Friend Zoners

ANDERSON

I cut through downtown at a brisk pace, boots crunching over salt and half-melted ice. Pittsburgh’s skies had a way of mirroring my moods, low, heavy, undecided whether to snow or just sulk.

Today, they’d chosen sulk.

Same.

“Andy! How’d the date go?!” Holly called, her heels skidding slightly as she jogged toward me in sheer tights and sheer audacity. It was ten degrees out. I was bundled like a survivalist. She looked like a dare.

I didn’t slow. “Cara set me up with a loser,” I said flatly. “And he drove, I couldn’t ditch him.”

Holly’s grin faltered as she fell into step beside me. “Dang. I was really hoping he was the one.”

We turned down one of the quieter back streets, the kind tourists never saw, brick buildings, flickering streetlamps, the smell of burnt coffee and old snow.

Silence stretched between us, awkward and brittle, like thin ice daring one of us to step wrong.

Holly finally frowned. “Dang... I was really hoping he was the one.”

We kept walking, breath puffing white in the cold as we headed toward the café, our regular meeting spot, our confessional booth. I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets.

“How’d your date go?” I muttered, bitterness seeping into my voice. I already knew the answer. No matter who Holly was paired with, my meticulous planning always made her dates shine.

“Perfect!” she squealed. “I’m seeing him again next Friday!”

I swallowed a groan and held the door open for her. She skipped inside, shedding the cold like it had never touched her, and slid into our booth in the back.

“There’s Miss Sunshine,” Patrick teased, already sliding my usual in front of me, iced chai, almond syrup, extra vanilla.

“Not all of us can be perky like Holland after the worst date of their life, Pat,” I muttered, collapsing into the seat and burying my face in my hands. I could feel their eyes turning my way.

Cara sighed. “I... what was wrong with the guy I chose?”

Pat scoffed. “What was wrong with the venue I chose?”

“I told you your planning sucked,” Lani laughed.

Maddie reached under the table and patted my thigh. “What was the problem this time, love?”

I groaned, fingers digging into my hair. I loved these people more than life itself, but damn, none of them understood romance. Or connection. They all ran from love like it was a disease. And... maybe I did too.

Patrick, Cara, and I had been inseparable since fifth grade, when we joined a book club full of kids who didn’t quite fit anywhere else—and somehow fit perfectly together.

Pat and Cara crushed on each other for years. Lingering looks in the hallway. Soft laughter when they passed. Loving each other quietly, painfully, for far too long. But Pat’s anxiety, relentless and unforgiving, destroyed the future they might’ve had.

Senior year, after Pat’s last football game, I’d convinced Cara to take him behind the bleachers. Just dip her toes in. Tell him the truth. As the unwilling mediator between two terrified dweebs, I already knew how they felt.

Cara didn’t hesitate. She shoved Pat against the wall, fist curled in his collar, and kissed him, years of restraint shattered in one fearless moment.

Pat, who’d been waiting for that moment for years, froze.

He didn’t lean in. Didn’t pull away. His brain short-circuited, his body refusing to cooperate, even as relief and joy detonated in his chest. She felt the same. That was all that mattered.

Until she noticed.

Cara pulled back, confusion creasing her face. “Do you... feel the same?” she asked softly. “Or was I just imagining it?”

Pat couldn’t form a single word.

And the universe, cruel and perfectly timed, answered for him.

“Didn’t you know he’s gay?” one of the guys from his offensive line shouted as he passed the bleachers, laughing like it was a punchline.

Pat’s eyes went wide.

Cara gasped, scrambling away from him as if she’d been burned. And Pat, terrified, humiliated, stunned, didn’t have the guts to correct her.

And now... we’re twenty-three.

We meet weekly at this café, trading horror stories about failed dates and planning new ones. And every week, I get to watch Pat and Cara exchange lingering looks before handing each other envelopes containing a potential lover they picked out for the other.

Pat never actually goes on his dates. He can’t do that to someone... can’t give hope to a guy searching for his other half, only to tell him afterward that he’s straight. Instead, Pat spins elaborate, fascinating bullshit stories about dates he never went on.

Sometimes I pull Pat’s date card myself and plan him a spa day or a quiet movie night instead.

“He probably wasn’t tall enough for her,” Holly giggled, sipping her water like she hadn’t just insulted half the population.

I’d brought Holly into our group because I was sick of being Pat and Cara’s third wheel. When they were apartment-hunting freshman year, I chose a dorm instead. That’s where I met Holland, my assigned roommate.

We hated each other at first.

Four years later, we were attached at the hip, despite being complete opposites.

Holly could wear a mini skirt and a bra to a family gathering and call it an outfit. I preferred covered legs and hidden bra straps. She lived for parties and alcohol; I was a party of one, me, my dog, the TV softly playing a romance movie, and a tall glass of wine.

We fought constantly in college. I had to study my ass off just to survive a nuclear engineering degree. Holly barely cracked a book for her applied abstract arts major.

Somewhere along the way, we found common ground. And now, two years out of college, we were still great friends.

Funny thing is, the world doesn’t need more engineers.

It needs artists.

So while she’s making buku bucks as an artist, I’m a starving engineer with student loans up my ass and a minimum-wage retail job.

“Why in God’s green earth would you two morons ever plan a lunch date for me?” I hissed, glaring between Cara and Pat.

Cara’s eyes widened. “Well, Connor—”

“Connor?!” I shrieked. “He told you his name was Connor?”

Pat scratched his head. “Wasn’t it Charlie?”

Maddie rolled her eyes. “That was last week.”

Cara hummed. “So... what did Not-Connor do?”

I chugged my drink, caffeine lighting a fuse in my chest. “Where do I even start? Let’s start with timing. I get a thirty-minute lunch break. Walking out of the building eats five minutes alone. Gabe was supposed to pick me up at twelve-thirty, I stood outside freezing for fifteen minutes before he finally showed. He opens the door and the car reeks of weed.”

I took a breath. “Despite my hatred of the devil’s lettuce, I got in because I was shaking from the cold. Then he calls me Jenna. I tell him that’s not my name. He laughs and says, ‘Someone’s sour today, Sarah.’ Still not my name. And then, after I tell him I’ve got maybe ten minutes left, he rips up Pat’s date itinerary and drives me twenty minutes away to a sit-down sushi restaurant.”

“I hate fish,” I added.

Maddie cackled as my face twisted, which only fueled me further.

“You wouldn’t be laughing if the date gave you an allergic reaction, a hospital visit, a medical bill you can’t afford, and probation at work,” I snapped. “Oh, and I had to pay for the meal because he ‘forgot his wallet.’”

“I had a feeling he wasn’t going to follow the plan. And I specifically told him not to take you to a fish place,” Cara huffed. “I told him you had a severe allergy.” She paused, then cracked a smirk. “Wait... why’d you eat fish?”

“I didn’t!” I cried. “We sat down, and he ordered three hundred dollars worth of food for himself. I drank water. And this dumb restaurant infuses their water with fish oil. My throat closed in seconds. The waiter had the audacity to grab my credit card out of my bag while I was trying to call an ambulance.”

“Oh, honey,” Maddie sighed, pulling me into a hug. “I’m so sorry. That’s horrible.”

I melted into her side, letting the warmth of her and the soft hum of the café settle me for a moment. Maddie, the owner of Conjured Concoctions, was a whirlwind in human form, slightly older than me, impossibly organized, endlessly charming.

In my sophomore year of college, she had opened this little café, and somehow, I had become more than a regular, I had been her first customer, her first barista, and somehow, by some ridiculous twist of fate, I had also introduced her to her husband. Now, every week, she repaid me with small treasures: free drinks for me and my friends, mischievous date ideas, and eyes trained to spot potential suitors wandering through her café.

“Have you thought about my... solution?” Lani’s voice broke through my spiraling thoughts.

I groaned. “No. I’m not going on a date with a girl.”

Lani smirked like I’d just handed her a puzzle she’d been waiting to solve. “Well... if I pull your name to choose a suitor, be prepared for an experience like none other.”

“Lani...” Cara warned softly, her eyes narrowing.

Lani, Cara’s little sister, had crashed into our weekly dating chaos a few years ago for a college journalism project. She’d needed an interesting piece, and frankly, we were more than interesting enough, a tightly knit group of friends running blind-date experiments week after week. Lately, though, the routine had grown stale.

“I propose a twist,” I muttered, leaning back in my chair, the cup in my hands denting as my frustration bled into focus.

“Oooo!” Holly practically vibrated in her seat. “I like the sound of that!”

I exhaled, riding the caffeine and irritation like fuel. “We keep the date envelopes... but scrap the suitor choice. “How about we make it like a challenge? Instead of the suitor chooser picking a coworker or a friend... someone known... when the suitor chooser texts you the code word, you have to ask out the closest person. No exceptions, no pretense. Just... roll with it.”

Lani’s eyes practically bugged out of her head. “I love it! That’s... that’s insane, and I’m here for it!”

Cara leaned forward, tilting her head with that calculating smile she always got when she approved of a plan. “Green, I like the way you think,” she said, nodding slowly.

Maddie, ever the wise adult in the room despite being barely older than me, patted my back with a chuckle. “Andy, when you end up having to ask out a grandpa, I think you’re going to regret those words.”

Pat’s eyes slid toward Cara, a grin spreading. “I love that idea,” he said, like he’d just found his new favorite game.

Holly smirked, leaning back in her chair, hands on her hips. “I’d like to add a little depth to this new idea,” she said, eyes glittering with mischief.

“What?” Pat groaned, immediately sensing trouble.

“Photo evidence,” Holly said, fixing him with a look that could have made a statue flinch. “You always have these epic dates, so I want proof. Three photos: the beginning, the middle, and the end. And the first one must include the suitor. No excuses, no edits, no escaping.”

“Whatever,” I muttered, rolling my eyes, but inwardly I was grinning. Holly’s rules always made things more interesting. “What’s the penalty for missing a photo?”

“You have to attend the annual blind smooch at Bernardo’s brewery.” Holly’s eyes twinkled.

“Didn’t half the people get herpes last year?” Maddie said wearily.

Cara nodded softly.

Lani suddenly raised her hand, practically vibrating with excitement. “I want to add a rule too!”

I froze mid-breath. My brain already knew where this was going.

“Closest person means closest person,” Lani clarified, eyes twinkling with sadistic glee. “Not closest to your preferences. If there’s a girl next to you and a guy across the street... you ask the girl. That’s the rule.” She pinned me lightly, smiling like a cat who’d just let the canary out of the cage.

Maddie giggled, “Andy, think of it this way: the person you ask might not even be gay. The worst that could happen is you have a good day with a stranger, maybe even make a new friend. The best... well, you might just find your soulmate.”

I let that settle for a beat, imagining all the ridiculous scenarios and potential disasters waiting for me. Then I smiled. “Alright... it’s settled.” I reached into my bag, my fingers curling around the familiar envelopes, a ritual in itself. “As always, date chooser first.”

I held out the blue envelopes like a magician presenting cards. The gang eagerly snatched them, hands darting in, eyes sparkling with anticipation.

“And now... suitor chooser.” I held up the green envelopes, my voice low and teasing. One by one, they grabbed theirs, the air buzzing with excitement.

“And the reveal...” Maddie’s grin was radiant.

I tore open my first envelope. Holly. My second envelope... Holly.

“Redraw!” Holly hollered, hopping up, her voice bouncing off the walls of the cafe. “You can’t have doubles!”

I raised an eyebrow. “Since when is that a rule?”

“Since now,” she said with a wicked smirk, folding her arms. “Also, I’m officially out this week. I have another date with the guy you found last week.”

I stuffed Holly’s envelopes into my empty cup and shuffled the rest with exaggerated flair. My first pick was Lani, my second... Pat.

“I got Maddie!” Pat hollered, chest puffed out, clearly proud.

I rolled my eyes. Maddie was always the easy one. Each week we planned a small, fun, slightly naughty date for her and her husband, Kyle. Whoever pulled her suitor card got the privilege, and occasional chaos, of throwing a twist into their evening. Once, I’d made Maddie wear a vibrator in the movie theater. Kyle had loved the soundtrack.

“Me too!” Cara beamed, practically bouncing. “I get to choose the kink!”

“I got Cara for date and Andy for suitor!” Lani announced, eyes wide with delight.

“I got Andy for date!” Cara said, pointing at Lani with a flourish, her grin contagious.

“I got Cara for suitor! Pat for date!” Maddie finished, clapping her hands, gleeful as if she’d just dealt the winning hand in a high-stakes game.

I sighed, leaning back to toss my trash in the bin. “As always, date itineraries are due Wednesday. Dates can be taken anytime from Wednesday at noon until next Sunday, before our next meeting.”

“Yes, mother!” they saluted in unison, and Maddie laughed softly at my exasperated expression.

“Wait!” Cara called as I turned to leave. I paused mid-step.

“You’re leaving already?” she asked, voice tight with curiosity.

I nodded. “I... I have that... thing. You know, the one I told you about.”

Holly raised a brow, skeptical and amused. “Care to let the rest of the class in?”

Cara’s eyes went wide, panic-flavored. “Go! I’m sorry, I forgot!”

Lani elbowed Holly, her voice teasing. “Her mom, dummy.”

I nodded, taking a step forward, only to collide full force with a barista carrying a tray stacked high with drinks.

The world turned upside down. Ceramic cups shattered, liquid exploded like tiny fountains, and the air filled with the sticky sweetness of spilled lattes.

I groaned as I stared up at the ceiling, sticky liquid clinging to my hair and clothes, warm, wet, and mortified beyond belief.

“ANDY! BEN!” Maddie’s voice pierced through the chaos, panic and concern laced with amusement. “Are you alright?”

The man whose face was buried deep in my chest let out a muffled groan, sounding simultaneously dazed and amused. “Poppy took me out... like a damn freight train,” he muttered.

I glared at the top of his brown-haired head, hating him with a precision that could rival a sniper. Every strand of hair plastered to the back of his neck, every damp thread sticking in a mocking way, it was infuriating.

Ben and I hadn’t been chosen. No friends, no meddling fate; we’d been thrown together by some cosmic joke, organically paired, a chaotic alignment of circumstances. He’d wandered into the café looking for a part-time job while juggling finance classes at the rival college across the city. The moment our eyes met, I’d felt it, a spark, a spiral, a gravitational pull toward disaster. And apparently, he had too.

On our first date, he’d called me Poppy. The nickname was so infuriatingly cute that I’d secretly loved it, even as I rolled my eyes. It was the sort of thing you read about in romance novels but never think actually happens to you. That day had been perfect: sunlight slanting through trees, the scent of fresh air mingling with pine and dirt, laughter spilling over the gentle slope of a hidden trail. Until it wasn’t.

He’d left me alone. A romantic hike to a secluded summit, no cell service, no map, just the two of us... and me thinking it was fine, safe, natural. I’d known him maybe a week or two at that point and somehow agreed to trek a mountain for a picnic, trusting him implicitly. That moment, standing on that peak, staring at the horizon alone after he vanished, had stayed with me in vivid detail, wind whipping my hair, the smell of crushed leaves, the biting cold at altitude, the creeping terror of isolation.

It had been my first real date. In high school, I’d been consumed with good grades, AP classes, and an endless parade of extracurriculars, each one a rung on the ladder to KMU, an Ivy League haven for engineers in Pittsburgh. My life had been meticulously structured, measured in test scores and project deadlines, until Ben stumbled in and turned the whole thing upside down.

We clicked instantly. It wasn’t awkward fumbling or forced small talk, it was that rare, effortless connection that made the world shrink to just the two of us. He asked me out, my first date ever, and somehow became the first to kiss my lips, the first to stake a claim on my young heart. Naïve as I was, I spilled everything, unfiltered. Words tumbled like a dam breaking: my dreams, my fears, my failures, my joys, all of it sliding out in a torrent I didn’t even try to contain.

I spilled pieces of my life I’d never imagined sharing so openly. I even talked about my mom. She’d had stage-four lung cancer that had metastasized to her brain and blood, a cruel twist that no seventeen-year-old should have to process.

When I was seventeen, she enrolled in the Maxwell Trials, an experimental treatment promising a year to heal, at a cost of half a million dollars. The facility was all-inclusive, meant to cure cancer patients, but with one brutal catch: her support system had to stay at a distance.

Dad and I had worked ourselves to the bone to make it happen. We sold our home, sold parts of our liver, scraped together every cent we could, all in the name of hope. And then we sent her across the country, to Arizona, into the hands of strangers, praying she’d survive, praying she’d return to us whole.

For a year, we had nothing but sterile updates: monthly lists of her improvements, activities, and progress, all mediated through staff. No personal contact, just the faint assurance that she was alive, alive but distant.

And after a year, Dad and I finally went to see her, to take her home. My stomach twisted in a mix of hope and fear as we drove the long, silent stretch of desert road, the sun glaring down and painting everything in harsh golds and reds. My hands gripped the steering wheel so tight my knuckles whitened.

When we walked into her room, the woman we had left frail and fragile was gone. In her place stood someone plump, vibrant, alive, so startlingly different that it almost hurt to look at her. She smiled, laughed, moved with an energy that was almost alien, and yet... she didn’t know us. Didn’t recognize me, didn’t know my father. She had no memory of her life before the trials, no memory of her husband, her daughter, the world we had shared.

She had survived cancer, yes, but the price had been cruel. Dementia had settled into her mind like a slow poison, and every day she woke up confused and frightened, asking the same questions over and over: “Where am I? Who are you?”

After months of her panic attacks and the unbearable tension of watching the person who had been my anchor flounder in confusion and fear, Dad and I had no choice. We found a live-in rehab facility that could give her structure, safety, and dignity, a place she could call home without being triggered by memories she no longer recognized. For five years now, she’d lived there. We visited once a month, carrying gifts and photos, carrying hope and grief in equal measure.

I had told Ben every detail of this. The nights I spent staring at the ceiling, wondering if she was still alive out there in the desert. The nights I had longed to call her, to hear her advice, only to be met with a stranger’s confusion. The quiet, aching memory of her loving gaze that had once told me I could do no wrong, now replaced with a void I couldn’t fill.

I let all of that pour out to him, and apparently, it had been too much. He excused himself to “take a leak,” his polite voice hiding a tension I hadn’t registered at first. But after an hour, he hadn’t returned. Panic threaded through me as I scanned the overlook, realizing he had vanished entirely. And with no sense of direction to save my life, I was utterly lost.

I’d been lost in the woods for what felt like an eternity, but in reality was a week. My lungs burned from scrambling over roots and rocks, my stomach growled like an angry beast, and my fingers were raw from gripping tree branches. Thankfully, Pat and Cara realized I was missing. They’d gotten park rangers on high alert, sending search parties winding through the dense, suffocating forest.

They found me passed out, my ravenous self still mid-attempt to eat a fish I had caught. Allergies that didn’t give a damn about survival.

“Get off of me, Bently,” I hissed, voice raw, as Ben’s weight pinned me to the ground, his face smushed right between my chest like some ridiculous, overgrown toddler.

He just chuckled, that deep, infuriating laugh that made my blood boil and my knees weak simultaneously. He peeked up at me, blue eyes sparkling with chaos and mischief. “You’ve dreamed about this, haven’t you, Poppy?”

I glared at him with every ounce of fury and embarrassment I possessed, but the truth was undeniable. Before I hated him with a fiery passion that could incinerate cities, I had dreamed of this. I had imagined his hands, his grin, his messy, teasing gaze. I had imagined the impossible, the infuriating, the maddeningly perfect Bently.

But no one was perfect, reality reminded me daily.

“GET OFF!” I shouted, shoving him to the side.

I hopped to my feet, shaking off coffee and embarrassment, and stared down at this damnably cute man sprawled on the floor. His glasses were crooked, sliding dangerously down the bridge of his nose, but those ocean-blue eyes still sparkled with mischief, utterly unrepentant. His smile was impossibly wide, the kind of grin that could get someone killed with charm alone. Even drenched from head to toe, he looked like he’d stepped straight out of a model magazine, hair soft and ruffled like he’d just run a hand through it.

The blue apron clung to him in all the wrong and right ways, highlighting both the subtle pudge of warmth and the sharp lines of muscle. His long legs stretched before him, I looked away as my heart skipped a beat.

“I’ll be sending you my dry cleaning bill, Mr. Rayne,” I hissed, stomping toward the door, each step loud enough to punctuate my fury. “I trust Daddy can pay the fee.”

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see the way his face dropped, how his carefully curated composure melted into molten fury, edges sharp enough to cut. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t live for moments like this, watching him flustered, irritated, helpless to stop me. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t make a point of frequenting this shop daily just to mess with him, to push that perfectly honed button he thought no one knew about.

“POPPY!” he roared, the sound bouncing off the walls and sending nearby customers ducking, “YOU KNOW DAMN WELL I CUT TIES WITH THAT MAN!”

I threw my head back and cackled, loud and triumphant, a full-on, victorious laugh that carried all the mischief and audacity I could muster. I flung the door open with dramatic flair, letting the wind whip my hair across my face. “Tell that to the Bently sitting out front!” I shouted, “That one’s still got Daddy’s name on the title!”

I paused just long enough to savor the way his jaw tightened, the fire in his eyes, and the flustered hitch in his chest. Every ounce of irritation radiating from him only fueled my amusement. Today, victory tasted delicious, and I intended to savor every drop.

And just to make sure he knew exactly how little I cared about his pathetic outburst, I flipped him off with a sharp, deliberate flick of my wrist.

His face went white, then red, and before I could blink, he was hopping to his feet, every ounce of fury propelling him forward. “ANDERSON SAVANAH GREEN! YOU DIDN’T!”

I knew it was a pet peeve of his, foul words, gestures, any little sign of disrespect. Funny thing was, when other people did it, he barely batted an eye. But me? Oh no. When it came from me, he went ballistic. Every syllable I screamed, every finger I raised, it was like I’d lit a fuse that ran straight to his brain.

I slammed the café door behind me and bolted into the street, my boots slapping the pavement in rapid, reckless rhythm. The chaos of the city swallowed me up, the chatter of pedestrians and the blaring horns masking the sound of his pursuit.

I darted toward the bus stop, adrenaline hammering in my chest. The city bus roared to a stop, its doors wheezing open just in time. I dove inside, spinning around to press myself against the rail, gasping as the doors began to close.

Ben’s face appeared in the narrowing gap, eyes wild, lips forming a silent scream, and then, snap, the doors hissed shut.

I exhaled, triumphant, a victorious grin spreading across my face as the bus lurched forward. My chest heaved with laughter and adrenaline, I waved, expecting him to look furious, but instead, he smirked. That infuriating, cocky smirk that made my stomach twist in equal parts frustration and...something else. Then he lifted my book bag, holding it aloft like a trophy.

“It’s mine now, Poppy!” he yelled as I barreled toward the glass, his voice echoing down the street.

“FUCK YOU, RAYNE!” I screamed, “Don’t you fucking touch my journal!” The words ripping out of me like steam from a kettle, watching his silhouette shrink as the distance between us grew and he unzipped the bag with a precision that made my chest tighten.

I guess if you play stupid games, you win dumb prizes.