Page 12 of The Friend Zone

JAGGER

They say that misery loves company but whoever said that has never met me and Cole.

Our morale has never been so low. We’ve survived rogue pucks traveling toward our heads at breakneck speed, aggressive opponents smashing us against the boards, you name it.

Turns out that Topher’s bro-code might be the thing that finally breaks us.

“Hey, headed to the arena?”

I jump when Cole comes out of the kitchen, protein shake in hand, a couple of hours before the game.

I answer his question with a curt nod. “Yeah. You scared the shit out of me, I thought you might be Bay.”

I whisper her name in fear that just uttering her name might summon her and put me in an even shittier situation than I’m already in.

He frowns. “Right, the blowjob. How did she take it that you don’t want her to do it anymore?”

I wish Cole wasn’t so nosy. “Ok. I guess.” I mutter, my eyes staring at my shoes as if they were the most interesting thing I’ve ever seen.

Cole is one of my closest friends. My closest friend on the team if you don’t count Ryker. He isn’t only nosy as fuck, he knows me better than my own parents, since he’s lived with me for the past four years.

“Jagger?” he arches one eyebrow, sidestepping to block my way out of the hallway. “What do you mean with ok? And you guess? Bay doesn’t just hook up with randos. If she hooked up with you, it means she likes you. If you made her cry, I swear to God?—”

“No, no. I tried to be as nice as possible when I texted her.”

Fuck me and my big mouth. I didn’t mean to admit that much.

Cole’s eyes widen with surprise. “Youtextedher?”

“Yeah,” I admit. “Look, I didn’t know what to tell her. We both know I can’t tell her the truth and I didn’t want to lie to her. I’ve been avoiding her, because every time Bay and I are alone in the same room, things get out of control and we end up naked. So I just?—”

If a look could kill, all my problems would be solved in a heartbeat and I would turn into a pile of ash on the hardwood floor of the Gamma house hallway. “You dumped Bay by fucking text?” Cole’s tone is even more murderous than his eyes.

“No, I—” I was a spineless coward and I avoided Bay all week because I didn’t have the heart to tell her that we needed to end our deal.

Then I panicked, worried that she’d have questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. I ended up deciding to shoot her a text, knowing full well that she has Organic Chem lab until basically now and her professor has a strict no cell phone or smart watches policy in the lab.

If I’m lucky, by the time she sees my text, I’ll be in the locker room and without an athletic department ID, she won’t be able to come into that area of the arena.

I don’t confess any of that to Cole, because his jaw is ticking so hard right now, that I’m worried he’ll either shatter all his teeth or worse, bite my head off.

“I want to see it.” He demands, his hand extended toward me, palm facing up.

I blink, confused. “Excuse me?”

“The text,” he hisses. “Show me what you said to her.”

Fuck.

I give him my phone, wondering if the text I sent, after agonizing over it for the entire morning, is as lame as I think it is.

Judging by the look on Cole’s face when he reads it, it’s even worse than I thought.

“Are you shitting me?” he scowls at me and I deserve it.

My eyes skate over the text, as if looking at it could somehow make it better and make me look like less of an asshole.

Me:

---