an ungodly bang, and then we’re face to face, laughing like idiots.
I smack his chest. “Asshole, I thought you were going to kill me.”
“Is it better or worse if I tell you I didn’t mean to do that?”
“Worse.” I laugh. “I think.”
“Did I hurt you?”
“Nah, but if you’d messed up my new tattoo, you’d be fired from best friend status.”
He nods. “Seems fair. It was pretty fucking dumb, especially of your tattoo artist.”
“Yeah, he’s kind of a dick. I don’t think I’m gonna go back there.”
Gabe guffaws and I roll onto my side and rest my cheek in the crook of my elbow just to watch him. I don’t even care that I’m lying on a dirty skate ramp, or that I’m a terrible person for openly ogling my friend’s boyfriend, because the way his eyes crinkle in the corner sets my whole body on fire.
“Hey, you never told me what option two was.”
Gabe’s laughter dies and he rolls toward me, mimicking my body language. “It doesn’t matter. It’d only get me in trouble.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yep, and I already got the job anyway.”
The smug bastard was right.
Friends. We could totally do this.What could possibly go wrong?