“Yes.” Leans in, taking off her computer glasses and staring down her nose at me. “Why?”
My lips purse.
So. Brooks and Blaine.
Friends with a pact, choosing themselves over the women they love.
And love me he does—by now I know that bastard better than he knows himself.
Brooks Bennett loves me but broke it off with me, and I want to know why. What are his friends holding over him? For what reason are they all breaking up with their girlfriends?
It makes no sense.
Bambi silently watches the wheels in my head turning. “Why?” she repeats.
“’Cause, I…” I swallow. “I’m friends with him, and he…” I can’t get the words out without becoming emotional. Wow, this sucks, and we weren’t even in a romantic relationship, although we actually were and didn’t realize it.
Didn’t call it one. But a rose by any other name…
“He’s the douche who broke up Blaine and me.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“He and I were really good friends—”
“Fuck buddies?” Bambi crudely blurts out. “Friends with benefits?”
“No.” After all, we’ve only had sex once, so we can’t be considered fuck buddies yet.
But the reality is, I allowed myself to become that girl, the one so desperate for attention and affection from a guy that I blinded myself to what he’d been telling me all along.
He didn’t want a girlfriend. He didn’t want a relationship. He just liked hanging out and occasionally having sex with me, while eating me out of house and home and squatting on my couch.
I pushed and pushed and pushed him until I drove him away.
Bambi must be watching the play of emotions running across my face, and I feel a warm hand on my forearm. “I’m sorry, Abbott.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Sorry your boyfriend dumped you to try to win the same bet.
Bambi hands me a tissue. “Do you think you’d take him back if he came groveling?”
My laugh is slightly cynical. “He’s not going to come groveling back—we weren’t a couple.” I sniffle. “Would you take your ex back if he reached out?”
She hesitates, pressing a few random keys on her computer keyboard to buy herself some time before answering. “I think so. I really miss him.” Then she hurries to add, “I know he dumped me for a foolish reason, and that tells me maybe he didn’t like me the way I like him? But we’ve been talking more lately, and I think we’re closer friends now that we aren’t dating.”
This development surprises me. I would have thought Bambi Warner was the type of girl who plotted revenge on an ex to destroy him—not the type who texted them every day to mend and repair their relationship.
Maybe there is more to her than I originally thought, guilt assailing me for judging her.
“What started the whole thing with these guys, you think?” I gleaned no actual answers from Brooks, only vague statements about how he can’t do this and he can’t do that and I can’t wear his smoking jacket and blah blah blah.
“I actually have no idea, but I’m sure this is a Brooks Bennett brainchild. He wasn’t the same after his girlfriend broke up with him.”
“He had a girlfriend?”
“Yeah, they weren’t together long, but he really loved her, from what Blaine has told me. She randomly dumped him out of the blue, and, well—he’s been a turd ever since.”
“What was she like?”
“I’ve only seen pictures, didn’t actually meet her, but I think she was blonde. Cute. Blaine said she was sweet most of the time but a total bitch if she didn’t know you.”
My nod of understanding is slow. “I can see that.”
Bambi pulls open her desk drawer and retrieves a bag of cheese-flavored rice cakes. “Guys love a girl with a little bit of bite—at least they do in the beginning.” She rips open the bag and sticks her hand inside. “God, I love these dumb things.”
She munches down on a rice cake, chewing thoughtfully.
“I’m not sure what to do about Brooks. We’re not dating so I’m in this weird place.”
“But you want to be dating him, yeah?”
I only pause because I am not sure if I want to be so open with Bambi, this woman I’m not that close to. The last thing I want is her learning all this personal information about me before she and I find a place of neutrality, a place where I’m comfortable calling her a friend.
Screw it.
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t know much about what those three have going on that they’re not telling us, but as far as Blaine is concerned? He