“When people break up they typically give back the keys to each others apartments.”

My defenses immediately go up at the sound of Lola’s slightly hostile voice. Taking a deep breath, I look up from my cell phone to find her standing in front of me, a scowl on her face. She looks ready to fight and I’m not in the mood for it today. I put my cell phone in my pocket and then slowly, deliberately, I make a show of taking the key to the apartment off my keychain and hold it out to her, raising an eyebrow.

Her eyes narrow a bit and she steps forward to snatch it from me. “She’s not home from work yet.”

“I can wait,” I say evenly. “Unless you also have an issue with that.”

She rolls her eyes and turns to walk back to her room. She only gets a few steps before spinning on her heel. “You know, I’d just like to say that I think it’s a pretty rotten thing you’re doing to Emily.”

Oh good. Not only do I get her attitude, I get her opinion too. “Pardon me?”

“She tells me stuff, okay? I know that you kissed her when she was over at your house last week. And I know that you did the same thing yesterday when you went to see that movie together.”

Yeah, so it happened again. But it wasn’t all my fault. We were in the back of the theater and the movie was boring and she was sitting so close and smelling so good. I couldn’t help it. And it’s not like I’m forcing myself on her or anything. She’s involved just as much as I am. I had made myself pull away at one point but she just kissed me and brought me back in.

“It’s between me and Emily.”

“No it’s not! You’re hurting my best friend and I’m the one who has to pick up the pieces for her.”

I am so not in the mood for this. “I’m not hurting her.”

Lola gives me a disbelieving look. “You date her, you BREAK UP with her because of her ex boyfriend and now you’re what? Randomly making out with her and saying you guys are only friends? You really think that’s not hurting her?”

What she’s saying could be true but if it were, wouldn’t Emily have said something? I know I hurt her when I broke up with her but she’s never made it seem like all this recent stuff is doing anything to her. She’s almost given it this casual friends with benefits feeling.

“Look-”

“For someone claiming to be one of her best friends it sure doesn’t seem like you give two shits about her feelings.”

I can only take people yelling at me about shit they don’t know about for so long and I’ve just reached my breaking point with Lola. “LOOK,” I say loudly, using a tone in my voice to warn her to let me talk and not interrupt me. “What’s happening is between me and Emily. She’s a big girl and if I’m hurting her she will tell me. Neither she nor I need YOU to butt in and give your opinion.”

Lola’s eyes grow wide. “I can say whatever I want.”

“And I can choose not to listen to a word of it.” I don’t want to fight with Lola and at this point I should just walk out of the apartment and call Emily to see where she’s at. But I’m pissed off and not exactly thinking straight and I want to see how far exactly Lola is going to take this.

“She doesn’t tell you enough, but you breaking up with her was a really shitty thing to do.”

Like I need anyone to tell me that. “Thanks for the update.”

Lola’s eyes narrow at me. “And you know, maybe if you had at least a good reason to break up it would be a bit better. But you have no logical reason to have done it.”

This is unbelievable. “Have you been living under a ROCK and missed the fact that Emily is Ben’s ex?”

She rolls her eyes. “We’re all aware that Emily is Ben’s ex, Justin. Stop pulling out this Ben bullshit as an actual reason to dump Emily.”

I can’t believe I’m even hearing this. Why am I the only one who thinks secretly dating your best friend’s ex girlfriend is a bad idea. “It’s not bullshit,” I growl out. “If that’s not a damn good reason to break up with someone, I don’t know what is.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Who even cares if Ben decides to disown you for dating Emily. Why is he even important? He’s a cheating asshole.”

Some loyalty flared up in me and my jaw clenched. “Ben may have cheated but he is one of my best friends. Not that I should have to explain this to you but I have been friends with him for ten years and he has ALWAYS been there for me and never betrayed me. And it’s not easy for me to find a person like that, okay?!” I’m yelling at this point but I’m so mad that lowering my voice isn’t even an option. “I don’t care if you can’t understand why I would be loyal to Ben. You can think whatever the hell you want to about what I did. But don’t get in my face and talk about things you know shit about!”

If I hear one more word out of her mouth, I’ll probably lose it. So I do the smart thing and stalk out of the apartment, slamming the door behind me. I think it’s safe to assume that I’m no longer welcome in their apartment so I guess I’ll just have to find another way to see Emily.

* * *

Lola is sitting on the couch glaring at the TV when I walk into our apartment. I glance at the screen and my eyebrows rise. She looks ready to kill someone and I don’t know how watching an episode of Friends is pissing her off this much.

“Hey,” I say, dropping my purse on the loveseat. I shrug off my coat and then start towards the kitchen. “What are you doing for supper?” I call over my shoulder as my eyes scan the mostly empty fridge. I’ve been slacking on going to the grocery store and Lola’s been surviving off cereal. I should go tomorrow.

I get no response to my question and I look in the direction of the living room and then back to the fridge. Wonder what’s wrong with her.

When the only feasible thing in the fridge to eat is some questionable pasta from a week ago, I shut the door and go over the drawer where we keep take out menus. “I’m going to order something,” I call. “Do you want something?”

Instead of silence, this time I hear her shut off the TV and get up. A minute later she comes into the kitchen and leans against the counter. “Chinese food?”

I shrug and start look for that menu. “Okay.” I quickly find it and start to scan my eyes over it. “Do you know if Justin called here? He said he would yesterday but I haven’t heard from him yet.”

“I’m pretty sure I want nothing to do with that ass.”

My eyes shoot up from the menu at her words and the way in which she says them. “What?”

“He came over here like an hour ago and yelled at me.”

My brow furrowed and I lowered the now forgotten about menu to the counter. “He did? Why?”

She rolls her eyes and hops up to sit on the counter, leaning her head back against the cupboards behind her. “He just comes waltzing in here like he owns the place so I asked for the key back and he was a jerk about giving it to me and then I said that he was an ass about all this shit that’s gone on in the past week with him kissing you.”

I sigh and slump back against the counter across from her. “It’s not like that’s all his fault, Lola. I’m there too.”

“If he’s the one who broke up with you, he should be the one who isn’t allowing those type of things to happen. It’s his fault. And then I mentioned something about how Ben is a cheater and he blew up at me and yelled about how loyal Ben is to him or some shit like that. I stopped listening and then he just left.”

Suppressing a groan, I shut my eyes briefly and then focused them back on Lola. “You know, you were the one who told me to go after him and make him want me back.”

“Yeah, I know. But that’s not what’s happening. He should want you back and tell Ben all about it. Not just make out with you randomly and leave it at that.”

“It’s not exactly like that.”

“Yes it is. Do you ever think about how ALL of this would go away if someone just told Ben? I could just call him and do it.”

“Don’t,” I quickly warned. “Don’t.”

She rolls her eyes again and slides off the counter. She takes the menu from my hand and glances at it. “I don’t care what else you get as long as you get lemon chicken,” she states and then leaves the kitchen. A second later, the TV’s back on.

I truly appreciate Lola’s honesty and her loyalty to me and her consideration for my feelings. But she doesn’t understand what’s going on between Justin and I. Hell, I don’t even really understand it. We’re not exactly friends, we’re not going out. It’s this weird limbo stage that I don’t know how to get out of.

I wonder how mad exactly Justin is still. Lola can be a little blunt when she’s mad and she probably wasn’t easy on him. But it’s still not all his fault. I’m not exactly pushing him away when he’s kissing me or telling him to stop. Yesterday I even kept it going when he had stopped. Neither of us are innocent.

I choose not to bring up the topic of Justin at all while Lola and I eat our food and watch TV. At this point, we can’t agree on it and I don’t want to sit here and fight about it with her.

When I finish cleaning up the food once we’re done and I grab my coat and keys, I don’t mention that I’m going over to Justin’s. From the look Lola gives me, I know that she knows my destination. But for the time being it seems like she’s butting out and letting me do what I want.

Justin doesn’t exactly look happy when he opens the door but when he sees me, his face relaxes and a smile slides over his lips. “Hey,” he says, opening the door all the way so I can come in.

“Hi.” The urge to stand on my toes and kiss him is huge but I fight it and step a bit away from him and push my shoes off my feet. “What are you doing?”

He shrugs. “I was watching TV.”

I walk with him through the front hallway to the entertainment room where the TV is on with the volume muted. “You never called me,” I say and keep going before he can answer. “Is it because you got in a fight with Lola?”

His face darkens a bit and he looks away from me. “She told you about that.”

“Yeah she did.”

“So are you pissed off at me too?”

“No.” His eyes meet mine again at my answer and I give him a small smile. “I don’t know what this is between us and neither do you. But we’re both responsible for it. Not just you.”

He immediately looks better and pulls me down to sit next to him on the couch. “Then let’s forget about it and watch TV.”

I know I should be demanding answers about the status of whatever we are. I deserve that much. But it’s much easier to fall back into the soft couch cushions and curl up under the blanket Justin offers me and mindlessly lose myself in TV.

My lack of sleep from the past week is finally catching up to me and sitting in a dark room with the sound coming from the TV creating a gentle lull is enough to put me half asleep. And when you’re half asleep, thinking rationally doesn’t come easily. So when the TV is suddenly off and Justin’s voice in my ear asks me if I want to spend the night, nodding seemed like the easiest thing I could do.

I don’t fully realize what’s going on until I’m in some of Justin’s boxers and an old t shirt and listening to the sound of him brushing his teeth in the bathroom as I lay in the center of his massive bed. I know this isn’t helping things. Friends generally don’t sleep in the same bed together like this and friends is what we’re supposed to be. Nothing more. Being here is just going to complicate things a little more.

It’s easy to know all this but climbing out of this warm bed seems as hard as climbing Mount Everest would be. So instead I snuggle further into the mattress and pull a pillow tight to my chest as I turn onto my side and close my eyes. I’ve drifted into that pleasant half asleep state when the mattress dips with extra weight. I force open an eye and watch Justin climb into bed and move across the mattress over to me. He plucks the pillow from in between us and then pulls me against him. I sigh a bit and rest my forehead against his shoulder.

“Is this really helping anything?”

The words in the air surprise me when I realize they came from my own mouth. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

“Probably not,” Justin responds. “Should I drive you home?”

Stupid question. “No.”

His one arm goes around me at that point and I feel like I’m floating in a pile of clouds with only his firm weight against me. If it wasn’t for all the complicated shit surrounding us, I would say that this is heaven.