Page 22 of Friends with Benefits

We start with Brooks and Izzy. When they finally got their shit together, Izzy moved from London to New York. She rented herself a studio apartment and got a gig with a theatre company as a singer-cum-dancer. She’s been playing open mic nights too. She’s a singer songwriter and, by all accounts, pretty mean on a guitar. Somehow around that, she’s working on a new fitness and nutrition book, too.

Kit’s kids are beginning to sleep through the night, which means he’s starting to get some action. Other than that, those two aren’t up to much new. Madge wants to go back to work full-time but they have daycare issues.

My brother – well, we all just bore witness to how insanely happy he is with Becky. I’m delighted for him. He’s finally got everything he’s worked so hard for and a great girl too. I tell him as much and get a punch in the arm in return. Well-meant, I’m sure.

By mile three, we’re starting to lose Kit. He waves us on, so we keep on at our pace.

‘There’s genuinely nothing between you and Jess?’ Brooks asks.

‘No, man. I love her. I mean, what’s not to love? She’s funny, she’s smart. She’s quirky and sassy and…’ I trail off.

‘Not getting out of it that easy, Jakey. And?’

‘Ah, screw it. She’s gold in bed. I mean, not just… ah, I don’t know. Let’s leave it at that.’

I catch the way Brooks and Drew look at each other. I can guess what they’re thinking and yeah, they’re right. It’s not just her moves; it’s the way I feel about her that makes it so damn good. But, like I said, I adore Jess, so of course that makes sex with her different from some one-night lay who I’ve never met before.

‘To summarize, then,’ Brooks says. ‘She’s funny, quirky, sassy.’

‘And smart,’ Drew jumps in.

‘Right, sorry. Funny, quirky, sassy and smart. She’s clearly hot. And she’s like gold in bed.’

‘Why aren’t you marrying this woman?’ Drew asks.

I laugh at his exaggerated tone and the way I’m being tag teamed. ‘We just don’t feel like that about each other. She lost her parents when she was young and she’s convinced what made her mom sick after her dad died was a broken heart. She doesn’t want to put herself in that situation.’

‘And you?’ Brooks asks.

I shrug, then lift my T-shirt to my face and rub sweat from my eyes. ‘There’s no way in hell I’m going there again. We’re friends. She’s my… she’s kind of my everything. We live together, hang out together all the time, keep each other on the straight and narrow, look out for each other. I’m not losing that. I’ve been there before and it hurts like a bitch.’

‘Finally, we start getting to the truth of why you and Emily haven’t spoken since you left college,’ Drew says.

There are three kilometers left in our run. It’s probably too soon to pick up the pace for finishing, but now seems like the perfect time. I knock up my speed and call back to Drew and Brooks, ‘You coming?’

They catch up to me and we run hard for just over two clicks. Until we run right into the path of Emily. She’s in tiny running shorts and a sports bra. She’s wearing her pink Polo cap. One I bought her a few years back because she kept complaining about her hair blowing in her eyes when we were running together. She looks as fit and lean as ever. She runs at a good pace. A pace I know is around eight minutes forty-five per mile.

She has her earphones plugged in and I also know she’ll be listening to Lady Antebellum.

As if she feels us coming up on her heels, she looks back across her shoulder. She smiles when she catches sight of Drew and Brooks. Then her eyes lock with mine and she stumbles over her feet, toppling forward, her hands preventing her from fully falling. I raise my chin to the guys, telling them to run on.

‘Are you all right?’

She doesn’t look straight up at me. She keeps her head down and seems to be taking deep breaths. Her ribs visibly expand under the skin of her back. She unhooks the buds from her ears and tucks them into the strap around her arm that holds her music.

She eventually stands, looking up at me, her big blue eyes wide. ‘Jake.’

I exhale a short laugh. Not because I find the situation funny. I don’t. At all. I’ve been trying to avoid coming face-to-face with Emily since I last saw her, when she was shagging Brandon. I’ve done everything in my power not to see her.

‘Who else would I be?’ I say.

She brushes off my attitude. She never did let me get away with being a dick. Although, in this case, I happen to think it’s justifiable. ‘My dad said he thought you might be here this week.’

Nothing about her has changed. The lines at the side of her lips are the same. The dimple in her chin that never goes and gets more pronounced when she smiles is there.

‘Don’t you have anything to say to me, Jake?’

I don’t know. I’m not sure I can form words, and even if I could, I don’t know what I would say. She looks the same. She looks like my Emily. The Emily I brought home from school every day. The Emily I taught to skateboard. The Emily who asked me to take her virginity because she was afraid to let anyone else be first. But how can that Emily be the same Emily who ripped my heart out?

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