Blurred Lines (5 page)

“Aw, Parks,” I say, my good-friend humor restored now that I don’t have perfect tits distracting me. “You’re acting like you’ll never have sex again. You can wear the slutty red stuff for some other guy.”

I expect her to continue her pity party, but instead her expression turns thoughtful. “You’re right.”

I narrow my eyes at her. I know that tone. That tone is dangerous.

She breaks out into a wide smile. “I’m going to be a girl version of Ben!”

My beer halts halfway to my lips as I try to follow. “What?”

She moves toward me. “I like sex, Ben. I miss it.”

Oh dear God, please don’t talk to me about sex after I just saw your tits.

“But you’re so right,” she continues. “I don’t have to wait for stupid Lance to come to his senses, or do the whole wretched-relationship thing again. I can do sex like you do sex. Whenever with whomever.”

“Okay, now hold on, Parks—”

She wags a finger in my face. “Be very careful what you say here, Ben Olsen. You wouldn’t be tempted to walk into a double standard, now, would you? You know, take the stance that a guy who sleeps around is just a boys-will-be-boys player while the female equivalent is a slut.”

“No!” I’m annoyed by the accusation, but that doesn’t mean I like what Parker is suggesting with this wherever-whoever thing. I mean casual sex,
fine.
But going out of her way to seek it just doesn’t seem like her.

“I was just going to say that I think you should sleep on it,” I say. “You’ve been single all of two hours, and you chugged a bottle of wine in about a quarter of that time.”

I’m expecting her to rail at me for being a lecturing, sanctimonious ass, but to my surprise, she drops the scolding diva finger and purses her lips. “You’re right. I’ll wait until tomorrow to think things through.”

Thank God.

I feel a little tickle near my hairline and lift a hand to my temple where I feel moisture. Fuck me. Am I
sweating
?

“Popcorn, wine, and a movie?” she asks, then totters out to the coffee table and picks up a box of popcorn, bringing it back into the kitchen and holding it out at me with a friendly smile.

“Absolutely,” I say, grasping at the popcorn like it’s a lifeline. I’m beyond grateful that I don’t have to follow around a drunken Parker from bar to bar when she’s hell-bent on getting laid by some horny jackass who won’t call her tomorrow.

“Hey, Ben,” she says, turning back in the kitchen doorway.

I put the flat popcorn bag in the microwave and hit the
POPCORN
button. “What’s up?”

“Thank you. You’re my best friend. You know that, right?” She gives me a tentative smile.

Drunk Parker is cute. I smile. “Damn straight. And you’re my best friend, too, Parks.”

Just as long as you keep your shirt on.

I spent all of yesterday hung over. It was a blessing, almost. I was so preoccupied with my headache and the queasiness that I didn’t have much room to think about the whole being-dumped thing.

But today is Monday.

As if Mondays don’t suck hard enough, I woke up feeling like garbage. Not because of the hangover; that was long gone, thanks to yesterday’s diet of saltines and Gatorade.

Today’s pain isn’t physical. It’s my
emotions
that are queasy.

I’m so out of it that I even let Ben drive us to work.

Usually I insist we take my car, because his is a big gas-guzzling monstrosity. (I suspect this is because Ben is from the Midwest and likely grew up learning about cattle and cow pies, while I was learning about kale and compost.)

But today I’m low on mental togetherness, and I need to save what few brain cells I do have for the weekly marketing meeting. The junior team takes turns presenting to senior leadership, and since there are eight of us who are low on the totem pole, I have to present only every two months or so.

Of
course
today would be my day. Just my luck.

“You’re going to rock it,” Ben says, weaving out of our lane and then back into it so fast I nearly get whiplash.

I spare him the tiniest of glares. He always says things like this with utter confidence, but what my best friend doesn’t realize is that not everybody is as effortless in front of people as he is.

Despite the fact that I was the better student and the more dedicated job seeker coming out of college, Ben had gotten twice the number of job offers as me.

Not because his grades were stellar, not because he had any sort of specialized skill set, but because the guy can
talk.

To anyone, about anything.

I’m pretty sure he could convince a baby it didn’t need milk and a dog it didn’t like meat if he cared to.

But me? An effortless presentation took effort. I could fake it just fine when I practiced and when I was on my A game.

Today, I am not on my A game.

He glances over at me when I don’t respond. “You okay?”

His voice is casual, but his eyes are concerned. Probably because I cried all over his shoulder on Saturday, got
wasted,
then spent all of yesterday locked in my room, opening it only to accept the crackers he brought me.

It’s not exactly my typical
Parker’s so together
routine.

But Ben knows me. And he knows that if he’s
too
nice, I’ll start to cry again.

“I’m good,” I say, turning my head to face the window.

He nods. “So you won’t have a breakdown when I tell you you have white stuff all over your shirt?”

I glance down and swear as I see the rather elaborate pattern of deodorant smeared all over my black top.

“Invisible solid my ass,” I mutter, as I futilely wipe at it with my hand.

He nods his head toward the backseat. “There’s a towel in my gym bag.”

I give him a suspicious look.

“Clean,” he clarifies.

“Probably thanks to me and my laundry addiction,” I mutter, shifting around and unbuckling my seat belt so that I can reach into the back and dig through his bag.

The first thing my fingers find is small, square, and made of foil. I shake the condom in his face. “Really?”

Ben shrugs. “You never know.”

“See, this is what I meant when I said I need to be more like you,” I say, turning back around and dropping the condom into his bag. “Ready for sex anytime, anywhere. Even the gym, apparently.”

“The gym’s sort of the best place, sweetie,” he says.

I pull back again. “Really?”

He nods, keeping his eyes on the road. “Are you kidding? All that sweat and blood pumping? You’re telling me you’ve never been horny after a good workout?”

“Well, sure,” I say, finally finding the towel and plopping back into my seat. “But where do you
do
it?”

“What?”

“You know,” I say, gesturing with the towel, which thankfully, does seem to be clean. “You’re off pumping iron, or whatever. Some hot thing on the elliptical catches your eye…then what?”

He grimaces. “Do we have to talk about this?”

“Yes!” I shake the towel. “I told you, I’m going to start doing what you do. Casual sex.”

“Okay, first of all, the people that call it
casual sex
are absolutely the ones who should not be doing it. Second of all, I was sort of hoping that you either didn’t remember your insane declaration from Saturday night, or would at least acknowledge that it was a wine-motivated bad idea.”

I rub furiously at the deodorant spot. “It’s not a bad idea.”

“It is.”

“
You
do it.”

“Yeah, but I’m…”

He breaks off, but I glance up, eyes narrowed. “You’re what?”

“Nothing,” he mutters.

“Were you just going to say that you’re a guy?”

My memory of the other night is fuzzy, but I seem to remember him playing at the same double-standard shit then, too, and it pisses me off. Ben isn’t a chauvinistic pig or anything, but I’m definitely getting the feeling that he thinks it’s okay for him to play the field, but not for me to follow suit.

“Finish your sentence,” I demand.

“Um, no,” he says. “You’re looking for a fight.”

I purse my lips. “You’re probably right.”

“I’m definitely right,” he says as he pulls onto the campus where we both work. We work in different buildings, and he pulls up in front of mine to drop me off.

“Girls like sex, too, you know,” I say, making one last swipe at the deodorant mark that has more or less faded, and then gather up my purse and work bag.

Ben rolls his eyes. “Yes, Blanton, I’m aware that you’re a modern woman. You’re allowed to have sex wherever you want to.”

“Even the gym?” I ask.

“Even the gym.”

I pounce. “Okay, seriously,
where
? I mean…there’s nowhere private. Is there? I guess there’s the bathroom, but nobody would ever—”

I break off as I see his wince that he tries to hide and fails.

“No!”
I say, scandalized. “You do it in the
bathroom
?”

“Trust me, it’s not as weird or unusual as you think.”

“But—”

He shook his head. “No way. We’ll talk about it later. Go to work. I’ll tell you about the ins and outs of gym sex later. If you’re good, I can even explain how to do it in the shower.”

“Oh my God,” I mutter, opening the car door. “I bet you have athlete’s foot and don’t even know it.”

He motions impatiently for me to shut the door, and I do, turning toward the front door of my building. I dig out my security badge as he drives away.

Minutes later, I’m settling into my cube, my mind pulled in two directions, although, unfortunately, neither is the presentation that I have to give in forty minutes.

Instead, I’m torn between contemplating the logistics of sex in the gym and wanting to wallow in the fact that I’m in my second day of singledom, and not of my own doing.

A tall, thin blonde appears at the entrance of my cube and holds out a paper cup. “Coffee. My treat.”

“You shouldn’t have,” I say, gratefully accepting the cup of completely mediocre coffee that’s free to all employees. I hold out a hand, and she drops two creamers and a sugar packet into my palm.

“You’re good people, Bowman,” I say, adding the creamer and sugar to the cute polka-dot Kate Spade mug Lance got me when I first landed this job. For a second, I debate throwing the mug in the trash, but even getting dumped isn’t a good enough reason to defile Kate Spade.

I pour the coffee on top of the creamer before finally turning to face my friend, who’s flipping through something on her phone, too used to my morning coffee routine to bother watching it.

Lori Bowman is my best work friend, but not in the
We’re only friends because we work together
kind of way. The girl is legit. Snarky as hell, but also the first person to give you a hug when you realize after you’ve come out of a meeting with your boss’s boss that you have major pit stains.

“Huh. I just now realized I have a lot of armpit problems,” I say to her, taking a sip of my coffee.

“Huh?” she says, glancing up.

I point to my shirt. “Deodorant.”

“You should get the invisible kind.”

“I
did
get the invisible kind. Although it apparently doesn’t work because remember last week when I had big old wet spots under my arms like a homeless person?”

“Maybe you just forgot to put deodorant on that day,” she said.

I point at her. “See? That’s what I mean. My deodorant is either on my shirt, not working, or, apparently, not even applied at all. Armpit problems.”

Lori watches me, taking a sip of her own coffee, which she’s drinking from the provided paper cup because she’s not a weirdo about having it in her own mug like me.

“Help me out here, Parks, because it’s Monday morning, and I had a Sunday Fun-Day yesterday with too many mimosas, and I’m having a hard time following…. When you say armpit problems, are you really talking about armpits? Or is it a code word for something else?”

Just like that, I deflate. “Lance and I broke up.”

Her eyes bug out. “
No.
You guys were like…or you used to be like…
no.
”

“Yup.”

“Sweetie.” She makes a pained sound and reaches out to stroke my head like I’m a dog, but it’s actually kind of nice. No wonder dogs like it.

“What happened?” she asks.

I swallow and look down at my coffee. You know how it’s really easy not to cry right up until the second you’re expected to talk about it? Yeah, that.

Lori understands immediately. “Don’t say another word. Not until after the meeting. You’re looking fabulous, and red eyes and streaked makeup will ruin that.”

I nod.

“We’ll talk about something else,” she muses. “How about this…the guy I went out with on Friday?”

I jump at the change of topic. “The one who made reservations at El Gaucho?”

Lori and I had been marveling at the fact that her blind date was taking her to one of the most expensive steakhouses in the city—perhaps
the
most expensive. She’d been looking forward to it for days, and we’d spent a ridiculous amount of time planning her outfit.

“Yup,” she says, sitting on my desk. “That’s the one. Get this. He ‘forgot’ his wallet.”

My jaw drops. “No way.”

“Yep. Doesn’t ‘realize’ until the end of the meal after he’d ordered a freaking porterhouse with a lobster tail side.”

My hand covers my mouth and a laugh bubbles up. “What did you do?”

She sighs dramatically. “What could I do? I paid. I think my credit card was
actually
sweating.”

“You think he did it on purpose?”

She shrugs. “I’m not sure. He seemed super apologetic, and told me, like, a million times he’d pay me back ‘next time,’ but even if there is a next time, I don’t know that I’d jump at the chance to go out with him. Nice enough guy, minus the wallet forgetfulness, but I didn’t really feel anything.”

I groan. “You’re not giving me much hope for the dating scene.”

“I’m not going to lie to you, Blanton. It’s a rough world out there. I hate being that girl that wants a boyfriend, but I haven’t been in a serious relationship in over a year, and I miss it, you know?”

I look away, and she slaps her forehead. “Sorry.
Sorry.
I’m such a bitch. Okay, no more talk about guys. Let’s go get the conference room set up and talk about how many passive-aggressive comments Eryn will make during the presentation, ’kay?”

An hour and a half later, the presentation is done, two more mugs of coffee have been consumed, and despite the fact that both Lori and another friend (who I’d texted about the breakup during yesterday’s wallowing hangover) have been texting me nonstop, trying to distract me with non-guy-related topics, I can’t stop my brain from going there.

But, oddly, not in an
I miss Lance so much
kind of way.

Perhaps that will come later. And not in the hurt-pride kind of way of the weekend, either.

I find myself thinking about sex.

I’d been mostly kidding in my interrogation of Ben about gym hookups, because I don’t care
how
turned on I am by some six-packed hottie, I’m just not the type of girl to do it in the gym shower or wherever else Ben and his gym rats go at it.

But I
hadn’t
been kidding about my foray into playing the field. I mean, I don’t need to sleep with the whole town or anything, but I’m in my twenties. My libido is plenty healthy.

I should be getting some.

I
want
some.

I save the spreadsheet I’ve been staring at blindly for the past fifteen minutes and make my way over toward Lori’s cube on the far side of the office.

“Parker!”

My footsteps slow slightly, and I silently scold myself as I realize my mistake in not walking the other way to Lori’s cube.

I fix a smile on my face and pause outside my coworker’s cube. “What’s up?”

I’m sure Eryn Grading is a nice person.

She just hardly ever shows it. At least at work. Oh, sure, she can be sugary sweet when she wants to be, usually when our boss is around. But sometimes she says these things, and all you can do is stare at her and silently wonder if that’s really what she wanted to say.

Eryn is sitting at her desk, so I’m towering over her, but then I tower over her even when she’s standing. Not because I’m particularly tall at five foot six, but because she’s barely five foot.

“Hey there, how’s it going?” she asks.

“Fine!” I chirp, patiently waiting for the real reason she stopped me.

“Good job on your presentation today,” she says, twirling a strand of her super-long hair around her finger.

“Thanks.” I shift my weight, wondering where the
but
is.

“But…”

There it is.

“I just thought you’d want to know that your slide on the first-quarter projections was a little bit crammed. I had a hard time reading it from the back of the room. I’m sure Michelle was a little disappointed, seeing as the senior VP showed up.”