The Fundamentals of Friendship Pt. 01

She let me kiss her that night. Let me undress her. Make love to her, three or maybe four times, I don't really remember. All I remember is that from that day forward we had a few other escapades until we sat down to talk, at her suggestion.

"We should stop."

"We really should."

"Let's stop."

"Yeah, let's. But it was good, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. Really, really good."

"Then why stop?"

"Our friendship is too important."

"Yeah."

"But, oh god, it's good."

"Yeah, it really is."

"Really good..."

That discussion had ended with our clothes out of our bodies and our answer clear on our mutual desperation to get our bodies together.

"Let's not stop. Let's just be careful."

I had no reason to be careful as it was. I was way past the point of being careful.

That was my second chance. My second lost chance when I could have said to her 'Laura, let's try again. I still love you', but I didn't. Instead I thought This way you can have her. What if you say something and she says no and you lose her as a friend too? Then what will you do?

So I had said nothing. And our friends with benefits arrangement steadied. We both dated other people in between. I never minded those guys. Small fishes. Nothing serious, just fire in haystack. Burned bright and strongly, lasted a few months, than it was over and we were benefiting from our friendship again.

It wasn't just that I loved her. It was that, well, she's Laura. My first girlfriend, my first love, keeper of my virginity. The embodiment of everything I wanted in one woman. Our bodies were like halves of the same whole. Sex was always great. Mind-fucking-blowingly good.

I knew she has never felt as sexually comfortable with anyone as she did with me. She didn't mind asking me for what she wanted and letting me give it to her. And oh, did I like giving it to her.

I got lazy. Accommodated. I took her for granted. Then she went and met a perfect man right when she felt nature calling her to motherhood.

I understood her. Of course, I did. And for a second there I had almost offered myself to her 'I'll have a baby with you if you want.' She'd say yes to that. We'd be like those people who have babies with their best friends just because they were tired of waiting for the ideal person to come along and they wanted a parent who'd be around. I could've offered myself, yeah. I could've. Except I'd perpetuate myself as the friend. Knowing I would forever be just a friend was too cruel.

What I should've done is grasped my third change as it passed in front of me. 'I want to be the man, Ells. I want to be with you. I want to be the father of your baby in a couple of years or so. Me, not fucking Rocco.'

Instead, as I'd done before, I kept my mouth shut.

A fourth chance might never pass me by.

***

It was early when I left Laura's. Way too early. Usually I left at four in the morning or I didn't leave at all. We'd go to bed around five a.m. to just sleep, because we'd be too tired after talking for hours on end. We'd wake up around noon, she'd make us breakfast without my help because 'You're a fucking disaster, Riley. You'll break my kitchen in half', then we'd eat, talk some more, watch a movie, I'd write a few pages, because I found that I wrote better with her around, and we'd end up on her bed again. Naked this time.

Sometimes I'd catch myself thinking 'If you lived together, were married to her or something like that, this would be your life. Everyday like this. This wonderful routine of smelling cinnamon on her hands and doing the same thing every fucking Saturday morning for the rest of your life. And you wouldn't even get tired of it. Ever. It would be total bliss.'

No routine for Riley, though. Nope. Because Riley was too much of a pussy to tell the woman he loved that he loved her.

That thought was in my head as I was walking absentmindedly to her bistro when it hit me she wouldn't be there. I had just left her alone in her house half an hour ago. Funny how even as I tried not to think of her my feet took me to the place where I was used to finding her. I continued walking all the same. Clementine would be there to pour me some coffee.

Forgetting to pay attention to my strut I stumbled on some woman on the street.

I knew it was a woman because the contents of her purse went scattering across the pavement. I dropped to my knees at once, picking up her things and muttering endless I'm sorry's.

"Riley?" A familiar voice called.

I lifted my eyes to her and surprise wasn't enough of a word to describe what I felt. I just stared at her for a few moments before I found my voice.

"Suzanne?" I heard myself say.

Was it really her? Suzanne? Dear god!

"Oh, my god! Riley!" She joined me, kneeling on the pavement and wrapping her arms around me before I fully realized she was a real human being and not just a figment of my imagination. I might just have been imagining ex girlfriends.

Without much of a reaction, I hugged her back astonished with how much I needed the contact.

What a scene we must make, I thought to myself, two people knelt on the sidewalk with their arms about each other.

Suzanne was the one to pull away first. When she looked at me I could tell she was genuinely happy to see me, giving me that wide sincere grin that was her trademark. I was still having trouble processing the fact she was really there.

Suzanne was the very first person I dated after Laura. The first one I slept with. She'd been my rebound, and I good one at that, because I dated her until my very last day at Stanford. When we graduated I broke up with her for no reason at all, except for the juvenile hope I'd get back with Laura once we were living in the same city again.

Suzanne and I got back to our feet and I was still stupefied while she babbled. She was a very talkative girl.

"Riley! I can't believe it's really you! Oh, my god! What a crazy coincidence I should bump into you out of all the millions of people in this city! Look at you! You haven't changed a thing! Still handsome as ever!"

I shook my head, taking in the reality of her. Her full smiling lips, her big, round green eyes, the dark hair, and the tanned California girl skin.

"Suzanne!" I felt the need to say her name again. "Wh-What are you doing here?!"

"I was transferred here. I moved only a week ago!" She put a hand on my shoulder, giving me a sweet, endearing look. Her eyes had always been my favorite thing about her. "I had meant to look you up."

"Well, you've found me."

"Yes! I'm glad I did!" She laughed all spirit and carefreeness as only she could be.

I thought of Suzanne as the girl I could've really been in love with had I never met Laura.

We were two people just standing there looking at each other with disbelief and astonishment. Suzanne's face changed a little. Her freckled nose smoothed when her crinkling smile subdued.

"How are you, Riley? You have the same look on your face you had that first time we met."

I met Suzanne about six months after breaking up with Laura. I had gone to some party against my will and was sitting on the stairs of a sorority house, just being miserable when this sunshine of a human being sat my side and asked me what was wrong. Blame it on the cheap tequila or maybe just sheer patheticness, I told Suzanne all about Laura and our break up. I had thought Here's someone who cares.

She patiently listened to my whining, took me to a burger place where she bought me a milkshake then told me the simplest thing, but just what I needed to hear that specific moment.

"You're going to be fine, Riley."

And she was right. Three months after we met at that party she became my girlfriend. I would always think of her as the best girlfriend I ever had. Second only to Laura herself.

"I'm fine, Sue." I surprised myself with how easy it was for me to fall back into old habits. All that in ten seconds, just because she gave me that warming smile.

She knew me quite well. Obviously, she didn't believe me. I was not fine.

"You're never fine when you say you're fine." Laura used to say.

"Listen, Riley. I know we just bumped into each other. But you look like you need to talk. I know it's been..what?" She stopped, mentally counting the years that separated us from our last encounter. "12, 13 years? But I was going to grab a bite at this place I just discovered, you'll love it. They have cinnamon rolls! Want to come? Catch up a little?"

My plan was to drink alone, so why not join a person who'd done me so much good once upon a time?

"Yeah. I would like that."

"Let's go, then."

She started walking and I followed her, completely dumbstruck with how life can sneak up on you sometimes.

***

The place Suzanne had just discovered was, by a sarcastic joke of fate alone, Laura's Bistro.

"Riley!" Clementine all but yelled when I came in after Suzanne.

She turned around lifting a quizzical eyebrow at me. "You're famous, uh?"

"Hey, Clementine." I said to the girl, then "I come here a lot." To a curious Suzanne.

There were two little booths in the little bistro. I remember Laura had insisted on having them. "For the kids in love." She had said.

I sat across from Suzanne, marveling at how little she had changed. Her hair was shorter, molded into one of those modern cuts with the ends stopping at her jaw. Back in college days it used to be very long. All the way to the middle of her back. Her eyes was still as beautiful as ever, however. There were faint little lines in the corners of her eyes telling she wasn't 23 anymore.

"Hey, Riley." Clementine tired me sometimes.

She was a pretty thing, but too young and silly for my liking. I liked her a lot, though. I simply wasn't interested in her. Laura said she had a crush on me. I didn't see it. I thought of her flirtatious comments as silly jokes.

"Man, you look shit." She gracefully added when I glanced up at her ironically smiling face.

Suzanne only looked between with amusement.

Clementine fixed her eyes on her and if looks could kill, Sue would be already stinking.

"I'd like a-" I tried to order.

"French toast and black coffee" She finished the sentence for me, not even bothering to write my order down on her pad. I spent more time at the bistro and Laura's house combined than I did at my own apartment. I didn't even have any food in my refrigerator. "And you, miss?" She turned to Suzanne, smiling her best false smile.

I gave the girl an apprehensive look.

"Ah..." Suzanne studied the menu, indecisive. "I'll have the same. I trust Riley's tastes."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Clementine asked, turning her palms up.

"Clementine." I said warningly, glaring daggers at her.

The girl huffed, showed me the tip of her tongue and strutted back to where she came from.

The moment she was gone Suzanne burst into laugher. "One of your groupies?"

"She'd just a kid. An annoying one."

"Oh, right. You come here a lot. Wait!" Her face lightened the way it used to whenever she got an idea. "It this where you write?"

"Yeah."

Suzanne had been the second person to read the draft of my first book. She had also encouraged me to dedicate some serious time to finish it.

Clementine returned with our coffees. She made a spectacle of pouring Suzanne's, almost spilling the hot liquid into her lap.

"Jesus Christ, Clementine!" She was seriously beginning to annoy me.

"Where's the boss?" She asked.

"What?"

"The boss. You're never here without her." She darted an accusatory look at Suzanne and I darted an apologetic one. Sue only smiled.

"She's home." I said to Clementine who scoffed before finally showing me the back of head.

I turned my eyes back to Suzanne who was studying me shrewdly. "I think I know what's happening here."

"Care to enlighten me?" I thought she'd make a joke, say something to light the mood but instead...

"This is your Lucky Laura's Bistro, isn't it?"

I had to look away from her knowing eyes when I answered. "She's not my Laura, Sue." Then the full of her words sunk in. "Lucky Laura?"

She smiled into her coffee cup. "Yeah. That's what I used to call her. She'd have to be very lucky to have a guy like you so in love with her."

Feeling like I owned her too much, I had been completely honest with Suzanne as to why I was breaking up with her. Even if that meant being a jerk. In turn, she had been completely understanding. Suzanne was an incredible woman.

"So, she's not your Laura, then?"

I shook my head. "She isn't."

"Is it bad of me to say I'm glad to hear this?"

I couldn't help the little smile crooking up my mouth. "No, Sue. It isn't."

Time flew while Suzanne and I talked. She told me about her job as a lawyer, and about how she'd gotten a spot as a partner in a NY firm. I heard her talk about some travelling she did around South America. Some boyfriend who broke her heart after we parted ways. And I told her about my books. About no girlfriends in particular and about Laura, of course. How could I not mention her?

I couldn't tell how many hours we killed in conversation until Clementine's displeased person came back to anounce it was closing time. I offered to walk Suzanne home, being glad to learn she lived only fifteen minutes away from me.

When we said goodbye, none of us could predict the direction of our heads and the kiss I had meant to land on her cheek took half her mouth instead. We laughed. I, awkwardly. Suzanne, heartedly.

"Would you like to come up, Riley?" She invited me, not hiding in the slightest what she meant.

Another thing I liked about her. She wasn't coy. She had always said what she wanted. Clearly and directly. In truth, her impulsive honesty and loquaciousness reminded me of Laura in a way.

Those few hours with her, reminiscing a time when I had been so young and lost, but at the same time, so much more honest and free than I was now, had left me feeling nostalgic. I knew where I would wake up tomorrow if I said yes.

"I don't think-" I was going to deny her, but as I was saying no my hyperactive mind screamed at me Why not go up with her, Riley? Remember how good you used to feel with her? Besides, Rocco's coming in a month. I rethought my answer. "Yeah. Yes, Sue. I would like that very much."

She smiled at me, visibly happy with my answer and turned her key on the lock of her building's door.

****

It wasn't until a month later, when I had the bright idea to take Suzanne as my date to the dinner party Laura was having to introduce Rocco, that I made the choice that would turn my life upside down. Actually, the four of our lives.

****

TO BE CONTINUED...