Friend Zoned (Barnett Bulldogs #2) (39 page)

Things of that nature.

But Sam’s photo wasn’t deliberate.

This on the other hand…

Yeah…

This
is totally, one hundred percent without doubt, intentional.  I mean, come on, of course it is!

There are about fifteen players standing in the buff on the fifty yard line of the football field.  Their backsides are facing the camera.  All you see are wide brawny shoulders, big strong backs, tapered waists, amazingly chiseled butt cheeks and huge muscular thighs.

Did I happen to mention that they’re totally buck naked in the shot?

My wide eyes slide back to Allie.  There’s a huge shit eating grin curving her pink lips upward.

All wide eyed and child-like, she asks, “How did Santa know this was exactly what I wanted for Christmas?”

I can’t help the gurgle of laughter that erupts from my throat.  There hasn’t been a whole lot to laugh about over the past few weeks, so it feels nice to do it now.    

Glancing down at her phone again, I have the sneaking suspicion that Roan and Dylan are behind this.  Because it’s their asses that are front and center.

Along with Liam Garrison’s…

Which is, admittedly, a rather nice looking ass…

Chapter Thirty-Five

Glancing around the already crowded bar, I ask Mia for the third time, “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather hang out in our room?  We can have a movie night.  I’ll let you pick.”  When she doesn’t even blink her eyes in response, I try sweeting the pot. “I’ll spring for pizza.  My treat.”

All she does is glare at me from across the table which essentially means that I’m stuck here at O’Brien’s for the duration.

Finally I grumble, “I am so not in the mood for this.”

Needless to say, I’d much rather be at home, cocooned in some comfy clothes, stuffing my face with pizza and ice cream, all the while lamenting my own idiotic stupidity for the millionth time.  But Mia has other the plans for the evening which apparently include getting totally shitfaced.

“Don’t care,” she replies, “I need this.”  Hoisting the cold brown bottle to her lips, she proceeds to drain roughly half the contents in one long thirsty gulp.  Slamming the bottle back down onto the table, she adds, “Desperately.”

Even though I’ve had a crappy couple of weeks, Mia’s life nosedived right before exploding into a fiery ball of flames yesterday.  After a straight week of silence from Carter, she finally told him that she was coming out to visit. His response was to pull the plug on their two year relationship with some lame ass excuse about needing time apart so he could get his life figured out.

So they are now officially taking
a break
.

Exactly how do you go from proposing marriage to the supposed love of your life to stomping all over her heart and ending a two year committed relationship?

I don’t know.

But that’s exactly what happened.  My heart goes out to her.  She’s obviously gutted about the whole thing and I can’t really say that I blame her.

So, yes, Mia definitely needs a night out, a chance to cut loose and forget about the whole-Carter-situation, if only for a few drunken hours.  Even with everything that’s happened between them, I know she doesn’t have any regrets about saying no to his proposal.

I just hope Carter comes to his senses before he loses her for good.  Mia’s not the type to just sit around moping for a month or so.  Nope.  She’ll give herself the weekend to be all sad bastard before picking herself back up and moving on with her life.  She’s one of those-
can’t-change-the-past, so-not-going-to-bother-dwelling-on-it
kind of people.

I’ve seen her when something goes wrong or doesn’t end up working out the way she expected it to.  Instead of getting angry or trotting out the whole-
why me
attitude, she chalks it up to experience and figures out a different path to take.

But tonight is definitely for wallowing and that’s only emphasized when Mia flags down the waitress so she can order another bottle of beer, even though she hasn’t finished the one she’s currently working on.

“So what’s going on with Golden Delicious?”

Narrowing my eyes, I give her a look.  God bless but she knows how much I hate it when she calls him that.  “Nothing.”

We’re friendly.  But it’s not the same.  Not nearly the same.  And that knowledge is like a knife slicing painfully through my beating heart.

Patience, I remind myself.  I just need to have patience.

“So what are you going to do about it?”  I almost wince at the steely note that enters her voice.  Mia may be taking time to mope about the Carter situation, but apparently my time has run out. 

Not really wanting to delve headfirst into this conversation, I sigh, stalling for time. Instead of taking the hint and moving on, she continues waiting for an answer.

Did I mention that Mia can be annoyingly persistent when she wants to be?

It’s a total character flaw in this kind of situation.

Finally I say, “What can I really do?  We’re just in this…” hell, I don’t even know what kind of place we’re in right now, “it’s just weird.  Things aren’t totally back to normal between us, but at least he’s talking to me.”

And that means just about everything.

At this point, I’ll take whatever he’s willing to give.  I’m like a damn dog begging for scraps.  And I’m not ashamed to admit it either.  Because I fucked up.  I put him and his family through hell. I’m lucky he’s even willing to give me the time of day.

“Does he know you spoke with his parents?”

Feeling restless, I shrug my shoulders. “We haven’t talked about it.”

Can anyone really blame me for not wanting to bring up the whole photo scandal situation yet again?

Nope.  I think we’re both just trying to move quietly past it.  Which is difficult because whenever we’re together, it’s like a two ton elephant sitting between us.

Nearly impossible to avoid.

And really, what was I supposed to say?

Hey, just a little FYI- even though I fucked up royally, I’m now trying to clean up a tiny little piece of it…

Right.

Big fucking deal.

It does nothing to change the fact that there’s a naked picture of Sam floating around out there.  Hell, I passed by a girl at the library the other day who was using it as a screen saver on her computer…

So yeah, that whole situation isn’t going away anytime soon.

“And I have no idea if his parents mentioned it to him either.”  He hasn’t said a word about it and I’m fine with that.  The sooner I can forget about the cringe worthy conversation I had with the Harpers, the better off I’ll be.

The memory of it flashes through my head in painful Technicolor bursts.  Kind of like when you’re watching a horror flick through fingers that are clapped tightly over your eyes.  Every once in a while you can’t help but take a quick peek, catching some gruesome glimpse.  Unfortunately that one stolen glance is enough to be burned into your brain forever.

For instance, Senator Harper glaring at me from across the highly polished kitchen table through frigid brown eyes.  Brows drawn sharply together.  Mouth curved into a deeply carved frown.  Hands clenched tightly together in front of him.

And then he just sat there staring at me.  As if he couldn’t quite figure out why I would do something so completely stupid.  By the disgruntled look that continued to mar his face, he wasn’t able to figure it out either.

Or having to face Sam’s mother… you know, the woman who gave birth to him.  The woman who stepped into the surrogate mom shoes during my formative years.  I can only speculate that she had just as difficult of a time understanding why I would feel the need to photograph her son.

Naked.

In bed.

Without his permission before rather stupidly allowing it to be stolen.

I have absolutely no idea how I’m ever going to face the pair of them again.  I couldn’t have felt more like a perverted deviant if I tried.  Christ… even now my cheeks are flaring with heat.

Would you like to take a guess as to who won’t be engaging in sexy picture time ever again?

Yep, that’s right, it’s me.

This experience has been way too psychologically damaging to ever do
that
again.

Mia polishes off her first bottle of beer before starting in on the second.  Her alcohol consumption is turning out to be more of a sprint rather than a marathon.  “So, you’re just going to sit back and do absolutely nothing about this?”

I give her a blank look because umm, yeah… that’s
exactly
what I was planning to do.  For the time being, I’m going to lay low and just ride this one out.  What else does she expect me to do?  I mean, haven’t I singlehandedly caused enough damage to my friendship with Sam?

I’m kind of thinking that I have.

Looking frustrated by my lack of response, Mia continues doling out unsolicited advice.  Which, quite frankly, I could do without.  Alcohol unfortunately brings out the unwanted therapist in Mia.

“Well, for starters, you could try pulling on your big girl panties and telling him how you really feel.”  When I remain stubbornly silent, she steam rolls on, “Look, I can see just how much this whole thing is tearing you apart.  And yeah, I totally get that you made a mistake. But it’s not the end of the freaking world, Violet.  If you want Sam, then you need to be honest with him about your feelings.  Being friends is a distant second to what you really want with him.  And if it doesn’t work out, then at least you tried, you went after what you wanted.  You can’t have regrets if you did everything you possibly could to make it happen.”

As her words roll around within my head like marbles, I hoist the beer bottle to my lips before taking a swig.  She has no idea just how much I want to follow her advice. It’s softly that I finally admit, “I’m the one who told him that we were better off as friends.”

Shaking her head, she huffs out a great big sigh before taking another pull from her bottle. Bottle number two is going just as fast as bottle number one.  “Of course you did.  That sounds
exactly
like something you would do.”

My shoulders tense and hunch as a small frown tugs at the corners of my lips.  “What does that mean?”

Sucking in a deep breath, her serious green eyes impale mine. “It means that not being honest with Sam about the kind of relationship you really want is just
you
trying to play it safe.  It’s
you
being afraid to tell him that you want more than friendship even though you fucked stuff up between you.”

My jaw goes slack as I continue staring at her.  When I’m finally able to wrap my lips around the words, they sound all low and thick.  Scraped raw.  “What are you talking about?  I
have
been honest with him.  I just- I just…”

Doesn’t she get that I can’t live without Sam?  That having him as a friend is better than not having him in my life at all?

Eyes filling with compassion, she leans across the table.  “Vi, honey, Sam didn’t break up with you after the picture fiasco. 
You’re
the one who told him that you were better off as friends. 
You’re
the one who put the kibosh on your relationship.  Not him.”

No… that’s not the way it happened.

Sam was really angry with me.  And who can blame him?  His privacy had been totally invaded.  Christ… I hate myself for what this has done to him.  Hate that I’m the one who caused him any kind of pain or embarrassment.  At this point, I’m not even sure if I deserve his friendship, much less his love.

“I didn’t want to lose him as a friend,” I whisper harshly, “he was barely talking to me.  It was only a matter of time before he ended things.”  Inhaling in a ragged breath, I admit, “Okay, so maybe I beat him to the punch by downgrading our relationship. But it was going to happen regardless.  I had to salvage what I could before I totally lost him.”

“Listen,” her voice continues to soften, “I understand why you did it, but you didn’t give him any time to deal with the fallout of what happened.  You just cut things off.  You forced everything back to the way it was.”  Her eyes spear mine.  “The point I’m trying to make here is that
you’re
the one who called it quits, not him.”

“But he would have,” I insist.  “I violated his trust by snapping that picture and keeping it on my phone.”

“You don’t know that for sure, Vi.  You got scared and dumped him before he could dump you.”

Her words have my throat closing up, making it painful to swallow down the thick lump of emotion sitting right in the middle of it.  No, I guess I don’t know for sure what would have happened.  But still…  I could see where it was heading.

The little voice inside my head reminds me that we’re nowhere near the friends we used to be.  That our relationship hasn’t completely shifted back to the easy friendship we once took for granted.  And that’s a bitter pill to swallow.  When it comes right down to it, Sam is my everything.  That week or so without him showed me just how dependent I am on him.