Safety in the Friendzone Page 10

  We hovered near each other, as though neither of us knew if we should step forward or not. There was this heavy expectation in the air. I didn’t know if we were waiting for a signal or what, but we both seemed to smile at the same time and rush forwards.

  Our arms got caught up as we both went to pull each other closer, our lips meeting with a smile. I didn’t know if I’d been feeling particularly stressed about the whole situation or whether it was just her that had such a lifting effect on me, but I felt relief like I couldn’t remember feeling before.

  I wrapped my arms around her waist and hers went around my neck.

  Even to kiss her, I couldn’t wipe the ridiculous smile off my face. Our noses bumped and we both laughed. Almost at the same time, we started shuffling awkwardly to her bed. I didn’t want to stop kissing her for a second, and it seemed she felt the same. I felt like I had years of not kissing her to make up for. It was stupid, but I couldn’t help it.

  We fell onto her bed with a laugh and rolled to hug each other as we made out.

  I knew I’d have to stop kissing her at some point, that was just reality. But I was going to make the best of it while I could.

  Chapter 17: Charley

  I wouldn’t have called whatever Zane and I had agreed on ‘dating’. It would have been a stretch of epic proportions. Not in the least, because we didn’t make a thing of it. And I guess I sort of assumed that to be actually dating someone, someone outside the couple had to know about it.

  And no one outside the two of us knew about it.

  Not for sure.

  Zane’s stupid friends would have said something about it. Some quip about how Zane was belittling his reputation with a dweeb or something would have been the first thing out of Cody’s mouth on Monday morning. But it wasn’t.

  My friends, on the other hand? I could tell they guessed. But they knew me well enough to know I didn’t want to confirm or deny anything, let alone what I’d already told them. It was just a little hard to hide it from them when things like Recess happened.

  Zane jogged over to us, making a beeline for me as soon as he walked into the Common Room.

  “What do you want now?” I asked, slightly more hostile than even usual in my attempt to keep things business as usual.

  Zane smirked. “I can’t come and say hi?”

  “It’s a free country,” I replied.

  “Penny, how’s the new job going?” he asked politely.

  “How wonderful,” Jett commented. “You remembered something about the little people for once.”

  I expected an insult match. What I got was Zane on his best behaviour, even though I knew it cost him a significant effort. “I’m capable of growth.”

  “Since when?” I asked.

  He grinned and he leant towards me, his lips brushing my ear as he said, “I might show you later.” If he thought he was hiding the short hand-hold, he probably should have let go sooner or, not taken it at all.

  Meanwhile I was trying very hard not to give him the comeback I wanted, or die from choking on the spit I’d inhaled instead of swallowing.

  “If you’re so capable of growth, are you expecting to sit with us now?” Jett asked.

  Zane obviously took that as an invitation. “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not having a sudden exodus of Pops on my hands.” Jett’s face said exactly what he thought of that.

  “I can promise you that I’m the only Pop you’re going to have to deal with.” Zane crossed his heart.

  I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to believe any of it. Zane was sitting here with my friends and being…pleasant. I mean, Jett and I weren’t this pleasant most days – poor Penny. We certainly didn’t smile that much and look like an over-eagre puppy wanting to be your new best friend.

  “In person perhaps,” I said. “If looks could kill, Cody would have murdered me three times over by now.”

  Zane looked back at his friends. I didn’t see what face he made to them, but they turned away. I didn’t know if they were giving him a permanent bar from the Pops or if this was a temporary acceptance of Zane’s choices.

  “Please don’t tell me we’re stuck with you forever now?” I asked.

  “Oh, you’ll always be stuck with me, Char,” he said happily.

  “Brilliant,” I muttered.

  There was silence for a while as Zane looked around between us and we seemed unable to even come up with something and pretend he wasn’t there. I knew the face Jett was making – he wanted me to get rid of Zane. I kind of wanted to get rid of Zane as well. If I’d known kissing him was going to evolve into him hanging out with my friends, I might have thought twice about it.

  Zane settled himself even further and, when it was obvious no one was saying anything, he spoke. “So, we watched ‘Deadly Class,” he told Jett and Penny.

  “What did you think?” Penny asked, leaning forward like she was glad the silence had lifted.

  Jett’s eyebrow rose as he looked at her out the side of his eye, but he said nothing at her enthusiasm. Jett was all about scathing comments, but would never say a word against Penny.

  Zane apparently had equal amounts of enthusiasm to share. “Awesome! You guys were right. Loved it. Pissed it’s cancelled. Already bought the novels.”

  Penny smiled as she looked at Jett and me. Jett was still unconvinced. Which didn’t surprise me.

  Penny was the kind of girl who’d relate to you the way you related to her. If you teased her or were mean to her, she’d hide away, keep her mouth shut, and fade into the background. If you were nice to her and happy to talk to her about things she liked, then she’d be happy and smiley and talk your ear off if you weren’t careful.

  Jett lived in a cloud of suspicion and detachment. I couldn’t really blame him. But it meant he was likely to react to friendliness from an unlikely source with more hostility than his usual apathy.

  And he had plenty for Zane.

  “Do you expect a gold star?” he asked sarcastically.

  Zane, though, smiled at him. “I just thought you’d like to know you were right and I was wrong.”

  There went Jett’s eyebrow again. I could see he was trying to work out what to come back with. Did he make a scathing comment? Did he make a joke at Zane’s expense? Did he let it go?

  “You watched the whole series?”

  Zane nodded. “More than once.”

  Which wasn’t technically a lie. For the first time ever, I’d actually engaged in the ‘chill’ portion or Netflix and Chill. With Zane. I mean we kept getting distracted kissing and had to rewind or re-watch episodes. Multiple times. I had never been so easily distracted from a TV crush before. It was an interesting turn of events.

  “And you enjoyed it?” Penny asked.

  Zane nodded. “It was great. Gritty. Like a DC movie, but I could actually see what was happening on the screen.”

  Penny laughed at Zane’s poor attempt at a joke. Jett was still not even close to being won over. Which made the world feel like it was right ways up still.

  “Any other suggestions for stuff to watch?” Zane asked.

  Jett was maybe half a step closer to considering being won over.

  “You watch the DC TV?” Jett asked.

  “No,” Zane answered. “Talk to me about that.”

  I sat in utter disbelief as they talked about books, movies and TV shows that I never in a million years thought Zane would be interested in. I’d been trying to get him to watch Arrow with me for years, and he’d flat out refused.

  But one word from Jett and he was ready to skip school and binge the whole series? Ugh. What was happening?

  When Zane shot me a small smile, I worked it out.

  He was trying to be friends with my friends. He was trying to bridge that gap the only way he knew how – be charming. And for all intents and purposes, it was working. On the surface anyway.

  Even Jett cracked a slight smirk at one point at
something Zane said.

  My world didn’t turn upside down. The apocalypse didn’t start. Acid rain didn’t pour down. No bombs went off. Everything was the same as it had been a minute before. If anything, it felt like maybe everything was going to be a little easier.

  They weren’t going to be friends overnight, but if we could all be civil to each other, then maybe everything would work out fine in the end.

  When the bell for class rang, Zane had promised Penny that we were going to start ‘Supernatural’ on the weekend and he was even going to read a book that wasn’t class-assigned. I was very doubtful on the book front, but didn’t hate the idea about watching ‘Supernatural’ with him.

  He jumped up, nodding ‘later’ to Jett and Penny, and headed for his friends.

  “Did Hell freeze over?” Jett asked, looking at me.

  “Don’t be mean,” Penny said with a smile, giving him a little shove.

  “I’m not being mean, I’m asking a legitimate question.”

  “As far as I’m aware, Hell is fine,” I answered.

  Jett looked at me and I knew what he was thinking. Penny’s face mimicked it.

  My friends could totally tell there was more than just one kiss going on between Zane and me. It was the most obvious in the fact they didn’t say anything about it. Jokes were joked about, real life was sacred.

  And both of them were currently thinking that I must have some kind of magic lips to turn that boy into someone happy to sit with dweebs and talk ‘dweeb stuff’.

  Chapter 18: Zane

  All right, first date. I hadn’t been this nervous for a first date in like three years. I also hadn’t been this excited about a first date in like three years. So, that wasn’t so bad.

  I’d been dutiful, I’d tried getting to know the dweebs. Not dweebs. Her friends. I’d been trying to get to know her friends. I hadn’t expected to like it as much as I did, so that had been a nice surprise. Jett still looked at me with some uncertainty and I wasn’t going to like him right away, if at all. That hadn’t been the point. The point had been to get to know Charley’s friends and hopefully make whatever we became easier on her.

  I still wasn’t clear on what we were. I didn’t want to put a label on it, really. It didn’t feel like it needed it. But I sometimes wondered if she thought about it, and that made me think about it.

  So, in an effort to put some of her possibly imagined concern to bed, I’d asked her on a date. A proper date. A movie and dinner kind of date. Hence the nerves and excitement.

  It was something Charley and I had never done before. We’d seen plenty of movies together, but we’d never gone and watched one in public before. We’d also eaten dinner together plenty of times, just never in public. The whole thing was new for us and I was really hoping I wasn’t the only one looking forward to it.

  The likelihood of running into people we knew was always possible – kids from school tended to live on the same side of town. But I’d been on dates with girls where I was more worried about people seeing me. I hadn’t been almost-secretly dating my best friend, which felt like it was supposed to be worse… I just couldn’t’ bring myself to think it was.

  “That’s the fourth shirt you’ve tried on in as many minutes,” Eden said from my door.

  I glared at her in my mirror. “You spend a lot of time spying on your little brother getting changed?”

  “I can’t help if I have to walk past your room and you leave the door open. What are you doing?”

  “Digging potatoes.” It was our grandfather’s favourite answer to a question like that. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “It looks like you’re nervous.”

  I snorted. “Nervous? I’m not nervous.” I was a little nervous.

  “Who’s the unlucky girl?”

  “Shut up.”

  “All right. Serious then. Tell me. Who is she? She go to your school?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m just catching up with Charley.”

  Eden sniggered.

  “What?” I asked, indignantly.

  “Nothing. Just, you’re ‘just catching up with Charley’ and you can’t decide what to wear?”

  “So?”

  “So, why do you want to look so nice?”

  “I always want to look nice.”

  “Firstly, I’ve seen how you dress yourself and that’s just not true–”

  “Piss off!”

  “And secondly, you never care what you wear when you catch up with Charley. I saw you head over there with stained trackies and a week-old t-shirt, like, last week.”

  “I use plenty of deodorant!” I said.

  She shrugged. “Dude, I don’t care if you stink. I don’t have to put up with it.”

  “Exactly. So kindly vacate the premises.”

  Eden paused. “That blue shirt clean?”

  Because that was a great description. “Which blue one?”

  She rolled her eyes and strode into my room with an exaggerated sigh.

  “Excuse me!”

  “You’re excused,” she said, walking over to my wardrobe.

  She rifled through my shirts until she found one and pulled it out. She threw it at me and I barely caught it before it dropped to the floor. I held it up and looked at it.

  “What’s so special about this one?” I asked.

  “Oh, my God!” Eden breathed. “Boys!” She looked me over. “Charley gave that to you for your birthday like two years ago or whatever.”

  I looked at it again. “Oh, yeah. So why am I wearing it?”

  “If you can’t figure out how to keep her, I’m not going to help you.” She shook her head at me and walked out.

  “We’re not dating!” I called after her.

  “Uh-huh,” she called back and I could tell she didn’t believe me.

  I grumbled to myself as I finished getting dressed.

  “Zane! Charley’s here!” I heard mum call me.

  I looked at the time. “Shit.”

  I pulled on my shoes, shoved my keys in my mouth and my phone in my pocket, and hurried out still doing up my belt.

  “He’s always taken longer to get ready than Eden,” Mum was saying as I slid into the kitchen.

  “Oi!” I objected.

  “Well, I wouldn’t know,” Charley answered and I actually looked at her.

  She stopped me in my tracks and my keys fell out of my mouth.

  “You okay, Zane?” Mum asked.

  “Uh. Yeah,” I said absently, not at all sure what the actual question had been or what my answer was.

  Charley wasn’t one to do dressed up. Never had been. Not my Charley. I didn’t expect it and I wouldn’t have cared if she’d turned up in her oldest, rattiest PJs. But she hadn’t.

  She was wearing a simple red dress I didn’t think I’d ever seen before. She’d left her hair down and it was straighter than usual. She was even wearing makeup. Not much, just what I’d heard Thea saying was ‘amplifying’ or something. Accentuating maybe? Whatever it was, it looked good.

  I wanted to be one of those guys who didn’t go speechless as soon as the girl dressed up. I wanted to think she was more beautiful braless in the nightie she’d had since she was twelve with her hair, unwashed for a few days, in a messy bun. And she was beautiful like that. She was so beautiful like that.

  But this was different.

  This beauty was as much about the intention as it was the actual visuals. She’d made an effort. An effort she hadn’t needed to make. An effort I hoped she’d only made because she’d wanted to. The same way I’d spent half an hour trying to decide what shirt to wear.

  She left me speechless and I had a very inappropriate stirring in my pants.

  “Zane?” Mum pressed.

  Finally brought back to the present, I looked at her. “Yeah?”

  “You dropped your keys, bubba.”

  Mum pointed to my feet and I looked down. I gave a n
ervous chuckle as I looked at Charley and bent down to pick them up.

  “You good?” she asked me.

  I nodded, but I wasn’t convinced.

  I’d had some pretty unwholesome thoughts about her lately, thoughts I’d never before even considered having about my best friend. I’d thought they were pretty dirty at the time. They had nothing on dirty as I looked at her in the kitchen while my Mum looked between us with a barely contained smile.

  I had to get us out of there.

  “Shall we go?” I asked.

  “Where are you guys off to tonight?” Mum asked nonchalantly.

  “Norwood. You know.”

  “Meeting friends?”

  Charley and I looked at each other and damn not being a mind reader. We both opened out mouths, neither of us trying to give anything away while we tried to guess what the other was going to say.

  “No?” Charley said finally.

  I nodded. “No.”

  “No?” Mum said, failing to hide her surprise. “I don’t remember you going to the movies together before.”

  Another pause while Charley and I tried to telepathically navigate this one.

  “Aladdin’s out,” I blurted.

  Charley’s eyes went wide, then she pulled herself together. “Yes. You know how we used to watch that all the time?”

  “We thought we’d kind of make a thing of it. Old time’s sake and that,” I finished.

  Mum nodded. “Sounds fun. You two have a good time. Let me know how it is. I’ve heard very mixed reviews.”

  I nodded, feeling like maybe we were going to get out of this relatively unscathed.

  “Will do,” Charley promised.

  I gave Mum a smile, then went to Charley and started gently pushing her out of the kitchen.

  “Bye, Claudia!” she called as she scrambled to walk herself out.

  “Bye, guys!” Mum replied.

  We got out the front door, looked at each other and started laughing.

  “Damn, I was so worried I’d said the wrong thing,” Charley said, smacking me in the arm.

  “I had no idea what to say.”

  “Aladdin? How did you come up with that?” she asked as she got in the car.