no strings attached - j.b

best friends

"I don't know what else to do. He's definitely avoiding me" sighing, Phoebe unlocked the door to her apartment while balancing the bags of groceries on her other arm with her cell phone wedged between her shoulder and ear.

"Of course he's avoiding you, Pheebs. You did him dirty and he's pissed. What did you expect?" Kim, who was on the other side of the line, asked reproachfully.

Kim and Phoebe knew each other from their school days together at The Seven Hills Private School, the best private school in Cincinnati where the children of wealthy local families went.

Kim, whose dad owned some investment firm, had been sympathetic to Phoebe from the start. Unlike all the big shots she went to school with there, Kim was one of the few who hated her family's wealth and didn't build her whole personality on her parents' money.

From day one, the two had been inseparable and had remained so even when it was clear that Kim would stay in Cincinnati to study business mangament here, while Phoebe had gone to SMU and thus moved to Dallas.

After all, that was the biggest difference between the two. Kim had been glad that after countless moves, her family finally stayed in one place for more than just a year or two, and she finally had something close to home in Cincinnati, which of course she wasn't going to give up anytime soon.

Phoebe, on the other hand, had spent her entire life only in Cincinnati and for her it had been clear for years that she would definitely go out of town for her studies. Since money was no problem for her family and she wasn't exactly a bad student, the door was open for a lot of colleges, though she ultimately chose SMU.

Despite the distance, their friendship remained. They facetimed regularly, visited each other as often as possible, and kept each other up to date on every little thing in their lives. After all, they were both totally looking forward to finally being able to spend more time together after Phoebe returned to Cincy.

"I expected him not to be upset about it for so long. I didn't think it would take him this long to get over it" sighing, Phoebe set the bags down on the kitchen island and began to clean them out.

"It's only been three days. If it were the other way around, you'd be upset about it for at least a month and making his life hell. Be glad he's just ignoring you" Kim clarified. "Whose side are you on anyway?" Phoebe grumbled, tearing open the fridge.

"On yours, hun. But put yourself in his shoes. You of all people should know how it feels when it looks like someone was just playing with you and was only in bed with you because of your name"

"But that's not true at all" Phoebe grumbled. "But it looks that way to him. You knew who he was, but he had no idea about you. And the only thing he knows so far is that you really did know who he was before that, you confirmed that to him. You can see how that looks" Kim summarized.

Phoebe only made grumbling noises in response as she flopped down on the large black sofa in the living room.

"Pheebs, you need to talk to him. Explain to him what your intention really was. That it all just got a little out of hand" Kim talked into her conscience.

"Yeah right. It's not like I look like an absolute bitch already. I need to expose myself even more" Phoebe rolled her eyes.

"He deserves it. I know you like to play the bad bitch who doesn't care about other people's feelings and you act like you don't give a shit about anything. But, Phoebe, you made a mistake and you pissed people off, so you need to fucking fix it."

"I sometimes forget how much I hate it when you try to make me do the right thing" Phoebe sighed "Oh, come on. You'd be lost without me after all. I know how much you love me" Kim laughed.

"be glad of that. Even if I love your devilish side more than the dear angel who wants to do everything right in life" Phoebe had to laugh. "Give me some alcohol and the devilish side will come out" Kim quipped.

"oh, I'm sure Will had already used up your devilish this week. Honestly I'm surprised he's not even with you yet" Phoebe smirked.

Will was Kim's on-off boyfriend. Their relationship status changed more often than Phoebe's mood, but even when the two were off again, they ended up back in bed at every party.

The night Phoebe had gone to bed with Joe, Will and Kim had once again met oh-so-coincidentally at the club and had been back together ever since. Phoebe was pretty sure that it would be over in the next few days.

At first, she had tried to convince Kim after every breakup that it couldn't go on like this. All the emotional chaos that came from the constant separation made Kim pretty down every time, but it still seemed to work for the two of them and when they were together again for a few weeks, Kim was so happy that Phoebe had at some point just decided to let her best friend just do it.

"He should have been here with our food half an hour ago" Kim sighed "I'm so hungry" Phoebe laughed. "That sounds like Will"

"Yeah, unfortunately. What else do you have planned for tonight?" Kim asked. "I don't know. Make me something to eat. Maybe clean up some more boxes and just chill, probably" Phoebe replied, shrugging.

"And maybe worry about how to talk to Joe" Kim suggested. Phoebe sighed, "That's going to be hard. Paige made me the TikTok commissioner because she doesn't get the app and no sooner am I done with filming and everything, Joe's off the field"

"Then you'll just have to catch him some other way. Ask Sam to help you"

"I don't want to drag Sam into this whole thing. It's enough that he overheard Joe being mad at me. He doesn't need to find out that I've been in bed with him."

"Then you'll have to work it out on your own. Maybe not on the field. Maybe you'll catch him in the locker room or before he wants to go home. You work at the same place, you'll manage to get him to talk somehow"

"I'll see what I can do" Phoebe sighed.

"That's what I wanted to hear. You can do it, Pheebs. Now have a good night and I'll see you around, ok? Love you bitch" Kim said goodbye.

"Love you too, bitch" Phoebe replied and hung up. Sighing, she clasped her hands together in front of her head. Trying to catch Joe wasn't going to be easy, but Kim was right. She should work it out with him.

Sighing, she stood up. There was nothing more she could do tonight anyway, so she might as well get back to her boxes.

It's game deeeey!!! Bengals against Falcons will be a good game. Hopefully we will see a win!!

WHO-DEY🧡