Bound to Accept

BOUND
TO ACCEPT

by Nenia Campbell

Nenia Campbell (c) 2014

Dedicated to:

my readers

Chapter One

Fire drill at office. It's like high school
all over again.

I look at Tristan's text, and sigh. Even
though it's perfectly platonic, and nobody else would look at it
and think twice, reading his words makes me feel all swoony.

And why? Because I'm one
of those foolish girls who has gone and fallen in love with her
best friend. This isn't a sudden mistake, either. The kind that can
be gotten over with a weekend of heavy drinking or a one-night
stand. I've suffered bravely through my plight for
fourteen years
.

That's over half my life.

How depressing.

What's even more depressing is the fact that
I can, under no circumstances, never, ever let him know.

Yeah, right. WHAT DID YOU DO?

At least I'm smart enough
to know that Tristan and I have a good thing going. Taylor Swift
songs aside, sometimes boys and girls really are better off as
friends. Sex tends to over-complicate things—or so I've heard. I
mean, we can't all have the
When Harry Met
Sally
ending.

I'm so hot, I guess I must have set off the
fire alarm.

I've given myself this
pep-talk more times than I care to count—“Face it, Kelly,” I tell
myself, “you've been friendzoned. Put on the glasses and deal with
it”
—
but hope
springs eternal.

My phone chimes
again.
What are you doing right
now?

Just woke up. About to start writing.
You?

Waiting for fire drill to end. Texting you
and Ashlee.

Ashlee. My mood sinks. Ashlee is his
girlfriend.

How is Ashlee?
I type reluctantly.

Good. We're going out later.

Every time I see him, my head spins and my
heart races. He moves so confidently, with a slight swing of his
shoulders that reminds me of a tiger at the prowl. It's predatory,
and so at odds with his gentle nature that it makes me think he's
got a dark side.

All friends have secrets. We're like
three-dimensional shapes on paper; we all have hidden sides. And
there's some secrets we don't even reveal to ourselves.

I wonder what Tristan's secret is.

Do I even want to know?

I've tortured myself about
his feelings for me for
years
. All those sideways glances,
where he's almost caught me looking at him just seconds before I
look away. There's an electric moment, and each time, I think it's
going to be 'The Time'—the moment he tells me he's loved me all
along.

It never happens.

He flirts like the devil, too. Even with me.
He'll say things like, “you always think the best of me, don't
you?” with this distant, sad expression that makes my heart ache. A
couple of times, when he was really drunk, he said, “Kelly, you
know I love you.”

On one of those instances,
he pinned me up against a sofa and nuzzled my cleavage as he tried
to pull down my dress. I'm so pathetic, I might have even let him
if he hadn't called me Rachel while he was doing it—the name of the
girl he was dating at the time. He was really,
really
wasted.

Looking back on some of
the books I've self-published, I guess it's pretty obvious that I'm
smitten. The
boy-falls-in-love-with-best-friend-and-realizes-she's-soulmate
theme is prevalent in all my published works. Even in my fantasy
series about an ancient race of dragon warriors, the two main
characters grew up in the same village together and gradually
realize that they're in love. I am so
hopeless
.

My readers seem to enjoy my books, though. I
like to think my popularity is due to the fact that we've all
fallen for our best friend at some point, regardless of our
sexuality, but it's most likely because I don't shirk on the
torrid, so-wrong-it-must-be-right sex.

Whatever the reason, my
fanbase is devoted enough that they pay rent and most of my bills.
I can say I write for a living and have it almost be true. My
parents help out with the food stuff, and of course it helps that I
don't drive. I probably
should
drive, but in San Francisco it isn't really
necessary and it's expensive as hell. Free parking here is rarer
than a blue diamond, and just as pricey.

Tristan's texts seem to have stopped for
good. He must be back at the office now. It's almost three. He gets
off at four, and he's probably going to meet Ashlee then.

I bite my lip and try not to think about
what they're going to be doing, or how much I want to be in her
place, or how creepy putting so much thought into this makes me
feel.

To take my mind off Tristan, I brew some
coffee. I like the way the rich, sultry aroma makes my apartment
smell. It's decadent—one of the few frills I permit myself.

I take my favorite mug down from the
cupboard, the one with the picture of Grumpy Cat on it (I woke up
once, it was awful) and make myself a latte.

(What if he's kissing her right now?
Squeezing her breast? I wonder if his hands would be big enough to
hold my whole entire breast in his hand.)

I carry the mug of coffee to my desk, and
start on my current work-in-progress. It's about this woman who is
in love with her best friend. She works at a nightclub where she
wears a mask while dancing. One night her best friend comes in, and
she has sex with him, only he doesn't know it's her. I haven't
decided how it'll end.

(Have they had sex, yet?)

It doesn't seem like I'm making much
progress, but my ringing phone startles me into looking at the
clock. Nearly six. And that's Tristan's ringtone. I know, because
he has his own. Smash Mouth's “Walking on the Sun.” I think I
showed great restraint in not making it “Why Can't We Be Friends?”
Because that really would be creepy.

Where is my phone? I know I had it with me.
We were texting earlier. I tear apart my room, throwing clothes
aside, dumping out purses.

Phone! Where are you?

The ringtone is nearing the end of its loop;
soon it will take Tristan to voicemail and I'll have to wait at
least a half hour before calling him back. Then I see it on the
seat of my swivel chair. I was sitting on it all along.

I make a swipe for it and
the phone skitters to the floor.
Fuck
. Without thinking twice, I
dive. Grab it. “Hello?” I say breathlessly. “You still
there?”
Please, please be
there.

“
Hey.” That's all he
says.
Hey
. But my
brain immediately shoots into warp-speed, trying to think of all
the ways that could mean, “I am desperately, madly in love with
you.”

It doesn't help that his
voice is pure sex, either. Like he's just woken up. There's a
ragged snarl in his voice, like frayed velvet, and I could listen
to him talk for hours. And he
always
sounds like that, like he
just finished screaming himself hoarse after an intense bout of
really hot sex.

That's something else I've
tortured myself about. His girlfriends. He always seems to have
one, and I'm sure he's had sex with them. I mean, I'm not going to
kid myself. He's very attractive and he's also
nice
.

No, however much I might wish otherwise,
there's never been a shortage of women willing to date Tristan.

I thought things would get
better after high school, and especially after college. More
tolerable, at least. They haven't. If anything, my jealousy has
gotten even worse because now I have a whole slew of other things
to worry about. What if he marries her? What if they have
babies
?

Oh God, I hope he's not calling to talk
about Ashlee. But he probably is. He sounds a little upset. She
probably did something. I'll have to console him without sounding
too enthusiastic in my condemnation of his girlfriend. This
requires a set of mental gymnastics so complex that I usually feel
too drained to do anything but nap afterward.

I take a deep breath. “Hi,” I say brightly.
“How are you?”

“
I've had better
days.”

“
Well…how did your date
go?”

“
Are you doing anything
right now?”

I'm a little startled by the apparent
non-sequitur. I stare at my monitor. My two characters have just
started having sex. “No,” I say, after a pause.

“
Want to meet
somewhere?”

So he wants to talk. Which, knowing him,
means girl trouble. The date clearly did not go well. My mind is
spinning. Could this be my lucky break? Or does he want to get back
together with her?

I hope he doesn't want me to help him win
her back. I draw the line at standing outside his girlfriend's
window holding a boom box playing Peter Gabriel's “In Your
Eyes.”

I mean, I have my pride. Not much, but
some.

“
Let's meet at Tapioca
Barn.”

Even if he does want to get back together
with Ashlee, I'll still be able to drown my sorrows in a cup of
boba.

“
The milkshake
place?”

“
Bubble tea.” I can't help
correcting him. He should know this. I've only set him straight a
million times.

Tristan laughs. “Right. Bubble tea. See you
soon, then.”

“
See you soon,” I
say.

He hangs up, leaving me wondering why I am
such a fool. But only for five minutes or so. Then I start to
wonder what I should wear. Not that he'll notice.

But
still
.

Tristan Lesauvage isn't some A-list actor
lookalike, but I think he's very good looking. Dark brown hair.
Piercing green eyes. Kind of tan, in the sense that he's got a
healthy glow from being outside a lot. (How he manages this as an
engineer, I will never know.) He used to be a little on the heavy
side, but once we entered college he got really fit—and I was
afraid to make my move, because he might think I was only going out
with him because he'd shed the extra pounds. Teen movie makeover,
in reverse.

We've been friends since
middle school. I wasn't really into girly things, so while my peers
were catching up on
Gossip Girl
and going shopping at the nearby outlet mall, I
was hunkered down in the corner of the cafeteria playing my Gameboy
Advance. One day, a plump boy in a red checked shirt with a mop of
unwieldy hair joined me.

“
What are you playing?” I
asked him.

“
Pokémon,” he
said.

“
Cool.”

“
You?”

“
I'm playing Harvest
Moon.”

He nodded. I nodded. It was like two old
souls greeting each other in a bar. We went back to playing our
respective games, and I wasn't at all surprised when he showed up
the next day. What surprised me was that he never left.

He's easy to pick out at Tapioca Barn, with
his tall build and broad shoulders. Me, I fit right in with the
rest of the geeky hipsters frequenting the joint. Nobody even
spares me a second glance. Even Tristan does a double-take. But
then he smiles that slow smile that makes my heart feel like a Peep
in the microwave and he takes off his glasses, folding them up into
the pocket of his jeans.

He must not have changed from his date with
Ashlee. He's wearing expensive jeans, and a black button down over
a white undershirt. The jeans make his legs look really long,
especially with the way he's sprawled in the chair.

“
Nice shirt,” he says,
referring to the My Little Pony shirt my friend Kayla got me for
xmas last year. It has Fluttershy on it—my favorite pony—and says
in sparkly letters, 'Friendship is magic.' “What are you?
Eight?”

I probably should have worn the floral top
from Macy's. Most 25-year-olds do not go around wearing My Little
Pony shirts. Even the kinds who lurk on Tumblr all day.

“
You know you're
jealous.”

Tristan slings an arm over the back of his
chair, pulling the white shirt taut against his chest. I scan the
contours of his pecs, and where the fabric puckers over his
navel.

God, why are you so cruel?

“
Oh, yeah.” He rolls his
eyes. “I would just
die
without my Moonshine Sparkle shirt.”