Page 69 of Friendshipped
“Up here!” I shout down to him. “I’m in my room trying to pick out something to wear. You can come up. I’m decent.”
Trevor and I have been in one another’s bedrooms regularly throughout our whole lives. I’ve never considered how unusual that might seem until this moment. I’ve always thought of him the same way I think of Laura, Shannon, Jayme, Felicia or any other friend.
Well, with the exception of my constant and irrepressible thoughts about his muscles, sense of humor, kind heart and how I wish he were mine. Aside from all those minor details, he’s just like the others. And I’m going to keep on thinking of him as my friend now … not about the way he kissed me in my dream. Not that.
I hear Trevor’s footfalls on the stairs and then his large frame fills my bedroom doorway.
“Hey, Lex,” he says. “What are we picking outfits for?”
Thing is, I never got around to telling Trevor I have a date tonight. We drove to work together every day this week, sat in cubicles across the aisle from one another at the Tribune, and even took lunch together three times. What can I say? It never came up.
I almost mentioned my pending date with Eddie about a hundred times, but then something stopped me. Maybe it’s because every date I went on before this one weren’t directly triggered by something Trevor did. Despite my raging, stubborn crush on him, he’s still my best friend and it seemed normal to review the awful details of my dates with Trevor. It actually helped to unload on him, to laugh over the tragedy that was my dating life.
But now—now it’s different. I’m going on this date because of Trevor. I’m going because something in me got dislodged yesterday when he stalked me without a shirt on and then with my kissing dream, and I need to pop it back in place, to restore homeostasis, and to stop noticing things like how his biceps are straining against the old threadbare OSU T-shirt he’s wearing the sweet bejeepers out of right now.
See. That. I need to stop that.
“Lex?” Trevor asks me again.
“Oh, yeah. What?” I ask him, forcing myself to make eye contact with his hazel eyes.
I know those eyes as well as my own, but somehow, they seem so poignant right now. I’m in so much trouble. I’m in the kind of trouble this date better fix and fix big time.
“I asked what we’re picking outfits for,” Trevor reminds me.
“Yes,” I say. “Right. Outfits. I’m going out with Laura and two friends she met. This guy who just moved into town and his friend who’s coming to visit for the weekend.”
“So, like a double date?” Trevor asks.
Rightfully. He should deduce two plus two is four and two women and two men is a double date.
“Sort of,” I admit.
Trevor hums as he walks toward my bed, grabbing my old hacky sack from off the shelf on the wall along the way. He plops down on my bed, which usually would go completely unnoticed by me before the whole catwalk, falling to my knees episode, which suddenly feels extremely real.
I clear my throat and look away from Trevor sprawled across my bed with one knee propped in the air, his head on my pillow—my pillow! He’s tossing the hacky sack in the air and catching it repeatedly as if this is another normal day in our friendship. Which it totally is, of course. Only I’m not normal, obviously.
“What should I wear?” I ask Trevor.
“Depends,” he says. “How badly do you want to impress this mystery guy?”
“Impress him?” I ask.
“Yeah. You know?” Trevor says. “Like are you trying to see if this leads somewhere, or are you doing Laura a favor by being her wingwoman?”
“Probably something between the two,” I say, shifting my weight and pulling my hair back as I re-approach my closet with resolve.
Trevor’s cool as a cucumber, which further evidences how he’s chilling in the friend zone while I’m blazing over here in the heat of my misguided attraction once again.
I hold up a floral sundress. Trevor barely glances at it.
“You look good in that,” he says.
The hacky sack flies up, he catches it.
“But you look better in your green dress.”
“Which one?” I ask.
