[Excerpt] Safety in the Friendzone (the Friendzone Book 1)

Chapter 4: Zane

Charley had been even more moody the last few days. Which wasn't particularly weird for Charley, but this still seemed slightly more testy than her usual.

I wasn't going to worry. My trustworthy charm never failed to get a smile out of her. Even talking about the most mundane things, she couldn't resist relaxing around me.

"You get an invite to Mitch's?"

"I said you could stay if you were going to work," Charley said tersely.

Well, I might have been a little wrong on that one.

"What have we said about rag-rage?" I replied and she glared at me.

Sure, I sort of deserved it. But in my defence, she'd been the one who'd started affectionately calling her period mood swings 'rag-rage', not me. It was also not my fault that her cycle ran like clockwork and I had the timing down-pat. This had nothing to do with me trying to be a good friend, this was all about self-preservation and knowing when I could and couldn't make certain jokes.

"Right, I'm sorry!" I sighed. "If it's not rag-rage, what is it then?"

She shifted in her seat and I tried to get a read on her. I was usually pretty good at knowing what she was thinking. A near lifetime of seeing her almost every day would have that effect. But I couldn't work her out. She seemed awkward and almost...embarrassed? I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen Charlotte Baines embarrassed.

"Nothing. Just...be quiet," she said quickly.

Knowing that there was no point in pushing it any further, I did as she asked.

I didn't actually want to do my homework. I had zero interest in it. But it had been that or not coexist with my favourite human. So, I'd done as I was told and sat across from her at the kitchen table while she worked on her History assignment.

Every time she moved my eyes flicked up to look at her. I watched every time she blew at that annoying wisp of hair over her forehead that never made it into her ponytail and was never pushed off her face.

As she reached to stop her pen rolling away, I went to grab it as well. Our hands brushed and something happened. It was so quick I wasn't sure I'd actually felt it. But it left me with this feeling so surreal that I kept trying to tell myself it was real.

There'd been a spark.

A palpable spark.

It had been like electricity, lighting everything up.

My heart had actually skipped as I'd looked at her from under my eyelashes. She paused for just long enough that I entertained the notion she'd felt it too. The way she'd snatched her hand back made me believe in it harder. That or she was just annoyed with me. Which was equally, if not more, plausible.

Charley cleared her throat and brushed invisible strands of hair behind her ear the way she did when she was a little uncomfortable.

She went back to her work and I pretended to go back to mine. But my eyes kept rising of their own accord to look at her. Sometimes, she was already looking at me and would hurriedly look away. Other times, she looked up and I couldn't make myself look away.

"What?" she finally asked, dropping her pen.

"What, what?"

"You keep looking at me," she accused.

"You keep looking at me."

"Well..." she spluttered.

"Well, what?"

"Stop it!"

"Stop what?" I asked.

"Stop looking at me."