Friend Is a Four Letter Word (16 page)

“Where’d he go?” What is it with all of these men sneaking out in the wee morning hours?

“Where does he always go? He was up early taking pictures. It’s art, I get it, but god I’d love to wake up one morning and still have him in bed. Or go to bed at night and not have him out trying to capture the perfect street light or whatever he’s doing.”

“He’s just passionate,” I say.

“I guess. Hey, at least he’s not like Carter. Burning the midnight oil staring at numbers. That’s not exactly fun,” Quinn says with a shudder. “Where is Carter, by the way? Surfing?”

I shake my head. “He’s gone into work I think.”

“Work? On the weekend? That’s a new low even for Carter,” Quinn says.

I swallow hard around the lump in my throat. “Well, he, um, he took off last week while you were gone to go camping.
We
went camping.”

“We?” Quinn asks, raising an eyebrow over her mug. “I knew it.”

“Knew what?” I say, stupidly.

“Even Ben says that there was no way you guys weren’t hooking up. My brother, Shayna? Geez,” Quinn laughs but I stay straight faced. “I’m kidding, it’s fine. It’s weird, but it’s fine.”

I press my palms flat on the cool granite countertop. “We’re not… there’s nothing going on. We’re just friends.”

The word feels thick and dirty on my tongue. My face must look like Nolan’s when I shut him down.

“Right, I can see that by the way you’re shaking.”

“I’m not shaking,” I say. I hug myself tighter. “It’s just cold in here. Can you close the patio doors?”

Quinn rolls her eyes but obliges.

I slide my phone out from my pocket, just to see if maybe—just by the slimmest miracle Carter text me.

He hasn’t.

“Shayna, I don’t want to pry, but what are your plans? Are you here for good? Are you looking at schools?”

“I’m enrolled in school back home,” I say.

“And?” Quinn presses.

I throw my hands up. “And, I don’t know what else.”

“Did you get into it with your parents or something? Are you having a mental breakdown over a guy? Because that is so not like you.”

I shake my head. I’ve got to tell Quinn what’s going on. She’s pretty much the only friend I have.

“I was dating this guy named Nolan—”

“Wait. Nolan? That explains it. Was he eighty? Was it a relationship of convenience? Were you in his will and he was about to kick it?” Quinn cocks her head to the side like she’s pondering deep things. “Did he ask you to do freaky things like change his diapers?”

I swat at her arm. “No, assface. He was twenty-three. And charming.”

“Oh, charming. That means your parents picked him, right?”

“Exactly,” I sigh.

“So you came out here to escape Nolan?”

“Not entirely,” I say. “Nolan was great. He just wasn’t for me.” I trace the squiggly lines in the granite and sigh. “He was for the Shayna I was trying to be… for my parents.”

“Oh,” Quinn says quietly. Because she gets it.

“I just couldn’t do it anymore. I needed a little breathing room, you know?”

She nods. “I’m glad you came. It’s good that you did.”

I was glad with my decision, too—until about two hours ago.

“And you haven’t talked to your parents at all since you left?”

I take a deep breath and shake my head. “I told them I was leaving—it was pretty spur of the moment. Mom threatened to have me committed, said only lunatics act the way I have. Dad was alright. He upped my AMEX limit just in case, so I guess that’s something. I was so ready to leave that day, but now looking at it—I feel really selfish.”

“It’s going to be okay, though. You and your parents, I mean. The rest of it, hell, I’m still figuring out life in general. But you made a bold step, and that says a lot about you. I honestly didn’t think you had something like that in you, Shay.”

“You think? I feel like it’s all about to come and bite me in the ass any second.”

Quinn laughs.

“Isn’t that just life? I’m going to give you a hug,” Quinn says, pulling me in to her. “And then we’re never going to talk about this again. You’re here to sort shit out, not to dwell on it. I get it.”

She hugs me tight and I fight back the tears that are threatening to fall. When she finally releases me, she looks like maybe she’s been holding back a few of her own.

“Anything you want to do today? I don’t have class until tomorrow so today I’m free to show you around or help you play tourist or whatever you want,” Quinn says.

Ben comes in through the front door.

“Hey, baby,” he says.

“Hey, get any good shots?” Quinn asks, rounding the countertop to kiss him lightly. The annoyance she claimed to have with his devotion to photography is gone now that he’s back home with her.

Ben hangs his bag up on a hook and beams. “I think so. I’m going to head into the studio in the morning and develop them, but I think I got some killer stuff. How’s it going, Shayna?”

I smile. “Doing well. Quinn was just offering to play tour guide this afternoon. You up for it?”

I like Ben a lot, and though the thought of hanging out as a third wheel should make me cringe, especially today, I love seeing Quinn and Ben together—knowing everything they’ve been through to get to this moment right here where Quinn is clearly annoyed with his passion for photography but loves the hell out of him anyway. And as for Ben, well, there’s nothing in this world that Quinn could do that would send that man running. He’s as devoted as they come.

He takes a seat on the arm of the sofa and pulls Quinn onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her.

“Sure,” he says. “Sounds good.”

Ben leans in and whispers something into Quinn’s ear that makes her giggle. They both right themselves and look at me.

“Something funny?” I ask, raising a suspicious brow.

“Ben was just wondering if I gave you shit about how dinner was never served last night. At least not over here.”

“I was hungry, too,” Ben jokes. “Unless it was going to be from that Thai place. That place blows.”

“Change of plans,” I say. “I fell asleep and I guess Carter had work to do. Sorry we didn’t call.”

“Alright, I’m going to call bullshit on that one, Shay,” Quinn says grinning. “Better luck next time, but I know my brother. He’s as anal as they come. He’s never a no-show, at least not without good reason.”

I should argue, but instead I just pull my lip in and bite down.

“So, are you still going to claim that whole ‘Carter and I are just friends’ bit?” Quinn asks. She’s smiling, but I want to throttle her. I’ve never had a problem owning up to my shit, but what’s going on with Carter and I—I don’t want to talk about it. I
can’t
talk about it. Especially with his sister. My life blew up into one-thousand pieces, and then I came to town and tore his to shreds, too.

I give Quinn a small smile. “Want to talk about something other than your brother?”

“Fine. For now,” she says.

I go to work for a few hours but get next to nothing done. The office is deserted, I should be able to knock out everything on my desk quickly, but instead, I keep my cell phone on the edge of my desk and glance at it every few minutes, just to see if Shayna text me. When I scroll through the last texts we exchanged, they’re from weeks ago when she was still in Georgia and for a second, I wish we could go back to that. Where we didn’t have to own up to anything we didn’t want to because our talks were buffered by a glass screen and thousands of miles.

But if she never showed up, I wouldn’t have experienced what it felt like to see her first thing in the morning. When her eyes are barely open and her hair is a tangled mess. How she looks the most beautiful when there’s morning light streaming through the blinds.

I stare at numbers until they blur together. I can’t even manage the simple task of organizing the stack of P&L reports so I decide to call it a day.

I head to the beach because surfing always clears my head, but for the first time ever, even that can’t do the job. I fall more times than when I was just learning. The only thing left I can try was to go to a meeting. Two in one day? What the hell does that say about me?

I don’t want a drink. I want my—Shayna.

I’m sitting in my Jeep debating my next move when my cell phone rings. It’s Jane. Her timing is impeccable. I’m half tempted to look over my shoulder, wondering if she’s now following me.

“Hey Jane,” I say, answering on the third ring. It’s not often that I’ve broken down and called Jane in need of guidance, or near a breakdown, but it’s even rarer that she calls me—at least lately. When I was brand new in the program, she called me almost daily to make sure I didn’t need to be talked off of any proverbial ledges.

“Hey, handsome,” she says. “Listen, I know I already saw you today, but I wanted to check in and see if you’d like to hit an evening meeting with me tonight?”

I debate whether to take Jane up on the offer for a quick moment while I rub my eyes. It’s been a long ass day already and all I really want is a damn do-over. I want to go back to bed this morning with that gorgeous girl wrapped around me.

“I don’t know, Jane, I’m pretty beat,” I say. It’s not a lie. I’ve made love, fought, worked, surfed.

“Of course,” she says. “You seemed like you had a full mind this morning, Carter. Sometimes, when there’s that much noise you need a meeting to help calm some of it, you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say.

“Okay then. Be well, Carter. And call anytime.”

“Thanks for checking in, Jane,” I say.

“Course, handsome,” she says. She’s old enough to be my mother and her pet name should creep me out, but instead, it’s endearing as hell.

When I get back to the apartment, there’s a note taped to my front door. It’s Quinn’s messy handwriting. I expect it to say that Shayna has taken off, and thanks for screwing things up with her friend before she even got the chance to spend any time with her. Instead, it’s an invite over to her apartment for dinner. I shower quickly, tug on a plain t-shirt, jeans and Chucks and grab a sweater on my way out the door without pausing to think twice about walking three doors down to Quinn’s place. Maybe I should. Maybe it should make me more nervous to have to see Shayna for the first time since our argument this morning—especially in front of other people. But it doesn’t. Because I’m too fixated on just seeing her at all.

When I was younger, I was better at staying angry. About keeping solid walls built around me that if you came bursting through, I’d take you down. I’ve only had one semi-serious relationship back when I was in college and that went to hell when she told me she loved me. I didn’t want that with anyone.

Now, I find myself wishing that there’s a chance that Shayna may like me enough to give me a second chance. At anything.

As I’m turning the knob I stop though. What if she isn’t there. I got ready so fast I didn’t even look to see if her bag was still in my apartment.

“Are you going to tell me what’s up with you and Carter before he gets here?” I hear my sister ask.

“Nothings up,” Shayna says, her voice a couple of nervous octaves higher than it normally is. “We’re just friends.”

I’ve said the word to her a dozen times and not meant it, but hearing it from her rips at me.

“Right,” Quinn says. “I know you Shayna. And I know Carter. There’s no way in the world that you two are strictly friends.” Quinn’s voice is closer now. “Not a chance.”

“That’s it,” Shayna says. “I’m telling you. I have too much of my own stuff to work out, Quinn. I’m here for a reason and it isn’t to be with your brother. I’m not ready for anything more than friend, and trust me, neither is Carter.”

“I’ll agree with you on that point. Carter has never done serious,” Quinn says.

Thanks, sis.

The door opens and my sister is standing there with a smirk that tells me she sensed I was already here.

“Hey, figured you’d be by soon. Come on in,” she says.

Shayna is curled up on the small sofa, with her feet tucked under her. She’s wearing a navy sundress that makes her eyes look like two vibrant mood rings even from across the room. I wonder what that particular shade says about her mood.