Spotlight: Friend (With Benefits) Zone by Laura Brown
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I'm ridiculously attracted to my best friend.
Today is a bad day. The worst actually. After dealing with the constant manhandling that comes with being a cocktail waitress at a dive bar and surviving a date from hell, I see an eviction notice slapped on the door of my sketchy basement apartment. Great.
When my best friend Devon shows up at my door and uses his stubborn charm (emphasis on stubborn) to get me to move in with him, I give in. We've had about a million sleepovers since we met in the kindergarten Deaf program, but this time it's different because I can't stop thinking about his hard body covering mine, every single night.
I know Devon would do anything for me, but I'm afraid what I want to happen will ruin our friendship forever. And the more time we spend together in close quarters, the harder it'll be to resist the spark of attraction I've always felt. But maybe it's possible to have the best of both worlds: keep the one relationship I can't live without and indulge in an attraction I can't deny.
I guess the only thing we can do is try…
Excerpt
I was still staring at my notebook when a light flashed by my tiny window. Outside someone stood with a flashlight, shining it into my apartment. I didn’t need to adjust to the light to know who that someone was with the one, two, three blinking pattern.
It took five steps to stomp over to the door. Dev came in once I wedged it open. He pushed the door closed.
“You can’t have your clothes back,” I signed, even as I was grateful to see him. When Dev was around, even this place sorta felt like a home.
“I don’t want my clothes back. Not now, at least. I wanted to make sure you were OK.”
I held out my hands, showing that I was fine. Even if I did scan my coffee table and breathe in relief that the eviction letter was face down in a crumpled mess.
He studied me, searching for all my little tics that spelled I was in trouble, tics only he knew. I blanked my face; otherwise he would latch onto there being a problem. A big one. Dev shoved a hand through his hair, those wavy locks rioting into one massive sexy-as-hell bedhead. I missed the days when he was a spindly little thing, before he grew into this hunk I could never unfriendzone. He meant too much to rock the boat, and I didn’t dare risk losing him. He scratched at a day’s worth of scruff, the black stubble contrasting with his pale skin. Then he kicked off his shoes, tossed his coat on the back of a chair, and plopped down on my bed in a way that had to have a spring or two digging into his back.
He didn’t budge.
I wanted to laugh. Forget me time—neither one of us had given the other the right to be alone since we first met. Still, I couldn’t let go of our usual bickering match. “Go home.”
He folded his hands behind his head, not moving. I crossed my arms. A few seconds later he sat up, grabbed my laptop off the floor, and flipped it open. “We’ll watch a movie.”
“My laptop can’t handle Netflix. You know that.”
He closed the laptop. “Right. Forgot.” He unlocked his phone and placed it on the bed.
“Tiny viewing tonight?”
“You refused to come to my place.” Underlining meaning: we could have watched on a large flat-screen TV.
Since there was no budging him now that he had settled in, I climbed onto the bed with him. He picked up the phone so we could watch, and I settled my head on his chest.
I didn’t pay much attention to the action flick he put on. Most days I loved the intensity of those movies. Tonight, those explosions felt too close for comfort. Instead I made a mental list of my options. Had to before Dev found out. He’d want me to stay with him. And being cuddled up with him, I had to admit, had potential. More so when I placed my hand on his firm stomach and took in a deep breath of the ocean scent of his soap. Problem was, I needed to be on my own two feet. The last person to take care of me—my mother—had failed. I couldn’t trust anyone else.
Not even Dev.
***
Excerpt from Friend (With Benefits) Zone by Laura Brown. Copyright © 2017 by Laura Brown. Reproduced with permission from HarperCollins. All rights reserved.
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About the Author
Laura Brown lives in Massachusetts with her quirky abnormal family. Her husband's put up with her since high school, her young son keeps her on her toes, and her three cats think they deserve more scratches. Hearing loss is a big part of who she is, from her own Hard of Hearing ears, to the characters she creates.
