I close my eyes and lean my head back against the seat rest. I can’t imagine celebrating anything at the moment. In fact, I just want to go to sleep.
Finally I text back: I don’t think I’m going to go.
She answers: But it’s your birthday.
I’m aware. But I think I’m coming down with something. I’m just going to stay at home, watch a movie and take it easy.
You’re getting old, she texts back. She might be right. In the past I would have gone out and pounded back the beers whether I felt sick or not. But now, that sounds a wee bit hellish.
What I would actually like is to invite her over to watch a movie with me.
And normally I would do just that but my invitation has always included James and sometimes her high-maintenance friend Nicola. But I don’t want them there, I just want her there.
A few years ago, I made a pact with Steph that we would marry each other if we weren’t in serious relationships by the time we were thirty. She doesn’t turn twenty-eight until October and we’ve got a few years on top of that but Steph ended her relationship with her cheating turdsniffer boyfriend, Owen, a month ago. I haven’t been seeing anyone for the last two months.
I want now to be thirty. I want now to finally put something in motion.
The thing is, I know Stephanie thinks the whole pact is a joke, something I made up for fun and would never actually follow through on. And why would she think otherwise? Romance, even sex, has never been a possibility for us. We’ve been nothing but good friends from the moment we first met.
Actually, that’s not true. The moment I first laid my eyes on her as she wore her tight jeans, layered ripped tank tops that showed off just the right amount of flesh, her hair this crazy color of blue, being her friend was the last thing on my mind.
I wanted to fuck her, bad.
But it was James who she went out with and that was the end of that. I became her friend instead.
The desire to fuck her never went away though. But I try my hardest to keep that to myself. Going after your best friend’s girl is unspeakable. You just don’t do it. Even when their relationship crash lands and you find yourself torn among the wreckage, it’s still something you can’t even think about.
Especially since we’ve become such good friends.
Especially since sometimes I think James is still in love with her.
Especially since she thinks I’m the world’s biggest player.
She’s not wrong. But if I ever made a play for her, she’d no longer think that.
In some ways the pact is stupid – it’s just putting something off that I could take care of right now. But I’m afraid to act on it in case James really is still in love with her. I’m afraid that she’d turn me down, tell me she’s never thought of me as more than a friend and that she doesn’t want to ruin our friendship. I’m afraid I could fuck up two friendships at once.
So the pact goes on the backburner.
Two more years and then I’ll face it.
Just two more years until everything changes, for better or for worse.
My throat feels even worse now, scratchy and thick. I drive home to my flat and by the time I get in through the door, I have the chills.
I take a hot shower, trying to get warm, then wrap myself up in a sleeping bag I pull out from the closet. It smells like bug spray and pine needles and a memory of James and Steph and her roommate Kayla floats into my head.
We were camping up by Muir Woods and Steph and I were collecting kindling for the fire. I was drunk in that way where you can’t censor anything you say, where the truth comes rolling out before you can stop it. It’s a dangerous drunk and I was so fucking close to coming onto Steph, to telling her how I really felt.
I think she noticed something was happening too because our conversation abruptly went to Kayla.
“You think she’s hot, don’t you?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Of course.” Because Kayla is hot. Fit and tiny with creamy Japanese skin and long black hair. She’s a nice girl, too, if not a wee feisty. But she wasn’t Stephanie.
“I think she likes you,” Steph had said.
“What are we, in grade school? Did she tell you this at recess?”
Steph watched me for a moment before she rubbed her lips together and said, “Fine, I think she wants to fuck you. Does that help?”
I couldn’t understand what she was doing. Was she baiting me, wanting me to say I wasn’t interested? Or was she actually trying to get me and Kayla to hook up? Did that not bother her at all?
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I told her, because it was true.
I took a step closer to Stephanie. She has these big blue eyes that go as wide as the moon. They went wider than that.