Even though it was still piping hot, Zora took a long drink from her mug.
“Why?” Oli whined. “He’s free. I told you he ended things with Kate.”
Zora re-read the message from Andre. The coffee was kicking in and now a beyond brilliant idea brewed in the back of her mind. She still needed to set the record straight for Oli, though.
“Just because it’s over with Kate doesn’t mean he’s out of the dating cesspool. Let’s not forget, it’s been well established. We. Are. Friends. Just friends. So why not—” She trailed off.
As she drained the rest of her coffee, an idea rooted itself in her brain. She did a run-walk back to her bedroom.
“Holy macaroni! Why did I not think of this before?” she asked herself. Finally, it was feeling like she might have found a way to deal with the ruins of her childish crush.
“Why not what? Why didn’t you think of?” Oli asked.
Zora forgot Oli was still on the line. She was on a mission.
“Hold on a sec.”
She plopped onto the bed and scrolled through her bookmarked articles until she found the one. Back when she’d worked customer support in that call center for a telemarketing company, she’d sat next to a nice, but rather touchy-feely male coworker who refused to get the hint that they were just friends. She’d gotten zero personal space from spaghetti arms. There was always a hug that lasted too long, a hair he needed to push out of her face, or his hand on the small of her back.
Right before Zora had been about to give her coworker a potentially job-threatening piece of her mind, the godsend of a woman who sat on the other side of him emailed her an article listing the rules of platonic friendship.
It worked so well Zora saved it for future reference.
Present Zora owed past Zora big time.
For the next twenty minutes, while Oli worked on candid moments of the bridesmaids and groomsmen getting ready, Zora told her the rules she planned to implement over the next month.
The phone went silent.
“Well, what do you think?” she asked.
Finally, Oli materialized with an audible sigh. “You’re serious?
“As a heart attack.”
“It’s not going to work.”
“It just makes so much sense. Talk about it in the open. No touching. Only hang out during the day. No sexy clothes. Treat him how you would a same-sex friend. Oli, you have to admit this stuff is brilliant.”
The silence resumed, then she heard a muffled Oli excuse herself from the room for a ‘small emergency,’ which Zora knew was code for, give me a second to knock some sense into my best friend’s hard head. When she came back on the line, it was in surround sound.
“You’re out of your mind, Zo!” Her voice was shrill and crazy shaky. “I mean, you’ve literally lost it this time. I get the no Netflix and chilling thing, but what kind of crap is that about it’s okay to cook for him but not eat together? That just sounds stupid. Avoid sexual conversation? They act like people just sit around talking about penis and vagina all the time. It’s not like you’re texting each other about sleeping naked. It’s ridiculous.”
Zora cringed. She and Mike were having veiled conversations about sex. All the more reason for these rules.
“Whatever. Did you hear the most important one?” She read verbatim from the article. “’Accept the sexual tension for what it is, but having feelings doesn’t mean you have to act upon them.’ Come on, if that’s not me and Mike, I don’t know what is. It’s there. It’s always been there and probably will stay there, but we don’t have to act on our attraction. We both know we’re better off friends. He told me so himself at game night.”
Oli seemed to chew on this new piece of information. “He did?”
“Yes, and that’s why… What if…?” Zora rubbed her finger over her top lip.
“Lord have mercy, woman, spit it out. You’re killing me. I’m dying. I’m dead.”
As Zora hopped off the bed, she began undressing for the shower. A bout of confidence filtered her voice. “The rules said to let him know about your other person, so he knows there’s nothing going on between you…” She mulled over the words again, putting all the pieces together. “Mike let me know about Kate. What if he wasn’t the only one?”
“Only one what?” Oli scoffed. “You’re not making sense. This little ‘Aunt Flo emergency’ I’ve conjured is only going to last me so long, so out with it.”
Zora thought about Andre’s text. She wasn’t some unfortunate-looking, housebound, shrew. People compared her to Nia Long, for goodness sake. She had options too. Even if she weren’t particularly interested in sucking face with a slobber hound, a date would help set the tone in the house.
“He’s not the only one with options,” Zora stressed. “He let me know about Kate, so I’ll just have to let him know I’m going on a date this weekend.”
Without second-guessing it, Zora hung up with Oli, found Andre’s message, and confirmed. Saturday night at eight she was going meet him at Bite-Sized.
Chapter Ten
Mike
Mike arrived at work a half hour before his scheduled meeting with Harrison Arnold and waited in the conference room. He wore a tailored navy blue suit paired with a white button-down, a striped red and navy necktie, and a matching pocket square. His files were meticulously tabbed in the designated signature sections and he brought extra pens for the occasion. Though he was only assigned this meeting a week ago, Mike felt like he’d been waiting for this opportunity to prove himself to Everett for years.
With a deep breath, he checked his watch for the tenth time, but the minutes seemed to tick by like hours. He was always early to give himself a chance to let his nerves settle.
You’ve got this.
He was scribbling with the third pen to make sure it didn’t dry out when the glass door opened with a whoosh and Kendra entered. Her braids were pulled back into a neat ponytail. She wore light makeup on her ebony skin and her usual casual dress was replaced with a serious black skirt suit. She was all business today, and her folded arms and rigid posture seemed guarded and territorial.
Not until the door clicked shut did she meet his gaze.
She lifted a thick brow at him.
“Is he here?” Mike asked, adjusting his blazer, glancing at the closed door.
Her lips pursed. “I’m glad you’re sitting down. He’s not coming today. The guy rescheduled.”
“Did he say why? What exactly did he say?”
Mike pushed back from the table and crossed his arms, too. He could feel his face twisting in annoyance. With a deep inhale, he breathed out slowly. His teeth clenched, and his jaw tightened. Even though the air conditioning was on full blast, he was hot.
Kendra wiggled her fingers over the documents on the table. “Listen, I don’t usually get into the details about all this, but something seems really fishy. It wasn’t him on the phone. It was my girl, Ellie, who works for Arnold Corporation. She knows everything going on even though she’s just the front line.”
“Like what?”
“She said Arnold told her to reschedule for a week from today, next Friday. But that’s not all of it. She said he has an appointment with Easton Investments LLC this afternoon—a company that basically does what we do.” She pursed her lips. “If you ask me, I think they’re our competition, and he’s switching teams.”