Page 8 of Charming my Best Friend

“That was the third time. We had lunch once and went for a drink the other night.”

“Do you genuinely like him or are you just happy you got fucked?”

She shrugged. “Both, I hope.”

“He seems normal enough.”

“I know, right? What a relief?! I swear if I met one more eccentric hipster I was going to scream.”

“You think you might be able to carry on seeing this guy seriously?”

“I don’t see why not. He’s nice and funny, and he loves kids, obviously.”

“So he can’t be a total monster.”

Fiona folded her arms behind her head and looked up at the ceiling.

I didn’t even want to know what was going through her mind. “Thanks for picking up the pizza by the way.”

She dropped her eyes and looked at me. “No worries. I’m going to have some in a minute. I forgot what an appetite a good round of sheet wrestling can work up.”

I shook my head. “I put the garlic sauce in the fridge.”

“Cool.”

She walked over to the kitchen and I sat back, happy that at least one of us was getting some that meant something.

“So how was closing up with Chuck?” she asked.

“Honestly, you’re in such a good mood right now I don’t think I should tell you.”

“Why? What happened?”

“It was a fucking disaster.”

“Jesus. Hold on a sec.” She opened the pizza box and dragged a slice onto her plate. “Do you need another drink while I’m up?”

“I’d take a shandy if there are any left.”

“Sure.”

A moment later, she handed me an open bottle and plopped down on the couch. “So what happened? I feel so guilty that I left.”

“It’s okay, but it was really scary. He got kind of aggressive.”

“How aggressive?”

“I don’t think he would’ve raped me or anything but he went as far as telling me I wasn’t going to call for help.”

“What?! How did it even come to that?”

“He came up behind me and pressed his-” I swallowed. “Pressed himself against me.”

“Eww. What a creep!”

“And when he put his hands on my hips, I told him to take his fucking hands off me or I was going to call the police, and that’s when he said I wasn’t going to call anyone and forced me to hang up the phone.”

Fiona’s eyes were wide and her pizza slice was frozen half way between the plate and her mouth. “What did you do?”

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