Just Good Friends (Cheap Thrills Series Book 5) Read online

  Pretty much everyone was pointing it out now.

  Throwing a wrapper in the trash as I walked around Garrett, I mumbled, “It’s a snake.”

  The title on the listing had clearly said that was what it was. Snake they said—cum said the rest of the world.

  And it was c-u-m because people who didn’t want to ask the question crudely today had decided that spelling it out was more polite.

  “I’m not entirely certain a snake looks like that, jewelry or not. Did you check the description?” Garrett asked, leaning around me to get a closer look at my ear.

  Sighing, I pulled my phone out of my pocket, navigating to where my orders were and hitting on the spe… snake purchase.

  “Sterling silver, snake labret earring for cartilage piercings,” I read, sounding as bored as I could.

  Rolling his eyes, he gestured at my phone impatiently. “Flick down to the actual description.”

  “Yada, yada, yada,” I mumbled, skimming over how excellent the quality of silver was, how cute the little serpent was, the fact it was hypoallergenic and whatever other shit they—

  Oh, those lying, dirty little bastards.

  Seeing I’d hit on what he’d expected, Garrett rocked back on his heels with a grin on his face. “Well?”

  “This little sperm will happily grace the ear of any wearer, regardless of their gender—”

  “Awesome, a unisex cum tadpole,” he snickered, holding his hands up when I glared at him. “Please, continue.”

  “The quality and amount of silver make it a hard-wearing—”

  Garrett snorting as he looked down at his feet, shoulders shaking, interrupted me.

  “—piece of jewelry. The flat back of the earring helps wearers with their comfort levels, as well as making sure it doesn’t get caught in hair or garments.”

  A breathless wheeze sounded this time, and I growled at how the description sounded.

  “This happy sperm will be the topic of conversation as he swims up the wearer’s ear, looking for a new hole to—” I lowered my phone, hitting the power button without finishing. “Know what, this is dumb. Okay, so I have a sperm swimming up my ear—”

  “Technically, you have a hypoallergenic sperm in a hole in your ear,” he pointed out, his eyes shining as he held back his laughter.

  Ignoring him, I finished, “But it could be worse, it could be…” I broke off, totally lost on an example of how much worse it could be.

  “A vagina?” A deep male voice offered from inside the room we were standing outside of, making both of us turn to look inside.

  There, handcuffed to a bed with a bandage covering one side of his face, was the biggest guy I’d ever seen—in every way possible. Literally, and by that, I mean that he was butt necked, barrel-chested, and had considerable girth all over. He was also covered in filth and grime and had a beard that hit halfway down his stomach with leaves tangled in it.

  “Or a cock ‘n balls,” he added, the one eye visible looking to the side of the room. “Then again, you could put the cock first, in the next hole have the swimming cum, then have the vagina in the last hole. How many holes you got?”

  “Uhh…” not sure what he meant by that, I took a step back and to the side, trying to hide behind Garrett. Only minutes ago, he’d been a pain in my ass, and now he was my human shield.

  Reading my confusion correctly and ignoring my obvious discomfort, he clarified, “In your ear, girl.”

  My hand raised without volition to the body part in question, and my finger went inside my ear, like that answered the question.

  Rolling his eyes, big neanderthal man growled, “Piercings.”

  Now that made more sense.

  Leaning around Garrett, who was standing with his arms crossed in front of me, his muscles rigid as I leaned on him, I held up two fingers, and then for good measure, said the number out loud. “Two in each.”

  In my defense, I wasn’t sure if he could see the fingers. Maybe he was short-sighted?

  “Hmm, maybe just the sperm and vagina then,” he suggested.

  Sighing, Garrett reached and put his arm around my back and pulled me into him, still facing the man. “As great as that suggestion is, maybe you shouldn’t make any more of them. Zuri’s here to take your blood for the doctor, not to discuss her piercings.”

  “You were the one talking ‘bout how she had cum on her ear. I was just trying to find the silver lining,” he pointed out.

  Leaving them to argue, I left to get the request from the doctor and then grabbed what I’d need to draw his blood.

  As I got closer to the door, I heard Garrett talking to the man and almost dropped what I had in my hands.

  “If you hadn’t driven your car into the woods and tried to drive through the trees, we wouldn’t be here,” Garrett sighed, making my lips twitch at how normal he sounded talking about someone doing something that crazy.

  “Well, if you hadn’t been driving after me at such a high speed, I wouldn’t have tried to hide in the woods. Would I?”

  “Ralph, your description matched one of a man who’d just run out of the store with a cart filled with condoms, lube, and tampons. That’s why I was trying to get you to pull over. Since we’ve been in here, we’ve been given close-ups from the security cameras of your face, and we’ve got footage showing you sweeping full shelves of all three items into the cart, running out the door, and a clear photo of your plates as it drove out of the parking lot.”

  “Can’t help it if my woman gets horny on her period, and I don’t wanna knock her up. Anyway, if you look carefully, you’ll see I left a twenty on one of the shelves to cover it.”

  “I’ll repeat—full shelves. Whole shelves,” Garrett argued, totally missing the two parts for the reason of the crime that struck me as a woman.

  Firstly, period were nasty things, and a majority of women suffered when they had theirs. So, for a woman to feel horny and have sex during hers… I wasn’t sure if I admired her or wanted to shudder. The thought of anything going up my cooter while I was on mine really didn’t do anything for me apart from want to reach for some holy water.

  Secondly, a woman couldn’t get pregnant during her period. The whole point of the period was to dispel the lining of the womb and unused egg from her body. I’m sure someone out there would argue about that, but so far, I hadn’t seen any evidence that impregnating someone on their period and having a baby was possible. Not that I’d looked for it, but now that I had it on my mind, I was going to have to look it up when I got home.

  Cringing, I walked into the room, doing my best to look like I hadn’t been eavesdropping.

  “Okay, I’m here to take some blood for the doctor who saw you. If you’d just hold your arm…” I trailed off, looking at his arm, which was handcuffed to the side of the bed. “Uh, keep your arm…” again, I stopped as he looked at me with a slow shake of his head.

  The guy was handcuffed to the bed, Zuri. Where’s he going to move his damn arm to? I was so used to the standard instructions that I’d just made a twat of myself twice.

  “I’ll try to make this as painless as possible.”

  “Thanks, cum girl.”

  Feeling him step up closer behind my back, Garrett watched what I was doing over my shoulder as I attached the elastic tourniquet to the man’s arm. “She’s jellyfish girl. The ear sperm doesn’t define her properly.”

  And this was the life I’d fallen into after escaping the hell that’d been suffocating my real one. Jellyfish girl, cum girl, and Sperm Sally as the ER doctor who’d been in this morning had started calling me, even though my name wasn’t Sally…

  Drawing on the many months of practice I’d had so far of biting my tongue and getting on with shit, I went about taking the two vials of blood that’d been requested, pretending that I didn’t hear Garrett telling him the story of how we’d first met.

  Yes, I was the girl who’d informed him how many anuses a jellyfish had, according to a meme, before he’d even known
my name. I’d been too busy trying to get over the impact of him as he’d walked into the room behind his now sister-in-law, Rose, and my mouth had gotten away from me.

  Since then, we’d spent a lot of time together—and I mean a lot of time. Sadly, though, all of it was spent without any touching or flirting whatsoever, just friendship.

  Why the hell would a girl only be friends with a guy as hot and nice as Garrett Evans, I hear you ask? Because he’d friend-zoned me within the first ten minutes of looking at me. He’d even held his phone out and ordered me to put my number in it because I was cool and he needed a cool girl friend. Yes, separate words—not girlfriend, girl friend.

  I was the jellyfish girl, Zuri the friend, the phlebotomist, ‘blood chick’, and now the chick with cum on her ear.

  But he didn’t know the truth about who I really was—not that it would’ve made a difference. No guy friend zones a girl immediately unless he’s just not into her.

  I’d also been in that zone for eight months now. That was proof enough that I needed to accept it, embrace the friendship, and move the hell on.

  Chapter Two

  Garrett

  Shoving the rolled up pancake in my mouth, I used my now free hands to shove my phone and wallet back into my pocket, nabbing my keys as I moved to the door.

  “Where you going?” my brother, Raul, asked as he followed behind me.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I lifted my hand to hold onto the end of the pancake and bit off the chunk in my mouth. “Why are you interested?”

  “Well, you hijacked my breakfast with my wife, then you asked her if she had a gift bow—a pink one—that you could use. Then you grabbed a pancake and rolled it up, and now you’re almost running out the door.”

  Chewing slowly, I mulled it over. Mm, nope, not that weird. “And your point is?”

  “All of that’s unusual for you, man, so spill,” he snapped, throwing his arm out in frustration.

  Shoving another bite in my mouth, I moved my head like I was thinking about telling him. Then I remembered how just days ago he’d put one of those fucking pods Rose had bought in amongst the normal ones, and I hadn’t realized until I’d gotten to work that I had blue teeth.

  I’d had to go through a full day with a blue mouth, and that shit makes a difference when you’re arresting someone.

  So, no, he could suffer. He could also suffer while he waited for me to get my revenge—something I was drawing out by showing up when he least expected it, making him brace repeatedly for what I was going to do.

  With that in mind, I swallowed and pointed at my front teeth. “You’ve got a little something…” and then turned and walked out of the door, leaving him in full-blown paranoia as he scrubbed his mouth.

  The ferret jizz.

  Ambling to my truck, I waved at the neighbors who were out and about and then got into the vehicle as I shoved the last piece of pancake in my mouth. While I was chewing it, I reached over for the housewarming gift for Zuri and stuck the pink bow on it. Technically, the box had two presents inside it, but still.

  A knock on the window had me biting back a smile, assuming it was Raul, but instead, it was Mrs. O’Jones, who lived two houses away. The woman was eighty-nine, had a shock of white hair and hands that could hardly hold anything with how arthritic they were. But she was a beautiful flirt, and my brother and I would do anything for her.

  Hitting the button for the window, I leaned on the door with a smile. “Well, now there’s the most beautiful woman in the world. You stood me up for our date last night.”

  “Oh,” she giggled, waving me off with a misshapen hand. “People would be gossiping if we went out dancing.”

  “Your daddy said it would be okay for me to take you out, Mizz O’Jones,” I lied, seeing as how her daddy was probably alive when the first draft of the bible was written. “You broke my heart.” I clutched my chest, giving her a pout and smiling when I saw her cheeks flush bright red.

  “My daddy did no such thing. He’d have chased you with his shotgun if he’d seen you when I was younger.”

  “Nah, he’d just have shot me before I even took a step toward you.” Leaning closer to her, I made a point of looking around us, then whispered, “Just as well he doesn’t know about us then.”

  I swear she laughed so hard I thought she was going to pass out for a second, then wiped her eyes with a lace-edged hanky that’d materialized out of nowhere. “I was just coming to tell you that I hoped she likes the presents and good luck.”

  Mrs. O’Jones was my Zuri partner in crime. I’d had both items sent to her because I wanted them to be a secret. If I had them delivered to work, everyone would ask about them, and my plan would be for shit.

  She’d given me hints on how to ‘woo that girl’. Sure, most of them were better suited to the forties, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t adapt them slightly to make them more modern.

  “Thank you, honey. Can I see you back to your house? I hate you walking out here and across the road on your own.” She moved so slowly that my heart always leaped into my throat when I saw her crossing the road.

  “I’ve got her,” a familiar deep voice sounded as my brother walked up next to her. “You stepping out on me, Mizz O’Jones? I thought I was the only man in your life. You’ve got all the men on this street wanting to be on your dance card, you know. I told you I’d run away from Rose for you.” he schmoozed as he walked her around the back of the truck, making me grin.

  “Let me know how you get on,” she called over her shoulder, then went back to giggling at whatever my brother was saying to her.

  Once they were clear of the vehicle, I set off toward Zuri’s new place. She’d had some sort of water damage at the old place that’d turned into black mold, so she’d moved to a new house that was closer to where I lived. I’d helped her move her shit yesterday and was going back today to help her unpack and basically do a shit ton of manual labor.

  It might sound like hell, but it meant I got to spend time around her and be involved in her plans, so I was grabbing it with both hands.

  Somehow—through some twist of hell and Satan’s balls—I’d friend-zoned myself when I’d met her. Sure, I was distracted by what was going on with Raul and Rose as well as what I’d just been through, but I hadn’t purposefully done it. And now I couldn’t make it disappear.

  Well, at least not until now. Now I was armed with techniques and advice from every woman I knew, and I was going to use it all.

  I’d even listed it:

  Spend more time with her. Make sure to ask her out for meals and to do things together.

  Romantic gifts, including flowers and jewelry. Big points given if the flowers are her favorite ones and you knew what they were. Zuri wasn’t huge on flowers, so I was sticking with jewelry.

  Small gentle touches.

  Flirt gently and increase it slowly.

  Remind her you like spending time with her.

  Wooing is essential—every woman wants to be wooed.

  Mental note to self: look up what wooing is.

  Objects that remind her of you are also important. If she has things she likes that you gave her, she’ll think of you fondly when she looks at them.

  If she needs help with something, be the man for her.

  That was the gist of what they’d told me to do, but some of them had taken it a step further and mentioned underwear, taking my shirt off when I was doing things for her, how to kiss her and make her want more.

  Some of those women were sexual deviants, to be honest. You think you know someone, and then they tell you to swipe her nipple with your thumb and make her moan into your mouth. Not that it was terrible advice, just unexpected! I’d walked out of the diner with my cheeks burning for the first time in twenty years. Katy had also suggested I sing to her, but that would have the opposite effect of what I was going for, seeing as how I was tone-deaf.

  Groaning at the thought of swiping Zuri’s nipple, I pulled up in front of her place, runnin
g through my plan for today.

  Give her the present.

  Explain it.

  Help her out.

  Take shirt off while helping her out.

  Ask her out for dinner.

  Kiss her—a lot.

  How could that go wrong?

  Getting out, I reached in for the box and then walked up the pathway to her door. This place was a million times nicer than the apartment she’d been in before, and she had more space and privacy. Hell, she even had a bright yellow front door, which was totally not what I’d picture for her, but it suited her perfectly now that I thought about it.

  As I was leaving last night, we’d agreed I’d be there for ten. She’d told me just to walk right on in, but that seemed a bit weird now, so I knocked first and waited.

  Almost immediately, I heard Zuri’s muffled shout. “S’open!”

  Turning the handle, I pushed the door open with one hand and started to hold the box out with the other one.

  Today was the day that things were going to change between us, and it all started with what was inside it.

  Except, just as I was opening the door and saying hello, the door hit something hard. There was a squeal, and seconds later, something shattered loudly.

  And then came the screaming.

  Oh, fuck me, the screaming.

  I’ll never forget it. In fact, I don’t think the whole neighborhood would ever forget it. I sure as hell wouldn’t forget what was waiting for me as I pushed the door open even more and moved quickly through it.

  The first thing I came face to face with was a chair, wedged between the door and the wall behind it. Beyond that were moving legs—thank Christ—and shards of glass everywhere, with Zuri lying on top of what I recognized as the remains of a nest of glass-topped tables that I’d carried in last night.

  Putting the pieces together, I figured out what’d happened pretty quick, especially when a heavy picture frame landed on my right shoulder from right above where I was frozen in place. And then came the sharp burning sensation that made me grit my teeth.