Safety in the Friendzone Page 7

  “Not that I love you like…” I barked an embarrassing laugh. “Like that. Because that would… I mean… Pfft. You get it. I love you like–”

  “I… I get it, Zane,” she said stiltedly.

  It did the trick of stemming my verbal diarrhea though.

  “Maybe go grab a glass of water, yeah?” At least there was still a smile in her voice. Not all was lost then.

  I nodded. “Sure. No, yeah. I will do that.”

  “You have a good rest of the night, yeah?”

  “Yep. Will do.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “If you appear at my window and demand access to my home, yes.”

  “Cool.” I grinned, knowing she wasn’t actually hinting that I don’t do any of that.

  “Let me know if Eden changes her plans.”

  “You offering to be my driver?”

  “Sure. We’ll call it that.”

  “Because you love me?” just popped out of my mouth from habit.

  Before I could satisfy the mad urge to justify myself, she replied with a definite wide smile, “Sure. We’ll call it that,” then hung up.

  I had never felt so giddy after someone had hung up on me before. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been hung up on and worn such an idiotic grin. Charley had hung up on me heaps over the years. And she hadn’t been the only one.

  I’d felt neutral after being hung up on, and I’d felt annoyed. On the rare occasion Charley hung up on me, I usually felt a tad guilty about something because I’d usually said something stupid. But not this time. This time I felt a significant rise in my mood.

  I went back inside and re-joined the party.

  “You seem happy,” Harvey commented.

  He was the only one not glued to Brock.

  I put my arm around his shoulders. “I am, Harvo. I’m good.” I nodded to Brock. “You like him?”

  Harvey shrugged a little awkwardly with my arm around him. “He’s okay, I guess. Seems a bit…?” He paused like he was trying to find the right words.

  “Of a total goober?” I asked.

  Harvey smiled at me. “Something like that.”

  I nodded. “You’re a good man, Harvo.” I patted his chest. “Good man.”

  Chapter 11: Charley

  After Zane’s weird semi-drunk phone call, where I had a minor, short-lived freak out, things went back to normal. He appeared at my window the next day and had the conversation about the key with Brendan again. We spent the next few days at school in our love-hate battle of wills.

  So, it came to Wednesday and I was getting my homework out of the way. Not that we really had homework by now. It was really just that night’s designation of work so I didn’t get behind on my due dates. Unlike Zane, who left everything until the last minute and then complained the teachers were biased when he didn’t do as well as he thought he should.

  I had a desk in my room, but it was covered in I didn’t even know what anymore, so I was in the habit of working at the kitchen table. This also meant that I got to watch when Brendan picked Mum up and started dancing with her in the middle of the kitchen.

  As always, Mum blushed and laughed.

  Brendan wasn’t doing it because I was in the room. He had nothing to prove about his commitment to my mum and me, and he knew it. Instead of trying to prove he was a worthy partner for Mum and dad to me, he’d just earnt it. He hadn’t pushed, he hadn’t pressed. He’d let everything move at a pace Mum and I had been comfortable with and earned our trust by being there when we needed him and giving us space when we needed it.

  I’d been too little when Mum and Dad divorced to remember their relationship, but I didn’t feel weird about Brendan and Mum. I couldn’t when I saw Mum so happy, when I saw how much Brendan cared. I looked at the two of them and knew that, when I was ready, that was what I wanted. They were two people who fit together perfectly even though it didn’t really make sense on the surface.

  I was distracted from their cutsey-ness as my phone went off.

  Zane:

  SOS

  Zane:

  NOT A DRILL

  Zane:

  S. O. S.

  Zane:

  *GIF of everything on fire*

  Well if there was any emergency situation, this would be it. That was fairly clear from his messages. Although Zane was known for his exaggerations, I’d never received a full-on SOS before.

  I got up quickly, fearing the worst.

  “Everything okay, kid?” Brendan asked.

  I nodded absently as I sent a reply to Zane. “Yeah, Dad. I’ve just got to… Zane needs me.”

  “Okay. Not too late, though.”

  I nodded again. “I know. School night.”

  “Good girl,” Mum said proudly. “Say hi for us.”

  “Yep. Will do.”

  I hurried out, ran across our back lawn as fast as my body would allow me, squeezed through the fence and ran straight to Zane’s backdoor. I didn’t even hesitate to stick my key in the lock and pull the door open.

  “What’s the emergency?” I cried as I slid in.

  Zane looked at me over piles of wrapping paper and ribbons on their dining table. His eyes darted down and back to me like it was obvious. “Help!”

  I frowned and took it all in. “Present wrapping warrants an SOS now?”

  He shrugged. “Eden’s gonna be home any minute and Mum wants all this packed away.”

  Because Eden totally wasn’t expecting any presents for her twenty-first. Cue eye-roll.

  I flailed my arms. “So? Wrap her present, then.” I didn’t see what the problem was.

  “I would…” he started, batting his eyes and using that wheedling tone of voice.

  “What do you want?” I asked, suspicious for a very good reason.

  “I want one of those bows you do.”

  “A bow?” I asked, disbelieving him. “You sent me an SOS, all caps ‘not a drill’, for a freaking bow?”

  He batted his eyes, clasping his arms in front of his body. “You wouldn’t have come otherwise.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course, I would have! I just might not have raced over here at what counts for warp speed in this body.”

  “For what?”

  “Never mind. You want a bow?”

  He nodded. “Yes, please.”

  “Dude, I thought someone was dead.”

  He shrugged with a grin. “That’s not my bad.”

  “That is totally your bad. You can’t just SOS me like that and have me thinking it’s not something disastrous!”

  “Chill out, Char. It was just a text.”

  I grunted in frustration. “Can you at least agree that SOSes should be reserved for actual emergencies?”

  “Okay. Fine. I agree. And I promise I will only use an SOS for real proper emergencies in future.”

  “You said that last time.”

  “I know. But I extra, double promise this time.”

  “That’s not a thing.”

  “A question.”

  “Oh, my God. What?”

  “Do only deaths count as emergencies?”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I can’t even with you. How about you just do you and I’ll learn to ask more questions?” I asked, exhausted with him already.

  “Okay. Now. Bow…?”

  “You could at least say please,” I said as I wandered over.

  “I technically already did.”

  “You too good for more than one?” I asked him.

  He gave me one of those grins that he thought was adorable and would get him out of any sort of trouble. He was, annoyingly, semi-right.

  “Where even is the present under all this mess?” I asked him.

  I recognised almost every sheet of wrapping paper on the table. There was at least thirteen years’ worth of paper here. Almost every roll bought for one purpose and then never used again. Except for whe
n Zane was in charge of wrapping his own gifts. Then he’d scrounge around and find the closest thing he could that worked.

  His parents had obviously already wrapped their gift for Eden because Zane dug around and eventually unearthed a present covered in ‘Happy 21st birthday’ paper.

  “Here!” he cried triumphantly.

  “You didn’t want to leave some of the tape on the roll?” I asked sarcastically.

  “I didn’t want the edges to get caught.”

  I nodded, but was already looking for some ribbon to go with the paper. When I finally found some, I measured it to size.

  “Where’s the stapler?”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t know where it is. Can’t you just do it with the thing and the sticky tape?”

  I glared at him. Knowing him, it would take me less time to put it together his way than it would take him to find a stapler.

  “Fine.”

  As I got to work, Zane sat on one of the dining chairs, putting his feet up on the table, and watched me work. I let that go…for a short time.

  I sighed as I struggled with the ribbon. “The least you could do is be helpful. Come and put your finger here for me.”

  Zane obligingly stepped up and held the piece of ribbon down for me while I tried to mould the other bit.

  “What are you going to do when we don’t live over each other’s back fence?” I asked, meaning it entirely rhetorical.

  But he answered, without missing a beat, “Come next door and ask for your help.”

  I looked up and realised he was closer than I’d expected. Which was surprising because his shoulder was bumping mine so I should have known he was that close.

  There was no panic as I looked into his eyes. I was warm and my palms got a little sweaty, my mouth was a little dry, but I was calm. The heartbeat thudding in my chest was slow and steady. It was anticipatory, but ready.

  “We’re not always going to live next door to each other,” I said softly.

  “Yes. We are.”

  I smiled involuntarily at his total certainty. “We’re not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Reality aside, because I’m not going to be at your beck and call for the rest of my life.” I kept my voice soft, light. I wasn’t making an argument, even a sardonic one.

  A smile lit his grey eyes and they shone. “Don’t think of it as beck and call. Think of it as…”

  “The closest to a live-in house keeper you can manage?”

  His lips blossomed into a full smile. “I was gonna go with a close conscience, but yours is just as good.”

  “Oh, it is?”

  “It is.”

  We were already really close. Many would say too close. Suggestively close. I felt myself lick my lips. Zane’s eyes darted down and back to mine. There was something soft in his eyes, something I felt deep in me. Something in me that recognised it and returned it. It was a lifetime of friendship. A lifetime of understanding. A lifetime behind and ahead of us.

  Our faces were getting closer and I wasn’t doing anything to stop it. My heart fluttered wildly, but there were no warning bells.

  “Eden’s going to walk in that door any second, Zane,” his mum chastised as she walked in. “Have you…? Oh, Charley.”

  I looked at Zane for a moment more, then smiled at her. “Hey, Claudia.”

  She smiled back warmly. “Lovely to see you. You staying for dinner, darling?”

  I shook my head. “Just helping Zane with his bow.”

  “You do make such lovely bows. Thank you.”

  I shrugged, feeling my cheeks blush. “All good.”

  “You sure you don’t want to stay for dinner? It’s just the family. Gram’s coming round. It’s all Eden’s favourites of course. But you like kangaroo?”

  I nodded. “I do. But I’m good thanks.”

  Zane nudged me gently. “Come on. Stay. Give me some back up.”

  I looked up at him and, under normal circumstances, would have baulked at our closeness. But I felt nothing wrong with it. I smiled at him gently.

  “Eden will love that.”

  Zane huffed a laugh that tickled my face. “True. Gram will be totally obsessed with your presence.”

  “Next time, then?” Claudia asked.

  I nodded. “Next time.”

  She pointed at me as she turned to leave. “Promise?”

  “Promise,” I laughed.

  “Good.” As she walked out, she called back, “Hurry up and help with that gift, Zane!”

  Zane and I laughed softly together. It didn’t really feel like awkwardness. But it felt like…that good kind of embarrassment. The one that you don’t regret or dislike, but where you don’t really know what to do next.

  I cleared my throat and nodded at the bow. “Can you shift your finger over there?”

  “No worries,” he answered as he did it.

  I was impressed there wasn’t any quip about me telling him exactly where I wanted his fingers or something similar.

  We got the bow finished with this air of expectation hanging over us. I felt like we needed to talk about what had just happened, but I didn’t know how to broach it. And I got a similar vibe off Zane. There was still no weirdness, just uncertainty.

  He walked me to the back door and paused. “Thanks for coming to help.”

  I looked at the ground. “Any time. You know that.”

  We paused for another heartbeat.

  Just as we both opened our mouths, there was a familiar call from the front of the house.

  “Zaney!”

  I grinned at his exasperated sigh. “Gram’s here, Zaney,” I teased.

  He huffed a laugh and nodded. “I better go say hi. I’ll talk to you later?”

  I nodded, feeling a little disappointed about something. “Definitely.”

  “Cool. Thanks again, Char.”

  “All good, dude.”

  We nodded one more time, then the familiar ‘Zaney’, came again and I forced myself to turn around and go home.

  The feeling of disappointment didn’t leave me all night.

  And I couldn’t ignore or deny what it was about.

  Zane had almost kissed me. Or we’d almost kissed each other. I didn’t know who’d started it off, but the end result would have been the same.

  The only thing I could conclude was that I was disappointed it hadn’t happened. I wasn’t relieved it had been a near-miss. I was just a touch despondent I’d been denied.

  Which suggested I wanted Zane to kiss me. Or I wanted to kiss him.

  Which both excited and terrified me.

  All I knew was that I needed to talk to Zane about it. I just still didn’t know how to broach the subject with him. I didn’t know if he wanted it broached. I didn’t know what I’d say, or I should say, or what he’d say.

  Saying anything was probably going to be better than not talking to him at all though. So, I waited for him to message me. All night I waited. I checked my phone every few minutes like a total sad sack. Through my homework, dinner, more homework, getting ready for bed, and while I lay awake not sleeping.

  By the time I’d looked at my phone for the twenty-fifth-hundred time, I gave in and dialled his number.

  “Zane’s Zoodles, may I take your order?”

  “Can I get the zoodles and meatballs, please. Heavy on the meatball.”

  “Speaking.”

  I snorted. “Of course.”

  “It’s like…half-midnight,” I heard Zane answer with the familiar sounds of him reaching over to look at his clock.

  “Sorry, I–”

  “Nah. Don’t be sorry. I’m just surprised. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah…” I paused.

  “You in bed?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Yep.”

  “I didn’t wake you?”

  I heard th
e smile in his voice as he scoffed, “No. All good. What’s up?”

  “Nothing. Just…hi, I guess.”

  He breathed a laugh into the phone receiver. “Hey.”

  I lay back down on my pillows, all feeling right with the world as I smiled. “Hey.”

  Chapter 12: Zane

  Something strange was happening. And it had all started with a non-kiss.

  If Mum hadn’t walked in when she did, I would have kissed Charley. And Charley hadn’t seemed like she was planning on pulling away. In fact, I was almost certain she’d been leaning in. At least, my possibly unreliable memory was telling me she had been. So, it looked like maybe this whole spark thing hadn’t just been me after all.

  I wanted to say I didn’t know what to do with that. I wanted to say things were weird between us now. I wanted to say that it would have been a mistake.

  I couldn’t say any of those things. No part of me believed it.

  Charley had called me later that night and we’d just talked like we always had. I’d driven her to school the next morning and it was like nothing had changed. Nothing except this air of expectancy that seemed to hang over us. It wasn’t suffocating, it was just interesting. It was like there was this thing hanging over us that we could talk about if we wanted, but we didn’t have to talk about it.

  It added a depth to our interactions I’d never noticed before but felt totally normal. Charley smiled at me more, but didn’t seem to want me to see. Even over seemingly nothing. She just smiled at me in the corridor for seemingly no reason. It was like when we were younger and just seeing each other made us happy. And I felt the same. Just the sight of her had my breath catching and a smile growing.

  She was busy glaring at Bleeker at Recess, but I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

  When I saw her talking to Brock, my tune took a hard turn plummet.

  I didn’t feel ridiculously, inexplicably happy at the sight of her. I was annoyed and I was jealous. For the first time in my life I was jealous. And even more unfamiliar, I was jealous of Charley talking to a guy. And it was only exacerbated when he said something that made her laugh.