Everyone in the bar cracked up, and I headed upstairs to Griff’s apartment.
I had my own key, so I let myself in, and I immediately ordered delivery from the Chinese food place close by.
I then turned on Griffin’s TV and pulled up Netflix. I’d forgotten how much I liked hanging out at his place, and I hadn’t realized until now how much I’d kept myself away because Harris didn’t like him.
Such a shame that I’d let a man do that to me. It’d happened so gradually that it snuck up on me. I hadn’t made it past the bar in at least a month. Before that, I thought I had come upstairs for all of five minutes.
I knew that it was hard for men I dated to understand that Griffin and I were best friends, but some accepted it easier than others. It always helped when my best friend and my boyfriend got along with each other.
In the future, if the guy I dated didn’t like my best friend, I wasn’t going to keep him around. If Griffin were a female, it wouldn’t be a problem, and I really hated double standards.
As I kicked off my shoes and rested my feet on the coffee table, I thanked myself once again for calling my relationship with Harris quits.
Fifteen minutes later, my food arrived. I ate way too much and almost fell asleep on the couch. With my last bit of energy, I went into Griffin’s room and pulled out some sweatpants and a T-shirt from his dresser. I brushed my teeth with the spare toothbrush I kept at his place, and then I slid into his king-size bed and sent him a text.
Me: I’m sleeping over. Don’t bring any women home.
He had two bedrooms but only one bed. The other room was filled with workout equipment. And there was always the couch, but we’d been sharing each other’s beds for sleeping for as long as I could remember. I knew he wouldn’t care if I stayed over.
Griffin: Oh, darn. Hold on. I have to cancel the threesome I was going to have tonight. The ladies are going to be so disappointed.
Me: Tell them hi for me.
Griffin: They said to tell you to go to hell.
Me: LOL.
Griffin: Troy and I are almost done here anyway. I’ll be home soon.
Me: Okay. Please don’t wake me.
Griffin: You couldn’t pay me to wake you.
I thought of myself as a fairly nice person, but wake me up when I wasn’t ready, and even I knew I was a bitch. It always took me about ten minutes to return to normal.
Me: Ha. I’ll see you in the morning then.
Griffin: Okay. Night.
Me: Night.
I turned my screen black and set my phone on the nightstand. I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow. The only thing that vaguely pulled me from slumber was the sound of feet shuffling on the floor and the bed dipping down beside me.
Griffin was home, but he had the good sense not to disturb me.
And I fell asleep once more.
Four
Griffin
The sound of Madeline’s phone pulled me from sleep. I knew it was her phone and not mine because I would never have a ringtone that played Taylor Swift.
“Hello?” she said from the other side of the bed.
“Hi, honey.”
Since the only sound in my place was the air blowing out of the vent in the floor, I could hear Madeline’s mom, Nora, perfectly.
I opened my eyes and saw Madeline roll onto her back.
She ran her hand across her face. “Hey, Mom. What’s up? You’re calling pretty early.”
I looked over my shoulder at my alarm clock to see that it wasn’t quite seven.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I wake you? I thought you’d be up for work already.”
“It’s okay. I was half-awake. I do need to get up and get ready anyway.”
“I’ll make this quick then. On Sunday, it’ll be just you for dinner, right? I think you said Harris was going out of town. I wanted to make sure before I went to the store.”
“Yeah, it’s just me.”
“So, Harris is going out of town?”
“He is. But it doesn’t matter because we broke up.”
“Hallelujah. Your father is going to be so happy.”
Madeline scoffed while I stifled a laugh.
“Mom, really?” she said as she looked at me and pointed to her phone. Are you hearing this? she mouthed.
I nodded with a grin.
I’d known Nora Campbell as long as I’d known her daughter, and she was like a second mother to me. And it was the same with Madeline and my mom. Madeline and I were only children, so I thought our mothers liked having both of us around. I thought our dads liked it, too, but they’d both come from a generation where men didn’t show their feelings as much.
“I’m sorry, honey. I meant to say, this is unfortunate news. I hope you’re doing okay.”
“Too late.” She rolled her eyes. “If you and Dad didn’t like Harris, why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s not that we didn’t like him. We didn’t like him for you. You two were all wrong for each other. But I knew it would eventually work itself out. I’m just glad it was sooner rather than later.”
“Next time, just tell me how you feel, okay?”
“Sure, honey,” Nora said in a placating tone.
“I don’t believe you.”
Nora laughed. “You’ll just have to trust me. We can talk about this more on Sunday. I’ll let you go, so you can get ready for work. I need to head out the door soon too.”
“Okay.” Madeline sat up. “I’ll see you on Sunday.”
“See you then. I love you, honey.”
“I love you too.” She hung up the phone and looked over at me. “I can’t believe her. She had a mini celebration about my breakup.”
“I don’t blame her. Your mom was right. Harris was all wrong for you.”
Reaching behind her, Madeline picked up the pillow she’d just been resting her head on and threw it at me.
I caught it before it could hit me in the face and tucked it under my head.
“I’m disowning you both,” she said as she got out of bed.
“No, you’re not. You love us all too much.”
She snorted and pulled my T-shirt she’d borrowed over her head.
The two of us were close and had never done anything sexually intimate in all our years as friends, but I sometimes thought Madeline forgot I was a man. I had a perfect profile view of her perky C-cup breasts, and best friend or not, it didn’t stop me from wondering what her pink nipples would taste like in my mouth.
I looked away and subtly adjusted my dick under the covers. I was a red-blooded male after all, and a beautiful set of tits were still a beautiful set of tits, no matter who the owner was.
When I turned back in her direction, she had thankfully already put on a bra and was pulling her shirt down over her smooth stomach.
Unfortunately, my borrowed sweatpants were next. And even with her underwear covering her bottom half, it didn’t stop me from wondering what her pussy tasted like too.