The Bromance Zone by Lauren Blakely

Prologue

Eight Years Ago

Owen

Sex has a way of clouding your judgement. Talking about it, thinking about it, having lots of it—sex is awesome but should come with a warning label.

Sex is hazardous to your brainand may cause stupid decisions and prolonged regret.

It was a Sunday morning and I was brimming with sex-fueled bravado built up over the past few weeks—because I was finally having it. This was college. Sex was a required class and my favorite subject.

Years of virginity will make a guy a very dedicated student, and Jack, a fellow junior, was hitting the books with me every damn night.

After a particularly late and boisterous study session in Jack’s dorm, I was the good kind of tired in the morning, but I had to study for a psych exam and needed to fuel up on caffeine in the worst way.

I knocked on my friend River’s door. “Rise and shine,” I said when he answered. “Freud waits for no one. But he will have to wait on coffee. I need a jug of it, stat.”

“A barrel for me, please,” he said, bleary-eyed as he closed the door behind him and we headed to the library to study, first ducking into a coffee shop called Old School to get our fix.

As we waited for our joe, a TV mounted on the shop’s wall played classic rom-coms. Billy Crystal had just told Meg Ryan that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part will always get in the way.

River was a fellow psych major. We could debate anything and both lived to dissect human nature. I nodded to the screen and said, “I disagree on principle. What about you?”

He wiggled a brow and collected his coffee when they called his name. “That’s not a problem for me. I have lots of female friends.”

I grabbed mine and followed him to the cream and sugar. “You know what I mean. When Harry Met Rod. When Johnson Met Peter. When Dick met Richard.”

River doctored his coffee with sugar. “When can I watch those flicks? They sound like my speed.”

“Online, anytime, for a subscription of just $11.95 a month,” I said.

He cracked up, and I grinned. I enjoyed making him laugh—a lot—but I really wanted to dive into the question of whether men and men can be friends. I wanted to swim around in those waters with River more than I’d thought I would. I swallowed some coffee, then tried again. “So, was Harry right? Does sex get in the way?”

“In my test group of one, I’d say yes,” he said as we left the shop. “Sex absolutely got in the way of friendship for Ansel and me.”

River lifted his chin a bit defiantly, a sign the Ansel effect was still wreaking havoc. He’d split with his first serious boyfriend a few months ago, a guy he’d been close friends with first.

It was hard to argue with firsthand breakup experience, but I wasn’t sure it was the only answer.

“Do you think sex will always get in the way of friendship? I have plenty of gay friends, and I’m not suffering from I-want-to-nail-everyone-itis like Harry was.”

River knocked back some coffee, his brow knitting. “Same. Obviously. And I’m all for queer friendships. But if you’re going to step past friendship, you have to be ready to face any consequences. Call it the Harry and Sally ‘Sex Trumps Friendship’ Theory. Sex has a way of overshadowing everything. So, if you let it get in the way, then don’t be shocked if it kills the friendship.”

“But what if you don’t let it get in the way?” I asked. “Maybe Ansel was the exception, rather than the rule.”

River gestured broadly, coffee sloshing out of his cup. “Is that possible, though? Ansel and I were so sure we were going to stay friends. We discussed it ad nauseam before we even made out. Then, when things ran their course, he pulled a switcher. Oh, I can’t be friends with an ex. Sorry, not sorry.” An annoyed sigh escaped River’s lips. “Do you think you and Jack will just snap back to friendship once you stop messing around?”

I shrugged, full of postcoital bravado. “Sure. Why not? Plenty of men and women go back to being friends after a sex fling.”

Although, I didn’t want to think of sex with Jack ending—mostly because I liked getting laid.

I liked it a lot.

River flicked his dark blond hair from his forehead. “More power to you if you can return to La La FriendshipLandia. But that didn’t happen to me, and that was the worst part. The heartbreak wasn’t; it was losing a friend. I won’t ever risk that again.”

Hmmm. I could dissect this even further, break it down into principles of a theory. “It sounds like Ansel either believed, or pretended to believe, sex wouldn’t get in the way of the friendship, but then it turned out he was a full-on Gay Harry?”

“Yes, Ansel’s my Gay Harry. And I don’t want to see that movie again.” River tapped his chin, a little lost in thought. “And by that reasoning, a heterosexual man and woman can be friends, as long as the guy isn’t Straight Harry.”

I nod. “And queer men can be friends with each other, except for Gay Harry. Seems to me Gay Harry’s theory that we think anything with a dick is fuckable—”

“Does a great disservice to all the genuinely fuckable dicks of the world,” River said, holding his coffee cup high.

I raised mine as if we’re toasting. “To all the genuinely fuckable dicks in the world.”

Then we laughed because Gay Harry was full of shit, and men could be friends with whoever they wanted.

Only, I was curious what River thought would happen if one of his friends became his lover. “Seriously, though. Allowing that we, being reasonable adults, can be friends with someone bangable, did Ansel convince you that we can’t stay friends with someone we. . . banged? That sex will always get in the way?”

River took a long drink of his coffee, thinking it over. “It’s a big risk, with the friendship at stake. What if the friend turns out to be a Secret Gay Harry? Ansel didn’t seem like he’d be one, but he was. Sex is a powerful drug and thus a humongous gamble, so friends who want to sleep together should decide if it’s worth the risk. I hereby declare that the River Rule.”

I stopped at the street corner. “Hypothetically,” I began, as we waited to cross, “would you and I stay friends if we slept together?”

The question had begun as idle fishing for intel, but in the silence that followed, I cleared my throat, surprised at how much I wanted an answer, startled by my need to hear what River thought of me. But did I want him to say we’d stay friends, or that he wanted to sleep with me?

Or maybe . . . both?

River took another long drink of his coffee and gazed up at the clear blue sky of a spring day in California, seeming to weigh my question for a long moment. Finally, his light brown eyes stayed locked on mine, and he asked, “What do you think, Owen?”

I didn’t know what to think.

Or to feel.

Except I felt something electric.

Something that flashed even hotter when River’s eyes roamed over my frame in a way that felt . . . more than friendly.

I wasn’t sure what to make of that tingle sliding down my chest. I had Jack. My hookup pal. The guy I was interested in.

I definitely wasn’t interested in River.

Except, this wave of goose bumps rolling down my back said otherwise. It shouted that I was into my friend, the guy with the surfer smile, the breezy vibe, the ink on his arms that pops on his fair skin. Most of all, the never-ending banter.

But I wasn’t Gay Harry, who couldn’t see past lust to what else a person had to offer. I agreed with River that friendship mattered and shouldn’t be risked lightly.

“I think if we slept together,” I answered slowly and thoughtfully, “you and I could stay friends. Because we are friends.” I tried my best to answer logically. “And I’m not Ansel.”

“True,” River conceded. “Still, I’m not sure I’d ever want to take that gamble with you. I wish I hadn’t taken it with Ansel because I lost a friend.”

“Or maybe you learned who he really was,” I posited.

“A lesson I didn’t want to learn. And I don’t want to gamble with our friendship. Even though you are a cutie, Owen,” River said, shifting tone. The man could be the textbook definition of a flirt.

“Cute is for chipmunks,” I scoffed.

“Oh my God! You’re a chipmunk hater. We definitely won’t ever sleep together now that I know that you have a grudge against chipmunks.”

Sleep together.

Right then, I knew three things. One, the way he said sleep together turned me on immensely. Two, I couldn’t act on that feeling. Because, three, I didn’t want to gamble with our friendship either.

“I had no idea you had such strong feelings about chipmunks,” I said, when I was really thinking—Do you want to sleep with me?

“I have strong feelings about everything,” River went on, waving a casual hand my way. “I called you a cutie because I can’t call you a hottie,” River said. “Even with those Clark Kent glasses. I can’t call you hot because you’re seeing someone. And because we have too much fun together. Because you make me laugh, and I make you laugh harder.”

“Someone thinks highly of himself,” I said.

“And I think highly of you, Owen,” River said, his tone utterly sincere now, no trace of flirting in it. His soft brown eyes turned serious. “And I don’t gamble with important things like friends.”

Like River, I also didn’t want to lose a friend on account of some kernel of attraction which would surely fade. Lust was temporary. Friends were forever. “We’ll make a deal,” I said, acting on bravado. “A pact that we won’t ever sleep together. It’s the brand-new When Harry Met Rod rule—friends don’t gamble on sex with friends.”

River’s eyes twinkled with humor—or maybe delight that I saw things his way. “That’s it! Doesn’t matter that you’re a cutie. No going back, now—we have a pact. A no-sex pact. Which, to be clear, means no blow jobs either.”

I nodded. “And no hand jobs.”

“No kissing. Anywhere,” he added.

When I laughed, it was definitely harder. But then I frowned. “Damn, those are all my favorite things.”

“Mine too. But that’s my point—we have too much fun together to risk it, even for our favorite things. We need to seal this.”

River stopped and lifted his coffee cup. I did the same, tapping the rims together.

“To friendship,” I said.

“To the Friends Don’t Bang Friends Treaty,” River added. “By the power invested in coffee, I hereby declare we’re never having sex ever.”

* * *

We stuck to the pact—past college, through breakups and brief flings with other men, through good times and bad—never gambling with the thing that mattered most.

Now, eight years later, we’re still great friends thanks to the pact.

But then, the way you feel at twenty isn’t always the way you feel at twenty-eight. Wants and needs change, and so does what you’re willing to risk.