“No, what is embarrassing is you introducing him to Jane when she doesn’t want to be set up with anyone. He didn’t even look at her.”
“Oh.” Mya fidgets. “I didn’t mean... you know you’re pretty. If he couldn’t see that it’s on him, not you.”
“It’s fine.” I break the donut in my hand in half. “I’m not looking to date. I want to concentrate on working out how I’m going to afford to have a baby. A teensy vial of sperm is expensive.”
“We should be finding her a donor, not a date,” Cassie says to Mya.
“You know who you should go to for a donation?” Taylor clicks her thumb and middle finger together while she makes a constipated face. “Oh man, what was that guy’s name?”
“What guy?” I ask, taking the glass Cassie pushes in my direction. I’d had a few boyfriends in college, but not so many that it’s a difficult question that requires cataloguing the options.
“You know the guy.” Taylor rests her hip against the counter and takes a sip of her margarita with a moan. “The good-looking dude that used to follow you around like your panties were made of pure gold.”
“I have no clue who you’re talking about.” I chew on the side of my thumb. “Are you sure we’re not talking about somebody else’s panties?”
She rolls her gaze at me and then the ceiling as though she thinks I’m a complete imbecile before turning to Cassie. “Help me out here, Cass. You wanted to screw him so bad, but he wouldn’t give you the time of day.”
“Mr. Olympus?” Mya wiggles her eyebrows. Cassie had the hugest crush on the guy for all of our first year. She’d constantly suggested she wanted to climb him like a mountain and have him worship her like a goddess. And then he finally showed interest in her and she dropped him like hot volcanic rock.
Cassie shakes her head. “I bagged Olympus three weeks into our second year at college. He wasn’t that great. All bluster and an itty bitty...” She sticks up her little finger and wiggles it.
“No. Not that guy.” Taylor waves her hand to brush that imagery out of all our minds. “The blond one that was constantly attached to our girl here. Looked like a surfer.”
“Do you mean Hudson?” I shake my head. “The guy who was literally my best friend?”
“Yes, that’s the one.” Taylor shakes her head. “I can’t believe I couldn’t remember his name.”
“It’s all those kids you deal with on a day to day basis,” Mya says. “I only deal with three and I put my car keys in the oven yesterday.”
“Oh God.” Cassie moans and gives a little hip thrust motion to go with it. “Hudson Kelly. I would have given him everything, but he was completely enamoured with you.”
“No he wasn’t.” I widen my gaze and drop a solitary brow. “Hudson and I were friends.”
“I bet.” Mya’s words are muffled in a mouthful of alcohol.
Taylor shakes her head at me, “come on, pull the other one” written all over her face.
“So you never...” Cassie waggles her head from side to side, “…played hide the salami with that gorgeous man? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“No, we never played hide the salami.” My tone is dry.
She holds up a finger. “What about—”
“We didn’t play hide the anything,” I say. “And that includes all meat products.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t.” Mya gapes.
“Believe it.”
“But he was so hot,” Cassie whines, and flutters her hand in front of her face as though she’s overheated.
I sip my drink to counter the warmth that spreads at the imagery of Hud now. I cup the side of my throat. He was cute back then, but the man I had breakfast with last week is sexy.
When he’d sarcastically told me in detail that he wanted to fuck me way back when, I’d immediately been flooded with a warmth that soaked into my panties. Not that I would ever admit it. My cheeks flush as I recall his huge hand wrapping around mine and pulling me into the massive wall of his chest in the window seat last week. It was our spot. And the closeness was nothing new, but he’s different now. And my body noticed. His muscles are harder, his skin hotter, his grin salacious. All things that might make my pulse race if he wasn’t my best friend.
The same best friend who’d changed his high school girlfriends more often than his boxers. I shake my head. What am I thinking? That he’s gorgeous. Well, duh. But I’m not dating. And I’m certainly not up for ruining our friendship with a one-night stand. I want a baby. That’s what I’m concentrating on.
Cassie turns and grips the marble edge as she leans closer, her tweezed to perfection eyebrows riding high on her face. “I would have jumped his bones in a heartbeat. How did you keep your knees together? Extra strength super glue?”
“You jumped a lot of things.” Taylor chuckles.
“She was practically an Olympic hurdler,” Mya mutters into her glass.
“Hudson and I are literally just friends,” I insist.
“You never wanted to?” Cassie blows out her cheeks and then releases with a shake of her head. “I can’t imagine that’s true.”
“Well, it is.” Okay, there was one point early on, when he first moved in next door, that I might have had a little crush on Hudson Kelly. But it didn’t take long to work out that he wasn’t ever going to be my boyfriend. Or anyone else’s boyfriend. He hooked up with a few of our classmates at parties. And under the bleachers. And in his car. Until any hot and fuzzy feelings I might have had turned into something purely platonic. “We’re friends. It would have complicated things.”
“Wait.” Taylor stares at me shrewdly. “You’re still in touch with him?”
“Well...” I take another sip. “Yes. Of course I am. That’s normally what happens when you are best friends with someone. I’m still in touch with you guys, aren’t I?”
“You could ask him then,” Taylor says.
“You should ask him,” Mya says.
“No. It’s too weird.” I pull a face.
“It’s perfect.” Taylor clasps her hands together on her chest, the goofiest smile on her dial. “Two friends having a baby together.”
“What if it gets complicated? What if it ruins our friendship? What if we stop being friends?”
“All relationships are complicated,” Cassie says. “You were going to have a baby with Oliver. Surely this is a better option.”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure.”
“Would he say yes?” Mya asks.
I jerk my chin once. I’m pretty sure that he would. I don’t believe he would hesitate in doing anything for me, and that’s what gives me pause. Hudson is many things. A joker. A great brother. The best friend a girl could ask for. More at ease than anyone else I’ve ever met. With beautiful genetics. But he isn’t a serious guy. He’s still the same old flirty, out for a good time guy that he’s always been. And I love that about him. It’s part of the reason we clicked so well.