Page 3 of The Right Player
Of course, now, when I barged into my best friend’s place, she wasn’t the only one there.
Zach looked up from his tablet with a smirk when I blew through the front door of Gemma’s condo, one that looked similar to mine, though hers was smaller, had less windows, and was peppered with little specks of proof that a man lived here with her, too. She’d let me decorate her new space when she moved in, which you would think would have been a given, since I was an interior designer, her best friend, and her boss. But Gemma was a list-making, highlighting, organizing, clean-until-the-knuckles-bleed kind of gal, and it was both a feat and a high honor getting her to give up control to me.
“Ah, good morning, Belle,” Zach said when the door shut behind me, looking back to his tablet. “Coffee’s hot.”
“Where’s Gemma?”
“Shower,” he said, lifting a brow when I didn’t immediately move for the coffee pot like usual. “Everything okay?”
“No,” I said on a huff, flopping down at the kitchen island in the bar stool next to his.
I liked Zach. I had since the moment I met him. He was sexy in the ex-football player, self-made entrepreneur, boy-next-door kind of way. But right now, I was irritated with every man in the world.
I grabbed his tablet and tossed it across the room and onto the couch.
“Hey,” he said, but it was on a chuckle and with his smile still in place.
“Jordan just dumped me.”
Zach’s brow rose again. “I didn’t realize you were dating.”
“We weren’t.”
“Oh.”
I blinked.
Zach smiled uncomfortably.
And then I sighed, dragging a hand over my face. “You don’t get it.”
“Afraid not,” he agreed on a laugh.
“What good are you, Zach?”
“Oh, he’s completely useless,” Gemma said, joining us from the bedroom. Her long, brunette hair was still wet from the shower, dripping water over her petite shoulders as she bent to press a kiss on Zach’s cheek. “But I keep him around because he’s kind of cute.”
“Kind of?” Zach said, pinching her side. Gemma giggled and pretended like she wanted to get away, but in the end, she wound up wrapped up in his arms and leaning her hip against his thigh. She was a tiny little thing in his arms, and they might as well have had heart-eye emojis for faces in that moment with the way they looked at each other all gooey-ooey like.
I wanted to gag as much as I wanted to swoon. Those two were so cute together it made me nauseous.
Gemma had been through enough shit to last her a lifetime, and I truly believed Zach was her reward for never calling her ex out on his transgressions. The motherfucker cheated on her and then told her he had terminal cancer. She never even got to call him out on it. Or rather, she chose not to, deciding instead to stand by his side as he lived out the last months of his life.
The other woman showed up to the funeral, and Gemma didn’t kill her.
File this under reasons Gemma is better than me.
It took a while for her to heal, but a couple years ago, I convinced her to get on a dating app. The premise was that she would take a new, different guy to each Chicago Bears home game. Gemma was a season pass holder, and to be honest, I hated sports so much that this was partly to get her out and dating again, and partly to make sure it wasn’t me who’d have to fill the seat next to her.
Zach was the lucky bartender who overheard me getting Gemma in the dating app scene, and he volunteered to be her practice round… but let’s just say he wasn’t satisfied with just one game.
And the rest was history.
Now, the lovebirds were just months away from their wedding, and as much as I missed my best friend having nothing but time for me, I loved Zach so much that I couldn’t even be mad.
They were meant for each other.
“Why don’t you have coffee in your hand?” Gemma asked me.
“Because I had a different wake-up call this morning. One in the form of Jordan dumping me.”
Gemma frowned. “Wait, you guys were dating?”
I slapped my forehead. “Come on, bestie. You know more than anyone that I don’t date.”
“Right… so…” Gemma might as well have had smoke coming out of her ears as she tried to figure out my dilemma, and she and Zach shared confused looks.
I sighed. “We’ve just had an arrangement, that’s all. For the last year and a half, we’ve been banging on a consistent basis. Do you know how hard it is to find an insanely hot guy who is also educated, professional, and single? And then, to find that kind of guy and him not be anxious to tie you down? He was perfect.” I pouted, flopping back in my seat. “And then he went and got himself a girlfriend.”
