Page 33 of Friend Me

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No,I didn’t toss and turn all night. I drifted off into the blissful sleep of someone with a clear conscience. Not someone who’d tried to add some benefits to her friendship with a sweet guy seconds after she’d said she couldn’t date him.

“Marlee, are you okay?” Andrew asked as I grabbed a chocolate-chip muffin from the brunch buffet in the common room at the inn.

“’M fine,” I mumbled through a bite of muffin. Jackson’s brother was the third person who’d asked me that in the five minutes I’d been downstairs at the post-wedding brunch.

He peered at the blue shadows under my eyes that had made my concealer throw up its hands in defeat. “Can I bring you a cup of coffee?”

“The biggest one you can find. Please.”

Now that he’d left, I could crawl into a corner and be antisocial. I wouldn’t have to talk to Jackson or Tyler or—

A hand gripped my arm, pink fingernails curling around the sleeve of my cardigan. “There you are.”

Alicia.

She marched me to a pair of wing chairs in the corner, away from the crowd at the buffet. But her voice was gentle when she said, “You look—tired.”

I was so freaking tired of people telling me that. “So do you.”

She snorted. “I have an excuse. Everyone expects a bride to look exhausted the morning after her wedding night.”

I widened my eyes. “Ooh.Didhe keep you up all night?”

Her cheeks went bright red, but then her eyes went all fuzzy. “We slept a little this morning.”

“Okay, I’m going to need some details.” So maybe I lived my sex life vicariously through Alicia. At least one of us was getting some that didn’t require batteries.

She shook her head. “I need to know what’s going on between you and Tyler.”

“Oh.” I swallowed to try to dissolve the lump in my throat.

She swiveled her head side to side. “Look, I don’t know how long we can talk without being interrupted. When Tyler gave me your reply card, I thought ‘seat with Tyler’ meant that you two were coming to the wedding as friends. And then you—he—he kissed you. What’s going on?”

“You saw.” I’d hoped she hadn’t. That she’d been so enclosed in her happy bubble with Jackson that she’d been oblivious.

Her lips pressed into a thin line.

Now it was my turn to check that no one was listening to us. I lowered my voice anyway. “I was—we were trying to make Cooper jealous. By pretending we were…together.”

“Tyler agreed to this?”

“He suggested it!” I hissed.

She slumped in her chair. “I don’t think he—”

Irrational, blazing-hot anger rippled through me. I leaned toward her and hissed, “You don’t know Cooper. We had a connection when we were dancing. It was like he was telling me the only reason he couldn’t date me was because we’re coworkers.” I clutched my pendant, warm against the hollow of my throat.

“You know he has a point.”

“Oh, it’s fine for you but not for me?” How could my friend, my best friend, crush my dreams this way? “Don’t you think I deserve the fairy tale? All I’ve wanted my whole life was the kind of love my parents had. The kind you read about. And Cooper is it for me. You know I’ve crushed on him for years. And now it could all finally come true.”

“Marlee.” She curled her fingers around my hand where it gripped the armrest. “You know I want you to be happy. And to find your perfect someone the way I did. All I mean is that Cooper’s less flexible about company policy—about everything, really—than Jackson is. The appearance of…of fraternization might stop him from pursuing someone.”

And that’s what he’d said while we’d danced. Was he really so cold that he could shut down his feelings for someone—me—because of company policy?

“I don’t even report to him.” My voice was weak, thready.

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