I hadn't heard from Chris in a couple of days and while normally this wouldn't worry me, after our last conversation, and specifically what I did after, I was on edge. And what made it worse was I was having my monthly dinner with his sisters that night and my mind kept going to worse case scenarios.
"So how have you been? I feel like we haven't seen you around in a while. Mom started getting on Chris, asking what he did wrong that you haven't been over for the weekly dinners the past two weeks." Carly informs me when we all sit down for dinner.
"I've been ok. What has he been saying?" I ask quickly.
"Just that you've been busy so you haven't been able to come around."
"Hmm..." I respond.
"What?" Shanna asks.
"Nothing. Just hadn't heard from him in a few weeks so I'm not sure how he would know if I'm busy or not." Before I can continue, my phone chimes, alerting me of a text. "Speak of the devil." I mutter to myself.
"Who is it?" Carly asks.
"Who else? I swear he has us hooked up so he always knows when we're talking about him." I say before checking the texts.
Chris:
I know you're out to lunch with my sisters. PLEASE! Don't tell them what happened
Me:
And which part are you referring to there? What you sent me, or what I did back that we're acting like it never happened?
Chris:
I don't want to talk about this over text
Me:
That's great, especially since you don't want to talk in person either or else you wouldn't be avoiding me
Chris:
I'll come over later. Just please, for now, don't say anything
Me:
Fine, I'll keep your dirty little secret. Just tell me one thing
Chris:
What?
Me:
You haven't spoken to her since it happened, right?
Chris:
I haven't. But there's more to it that I need to fill you in on
Me:
Ok, my house, 9pm. Don't forget the goods lol
Chris:
I would never
🥡🥡🥡
"So why exactly have you been avoiding me? I mean, I get that what happened that night was super awkward but all you had to do was say dude no, and this whole awkward two weeks of silence could have been avoided." I tell Chris as we sit in my living room, eating the Chinese take out he brought and playing Mario Kart.
"It's a little more complex than that."
"You've been talking to her, haven't you?"
"No. But there was... some drama, involved with her and now my team is trying to create some distance between us, which I completely agree with."
"Woah. What the fuck happened?"
"Shortly after our afternoon out in London a week ago," I roll my eyes at that, "there were rumors that she was... having an affair with her married director."
I howl with laughter. "Man do you know how to pick them."
"Yeah, best friends included." He sasses and I punch his shoulder. I love how easy it is with Chris, normally, when we can be like we've been our whole lives. "So, how's work been? We haven't had a real chance to catch up in a while."
"Works been driving me crazy, as usual." I say, jerking the controller as I tried to navigate a turn. "It's high season for weddings so I'm spread incredibly thin as it is." I was one of the most prominent wedding planners in Boston, at least according to the Boston Globe. And I guess you could say that's true. I was booked for the entire season and most of the next one as well, with a couple of jobs in the winter for the few crazies who wanted a snowy New England wedding.
"Are you remembering to take care of yourself? I know how you get." He asks as he sends a blue shell my way.
"Oh you fucker!" I yell at him and he laughs as he passes me, taking first place. "Yeah, I'm taking care of myself. The way I see it, I proved my worth amongst the other planners in the area and now I can delegate business to business hours only, barring some horrible emergency, which there always seems to be at least one of per wedding." I say with a roll of my eyes.
The race ends, Chris coming in first. "So... are we going to talk about it, or continue ignoring the elephant in the room?" I ask.
He sighs. "You're my best friend Artemis."
"Right, so just balls up and say it was awkward and meant nothing and we can go back to kicking each other's asses in Mario Kart." I say quickly, turning to grab the controller so he can't see that this is affecting me.
He grabs the controller from me. "Hey... Hey." He repeats when I don't respond. "Are you seriously ignoring me like when we were kids again?"
"Of course not. Mostly because I don't have my mom to use as a scapegoat anymore." I say with a smirk.
"Wait... what?"
"There were times, when we were younger, that if I was mad at you I'd tell you my mom said I couldn't talk or hang out, to get out of going places with you guys."
"You bitch!" he says with a laugh.
"That's nice." I laugh back. "I always call my best friend a bitch."
"You do. In fact, I was in your phone as Main Bitch for about 5 years there." We laugh at the memory before lulling back into awkward silence. "I don't want to ruin what we have Arty."
"Then we won't. I never said anything, you never said anything. We'll just go back to acting like nothing happened and we're our normal selves again." Yeah, right. Like we could go back to normal after this.
YOU ARE READING
The Pic ✓
Fanfiction~Complete~ When you accidentally send your best friend a sensitive picture of yourself, you trust that things won't get out of hand. But this isn't a normal friendship and things start stirring between Artemis and her best friend, none other than Ca...
