Ten Trends to Seduce Your Bestfriend
: Chapter 13

I showered, styled my hair back—away from my eyes—and shaved. Since I rushed, I cut myself on the side of my neck, necessitating that I tear off a piece of toilet paper and press it to the small wound.

“Dammit.”

I dug through the hamper next to my bed, swearing to myself I’d be better at putting clothes in drawers and hanging them in closets rather than amassing a laundry pile of nebulous cleanliness.

“Idiot.”

I ran to and down the back stairs while trying to text Winnie and then slipped. I grabbed the banister at the very last second, which caused my phone to leap from my grip and fly to the bottom step. There it landed with a clatter and crash, destroyed. I froze.

“Hmm.”

Abandoning the device, I ran back up the stairs two at a time, tore a piece of paper from an old notebook and ripped off an inch of tape. I scrawled Fred—door is unlocked, come in, leave your groceries outside in Sharpie and, taking the front stairs this time, hurried to tape the message to the front door’s exterior.

“Okay. Good.”

Out of breath when there existed no logical reason to be, I jogged to the kitchen and rinsed the dishes in the sink, debating what to make for dinner. Not pasta, obviously. Not tacos, I only had flour tortillas. Additional ideas were quickly dismissed for similar reasons. What the hell did she eat?

Taking a break from the dishes, I opened the fridge with dripping hands and examined the possibilities. One minute later, exasperated, I grabbed anything from the fridge certain to be wheat-free—cheese, tenderloin steaks, mushrooms, green onions, lettuce, grapes, eggs, potatoes—and spread them out on the counter.

Pinching my bottom lip between my thumb and forefinger, I stared at my options until a meal made itself obvious: steaks, fried mushrooms, and baked potatoes.

Returning the unneeded items to the fridge, I placed the potatoes in the oven, finished the dishes, started the dishwasher, and painstakingly wiped down the counters three times, not wanting to inadvertently poison her with cereal remains or breadcrumbs.

I’d just completed preheating the range’s gas grill and seasoning the steaks when I heard a tentative, “Hello? Byron?”

“Fuck. Shit. Fuck.” Spinning, I forked the steaks onto the grill and called back, “In the kitchen,” while digging in a drawer for tin foil. She appeared as I finished tucking the malleable metal sheet around the steaks and turned to grab a cutting board.

“Hi.” I rocked backward, smothering the spark kindling beneath my ribs as I inspected her. Bright eyes, pink cheeks, red lips. Winnie was beautiful, unfairly so. She still wore her coat, scarf, hat, and gloves. “You look cold.”

“I am cold.” Her thumb pointed toward the front door. “Why’d you want me to leave my groceries outside? And what’s that smell?”

“Dinner.” I drew a knife from the wooden block, still struggling to suffocate that spark.

She leaned to the side, as though to peek around me. “You’re making us dinner?”

“Correct.”

“Do you know how to cook?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not going to feed me chicken nuggets, are you?”

“No. I only serve items I’ve either grown, foraged, or hunted and butchered myself.”

“Are you serious?”

I laughed at her expression. “No, I’m not. That was a joke.”

“I can never tell with you.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“It’s certainly a thing.” Giving me both a side-eye and a smile, Winnie tugged off her gloves and stuffed them in her jacket pocket. “Thank you for dinner.”

The smile, though small, rendered me momentarily incapable of forming a response. I didn’t want to do or say anything that might jeopardize her overt friendliness. Thus, I unnecessarily wiped my hands on a towel while watching her peel off her jacket, hat, and scarf, hanging all three on the back of a stool.

But despite my silence, her smile did wane, and her eyes narrowed, flicking to mine, then away several times. “What?”

I set down the towel. “What?”

“Do I have something on my face?” She wiped at her nose.

“No.” Tugging the mushrooms over to the sink, I rinsed them, rubbing any residual dirt with my thumbs. “If you did, I would tell you.”

“Because all imperfections must be immediately rectified?”

I couldn’t discern if the question were a rhetorical one meant as a joke or a serious one meant to be answered. Studying her for a moment, I decided it was both. “If I had something on my face, I’d want to be told.”

“Even if it’s embarrassing?”

“The truth is often embarrassing. I’d prefer to be embarrassed with a truth than coddled with a lie.”

“Huh. Interesting.” She nodded slowly, her gaze losing its focus and turning inward.

Apparently, I’d revealed a fascinating secret about myself, and this reveal required a considerable amount of deliberation.

I turned off the faucet, thankful for the rudimentary task before me, and set the mushrooms on the cutting board, stealing glances at Winnie as she stared unseeingly forward. She swayed on her feet.

I wanted to ask what she was thinking, if she were okay.

Instead, I said, “Sit.” sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ FindNøvᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Her head gave a mighty shake and she blinked, her eyes focusing on me once more. “What?”

“I have wine. If you want some.” Gesturing to the stool where she’d draped her cold weather attire, I repeated, “Sit,” softer this time.

“No wine, thank you. Not tonight, anyway.” As she claimed her seat, Winnie lifted a hand to rub her upper back just beneath her neck, tilting her head to the right. “I’m already so tired.”

I studied the circles beneath her eyes, how she pressed her fingers between her shoulder blades. “Does your back hurt?”

“A little. I’ve been standing all day.” She yawned, moving her hand to cover her mouth. “It’s fine though.”

“Do you . . .” I wanted to offer her a massage.

And yet I also didn’t want to offer her a massage.

Touching Winnie while she filmed the videos, while we each played our part in this “best friends” fiction, had been explicitly defined as part of our agreement. The tidy rules and time limits—from the moment she hit record until the moment the recording ended—created essential boundaries. I knew what was allowed and expected of me while we recorded. Unlike right now.

Her gaze skated over me when I didn’t finish my thought. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“O-kaaay.” Winnie’s fingers fell to her lap, her attention on my hands and the mushrooms I chopped. “Then tell me your thoughts. Give it to me straight.”

“About the videos.” I reminded myself to be careful with the knife.

“Yes. The videos. The challenges. All of it.”

I’d had very little time to mentally draft my defense of the videos, a scant few moments in the shower. Ultimately, I’d decided to treat her dilemma as though it were my own and follow the stream of logic to whatever its ultimate destination might be—which would be entirely up to Winnie.

Clearing my throat, I paused slicing the mushrooms, setting the knife down. “It’s not a simple question. You are right to think the matter over and give it as much consideration as you have. Doing so demonstrates that you care about your integrity. Likewise, you care deeply for people you don’t know, people you’ll never meet. We’ll call these people your ‘potential audience’ for the purposes of this conversation.” The words arrived much clumsier than I would’ve liked, but the overall intent remained correct.

As I spoke, Winnie placed her elbow on the countertop and her cheek in her palm, gazing up at me.

“The real question with which I believe you’re grappling is whether the end justifies the means. In most if not all circumstances, excepting a few extreme cases, I do not believe the ends can justify the means. All arguments, for and against, related to the good that will be accomplished in due course by amassing additional followers—getting the job, paying back your student loans, inspiring people, helping people—are, in my opinion, irrelevant.”

Her expression seemed to turn hazy, a soft-looking smile slowly gracing her lips. Picking up the knife again, I lifted an eyebrow, splitting my attention between her and the mushrooms. I’d never witnessed this expression on her face before. It was . . . distracting.

“Which—uh—brings me to arguments against the new content.”

“You’re going to tell me why the new content is a bad idea?” she asked.

“Correct. I find the best way to plot a path forward, free of self-doubt, is to first consider why I might be wrong in my present course and all the arguments against it. Sometimes my present course is wrong, and I must make adjustments. Sometimes it isn’t, and I continue as planned. And sometimes there is no right answer, and I must simply proceed along the path that is the least harmful, given all alternatives.”

“That makes sense.” She nodded.

“Doing so also has the byproduct of identifying whether I’m—as you suggested—overthinking an issue. If the arguments against my proposed course are nonissues, frivolous, imaginary, without impact, then I need not trouble myself justifying my plans. I simply move forward.”

She blinked slowly, her eyes meandering to my mouth, then neck. Her smile grew and her head tilted about an inch to the side. “I like how you think.”

I stiffened. “Winnie. What are you doing?”

“What?” Her soft smile persisted, as did the unidentified yet intoxicating look in her eyes.

My movements ceased. My eyes narrowed. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

I licked my lips, unable to offer a description that didn’t betray my hopes. “You’re staring like you’re . . . sleepy. And happy.” A clumsy description, but valid nonetheless.

“Oh!” She straightened, then laughed. A becoming blush bloomed along the apples of her cheeks. “Sorry. I’m—it’s just—” She laughed again, her fingers lifting to her forehead. “I’ve never heard you talk so much and so freely. You’re”—Winnie peeked at me—“really interesting to listen to. Er, to which to listen.”

“Oh.” She’d complimented my brain, but it hit lower than expected. “Thank you.” She thinks I’m interesting . . .? I felt myself stand up straighter, taller.

“Don’t thank me,” she teased. “It’s not a compliment when it’s the truth.”

“Ah, yes. Right.” I’m certain the involuntary smile I now wore ruined my attempt at a glare. Turning my back to her, I unnecessarily checked on the internal temperature of the steaks. As expected, they still required another ten minutes. What was I saying?

“Do you believe the arguments against me doing the videos are frivolous?”

Ah, yes! “I—no. That is, I don’t know. It’s not up to me, it’s up to you. The arguments against as I see them can be summarized as follows: recording and uploading videos unrelated to the focus of your accounts—specifically in an attempt to gain new followers—is disingenuous, regardless of what topics these additional content videos cover.”

“Yes. Exactly. I agree. That’s exactly the issue.” Her words were punctuated by the sound of her hand smacking the top of the counter. “I feel I haven’t been able to articulate it correctly. No one else has understood my perspective when I’ve tried to explain it.”

I tucked the foil tighter around the steaks, taking my time. Stalling. She thought I was interesting. I needed to keep being interesting. “We’ll call the original focus of your accounts your ‘creator’s vision’ for the purposes of this discussion, and I’ll explain why in a moment.”

“Okay, sounds good,” she said, her cadence yielding and cheerful, causing an unexpected and immediate response in my body. I loved her voice.

I kept my back to her. Thinking and speaking were simpler tasks when she didn’t cloud my vision. “As a creator of anything—whether it be STEM videos, books, movies, paintings—there’s always going to be this tension for the creator between what we think our audience wants, what the audience believes it wants, and our original creator’s vision.”

Walking to the refrigerator, I retrieved the butter. “I’m of the belief that, above all else, the creator’s vision must be given the most weight when making decisions. We are all ruled by both conscious and unconscious desires. Your current and potential audience might claim they want one thing when in reality their subconscious wants another. They might espouse a desire for a happy ending, but what they really crave is a tragic story, or vice versa, and are dissatisfied when you attempt to deliver what they’ve claimed to want.”

“So what you’re saying is, people don’t know what they want.” Her dry tone pulled a smile from me.

“Not quite,” I said, amused by the generalization and her manner of delivering it. “People sometimes know what they want. And even when they do, even when their conscious and subconscious are in sync, what they want and what they need might not be aligned.”

“I see . . .”

“Therefore, if you try to make people happy, or if you try to deliver what you think they want, or what they think they want, or what you think they need, you’re never going to succeed. The only impossible goal for a creative person is to please their entire audience. Thus, it’s better to stay true to your vision first and foremost and always.”

“So, you’re saying I shouldn’t post the additional content and I should stick to my original creator’s vision,” Winnie said, audibly dismayed.

“No. Don’t sound so despondent, I’m not finished yet. As I said, this is not a simple issue.”

“Oh my God, Byron. Put me out of my misery already and tell me what to do! No wonder your head is so big. And I thought I was an overthinker.”

I laughed, shaking my head at her. She was—in a word—cute. Unthinkingly, I glanced over my shoulder. I shouldn’t have.

Elbow still on the counter, cheek still resting in her palm, Winnie’s cinnamon eyes were wide and bright, amplifying the teasing grin adorning her mouth. My breath caught. She was so beautiful, and her beauty pierced me.

“What?” Her eyes narrowed slightly as her grin widened. “What’s wrong?”

“Uh . . .” I averted my eyes and discovered I’d been unwrapping a stick of butter. Why do I have butter? Nothing about butter was interesting. Be interesting.

“Do you want me to finish cutting the mushrooms?” she asked.

The mushrooms.

“S—sure.” I bent to retrieve a frying pan, grinding my teeth at my ineptness. There was a reason I was a writer, not an orator. It was the same reason why I observed real people and engaged only with fictional ones.

A stool scraped against the floor. A moment later, I sensed her walk around the kitchen island and stand behind me. “I shouldn’t focus on trying to make my audience—prospective or current—happy, but I should remain true to my original creative vision,” she said, and I was grateful for her summary.

“Correct.” Twisting the burner knob of the stove, I waited until the igniter clicked before turning it to high, the gas catching. “And furthermore, I maintain that your audience will find you. And you will make them the happiest by remaining true to yourself.”

“Do you want these mushrooms thinly sliced?”

“No. Roughly chopped is fine.” Taking a deep breath, I focused for a moment on gauging the correct temperature to melt the butter without browning it.

“My original vision was to do STEM videos for anyone interested in the subjects I covered, to be a resource, to be helpful. But I’d also hoped I could show girls and women that being interested in STEM is not—as Amelia puts it—roped off to them.”

“An admirable vision.” I stirred the butter with a wooden spoon, grasping on to my final—and the most important—thought. “That being said, I would ask this: Does posting the additional content detract from your original vision? Is the nature of your vision so rigid that the new content will dilute its intention, rendering it less effective or completely ineffective? Or does the new content enhance and contribute to your creator’s vision?”

Bracing for the sight of her, I peered over my shoulder. Her back was to me, and she appeared singularly focused on cutting mushrooms. Hoping this long-winded exploration of logic and reason had helped—and had remained interesting—I gave her a moment of quiet contemplation while I melted the entirety of the butter, rewinding and playing back every moment since she’d appeared.

“No. It doesn’t,” she said eventually, hauling me out of my reminiscence as she positioned herself at my elbow, holding the cutting board covered in roughly chopped mushrooms.

She’d invaded my space. I pulled in a breath, held it, but didn’t move.

“You were right to disagree with me when we spoke earlier on the phone, and I see your point. The additional videos do not detract from my STEM videos because Amelia’s original argument still stands. Having interests outside of STEM does not make me less of a scientist, or an engineer, it just makes me more human. More real. Relatable. And that does fulfill my original creator’s vision of showing women that STEM subjects and careers are accessible to them, that they don’t need to hide or change who they are in order to be taken seriously in those fields.”

Without asking, she slid the mushrooms off the board and into the waiting frying pan, lifting her chin to catch my stare once the task was accomplished, and condemning me to helplessness with one of her blinding smiles.

“Thank you for helping me, Byron.”

Her words soft and sincere, that spark I’d been fastidiously laboring to suppress hit low and hard beneath my ribs, the flame gathering oxygen, swarming to surround and invade my lungs. She was so fucking awesome. No one deserved this woman and her goodness, her ambition, intelligence, and integrity. Not a single soul.

“I didn’t do anything,” I said, my voice gruff around my tightening throat, and tore my eyes from hers.

“Ha! He says he didn’t do anything.” She removed herself a step and leaned her hip against the counter, the weight of her attention inescapable. “Meanwhile, this is the first time—the very first moment—I’ve felt completely certain of this plan since Amelia and I wrote it all out. I feel like, yes, I am doing the right thing. Even if it doesn’t work, at least I know I’m doing the right thing.” Winnie gave my shoulder a gentle shove. “Seriously, thank you. I feel so much better. And I don’t think I realized how much my indecision about this was stressing me out.”

Using the wooden spoon to distribute the butter, I shrugged off her praise, not liking how much I enjoyed it.

The sizzling and smell of frying mushrooms grew pungent during a long moment of blessed wordlessness. Talking to her had been nice. Cooking with her had also been nice. But there existed one excellent reason I rarely sought out Winnie’s company: every moment spent in her presence—especially moments free of pretense or necessity, like now—made me dread the impending moments spent outside of it.

I turned off the stove and checked the clock over the oven. Dinner would be done in four minutes, we would finish eating in a half hour, she’d leave approximately twenty minutes after that. I only had one more hour of—

She shifted closer, her proximity drawing my attention.

“Hey, so, you know earlier?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “When you said if you had something on your face you’d want to know?”

I lifted a hand to my chin, rubbed at the corners of my mouth. “I have something on my face?”

“No, just, something right here.”

Winnie’s fingers returned to my shoulder. They remained, gripping to hold me in place, the heat of her palm reaching the skin beneath my shirt. I turned toward her as her other hand came to my neck, her eyes and her thumb on a spot below my jaw.

“You have a bit of tissue right here.” As she situated herself in the tight space between me and the range, she sucked in a breath between her teeth. “Oh. Did you cut yourself shaving? Lift your chin up.”

“I did.” I still held the wooden spoon in one hand, frozen in place by her nearness and touch. “Is it still bleeding?”

“Just a wee, little bit. Shoot. I should’ve left the tissue there. Do you have any antibiotic ointment?”

Feet and legs useless, I leaned back to peer down at her, the spark flaring anew. She was close.

“It’ll be fine.”

Her hand lingered on my neck as her eyes lifted to mine. “I know, but—” Winnie inhaled deeply, her lashes fluttering “—cheesus, Byron. What the heck kind of aftershave do you use? Effortless Subjugation by Kevin Klein?”

“Calvin Klein?” My hand not holding the spoon must’ve found its way to her hip at some point. That’s where I discovered it now resided, tugging her closer.

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“No,” I whispered, rushing to memorize every detail of her face. She’d never been this close, not without filming one of the videos. “You said ‘Kevin Klein.’”

“Oh. Then it should be called Brain Malfunction by Calvin Klein,” she whispered, lifting her chin a scant inch, but it was everything. Absolutely everything. A pulse of fierce hope jabbed and sliced at me. My eyes went wide as hers lowered to my mouth, and holy fuck, was she—

“Whoa! Hey—sorry!” Jeff’s voice, nails on the chalkboard of creation and existence, invaded the moment, annexing hope and giving rise to misery.

“Jeffrey.” I expelled his name, rancor commensurate to the surge of resentment within me permeated each syllable. Shutting my eyes, needing a moment, I wished I’d installed a trapdoor beneath wherever he presently stood, leading to a dungeon complete with giant bloodthirsty crocodiles. Perhaps donning laser beams atop their heads.

“Sorry. We’re sorry.” He sounded sorry, which meant he hadn’t spotted Winnie yet.

My fingers at her hip held her tighter even as I felt her shift on her feet. Perhaps if he didn’t see her, he’d leave, and we could pretend he’d never interrupted. We could transport back to our moment.

“We didn’t know you had someone—wait . . .”

I held my breath. No, no, no.

“Winnie?”

Sheep-biting footlicker.

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