Blurred Lines (12 page)

Parker’s right on karaoke schedule. Two glasses of sparkling wine, and
bam.
She’s up onstage.

It’s not even her turn, but I guess that’s one of the benefits of being a hot girl with a hot friend. It took Lori and Parker all of eight seconds and two pretty smiles (with the help of Lori’s low-cut shirt, I’d guess) to convince the group of guys who were next in the queue to let them cut in line.

“Your girl’s good,” Jason says from where he sits next to me, nursing a whiskey.

I tense for a half second at Jason’s reference to Parker as my girl, but have to remind myself that he said it a million times before Parker and I started hooking up, and he just means it in the way that she’s, well…my girl. But not my
girl.

Anyway.

Parker’s good. Really good. She and Lori have chosen some Destiny’s Child song from way back when—one of those ones where I find I seem to know all the words although I couldn’t tell you the name of the song if you held a gun to my head.

The bar’s freaking loving them.

Rare is the karaoke singer who’s got the looks and the voice, but Parker does.

Lori’s voice isn’t quite as good, and she’s mostly sticking to backup, but she’s far from tone-deaf. Plus she’s more than making up for mediocre vocal talent with sexy dance moves.

The girls wrap up their song to a standing ovation before making their way back toward our table, laughing.

Parker grabs my drink and takes a long sip. “
God,
that’s good.”

“The beer or the stage?” I ask.

“Both.” She slumps back against the booth with a smile. “I think we need more champagne.”

“You
always
think we need more champagne,” Lori says. “But this time I’m in agreement.”

Jason flags down a frazzled-looking server and we order another round, as Lori and Parker start plotting their next song.

“Let’s just go put our name in,” Lori says. “Although someone else is bound to let us cut in after we killed it up there with that last song.”

“Uh-uh. I need another drink first,” Parker says. “Liquid courage.”

“ ’Kay,” Lori says agreeably. Then she transfers her blue gaze to me. “Sing a duet with me, Olsen.”

I pause in drinking the last of my beer, and I see Parker give Lori a surprised look before she, too, looks at me.

I shake my head. “No way. Make Jason go up there.”

“Hell, no,” Jason says. “I don’t sing.”

“I thought karaoke was your idea,” Parker says, tilting her head.

“Because I like watching
other
people make fools of themselves,” he says, pointing to the stage, where, sure enough, a group of drunken women are slurring their way through “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

“Come on,” Lori pleads, kicking me softly under the table. “It’ll be fun.”

I shift my gaze to Parker, who shrugs. “Go for it. Your voice is better than most of the people getting up there.”

What she
doesn’t
say is that it’s usually the two of us doing the duets. We used to do karaoke most weekends in college, and we covered everything from old country ballads to Top 40 stuff. It’s kind of our thing. Or at least, it used to be.

Still, she doesn’t look even remotely put out by the thought that my first song of the night will be with Lori instead of her, and why would she be?

Parker gives me a little wink, and I shrug at Lori. “All right. Cool. Let’s do it.”

Lori’s smile is just a bit more excited than it should be, and the way she grabs my hand the second I stand is completely unnecessary, but oh well.

Her confidence that she’ll be able to cut in line was well-founded, and a few moments later, a microphone’s in my hand and Lori and I are singing “You’re the One That I Want” from
Grease,
and the crowd seems to like us nearly as much as they liked Parker and Lori.

I’m definitely getting more than a few interested looks from the ladies in the crowd as I play up the strutting John Travolta thing.

I wink at a particularly interesting prospect at a table in the back. A black-haired woman in a killer red dress. At least until my eye catches our nearly empty table.

Jason is still there.

Parker is not.

Luckily I know this annoying song by heart, thanks to our college karaoke career, so I can sing on autopilot without having to look at the lyric board. My eyes scan the room for my best friend.

There she is, talking to a guy.

And she actually looks interested.

Huh
.

Lori grabs my hand and pulls me into some dorky fifties dance move that fits the song before we end with a rather spectacular finish, if I do say so myself.

Everyone is whooping and cheering.

Everyone except Parker, who barely looks away from the blond guy she’s chatting up at the bar.

I’m happy for her.

Maybe she’s finally getting the hang of this whole flirting/pickup scene.

Hell, maybe all she needed was some rather excellent sex—not bragging, just stating facts—to loosen her up.

And sex with Parker truly is excellent. It was excellent last Monday when we first broke each other in, so to speak. It was even better on Tuesday. And Wednesday, and Thursday. And it was excellent earlier tonight when we did it in the kitchen, just minutes before we headed out to meet Lori and Jason.

Not that I’ll be getting any gratitude from the blond guy in the white button-down. He has no idea who he has to thank for Parker’s newfound sexual confidence.

Me.

I’ve been so preoccupied with trying to assess the Parker situation that I don’t immediately realize that Lori didn’t let go of my hand after we got off the stage.

It’s not until we get back to our table that I manage to maneuver my fingers from hers under the guise of reaching for my beer as we sit down.

“Where’s Parker?” she asks Jason, who’s looking increasingly inebriated and is being even less subtle than usual about checking out Lori’s chest.

Jason jerks his head backward toward the bar, and Lori cranes her neck until she spots her friend.

“Ooh! Cute guy. And she actually looks happy.”

She holds up her hand to me. “High five. I think all of our lessons finally paid off. Our girl’s found her groove!”

I slap her hand, probably with more force than necessary, and then take another sip of beer to stop myself from pointing out that
I’m
the one who found Parker’s groove. Several times.

I’m saved from having to say anything when Parker comes all but strutting back to our table, shooing Lori over so that her friend now has an excuse to press her thigh against mine. I shoot Parker a warning look, but she doesn’t notice.

She’s too busy flaunting a cocktail napkin with a phone number. “Look what I got!”

“You go, girl!” Lori says, and now it’s Parker’s time to get a high five.

Note to self: Drunken Lori is big on high fives.

“Right?” Parker shakes her hair back, grinning happily.

“The way he was leaning into you, I thought for sure he’d be taking you home,” Lori says.

“Oh, the offer was definitely on the table,” Parker says smugly, taking a sip of her bubbly wine.

“And you didn’t hit that?” Lori asked. “He was hot from where I was sitting.”

“Yeah, but I’m with you guys,” Parker says, her nose scrunching. “I wouldn’t ditch.”

I feel a weird stab of guilt, remembering exactly how many times I’d been out with Parker and ditched
her
for a hookup. After checking to make sure she had a ride home, of course.

Parker drains her drink and then scoots back out of our booth. “Gotta pee.”

Lori looks like she’s about to follow, but then an unnaturally tanned guy appears in front of her. “You were really good up there.”

Lori’s smile is slow and sexy, and I breathe a sigh of relief that she has someone to distract her from touching my leg.

“Yeah?” she says, and I see her settle into her seat to receive more compliments.

“Hey, let me out,” I say, elbowing a mostly zoned-out Jason, since it’s easier to move him than a flirty Lori.

He sighs but scoots out of the circular booth so I can get out. He wobbles only slightly once on his feet.

“Maybe slow down on the whiskey there, champ,” I say.

He gives me the bird and then half-walks/half-stumbles toward the bar, and I say a silent prayer on behalf of whatever woman’s about to be subjected to his leering. Definitely might be time to rethink my “friendship” with the guy. Parker’s right. He’s kind of an ass.

But right now, Jason is the least of my worries.

I ask an irritable waitress about the direction of the bathrooms, then find myself in a dimly lit corridor.

There’s a couple making out, another couple arguing, but no sign of Parker.

I lean against the wall across from the women’s restroom and survey the area while I wait.

When Parker emerges a few moments later, she pauses in surprise. “Hey.”

In response, I grab her hand, pulling her toward one of the side exit doors. It’s unseasonably warm, so I’m counting on her not fussing about what I’m about to do.

“Ben, what are you—”

I push her up against the brick wall of the building and kiss her. Hard.

Her response is immediate, her tongue tangling with mine as her hands slide around to my back, her nails digging through the fabric of my shirt.

I bite her lip, and she makes a sexy little growling noise. “So
this
is what you do when you disappear when we’re out,” she says, pulling back and giving me a speculative glance.

“You like?” I say, nibbling her throat.

“It’s very—” she gasps, as my palm finds her breast. “Naughty.”

I smile, because Parker hasn’t even seen my naughty side yet.

Still, I’m not about to take her against a wall in a not-so-private alleyway, so I settle for making out for several more minutes before I rub my hands over her increasingly chilly arms.

“Let’s get you inside.”

She makes a pouty face, and I run a thumb over her lip. “Unless you wanna get out of here?”

“I do, but…” she says slowly, and I freeze, hoping that she’s not about to tell me she’s going to go home with the other guy.

I brace as she looks up at me.

“A duet?” she asks.

My breath rushes out in relief. Not that I’d begrudge her a chance to get her groove on with some other dude. It’s part of our deal. But considering my cock’s hard enough to cut glass after nothing but a few hot kisses, I’m not sure my ego could quite deal with the rejection.

“All right,” I say. “One song.”

“One song, and then what?” she asks coyly.

I tilt my hips forward against her. Her eyes widen, then flutter closed. “On second thought, we can do a duet some other time…. ”

I’m already moving toward the front of the bar. “I’ll get us a cab. You tell Lori and Jason we’re heading out. I don’t think Jason will notice, and Lori’s got herself an admirer.”

Five minutes later, we’re on our way home.

Turns out, Parker’s never made out in the back of a taxi.

We fixed that.

The Thursday after our karaoke adventure, I make the unpleasant realization that I’ll need to work late. Really late.

It’s been one of those days where back-to-back meetings equals zero desk time, and zero desk time means that I haven’t had a chance to address those “urgent” emails, nor pull together my weekly report for tomorrow’s meeting with my boss.

Definitely an after-five kind of work night.

I finally get a five-minute break between meetings, and it gives me a chance to pee, grab a much-needed Diet Coke, and text my carpool buddy who also happens to be my fu—, er, sex buddy, who
also
happens to be my best friend.

I shake my head as I pull out my cellphone, marveling, not for the first time, at how intertwined my life is with Ben Olsen’s.

Especially lately.

On paper, I’m sure we look unhealthy, spending so much time together, especially now that we’ve added
nights—
all night
—
to the mix.

But the thing is, it doesn’t
feel
unhealthy.

Because if it were, I wouldn’t feel so happy all the time, right?

And I do.

Feel happy, that is.

I guess that’s the power of regular orgasms?

I text him:

Hey, you okay if I work late? Maybe Jason could give you a ride home?

I start to put my phone away, but he texts back immediately, probably between meetings himself.

Nah, I’ll wait around. Have some things I can work on.

Cool. Meet you at the car around 7?

Yup.

I set my phone on top of my notebook and start to head toward the conference room when it buzzes again.

Wanna grab dinner out tonight? Somewhere expensive? My treat. I’ve got news.

My eyebrows lift.
Olsen, you asking me out on a date?

His response is immediate.

Totally. I hope you like the three dozen pink carnations I ordered. I also wrote love notes all over your windshield.

I smile.
And *this* is why you don’t have a girlfriend.

Why would I need a girlfriend when I’m getting regular sex from my hussy roommate?

“What are you looking so happy about?” I jump as I see Lori and Eryn walking toward me.

Lori slows her walk and makes a slight face toward Eryn.

Eryn, in all her inappropriateness, tries to look at my phone, and I lock it before she can see the screen. The last thing I need is for the office snot to learn about Ben and me.

Or for Lori to learn.

“Ooh, I know that look,” Eryn says in an annoying singsong voice. “Parker’s texting her boyfriend.”

“Actually, Lance dumped me,” I say with a wide smile. “Thanks for bringing it up, though.”

She has the decency to look slightly embarrassed by her gaffe, but I don’t like her enough to reassure her that I haven’t really thought about Lance in days.

Eryn slinks into the conference room, but Lori and I don’t immediately follow. It’s our weekly team meeting, and our boss is always late.

I take a sip of my Diet Coke and Lori moves closer. “Okay, don’t make me ask again.”

I frown in confusion. “About what?”

She rolls her eyes. “Did you call him?”

Him
…Him…Him who…?

Oh.
Him.

“Not yet,” I say, pretending to be fascinated with my pop can.

Lori has asked me every day this week whether I’ve called the guy from the karaoke bar, and I’m running out of excuses.

There’s no good way to tell her that the only reason I’d call that guy was if I was still pursuing my hookup agenda.

And there’s
also
not a good way to tell her that the only reason I even talked to that guy in the first place was because she and Ben were looking all twosome-ish up there onstage, and I’d felt…not jealous, precisely.

But maybe a little thrown off by not being the one up there onstage with Ben.

Still, the guy at the bar—Brandon—had really seemed like a decent kind of guy. Funny, normal…

And yet, I have absolutely zero interest in calling him.

I’m saved from having to think up yet another excuse when we spot our boss heading toward us, cellphone tucked under her chin, even as her finger furiously swipes across the iPad that she’s never without.

The meeting runs long.

So does the meeting after that, and the one after that, and then I get pulled into an impromptu review session with some designers who can’t agree on a color scheme.

By the time I get back to my desk, Lori’s left a note that she’s gone for the day and to
Call
The Guy TONIGHT.

Sigh.

I race through my emails, none of which were as urgent as the senders seemed to think, but my reporting takes longer than I expect because I get an error on every other screen.

By the time I get to the car Ben’s leaning against my Prius, messenger bag across his shoulder, totally focused on his cellphone.

“This is why I gave you my spare set of keys,” I say, unlocking the door as I approach. “So you don’t have to wait in the cold.”

He looks up. Grins. “Forgot ’em.”

“By
forgot ’em,
do you mean
lost ’em
?” I ask.

“They’re around,” he says as we both toss our bags into the backseat and climb into the car.

Yup. He’s totally lost them.

I turn to face him before starting the car. “That’s why you wanted to go out to dinner, huh? You’ve lost my keys and you know how expensive they are to replace? You’re buttering me up.”

Ben makes a tsking noise. “Now, Blanton, not everything is about you.”

“So you
do
know where my keys are, or…?”

“I got the promotion,” he says in response.

My thoughts about my extra car keys scatter.

I squeal. Then squeal again.

He winces. “Take it easy, Parks.”

I punch him in the arm. “I so will not take it easy! You got it! You’ve been telling me for weeks you thought they were going to bring in someone from the outside!”

A couple months ago, the senior product manager on Ben’s team relocated to Atlanta, and Ben heard rumors early on that he was under consideration to be her replacement. Rumors that he continually disregarded, because for reasons I don’t understand, Ben has it in his head that he’s mediocre.

I, on the other hand, know otherwise. He’s amazing.

I’ve heard him on work calls. Seen him working late into the night. The dude knows his stuff. He’s really,
really
good at his job, and, strangely, he’s the only one who doesn’t seem to know it.

I start the car and shake my head. “You are so not buying dinner.
I’m
buying dinner. And we’re getting champagne.”

“Uh-huh, and I’m sure that last one is all for me, huh?” he says, knowing my love of the bubbly wine.

“You have to drink it with me tonight,” I insist. “Promotions and champagne go together like…peanut butter and jelly.”

“Steak and potatoes,” he says, picking up on our old game of “things that go together.”

“Spinach and strawberries.”

He makes a face. “More like, margaritas and nachos.”

“Beer and wings?”

“Better,” he says, with a nod of approval. “Tomato soup and grilled cheese.”

“Cookies and milk.”

“Cocks and condoms,” he says.

“Gross. How about…” I purse my lips, thinking for one I haven’t used a million times before. “Ooh, I know. Candles and bubble baths.”

Ben looks scandalized. “I don’t even know what that means. I take your candles and bubble baths and raise you Bert and Ernie.”

“Ummm…” I tap my fingers on the steering wheel as I think.

You and me.

I jolt a little in surprise at the thought, trying to push it away, but the thought merely digs its heels in.
Two things that go together: you and me. Ben and Parker.

I frown.

Well. That’s new.

“You win,” I say hurriedly. “Game over.”

He holds up his right hand in a fist, then bumps it with his left fist.

I shake my head. “Did you just fist bump yourself?”

He shrugs. “Well, I knew
you
wouldn’t fist bump me. You hate losing.”

I back out of the parking spot, relieved that he seems oblivious to my treacherous thoughts from a moment ago.

“Portland City Grill?” I ask.

He raises his eyebrows. “Feeling spendy, are we?”

“Feeling proud,” I correct. “You got a promotion, Ben. It deserves to be celebrated.”

You
deserve to be celebrated, you big oaf.

He falls silent then, and I glance at him across the car. “You’re doing that thing, aren’t you?”

“What thing?”

“Where you think you don’t deserve it. Where you’re trying to figure out why the heck they picked you.”

He shrugs and looks out the window. “I didn’t do anything special. Any of the other people on the team would have been—”

“Stop,” I interrupt. “None of that. Don’t do that thing. You’ve got to stop thinking that just because you didn’t follow your parents’ defined path of success means you aren’t a success.”

He slams his head back against the headrest. “Now
you’re
doing that thing. The one where you try to fix a guy.”

“That’s not a thing.” At least it’s not
my
thing.

“Only because you didn’t have to fix Lance,” he mutters. “Lance already had it all figured out.”

His voice is grumpier than usual, and I have the oddest sense that we could be on our way to a mini-fight, except we’re saved by the buzzing of my phone.

“Can you get that?” I ask, pointing my head toward my purse in the backseat.

He digs it out and looks at the screen. “Lori.”

I groan.

“What, you guys in a girl fight or something? And if so, can I watch if it gets handsy?”

“No, not fighting,” I mutter as I merge onto the freeway toward the restaurant. “She just won’t stop bugging me about calling that guy.”

“What guy?”

“The one from the karaoke bar.”

“Ah,” he says. “The one who was making you do your head-back laugh.”

“My what?”

“It’s how I know when your laughs are genuine. You tilt your head back.”

“That’s weird,” I mutter. “But, yeah, I guess the laughs were real. The guy was funny.”

“So why not call him?” Ben asks, silencing my still-buzzing phone and dropping it into the console between our seats.

“I—”

I don’t know.

That’s the truth. I don’t know why I don’t call this guy.

“You think I should?” I ask.

Ben shrugs. “Not about what I think.”

I press my lips together. He’s right. It’s not about what he thinks, because he and I aren’t together. We’re just friends. With really amazing benefits.

And from the very beginning we asserted that this was exclusive only as long as we wanted it to be. That the second one of us changes our mind, we just say the word, and go back to sleeping with other people.

But when I first suggested that he and I use each other to scratch an itch, I hadn’t thought it would be quite so…constant.

Or so consistently good.

But there
are
times when we’re apart. He goes to the gym nearly every day. And he went out for drinks with his friend John just last night. Maybe he’s got a few quickies scattered in here and there.

I want to know. I’m dying to know.

But I can’t ask him. It’s not my business.

“I think you should call him,” he says.

“I thought you just said it’s not about what you think,” I say, my voice taking on just the slightest edge.

“It’s not, it’s just…” Ben turns his head to look at me. “I think if you don’t start dating again, you’re never going to get over Lance.”

Lance?
Lance?
He thinks this is about Lance?

Of all the—

But wait. It
should
be about Lance.

Any hesitation over whether or not I call a promising romantic prospect absolutely
should
tie back to the fact that the guy I thought I was going to marry dumped me only a month ago.

“Okay,” I say slowly. “I’ll call him this weekend.”

“Good girl,” Ben says with a nod. And then the topic’s apparently closed, because he changes the subject. “You’re sure you’re buying tonight?”

“Absolutely,” I say.

Then I glance at him. “Wait, why do you ask it in that smug tone?”

His grin flashes white across the darkened car. “Just trying to figure out how many lobsters I want to order.”