Let's Be Just Friends (A New Adult College Romance)

  ***

  Over the next few weeks, the memory of that night haunted Rose, no matter how much she tried to push it out of her mind. She needed to forget Tyler. He was in Paris with Georgiana. What were they doing? No, no, no. She had to stop torturing herself obsessing over what Tyler was or wasn’t doing and move on.

  A six-month break would do the trick. It had to. If she wanted things to go back to the way they’d been, she only needed time to forgive and forget. It wasn’t too late for them to be friends again. But she needed to move out before he came back; this house was too full of him, too full of them.

  Right, move. It was a Saturday morning, three weeks after Tyler and Georgiana had left. Rose was at the kitchen table scrolling through Craigslist, looking for rental houses. She’d already found a few options within her price range, but the pictures were so revolting that the search was doing nothing to improve her mood.

  As she looked at one ugly house picture after another, her phone started ringing. An unknown number beginning with the Boston area code appeared on-screen.

  “Hello?” she greeted, perplexed. It wasn’t often she received phone calls from unknown numbers.

  “Rose?”

  It was a male voice, one she didn’t recognize.

  “Yes? Who is this?”

  “You have no idea who I am. Ouch, I’m hurt.”

  He was funny, and she liked his voice, but she kept quiet.

  “It’s Ethan.”

  Her stomach did a little flip.

  “Georgiana’s brother,” he added for good measure.

  Georgiana. Tyler. France. Her stomach landed from the flip with an almighty crash.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, trying to keep an even tone. It wasn’t easy; she felt like she might start sobbing at any moment.

  “Hi.” He sounded put-off by her subdued reply—which, somehow, uplifted her.

  She resumed in a much cheerier tone. “Just when I thought you’d forgotten all about me.” She had a hunch it wasn’t by chance he’d waited until Tyler was out of the country before calling her.

  “Well, I had to make sure I could present a winner before calling you.”

  “A winner?” Rose asked, both puzzled and captivated.

  “I have a wager to propose.”

  “This early on a Saturday morning? Shouldn’t we wait until at least, I don’t know, late afternoon before we start gambling?”

  “Normally I’d say yes, but since I have a better chance of winning in broad daylight, you’ll have to make an exception.”

  “Would I want you to win?” she asked, surprised by her own coquettishness.

  “I think it’ll be a win-win, so yeah…”

  “Mmm, I’m intrigued. Tell me everything.”

  An hour later, as she walked up the steps of a fancy new building just a few blocks away from Harvard, she knew she’d lost the bet. As Ethan had predicted, she was not at all sorry about her defeat.

  Ethan had called to show her an apartment he thought she might like on the condition that if she were to take it, she’d have to go out to dinner with him. Rose vaguely remembered telling him about her search for an apartment the night of Georgiana’s party. It hadn’t been true back then, and she hadn’t foreseen her lie becoming the truth quite so abruptly. But now she was glad for it. She welcomed the distraction; it was the first positive thing that had happened to her in a while.

  Ethan had picked her up in his black Mercedes thirty minutes after calling her. She’d barely had time to take a quick shower and get dressed before he’d arrived.

  “Are you sure this is within my budget?” she asked, eying the luxurious building.

  “The owner’s a good friend of mine, and he’s agreed to lower the price for a reliable, tidy tenant who won’t trash the place,” Ethan explained shrugging. “A lot of rich, spoiled frat boys want to live here, but they’re trying to keep them out of the building and make it more of an adult community.”

  “How do you know I’m not a crazy party girl?”

  “Are you?” Ethan called her bluff.

  “No,” she admitted, unsettled by the x-raying of his light blue eyes.

  “Shall we?” he asked, holding the door open for her.

  The apartment was perfect, just perfect. It was a spacious one-bedroom with one wall made entirely of floor-to-ceiling windows. The kitchen was ultra-modern, brand new, and had a huge island that overlooked the dining table and part of the living room. The bedroom was bigger than the one Rose was occupying now and had a walk-in closet. Even the bathroom was cozy with all-new counters and sinks, and furnished in a minimal style that suited the place. Both the furniture and walls were painted white with splashes of warm gray and wood accents.

  Compared to what was on Craigslist, this place was a palace. Rose could hardly believe her luck.

  “Do I take it we have a date?” Ethan asked when she was finished examining every inch of the apartment.

  “When can I move in?” she asked, beaming.

  “Next weekend. I’ll have you sign some papers, and it’s a done deal.”

  “You don’t need to check with the owner?”

  “Nah, I had you pre-approved.”

  “Confident, are we?”

  He smiled dashingly.

  “When do you want to go out?” Ethan asked once the paperwork was taken care of.

  “You’re the winner, you call the shots.”

  “Next Friday?”

  Something dangerous fluttered in Rose’s belly. “Next Friday it is,” she said.

  Fifteen

  Rose

  In the following days, Rose changed her mind about how she felt about going out with Ethan every other hour. At first, she’d be happy for the distraction. Then she’d get worried about getting into even bigger trouble. Ethan was another bad boy, possibly even worse than Tyler. Why couldn’t she find one of the good ones?

  Because you find them boring as hell, a nasty little voice replied in Rose’s head.

  When she was done worrying about how much Ethan might hurt her, guilt towards Tyler crept in, even though she knew she shouldn’t feel anything but anger about the situation. After all, Tyler was in Paris with his girlfriend. But her heart was stupid, and it kept telling Rose she was being disloyal. Once the guilt trip was over, Rose switched almost immediately to vindictiveness—of all the guys she could have gone out with, Ethan would definitely annoy Tyler the most.

  Not that he’d find out considering they barely talked these days. She’d emailed him once to say she was moving out, and that she’d check on his house every now and then, and pay the bills while he was in France. But Tyler hadn’t emailed her back, probably because he almost never checked his non-Harvard email account. And she was perfectly happy with him not knowing, at least for a while, until she had enough time to settle into her new place—and life, hopefully.

  Ethan was due to pick her up at 7:00 pm. It was 6:30, and Rose was already dressed. She had chosen her clothes for tonight well in advance as everything else was packed away in two huge suitcases for her big move tomorrow. She’d opted for a casual-chic style: a white neoprene quilted sweater over lightly faded ultra-skinny jeans and a pair of high-heeled nude pumps. In front of the mirror, Rose let her hair down and styled it in soft waves. As for makeup, she kept it simple: foundation, bronze blush, a double coat of mascara, and lip balm. Rose didn’t like to wear lipstick or lip-gloss at restaurants. She didn’t see the point when it would just end up on a napkin by the end of the night.

  At 6:55, the doorbell rang. Rose unhooked her black fur jacket from its hanger and hurried out of the house to meet Ethan.

  He drove to a fancy steak house for their first official date—he’d remembered meat was her favorite. She added one point for him in her mental scoreboard.

  “I wish I’d given in to Georgiana sooner,” Ethan said after they’d drunk their first glass of wine.

  “Meaning?” Rose asked, uneasy at the mention of Georgiana. She tried to store
the notion of her being Ethan’s sister in a remote corner of her brain.

  “She’s been bugging me to go out with you for ages,” Ethan explained.

  “How nice of her to worry about me,” Rose said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. Anger at Georgiana’s scheming resurfaced immediately.

  “I don’t think she was being utterly altruistic,” Ethan said. He was direct; Rose liked it. “I guess she was jealous of you and Tyler living together.”

  Tyler’s name made Rose blush. She hoped the reaction wasn’t too obvious, even if Ethan’s attentive stare told her otherwise.

  “So what made you change your mind?” Rose asked, steering the conversation away from Tyler. She didn’t want to think about him tonight.

  “I met you,” Ethan said simply, holding her gaze.

  He meant it to be a charming statement, but suspicion flared in Rose’s chest at once. “So what is this?” She wiggled a finger between them. “A favor you’re doing your sister?”

  “Ah, no. Miss Atwood, your accusations wound me.”

  “Please be square with me.” Rose broke the courting act. She was tired of guys playing games. “Are you here only because Georgiana asked you?”

  Ethan’s ever-present lopsided smile disappeared. “I would never do that,” he said. “I’m here because I want to be. I’m here because the night I met you was the first night I’d had fun in forever. And because I hope that by the end of the night you’ll let me kiss you again.”

  “Okay.” Rose swallowed. When Ethan Smithson switched on the charm, he was impossible to resist. Maybe she really was jumping head first into bigger trouble. “Let’s not talk about other people then.”

  Ethan nodded just as the server was arriving to take their orders.

  The rest of the night passed in a blur of general getting-to-know-you talk. Rose found she was able to relax with Ethan; he had an easy way about things, quite the opposite of his snotty sister, and he made her laugh—a lot! He didn’t mention Tyler again during the dinner, much to Rose’s relief. Besides her asking, Rose suspected Ethan was avoiding the topic so as not to spoil their first date. Deep down, Rose feared the moment she’d have to come clean about her relationship with Tyler. If she wanted to keep seeing Ethan, she’d have to tell him the ugly truth eventually. How would Ethan react? Would he hate her for hurting his sister? Think of her as the other woman?

  When Ethan pulled up in front of Tyler’s house, Rose was surprised to see the clock of his car read 1:00 a.m.

  “Do you need any help with the big move tomorrow?” Ethan asked.

  “Yeah, sure, I’ll stick my humongous luggage in your spacious trunk,” she joked, wondering if his sports car even had a trunk.

  “I’ll have you know I’m also equipped with a pickup, Miss Atwood. It should be more than capable of hauling your humongous luggage.”

  She’d planned to call a cab, but the possibility of Ethan helping her was far more enticing.

  “Okay then. But only if you’ll let me buy you breakfast afterwards.”

  “Deal,” he said.

  “Should we shake on it?”

  “I have a better idea,” he said, and leaned in to kiss her.