Page 66 of The Girlfriend Zone

Leighton peers out the window. “It’s not dark yet. Sure. Since you’re clearly afraid to take me on in pool.”

My jaw drops. “You just said you didn’t play well.”

“Take the win, Miles. Take the win.”

And I do. I snag a parking spot by her apartment.

“Good. Let me drop off my camera bag,” she says, already out of the car and bounding up the stairs. I watch her the whole way, feeling both victorious and like I’m getting away with something.

As I exit the car, there’s a tiny dark cloud over my head, and a voice whispering:What if someone sees you? How are you going to explain this?

I talk back to that voice.This is friendship. We’re behaving like friends.

I believe it. Mostly. But when Leighton comes back downstairs in a hoodie and white sneakers, looking effortlessly cute, I’m not thinking friendly thoughts.

This is just a casual outing, I remind myself. Nothing more. But with her looking at me like she’s glad I asked her to hang out, smiling that way like this is what she wanted tonight too…friendship feels like a line I’m barely toeing.

At least I’m not acting on my non-friendly thoughts though. There’s that, and I’ll hold onto that little detail so damn hard.

She gestures to the sidewalk. “All right, what have you got?”

“One of the guys from my geocache club mentioned there’s a cool cache at the nearby park.”

She holds up a hand, blinking. “Wait. Did you just say geocache club?”

“Yes,” I say tentatively.

She snickers. “That’s adorable.”

I scoff. “It’s not adorable.”

She scoffs back at me. “No, Miles. That’s literally the definition of adorable. The big, bad hockey player hanging out with a geocache club.”

“One, we don’thang out. We cache,” I point out, but that only makes her snort-laugh harder. “And two, thank you—I’ll take big and bad in that compliment sandwich.”

“It wasn’t a sandwich. There’s nothing wrong with adorable,” she says.

I set a hand on her back. “Enough with the adorable. I’m not adorable.”

“You hunt for urban treasure with a group of other hobbyists. Just accept your adorableness.”

I heave an over-the-top sigh. “Let’s go, Shutterbug,” I say, checking my geocaching app. “If you say adorable again, I might have to spank you.”

She wiggles her brows and for a second, or several, I’m a little lost in the intoxicating image I walked right into. Judging from her eager expression she is too. But then she seems to shake it off.

“Okay. Let’s check out that park. It’s pretty cool. The clubhouse has a living roof,” she says as we walk along her quiet block—a little alley tucked away from Hayes Valley’s main drag. Trees line the street, shading colorful building after colorful building—some pastel yellow, some baby pink, some mint green. “Solar heating, too, and parts of the playground are made from recycled pieces of an old playground.”

I shoot her a curious look. “How do you know all that?”

“I took photos when they revamped it last year,” she says.

“The park hired you?”

She smirks. “Don’t act so surprised.”

“I’m not. I’m kind of amazed, actually. You’re only twenty-four, and you’ve photographed so much already.”

She stops, turning those sharp blue eyes on me. “Are you good with having a friend ten years younger?”

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