CHAPTER 21
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ESCAPING
THE FRIEND ZONE
ADRIAN
When Vanessa texted that she’d be back in five minutes, it was a full hour later than she said she’d be home. I’d been through a symphony of emotions over the last four hours, none of them good. I’d landed solidly on bad mood and wasn’t planning on changing.
I was hurt that Vanessa said she regretted kissing me and that it was a mistake. I was pissed that she didn’t tell me about Drake. I was jealous, frustrated, and scared I was going to lose her to this guy.
The fucking medicine-woman swaddling… Grace seemed to like it. I don’t know why this pissed me off more than anything else that had happened today, but it did.
Grace smelled like him—I had to give her a bath. She smelled like incense.
I was at the dining room table on my laptop with a baby monitor next to me trying to get through emails when Vanessa finally let herself into my apartment. I had Harry next to the table in his little dog bed and he raised his head at the sound of her coming in and growled like he was mad at her too.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, closing the door behind her. “There was a mob outside the restaurant. I had to autograph, like, two hundred sponges.
And I think someone cut a piece of my hair off…”
I didn’t look up at her. “I changed her diaper about an hour ago. She was a little fussy. I gave her some gas drops and she seems fine now. She’s in the playpen in the office, sleeping.”
Then I slid my chair out, got up, and went to the bar.
“Well, you’re in a mood,” she said from behind me.
I pulled the stopper off the bourbon. “So does your ex own any damn shirts or did he get frostbite on his nipples?” I mumbled.
“Drake? He should own a shirt. He wore one on the cover of People
when he got Sexiest Man Alive.”
I scoffed.
I heard her set down her purse. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Why didn’t you ever talk to me about him?” I said, not looking at her.
She laughed. “Uh, why would I?”
“He’s obviously someone who’s important to you.” I dropped ice into a tumbler. “We talk. I thought we didn’t keep things from each other.”
“Yeah, I thought that too. But I didn’t see you running to tell me that you loaned money to Brent.”
I twisted to look at her and she stood with her arms crossed.
“He asked me not to,” I said. “It was between me and him, and you had to wait all of forty-eight hours to find out about it. It’s not the same thing as
hiding an entire relationship.”
“I didn’t hide Drake.”
“Well, you didn’t exactly volunteer the information.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’d have to live under a rock to not know about Drake. And I’ve never talked about him because he wasn’t worth mentioning.”
“Right.” I went back to my drink, putting the stopper back in the decanter. “I thought you weren’t dating anyone.”
She laughed at my back. “Are you serious? You’re crabby because I went on a date? You want me miserable and alone with you in solidarity? Is that it?”
I set my drink down, turned around, and crossed my arms. “Are you getting back with him?”
She threw her hands up. “And what does it matter? It’s not like you want me.”
I stared at her, incredulous. “You have made it exceedingly clear to me, since day one, that you don’t have any interest in me beyond friendship.” I gestured between us. “This is what you wanted. You wanted friends only, you set that boundary. I respected it. Then you kissed me, declared it a huge mistake, and I’m the bad guy?”
She put a hand to her chest. “I set the boundary?”
“Are you getting back with him?” I asked again.
She laughed. “No. I prefer my men a lot less gay.”
My arms dropped. “He’s gay? Since when?”
She snorted. “Birth?”
I gawked at her. “Well—what the hell was all that shit about online?”
“Adrian, there’s a certain level of theater that goes into what I do. Drake and I hung out so much because he was dating my cameraman, Laird. He wasn’t ready to come out yet. People assumed what they wanted to assume.
That dinner today was a collab. He’s announcing their engagement, and he teased it with a video entitled ‘He Proposed!’ with clip of us in a restaurant and him showing me a giant ring. It’s clickbait. Then when you play the whole video, he’s inviting me to the wedding. It gets both of us views and new subscribers. He was doing me a favor.”
I blinked at her. “So you’re not seeing him.”
“No! I’m not seeing anyone. And I probably never will, ever again, if that makes you feel better.” Then her chin started to quiver. “And don’t worry, I won’t ever try to kiss you again. Gross, right?” Her voice cracked on the last word.
I shook my head. “I don’t get you. Did you want me to kiss you back?
You wanted me to cheapen our friendship with something that didn’t mean anything to you? You wanted a fling? This isn’t some game for me, Vanessa. Kissing you means something to me.”
She blinked at me through tears. “It…it does?”
“Of course it does. How can you even ask me that?”
She sniffled. “But…but you didn’t kiss me back.”
“You were drunk,” I said. “You were so drunk I had to carry you home. I don’t kiss intoxicated women. Even if I want to. And then you said it was a mistake, that you…” I didn’t finish. I couldn’t.
I paused for a long moment, turning away from her. I dragged a hand down my beard and then looked her in the eye. “I’ve wanted to kiss you almost every single day since the day I met you.”
And there it was. Out in the universe.
She stared at me, speechless. Shocked.
Nothing was going to be the same after this.
I wondered how much damage was done, if we’d even be friends now.
We might have moved past her drunken misstep. But not this. My one-sided feelings would be too much.
I waited for the letdown that I knew was coming. The gentle “I don’t see you that way” or “It’s me, not you.”
She looked at me with wide apologetic eyes and licked her lips. “Adrian, I’ve wanted to kiss you almost every single day since the day I met you too.”
It hit me like a storm throwing a door open. Everything inside me burst into chaos. My heart launched into pounding as hope ripped through me.
A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “And I’m not drunk now…”
I broke into a grin and was clearing the distance between us before she took another breath.