The Happy Ever After Playlist (The Friend Zone, #2)

by Abby Jimenez

Sloan: I haven’t painted my own works since my fiancé died two years ago. The dots started to jump. Then they stopped. Then they started again. Jason: I’m sorry to hear that. There was a pause between texts while he typed again. Jason: Sometimes the hardest place to live is the one in-between. I blinked at the message. “Yes…” I whispered.

Sloan: I’m 26. Jason: Another freebie! I’m 29. What high school did you graduate from? I smirked. He was sneaky. Sloan: Nice try. Then you’ll Google my yearbook and figure out my last name. Jason: I’ll tell you my last name if you tell me yours. Sloan: Nope. Jason: It’s a really great last name. Sloan: I’m sure it is. Not gonna happen, though. Jason: Truth or dare? Sloan: No. Jason: Spin the bottle? Sloan: No! I was giggling now. Jason: Monopoly??? Sloan: Yes, I will play Monopoly with you someday. Jason: Now things are getting exciting. He wasn’t wrong.

Sloan: Don’t think you’re getting two questions just because you missed yesterday. I kicked off my shoes and got back onto the bed, sitting up against the headboard with a grin. Jason: Do you have time for a phone call? The dots started to bounce. Damn, I loved those dots.

You have an accent, you know that?” I looked up. “I do?” “Yeah, I can hear it when you say ‘boat.’ It’s kind of nice. I like it.” She’d never said anything complimentary to me before. I’d lay on my Minnesota accent extra thick from now on.

She laughed a little. “You really are a northerner, aren’t you? Have you seen any moose?” “I’ve seen moose, wolves, the northern lights—” “Oh, I would love to see the northern lights. It’s on my bucket list.” “Yeah? What else is on your list?” She made a humming noise. “I want to eat soft-shell crabs. Oh, and I want to visit Ireland. That’s my biggest one. What’s on your list?” If anyone had asked me the same thing yesterday, I’d have answered, “Play the Hollywood Bowl.” But today? “I want to take you on a date.”

“Put Tucker on the phone,” he said. “What?” “Tucker, put him on the phone.” “Like, put the phone up to his ear?” “Yes.” I got up and found Tucker sleeping on the sofa. “Should I leave you two alone for this?” “Yeah, this is just between us guys.” “Okay, here goes.” I held the phone to Tucker’s ear. He immediately perked up at the sound of Jason’s voice. He cocked his head and listened and then bolted off the sofa and tore around the living room, barking. I put the phone back to my ear, laughing. “What did you say to him?” “I asked him to show you how excited I am to meet you. Actually, I told him there’s a squirrel outside, but I think he still illustrated my point.”

If I hadn’t already liked Sloan, this would have done it. Tucker was my currency. It might as well have been me she was spoiling, it had the same effect.

“Thanks for all your help.” She looked up at me through her long lashes. “This house is a mess. It’s really old. Things keep breaking.” She seemed unsure what to do now that the crisis had been dealt with. I smiled. “Go to dinner with me.” She blinked. “Dinner, tonight, a date. Not an appointment, a date.” She studied my face. “I want to take you out,” I said. “Let me.” If she said no, I was pretty sure I was going to beg. “Okay.”

He leaned well inside my personal bubble. I think he did it on purpose. I could actually feel the heat coming off his body. My conservative side, the side that couldn’t forget I’d been engaged to another man, wanted me to take a step back. But the side that suspiciously sounded like Kristen ran out of breath yelling at me to hold my ground. I held my ground. I was single and was allowed to feel like this. I was permitted to flirt and get butterflies when another man stood too close. And I was definitely getting butterflies now.

“My eyelid twitches when I’m nervous,” I said miserably, trying to explain my weirdness. Jason studied my face. “Don’t you think I’m nervous too?” I stared at him with one eye. “I like you. And I get nervous around beautiful women I have crushes on.”

“Jason, I listen to your music,” I said a moment later, biting my lip. “A lot. I love it. Your last album got me through a really rough time in my life.” He wiped at his eyes, still recovering. “And I’ve eaten the food from your blog. I’m probably a bigger fan of yours than you are of mine.”

“Will you come visit me when I’m on the road?” he asked. “Right now, I’m just trying to make it through this meal without hyperventilating.”

“Just so you know, I don’t even kiss on the first date,” I said, finishing my scratcher. I won two dollars and held the card up to show him with a smirk. “And here I am, getting the upgraded car wash for nothing.” I laughed. I couldn’t believe what a good time I was having. I always figured my first date after Brandon would be a painful milestone. A Band-Aid to tear off. But it wasn’t. Jason made it easy. Jason made it a lot of things.

Goddamn, this woman had me. It was more than just physical. She fucking had me.

This wasn’t just some woman. I’d suspected it when we’d been talking on the phone, but now I knew it. This was big, different from anything I’d ever felt. It was like the first time I’d picked up a guitar, that same sense of certainty.

Jason: You’re not mad I kissed you? I know you have rules about first dates. A long pause ensued before she replied. When the dots started to jump, I sat up to wait for her text to come through, throwing back the rest of my whiskey. Sloan: I’m beginning to think the rules don’t apply to you. Good night, Jason.

It had taken me twenty-nine years to meet someone I was this into, and when I finally did, it could not have come at a worse time. In three weeks I’d be gone for four months.

“You don’t want me, okay?” “What?” “You don’t. Trust me, you don’t. I’m messy. I’m a mess. I’m in an in-between.” I smiled softly. “I like your mess.”

I thought about what she said earlier on the phone, that she was in an in-between. I didn’t care where she was. I wanted to be there with her.

I think I fell just a little bit in love with him in that moment. I got a murky vision of telling our grandchildren about the day Grandma almost drank herself to death and Grandpa saved her with espresso.

“I make amazing coffee,” he said. “I use a French press.” “Oooh, now you’re speaking my love language. Say ‘French press’ again,” I mumbled. He leaned over and put his lips next to my ear. “French presssss,” he whispered.

“I’d like to cook you dinner tomorrow.” A grin crept across his handsome face. “I’d love that.”

Then he reached down, around the side of my front porch flowerpot with the petrified geraniums in it, and produced a warm Starbucks cup. I looked at it and held my breath. “That’s so thoughtful.” I raised my eyes to his. “But I can’t have caffeine this late.” He smiled. “I know. It’s decaf.” I had to clutch a hand over my heart. “You realize that repeatedly bringing me my favorite coffee is comparable to feeding a stray cat, right? You might never get rid of me now.” “Good,” he said, pulling me close to kiss me with an enormous grin. “I was hoping for something like that.”

I was a ghost, wandering the rooms of a museum of the person I used to be, and Jason was like one of the living who could somehow see me and decided to wander the place with me.

Kristen was right. I’d chosen this life. And I’d had enough. I was going to make a concerted effort to get out of this in-between I was trapped in.

“You really want to do this? It may test our relationship.” “So you admit it’s a relationship,” he said, smiling at me. I narrowed my eyes at him, suspecting a trap. “Well, what would you call it?” “That’s exactly what I’d call it. But you have a tendency to rob me of the titles I’m due.” “Like what?” “Like calling our first date an appointment.”

“And that would make me your boyfriend,” he said, his eyes dancing. He was right. And I was terrified. “We’ve only known each other for two weeks,” I said. “This is only our third date.” He shook his head. “I don’t care.” I bit my lip. “Jason, I take that status really seriously.” “I hope so, because so do I. Look, I don’t care what the rule books say we should be doing right now. I like you. You like me. We agree that we’re exclusively seeing each other. And I want you to be able to tell random a cappella groups that hit on you that you have a boyfriend.” Then he leaned in and kissed me. “And your boyfriend should definitely know your best friend.”

“I played Coachella last year,” Jason said, still chuckling a little. “I wish you would have gone. I would have seen you from the stage. We could have met sooner.” I snorted, scooping celery into the bowl. “There are like two hundred thousand people at Coachella. You wouldn’t have noticed me.” He looked me in the eye. “I would notice you in a crowd of a million.”

“He is like seriously into you. I think he’s in love with you. I’m not even kidding. It’s all over his face. He’s whipped.”

“I want you to cook with my mom when we get there. It would mean a lot to her.” I rubbed my nose to his. “You couldn’t stop me if you tried.”

But when he began to play…That was absolutely unreal. It was all over for me. I was officially in love.

the whole time he sang, he smiled at me, like he was just happy I could see this side of him. And I was happy too. Because Jason and Jaxon were definitely the same man.

“You’re worth the wait. You’re worth everything.” He winked and let himself out,

This was just a season, and there’s beauty in all seasons. Even if you are looking forward to the next one.

Mom was flipping out. Not just because Sloan was The Huntsman’s Wife, but because I didn’t bring women home as a rule. And bringing Sloan home meant exactly what Mom thought it did.

Jason was slowly edging out all the things that froze me in time. He was thawing me from my nuclear winter from the outside in—and he was almost to my core.

I stared after her, long after she’d shut the door, and I wondered offhandedly if this was what Dad had felt like when he met Mom… And somehow I knew that it was.

“Nothing is going to happen to me,” I said slowly. “I’ll sell it. Right now. You hear me, Sloan? I won’t ever ride one again.”

I knew without a doubt that from this point forward I’d have to care for her better than I cared for myself—because I could never be okay if she wasn’t.

I held up a key. Jason froze and his razor clicked off. I pressed the key to his bare chest, over his heart. “Use whatever drawer you want,” I said. “Park your truck in the garage. No more ringing the doorbell when you come home. Okay?” The smile on his face made my heart hurt. I don’t know that I’d ever seen him look this happy. “Okay,” he whispered, putting his palm over the hand on his chest. We’d have it all…right up until we wouldn’t.

I couldn’t live without this. I wanted her to come on tour with me. I didn’t care what I had to do to make it happen—pay her bills, bribe Kristen for support. Beg her.

She just wrapped her arms around my waist, wearing that stupid fucking outfit, and all I could think was that I loved her.

I smiled at him. “You want to live with me?” His eyes moved back and forth between mine. “I want everything with you.”

“I know that you’ll be away for a long time. But I’ve gone longer without seeing you.” She paused for a long beat. “These last two years, the Sloan I grew up with has been missing. I was afraid she was buried at Forest Lawn with Brandon and I was never going to see her again. Then you decided to live, and you know what? My Sloan came back.” She shook her head. “I missed my friend.

The way my body cried for sleep after this news scared me because it felt like before, when I used to sleep through my depression. Only this time I hadn’t lost anyone but myself, swallowed whole by Jason’s career.

“Sloan, I haven’t been taking very good care of you and I’m sorry. I’m going to do better.” I sniffed. “This isn’t your fault, Jason.” “It’s all my fault.” His eyes held mine. “There’s nothing that I want more than for you to be happy. Do you understand? I would do anything to make you happy.”

“I love your hands.” His instrument. His talented, capable, loving hands. “Have them. They’re yours,” he said. I smiled. “You’re giving me your hands?” “My hands, my voice. My back to do your heavy lifting, my arms to carry you to bed when you’ve had too much tequila. My money, my time, my heart. It’s all yours, Sloan.”

He shook his head. “It’s just how I feel. I’m yours. All of me. I think I always belonged to you. Even when you belonged to someone else.” His eyes moved back and forth between mine. “Tucker knew it. He took one look and he saw the other half of me inside of you and he brought you home.”

You can’t control the bad things that happen to you. All you can do is decide how much of you you’re going to let them take.

Sometimes the hardest place to live is the one in-between. And sometimes in-between is all you’ll ever get.