Page 63 of My Best Friend's Sister

T H I R T Y F O U R

- Quinn -

I spent the morning comparing stats of high school basketball players from central Illinois until I was cross-eyed with figures, my mind a jumble of numbers and shapes that wouldn’t seem out of place in a geometry textbook. Now, I was supposed to be watching the highlight videos of the same athletes sent in by one of our scouts. But time and time again, I found myself having to start the first one from the beginning because I was distracted by thoughts of Maddy.

Much to my relief, she hadn’t gotten clingy. If anything, I wanted more time with her than our schedules allowed, especially since I had an uneasy feeling that our fling had an expiration date.

With amusement, I recalled how untouchable she seemed when I first met her years ago, how pure and innocent I’d imagined her to be. How wrong I’d been. She was edgy, self-assured, and I admired the fact that she didn’t take shit from anyone. Well, except from her boss, but I was determined to intervene in that space.

I wondered if she remembered how belligerently drunk she got at that house party on Second Street when she visited James on campus our sophomore year, wondered if she remembered refusing to eat the crackers I repeatedly tried to give her. I doubted it. She was talking in riddles that night on the bathroom floor. Still, it had been one of the most memorable nights of my college career, even though all I did was stand by and make sure no one laid a finger on her.

The thought made a lump harden in my throat. How was I going to tell James I’d failed at the task he’d trusted me with so long ago? How could I possibly look my best friend in the eye and admit that not only was I sleeping with his little sister, but when I wasn’t sleeping with her, I was thinking about sleeping with her.

It wasn’t just James I was letting down either. My newly stoked preoccupation with Maddy was so out of control it had become detrimental to my work. Granted, I felt guilty about it, but it was the disingenuous guilt a heroin addict feels. Like, I know I shouldn’t shoot this dose of Maddy straight into my veins but resisting is futile. I need the hit too bad. The rush. I need that moment when pleasure melts over her face and she unravels in front of me or under me or over me or… God, just thinking about all the ways I wanted to have her was intoxicating.

The buzz of my phone interrupted my reverie, and James’s number popped up, as if the thoughts I’d been having about his precious sibling had singed his ears all the way across the pond.

“Cheerio, mate,” I said, attempting an English accent as I paused the video on my laptop for the fifth time.

“You’d be so disappointed at how few people actually cheerio me over here.”

“Not even women?” I asked. “I would’ve thought those English birds would be flocking towards your Midwestern charm.”

“You’re the worst.”

“Yet you miss me.”

“I miss taking your money on poker night,” he conceded. “That’s about it.”

I leaned back in my desk chair and spun towards the window behind me, which offered a panoramic view of Millennium Park before a glistening Lake Michigan. “I can believe that. Since science has proven that false memories are a real thing.”

“I’d love to talk shit about a poker game we won’t get to play for months, but I have a meeting in fifteen minutes, and I want to know what’s going on with my sister.”

My heart stopped in my chest. Alicia.

“Apparently she’s seeing some accountant she met on Tinder.”

Some accountant? What the fuck? How could she possibly have time to swipe between her job and all the time she was spending eating takeout with me?

“Has she said anything to you about it?”

“No,” I said, disturbed that I was suddenly in doubt as to whether I deserved the credit for the good mood she’d been in lately.

“He gave her a goddamn hickey.”

I exhaled fast, my chest loosening with relief. It may have been a rookie move, but there was no question that was my doing. Maddy scolded me for a week about it, mumbling about what a horny teenager I was as she tied summer scarves around her neck like a French girl, the gentle hint of a smile curving her lips the whole time.

“She really hasn’t said a word?” he asked. “She told my sister she deleted Tinder for this guy.”

“Wow.”

“To my knowledge, she’s never liked anyone that much.”

“Must be serious,” I said, unsure how I felt about his admission. Yeah, two seconds ago I nearly lost my shit at the thought that she might be fucking someone else, but deleting the app? Telling her sister it was serious? That felt like a lot of pressure I wasn’t sure I wanted. After all, when you maintained a certain distance from people, you were less likely to let them down. But there was almost no distance left between us, and the little bit that remained was shrinking by the day, one slice of Lou Malnati’s at a time. One quickie at a time. One steamy shower at a time. Fuck.

Then again, spending time with her cheered me to no end. So when I was actually in her company, I forgot that things were moving at a speedball-level pace, forgot that she was off limits, and forgot that I didn’t want any of the obligations that came with having a regular fuck buddy.

But if what James was saying was true, she didn’t think of me as a fuck buddy at all, and that scared the crap out of me. Because I knew what that meant. It meant it wouldn’t be long before she’d want to talk about our relationship status. And that’s when this whole thing would explode in my face. Because I didn’t do commitment. I didn’t do labels. And I sure as hell didn’t do feelings.

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