“You’re looking a little rough there, Gemmie, late night?” Kierst reaches over and smooths back the frizzy temple hairs that have escaped my half-assed attempt at a ponytail.
My night wasn’t late. It was only midnight when I got home. But after Dax casually dropped the suggestion that my best friend might be harboring secret non-platonic feelings, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Ironically, we stayed outside talking about anything and everything except that until we got cold and headed inside. Not ten minutes later, Dougie attempted to climb back up for a reenactment of Spider-Man: No Way Home. It took three attempts to get him down and Brandon asked Dax if he would stay on Dougie duty for the rest of the evening. Dax agreed and I went home to my apartment and my spider and all my convoluted feelings.
I take a long sip of coffee before attempting to rationalize the dark-purple circles under my eyes.
“Was at a party. But then I got home and I couldn’t sleep.”
“What’s up?” my sister asks, concerned.
“Some serious internal conflict,” my aunt pipes in before I get the chance to answer her.
“What did you say?” I ask my aunt, who appears to still be reading the same book as before.
She looks up at my question and blinks twice. “Internal conflict. The theme of this book.” She holds up the paperback. It has a handsome duke-like man on horseback, showing a single nipple. “This book could be an excellent option for my next book club meeting.” She writes something down in the notebook in front of her, then sets the paper back down on a pile.
I turn my attention back to Kiersten, who hands me the box of doughnuts with the explicit instructions to “eat one, then spill.”
I pick up a pink-frosted round one and bite. The summer strawberries explode in my mouth. I can taste happiness. “Oh my god, this is incredible,” I moan, before finishing the rest in three bites. As I lick the remaining frosting from my fingers, I think about the best way to broach the next topic.
“Do you believe men and women can be friends?”
Kierst grabs her coffee from the tray and moves up to a more comfortable seat on the couch. “Yes,” she replies, then removes the lid and blows. “I married Trent because he was my best friend. It just happens to be a bonus that he’s an animal in the sack.”
“Gross.” I grab a pillow from the couch and whack her with it. The pillow narrowly misses hitting her coffee, which earns me a glare because while Dax sees his coffee as an almost religious experience, my sister considers hers a drug that enables her to function.
“There are things that, as your sister, I do not need to know. But my question was not about being married to your best friend. I’m wondering if you believe that a man and woman can be true, platonic friends, without sex stuff ever entering the picture.”
“Of course I think it’s possible,” Kiersten says. “Why do you ask?”
I think back to the rooftop conversation. “Last night Dax said something that implied the Dax in my timeline might be in love with me.”
I expect a wisecrack back. Or some sort of rib about how not every guy who wants to hang out with me is secretly in love with me. Instead, she sets down her coffee and looks at me thoughtfully.
“Well, do you think he is?”
“No,” I answer before my brain has a chance to process that the real answer might be maybe.
“He’s never said anything,” I clarify. “Never implied that he has any other feelings aside from friendship. The night before I wound up here, I was very drunk. And not wearing pants. And I’m pretty sure I told him I loved him and then kissed him and he just left. Poof. Took off. Zero moves made from his end.”
Kiersten narrows her eyes. “You don’t think that had to do with the drunk part?”
She’s not getting it.
“He dates other people. He was probably going to have sex with this hot, sexy vet before all”—I wave my hand emphatically around the room—“this happened.”
Kiersten raises a skeptical eyebrow as she lifts the lid to the doughnut box. “And you’re not in love with him?”
“She is.”
Again, Aunt Livi answers before I get a chance to.
“I’m not,” I say to both her and Kiersten.
“You’re not what, poodle?” My aunt looks at me with wide, innocent eyes.
“I’m not in love with Dax. He’s not in love with me. No one is in love with anyone else.”
Aunt Livi nods her head in agreement. “Of course, sweetheart. We’re not doubting you.”