This is something I’ve never done. I don’t hang out with guys. And I want to know Christopher. Maybe from this disaster we can learn to be actual friends. Maybe that’s the silver lining. Because something about him calls to me, something I don’t think I can ignore, even though it makes no logical sense. This can be my vacation gift. To learn if friendship is possible. I nod. “We have a deal.”
“Good.” He points to my plate. “Now eat. I’m attending the conference with a group of my closest friends and they are hitting a dance club we heard about in an hour. I thought it sounded fun. Would you like to go?”
I love dancing. I pick up my fork and dig in. “Sounds fun.”
He gives me a cocky grin. “Well, all right, but don’t try and lure me into any slow dances.”
I laugh. “I’ll do my best.”
This isn’t what I expected, but it is something new. Something different that’s outside my comfort zone. A night out with an attractive man with no possibility of sex or seduction. I don’t have to try to figure out what he wants, who I need to pretend to be to catch his interest. I don’t have to worry about how I look, or if I’m dressed provocatively enough to get his attention.
I don’t have to be anything, but me.
Seven
Christopher
I clasp the beer tight in my hand and take a sip, never taking my eyes off Ashley on the dance floor. We’ve been here for two hours, and she’s danced almost the entire time.
She’s driving me right out of my goddamn mind.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I’d asked her to come, but this wasn’t it. I wasn’t sure how she’d be with my group of friends, three other guys and one lone female. Our group had bonded in our surgical rotation during med school, and we’d stayed close friends. Once a year we go to a tropical conference together.
The only woman in our group is Shelly, a pretty, tiny brunette with a gigantic personality that makes up for her small stature. When she’d met us, she’d sat us down and told us that we were not to hit on her, that she had zero interest in us, and to remove any idea of sticking our dicks in her out of our disgusting brains because it wouldn’t happen even if we were the last men on earth.
Yeah, that was her introduction.
It took years of fighting a fierce attraction before she relented and started sleeping with Ted. They’ve been screwing around for six months, and Jace, Xavier and me were not supposed to know about it.
Ted didn’t tell us, but it was obvious from the start of our friendship that there was something between Shelly and Ted, so when they finally hooked up nobody was shocked. Except for them, and they both seem to think it’s such a big deal they can’t tell us. We’re nice and let them be, making fun of them behind their backs when they slip from some room, their mouths swollen, their clothes disheveled, and think we’re idiots.
They’re getting sloppy though and I suspect they won’t be able to keep it up much longer.
A brilliant surgeon, with a take-no-prisoners demeanor, Shelly is one of those women that gets along better with guys than members of her own gender. She thinks women are frivolous and doesn’t understand half of what they get upset about. I’ve never seen her cry. Ask if she looks fat. Check her makeup in the mirror, if she bothered to wear any. She thinks shopping is a chore and chick flicks are for losers. Except for her feminine features that make her delicately pretty and are at complete odds with her character, she’s the quintessential guy girl.
Which is why I was shocked when she took one look at Ashley and they’d become instant best friends. I’d never even seen Shelly express an interest in a female. The last girl I brought around my friends was a sweet, nice preschool teacher, the most nonthreatening, inoffensive woman on the planet. Shelly had taken one look at Kelly, rolled her eyes and hissed, Really? This is what you bring me?
But she’d loved Ashley like they were kindred spirits.
They’d literally ignored us for the entire night.
Xavier, always in the mood for a hookup, was off in the corner making time with the beautiful yoga instructor from this morning’s class. In the semi-crowded bar, she’d recognized Ashley and me, and came over to say hello. The second she and X had looked at each other, it had been on. He’s the player in our group, and can pretty much score with any woman he sets his mind too—except Shelly, of course.
That left Ted, Jace and me, huddled around a table watching Ashley and Shelly’s purses. Ted’s eyes are narrowed on Shelly, shaking his head as she and Ashley do a sexy little bump and grind.
Ashley’s taller than Shelly, so even though they’re glommed together, I have a clear view of her. She’s come undone over the course of the evening. Her hair has slipped from its messy side bun, spilling over one shoulder. She’s sweaty, all her makeup gone, as she’s thrown herself into dancing like this the last chance she’ll ever get to do so.
She looks fucking gorgeous. I will have to fight to keep my hands off her, but I’d made a promise and I never break my promises.