Page 61 of Friendshipped
“I wish you had let me stand by your window and spy on him as he came in from their night out together,” Laura says.
“What good would that have done?” I ask.
“I could have studied his face and seen if he looked relieved, overjoyed, tired, hopeful …”
“He deserves his privacy,” I say.
I grin thinking of Trevor standing on the porch with garden shears not giving one care about my privacy.
“Privacy is overrated,” Laura says as she walks over to my front window with her arms crossed across her chest.
She stares out into the yard with a look on her face like she’s judging America’s Got Talent and liking what she sees.
“How can you live right next to him and not want to hook up?” she asks me, obviously talking about Trevor.
Her tongue virtually lolls out of her mouth like one of those cartoon characters and I imagine seeing her eyes bug out while the “ahoogah” noises sound off in the background.
I foolishly walk to the window to see what has her so hot and bothered. Trevor isn’t wearing a shirt. He’s in his own world listening to the music coming through his AirPods as he pushes the mower back and forth in neat rows across the yard. His muscles flex and beads of sweat drip from his forehead, roll down his face and across his toned pectoral muscles.
He’s definitely eye candy.
“Right?” Shannon says.
I glance to my left and realize at some point she joined us in admiration row. Then it dawns on me that I said Trevor is eye candy … out loud … to two of the women who have always seemed bent on moving Trevor and me out of the friend zone.
“I think she’s beginning to see the light,” Laura says to Shannon as though I’m not there.
But I am here, my eyes riveted to Trevor’s back now as he turns the mower to cut the next section. Layers of muscles ripple as he exerts himself. The three of us have been shamelessly gawking out the window for a few minutes.
Thankfully Trevor hasn’t glanced this way … annnnd, no sooner have I thought that than he turns and looks our direction. I duck down as fast as I can. Laura and Shannon both dip their heads to look at me hunkering near the baseboard.
“What are you doing, Lexi?” Shannon asks.
I don’t have time to answer her because I hear the squeak of my screen door. Trevor’s coming in! Did he see me watching him?
The front door starts to open. I can’t let him see me down here! He’ll know I was at the window and that will confirm I was watching him.
As Shannon and Laura instinctively step away from their incriminating spots at the window, I leap like a frog from my squatted position to the nearest chair, only my legs aren’t quite built for propulsion, so I miss the chair by about two feet and have to clamber up it.
When I turn to sit, I quickly cross my legs in what I hope comes across as a nothing-to-see-here move. It sounds much smoother than it plays out in real life. In reality I’m flailing like one of the contestants on American Ninja Warrior when they lose their footing and fall off an aerial obstacle course, arms and legs thrashing in all directions.
Trevor gives me a knowing look from the doorway, a smug smile on his face.
He drags a cloth out from the hem of his baseball shorts and wipes his brow with it. Then he runs his fingers through his hair and a lock flops back down, landing rebelliously across his forehead like he’s starring in a hair product commercial. Seriously?
Then he asks, “What are you doing, Lex?”
“Me?” I ask, trying to buy a smidgeon of time to figure out what exactly I am doing.
He nods, as he crosses his arms over his chest—his bare, muscly, needs-a-shirt chest.
Laura and Shannon don’t even bother to hide their stares at Trevor’s flexing biceps and pectorals. He’s oblivious to my two friends, his gaze trained on me. He’s enjoying this way too much. It’s not like I didn’t know Trevor had muscles. He mows the lawn every weekend. Leave it to Laura to turn me into a voyeur who sneaks peeks at my best friend.
“I was just picking up some things I saw under the chair and I sort of slipped.”
“Oh?” Trevor asks. “Things? Where are they?”
“Uh. They aren’t here. Because it turns out I was seeing things. Just shadows playing tricks on my eyes.”
