“And it was her idea.”
We all sit back, oohing and aahing. “Oh, well that makes more sense.”
“Was she on her knees?” Blaine asks.
Phillip stares. “No, she was in a desk chair.” He pauses. “Yes she was kneeling, dumbass.”
“I don’t know! I’ve never been blown anywhere besides the bedroom. Give me a break—I was curious.”
Phillip’s hand goes up. “You’ve never been blown anywhere besides the bedroom?”
Blaine’s cheeks turn pink. “You have to remember, I don’t necessarily date women who are hellions in the sack, okay? They’re all pretty…vanilla.”
“Bambi is vanilla? Even girls who are vanilla get down on their knees from time to time.”
Visions of Abbott fill my head, of the time I got down on my knees, in my living room, to eat her out, her hand holding on to the couch for support.
“Anything other than blow jobs?” I turn toward Blaine. “Speaking of which—have you spoken to Bambi lately?”
He averts his eyes, suddenly very curious about the menu that’s been sitting in the center of our table the entire time we’ve been here. “No.”
“You fucking liar,” Phillip accuses. “Is she messaging you?”
“I mean…” He squirms in his chair, uncomfortable. “Yeah? She was pretty devastated when I dumped her—obviously she’s going to message me.” He hurries to say it, as though emphasizing that he’s not at fault for her contacting him, passing any blame lest Phillip and I accuse him of losing the bet by reentering his relationship.
Which would make my life so much easier—both of my friends losing along with me—so I can go groveling back to Abbott and continue living my life with her in it.
“You need to block her stalker ass,” Phillip says, after much consideration.
“Meh,” I disagree. “He’s right—she wasn’t expecting to get dumped, and it’s not like he gave her any closure.”
I never believed closure was important until Abbott ghosted me, all the unanswered questions driving me to distraction. If we’re friends, how could she dump me like that?
I understand why she’s pissed, and why she’s carefully avoiding me, but fuck—it’s starting to hurt the one goddamn feeling I have left inside me.
24
Abbott
“Does your ex-boyfriend happen to have a friend named Brooks?”
I’m standing in the doorway of the office Bambi shares with her co-workers, seizing the opportunity to have a word in private. Everyone else is at lunch.
I don’t bother using Brooks’ full name, because what are the odds there is more than one Brooks in this entire city? Bambi either knows him or she doesn’t.
She spins in her desk chair. “Yes.” Leans in, taking off her computer glasses and staring down her nose at me. “Why?”
My lips purse.
So. Brooks and Blaine.
Friends with a pact, choosing themselves over the women they love.
And love me he does—by now I know that bastard better than he knows himself.
Brooks Bennett loves me but broke it off with me, and I want to know why. What are his friends holding over him? For what reason are they all breaking up with their girlfriends?
It makes no sense.
Bambi silently watches the wheels in my head turning. “Why?” she repeats.
“’Cause, I…” I swallow. “I’m friends with him, and he…” I can’t get the words out without becoming emotional. Wow, this sucks, and we weren’t even in a romantic relationship, although we actually were and didn’t realize it.
Didn’t call it one. But a rose by any other name…
“He’s the douche who broke up Blaine and me.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“He and I were really good friends—”
“Fuck buddies?” Bambi crudely blurts out. “Friends with benefits?”
“No.” After all, we’ve only had sex once, so we can’t be considered fuck buddies yet.
But the reality is, I allowed myself to become that girl, the one so desperate for attention and affection from a guy that I blinded myself to what he’d been telling me all along.
He didn’t want a girlfriend. He didn’t want a relationship. He just liked hanging out and occasionally having sex with me, while eating me out of house and home and squatting on my couch.
I pushed and pushed and pushed him until I drove him away.
Bambi must be watching the play of emotions running across my face, and I feel a warm hand on my forearm. “I’m sorry, Abbott.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Sorry your boyfriend dumped you to try to win the same bet.
Bambi hands me a tissue. “Do you think you’d take him back if he came groveling?”
My laugh is slightly cynical. “He’s not going to come groveling back—we weren’t a couple.” I sniffle. “Would you take your ex back if he reached out?”
She hesitates, pressing a few random keys on her computer keyboard to buy herself some time before answering. “I think so. I really miss him.” Then she hurries to add, “I know he dumped me for a foolish reason, and that tells me maybe he didn’t like me the way I like him? But we’ve been talking more lately, and I think we’re closer friends now that we aren’t dating.”
This development surprises me. I would have thought Bambi Warner was the type of girl who plotted revenge on an ex to destroy him—not the type who texted them every day to mend and repair their relationship.
Maybe there is more to her than I originally thought, guilt assailing me for judging her.
“What started the whole thing with these guys, you think?” I gleaned no actual answers from Brooks, only vague statements about how he can’t do this and he can’t do that and I can’t wear his smoking jacket and blah blah blah.
“I actually have no idea, but I’m sure this is a Brooks Bennett brainchild. He wasn’t the same after his girlfriend broke up with him.”
“He had a girlfriend?”
“Yeah, they weren’t together long, but he really loved her, from what Blaine has told me. She randomly dumped him out of the blue, and, well—he’s been a turd ever since.”
“What was she like?”
“I’ve only seen pictures, didn’t actually meet her, but I think she was blonde. Cute. Blaine said she was sweet most of the time but a total bitch if she didn’t know you.”
My nod of understanding is slow. “I can see that.”
Bambi pulls open her desk drawer and retrieves a bag of cheese-flavored rice cakes. “Guys love a girl with a little bit of bite—at least they do in the beginning.” She rips open the bag and sticks her hand inside. “God, I love these dumb things.”
She munches down on a rice cake, chewing thoughtfully.
“I’m not sure what to do about Brooks. We’re not dating so I’m in this weird place.”
“But you want to be dating him, yeah?”
I only pause because I am not sure if I want to be so open with Bambi, this woman I’m not that close to. The last thing I want is her learning all this personal information about me before she and I find a place of neutrality, a place where I’m comfortable calling her a friend.