Games Night

Credit to him: Logan managed to dodge the phone despite Zehra giving him almost no sign as to what she was intending to do before her hand had flung forward, sending it right at him. With great annoyance Zehra watched it bounce off the sofa behind him, clutter over the coffee table to land at the base of the TV stand screen-side up, revealing a very nice crack that had appeared to compliment the previous ones.

Fuck! She *really* needed a new phone now.

"Jesus, Zee!" Adrian said, unnaturally annoyed. "That could have hurt him!"

"When are you going to FUCKING stand up for me?" Zehra snarled. "He sits there and insults me and all you ever do is say 'be nice, Lo! Don't say mean things, Lo!' Why the FUCK does he get all this special treatment?"

"Because he's my friend, Zee," Adrian replied. His voice returned to its normal level of calm. A far cry from her own raised voice. "If you want to go out tonight I can lend you some cash-"

"No, Ade... I don't want charity!" She had never asked her boyfriend for extra cash. It just was not something that her parents instilled in her; they had always spoken about standing up on your own two feet and doing it for yourself.

"It's not charity, I'm buying you drinks," Adrian said. He stood up to give himself room to fish around in one of his pockets before pulling out his own phone and retrieving one of the cards he tucked away inside the pockets in the phonecase. "Go nuts. I mean it."

At first she hesitated - Zehra hated to feel indebted to anyone, ESPECIALLY her boyfriend and ESPECIALLY a boyfriend like Adrian, who already put up with so much shit from her - but when he wiggled it a little and gave her that puppy-dog look she sighed and took it from his hand.

"What if it asks me for the PIN?"

"You know what it is."

"Really?" What the fuck could it be?

"It's your birthday," Adrian said. Then added, as a way of explanation: "I changed it for you."

As she looked at her boyfriend with a mixture of overwhelming adoration and a healthy dose of concern about whether this six months-old relationship might be progressing a little too fast if he was changing his fucking PIN to be her birthday, Zehra caught, out of her peripheral, a very odd look on Logan's face: like he was wrestling with two emotions also, but fear and something that seemed disturbingly like jealousy.

What the fuck?

Deciding that she definitely needed a drink, Zehra took her boyfriend's credit card with her and left the two men to their own devices. On her way out she couldn't help but savour the incredible smells coming from the oven, and found herself a little disappointed she would be missing out on some delicious sausage rolls.

*****

When Zehra had left Logan braced himself for a rare moment of Adrian annoyed, but his mate didn't even mention her blow-up earlier: "what do you fancy tonight?"

"Truth be told I'm feeling a little beat," Logan said. A half-truth: work had been stressful these past few days, and Logan was feeling it. A man could have only so much athletic sex with his hot (single) clients before he realised that none of those women were taking his mind away from the one particular woman he really didn't want to be thinking about. "Mind if I watch you for a bit?"

"Anything in mind?"

"Let's see how many times you can die in Elden Ring," Logan said. In truth inspired by that one moment of connection he had enjoyed with his best friend's absolutely stunning girlfriend. She'd reached out and he'd reciprocated, and Logan had enjoyed that moment of shared interest. Then he had to fucking blow it by getting too scared to just be her friend.

Because truth be told Logan knew he would never be able to settle on just being her friend. A girl like Zehra Sydin could be someone's friend, but not Logan's: he would always want all of her and would settle on no less. All or nothing. So, for the sake of his friend, Logan chose nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

God, he hated every moment of it.

*****

Zehra too was thinking about that disappointingly short connection she had shared with him. A small - stupidly small - bit of social contact, but one where she had seen layers stripped away from Logan and the man beneath revealed to her and... fuck he was gorgeous! Logan didn't just look like a Greek god of masculine perfection (ironic considering, unknown to her, Logan was actually Greek on his mother's side), but underneath that infuriatingly abrasive exterior he kept up whenever she was around there was a man who was warm and compassionate...

Yeah, she could see now how Logan scored with so many women. She could see how just one smile from him could make a girl weak at the knees and beg him to take her back to his place for a night of incredible sex (and lets face it: a guy like Logan HAD to know how to fuck!)

In a city full of so many assholes who seemed to get off on making women cheat Logan could be a genuinely decent fucking human being, and Zehra could see why he was Adrian's friend for so many years. She also knew that she could never be 'just' friends with a guy like Logan.

No, she would always want more.

Those thoughts occupied her all the way from her boyfriend's flat to the Paradiso Costiero, and she almost collapsed at the bar. Knowing her friend Rhian didn't work Thursdays Zehra thought to find one of the other girls - Terri, Angelica, Sarah or Haley - working behind the bar, and was surprised to find the intimidatingly tall Alexa preparing drinks instead.

"Aren't you the boss?" Zehra said after Alexa took her order (a Bloody Mary - seemed thematic for the evening).

"Yeah, and?" Alexa replied simply as she prepared the cocktail. "I can't serve drinks at my own bar?" Her choice of sleeveless top showed off not only her extensive arm tattoos but enough of the spread-eagle tattoo beneath her tits that Zehra felt she now knew the woman intimately. She also made a note to look at getting something done around her navel; Zehra felt her stomach did not have enough ink, but then she had been hesitant to get anything done while working on her abs. "My eyes are up here."

"Sorry I was admiring the ink," Zehra said, smiling politely.

"Got some nice designs yourself," Alexa said as she placed the finished cocktail on the bar. "Do you go to Mik's place down Marilyn's Chamber?"

Zehra nodded: she knew that tattoo shop quite well. Enough to earn loyalty points if Mikolaj offered any (though there had been a time, between boyfriends, when he had done work on her for nothing more than a few rounds of great sex; Zehra wasn't ashamed of that hook-up, as Mik was a stud with a great cock, and sex with him had been one of the few times she'd ever let a guy cum inside her; something she hadn't let Adrian do yet).

Perhaps sensing her thoughts, Alexa suddenly smirked and asked "did you fuck him for a free tattoo?"

Zehra nodded, although this time with a smirk that mirrored the taller blonde's expression.

"He's not bad, is he?" Alexa gestured to all of her tattoos. "And I've not paid for any of them."

That raised Zehra's eyebrows. Some of those tattoos looked recent. Wasn't Alexa married? A strange addition behind the bar, between the rows of drinks, caught her attention and diverted it away from this woman's sordid sex life. "What's with the betting pool?" She asked, gesturing to the chalkboard with a nod.

"Oh..." Alexa's face fell. "Hubby and I are trying for a kid. The girls have started a bet on when that'll happen. The birth, that is."

Zehra frowned as she read the board, seeing all the names, dates and amounts wagered, until a grin exploded on her face and, leaning forward to point, declared "fifty on May fifth!"

"That's next month dear... oh wait... you mean NEXT year?!?" Alexa placed her hands on her hips and regarded Zehra with annoyance. "Thanks for the optimism! What did I do to you?"

Zehra cheekily shrugged. "Hey, I just love Star Wars."

"I'll be sure to tell my husband that," Alexa muttered.

"Hey! I got the text! What's the emergency?" Dani exclaimed as she hurriedly collapsed onto the stool next to Zehra's, dumping her work bag on the bar in front of her and holding it tightly against the reasonably large crowd in the club tonight; although only a few were by the bar, with most out on the dance floor enjoying some poor man's synthwave. "Apple spritzer, please!" She said to Alexa, who seemed happy to move on.

Choosing not to question why Dani was spending another evening working late, Zehra decided to throw herself right into the dilemma: "I want to have sex with Logan!"

"Fucking knew it!" Dani said, slapping the surface of the bar. "I knew you wanted a ride on the Logan Log!"

Zehra closed her eyes. "Please tell me that's not what people call it."

"That's what I called it!" Alexa spoke up. Then she glanced at the two women. "We are talking about Logan Evans, right?"

"The one, the only," Zehra sighed. "The 'Logan Log'... really?!?"

"It's fucking huge," Alexa said. "I mean... I've fucked some big dicks in my life, but Logan? Girl you are..." Alexa's voice trailed off as she positioned her hands in the air in front of her, a good ten inches or so apart, Zehra reckoned.

"Fuck..." Zehra said breathlessly. She had NEVER fucked a guy THAT big! Would it even fit?

What the hell? Of course it wouldn't! Because she was NEVER going to fuck him!

"Shoo, Alex!" Dani said, gesturing with a hand. "Go be boss girl somewhere. I need a moment with my bestie here." Ignoring Alexa's look, Dani turned to Zehra. "Is this a two-way street?"

"No! At least... I'm fairly sure he doesn't fancy me," Zehra said. Now that could be an issue: currently it seemed Adrian did not know Zehra's antagonism towards his friend stemmed from a suppressed desire to fuck him (Logan), and unless she fucked up Adrian should never know. After all, from his point of view how could she be attracted to Logan? She was permanently rude to him, seemed to never want him to be in the same room as her, and-

Wait... could he?

"-not thinking of acting on this, are you?"

"Hmm?" Zehra realised she had zoned out just then and missed what her friend had said.

"I said you're not thinking of actually fucking him, right?" Dani said, her eyes wide. "I mean... Christ, Zee! Adrian's a sweet man!"

"I'm not going to cheat on my boyfriend!" Zehra said in annoyance. "I love Adrian. He's been the best thing to happen to me in fucking years! He GETS me! He fucking deals with my shit! I'm not going to fuck anyone behind his back; ESPECIALLY not his best friend! Logan and Adrian go back YEARS! I'm not going to get in between them like that!"

"Jesus, Zee... just making sure you weren't thinking of doing something fucking stupid like get your vagina wet with someone else's dick," Dani muttered.

Zehra bit back the first comment that came to her: a rather barbed question about why Dani had been working late, and with who.

"I'm not!" Zehra insisted. "It's just a fantasy, OK? Just a little..."

"Please tell me you're not masturbating to him."

"God no! It's Henry Cavill, like a normal person."

It wasn't. It was Logan. Logan painting Warhammer miniatures, confusingly enough.

"Good girl," Dani took a sip from her drink. "Hmm... this is nice. Hey, what's in this?" Calling out down the bar to where Alexa was serving someone else.

The frighteningly tall blonde half-turned to regard Dani and called back "Apples!"

"Bet you think you're funny!"

"Fucking hilarious," Alexa said. "You gonna pay your tab?"

Dani made a half-strangled laugh, then turned back to Zehra. "She gets me."

"I think she wants to kill you."

"No, she's just got a really bad case of resting bitch face. Worse than yours."

"It's not that bad, is it?" Zehra said. Prodding her cheeks with her fingers as she spoke. Maybe that was why Logan had taken such an instant dislike to her; if she wasn't careful Zehra did look like she was smelling shit with her default expression.

Or maybe...

"Hey... Dani... do you think... if a guy actually likes you, but is afraid to show it... could he be an asshole to you?"

"What? Like pulling your hair in school because he has a crush on you?" Dani said, smiling at the image she conjured. "Do you think Logan's got a crush on you, then? He's acting all mean to you because he doesn't want Adrian to know he fancies the pants off you?"

"Oh God..." Zehra's eyes widened. "I've done the same to him."

"Wow... you two are children," Dani said, as she licked the inside of her cocktail glass clean.

"Hark who's talking." Zehra sighed. "This just makes things more awkward. I mean... if I like him, and he likes me, but I'm dating his best friend..."

"Your life is a shitty romance novel," Dani said.

"You're right. Any advice?"

"I've got some," Alexa said, having moved back down to their end of the bar.

Zehra regarded the horrifyingly tall woman with irritation. "And what would that be?"

Alexa grinned a savage grin. "Turn it into shitty erotica instead."

*****

After disregarding Alexa's advice with a few choice comments that Zehra reckoned she would have to apologise to Rhian for (in case any mis-directed wrath from an irate boss ended up her way), Zehra returned to her boyfriend's flat. Knocking on the door, she felt a pit open up in her stomach at the sound of Logan's voice on the other side. It was almost one in the morning, why was he still with Adrian? Unlike her Logan surely had his own place to go to!

Of course it would be Logan himself who answered the door. A brief look of panic crossed his eyes before he regained his composure; but not quick enough for Zehra to have caught it, which caused her to wrestle with her own panic: it seemed her horrifying theory that Logan fancied her was becoming more plausible, and considering she was trying to wrestle with the fact that she, in defiance of all logic, might also fancy him in return.

And her boyfriend chose that moment to appear behind his best friend, his face telling her that he was completely oblivious to the moment of mutual panic shared individually by his girlfriend of some six months and his best friend of some twenty years.

"Hey Zee! Where'd you go?" Adrian asked, clapping a hand on Logan's shoulder; Logan trying to look cool and nonplussed.

"PC," she said. Her hand went to her stomach as if it could calm her nerves. "You two waiting for someone?"

"Logan ordered some pizza," Adrian laughed. "He's got the munchies."

Now she smelt it. "You two have been smoking weed?"

"Just a little," Logan said, holding his forefinger and thumb barely half an inch apart.

"What the fuck, Adrian?" Zehra said, her temper rising. "You don't let me smoke in the flat!"

"Logan lit up without asking," Adrian said, casting his friend a frown.

"And you didn't stop him?" Zehra said, then sighed. "Of course not. He's Logan, isn't he?"

"Hey, Zee-" Logan began.

"Don't fucking 'Hey, Zee' me," she snapped, barging past the two men. "Can't believe you give me shit for lighting up in your place and you give Logan a free fucking pass!"

"It was just a little blunt," Logan said, still holding his forefinger and thumb apart, although by now the distance between his digits had increased somewhat since the first time.

Zehra made to reply - and it would have been an angry one at that - but decided, at the last minute, to sigh and shake her head. Perhaps she was too exhausted to argue the point, or maybe she still wanted to sort out her thoughts on the whole Logan matter; that expression he had when he had opened the door and seen her standing there, and not the pizza delivery person like he'd thought had only provided more confusion to her already confused thoughts about the man. Perhaps she needed some sleep, and hopefully her brain would be sorted out tomorrow.

Logan suddenly spun around, and skipped to the open door; leaning out he saw something; so excited was he that he disappeared before either Zehra or Adrian could ask him what was up.

"Hey, Lo!" Adrian called out, but too late: the door closed behind him. "Ah shit! Probably saw the pizza."

Zehra debated whether to open the door to let Logan back in, before eventually deciding that as Adrian wasn't moving she should do the right thing.

"Hey, don't worry," Adrian suddenly said, halting her. "He can let himself back in."

"Wait... what?" Zehra frowned. "Since when has Logan have keys for this place?"

Adrian suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Erm... I gave him a spare key earlier..."

"Wait..." Zehra said again. She could feel the anger bubbling away inside. "So... when I asked if I could have a spare key JUST for while I'm staying here and you said - and I fucking quote - that is was 'maybe a little too early in our relationship' for me to have a key, and I'm like 'sure! That makes sense! We've only been going out for six months! Maybe that IS a little too early to have keys for each other's places, especially when one of us is unable to fucking LIVE in her place'!"

"Zee-"

"WHY THE FUCK DOES HE GET A KEY?"

In the silence that followed her outburst - Zehra pointed angrily at the door - there came the sound of a key sliding into the lock, followed by the sound of said key turning, then the door was slowly opened, and a very sheepish-looking Logan entered; his eyes darting from one person to the other. A cardboard pizza box held under one arm.

"Zee, he's my friend," Adrian said, his voice just slightly off normal for him, but still calm.

"What am I?" Zehra said; the hand that had been pointing towards the door now pointing at herself. "What are we? Because right now, Adrian, I'm feeling like a fucking spare wheel to this incredible bromance you two have got going!"

"Zee-" Logan began.

"You shut the fuck up!" Zehra suddenly hurled. She regretted it immediately, but it was said; like so many stupid shit she had said in anger.

"Don't talk to my friend like that."

It was the calm way he said it that made Zehra's blood freeze: the controlled manner of a man who could explode at any moment. Looking at her boyfriend, Zehra saw all the signs her father would show before his temper got the better of him; the temper she had inherited. She didn't know what to say; what to do: she never thought Adrian - her sweet, mild-mannered boyfriend - would have this side to him. Too shocked for even her own temper - now fading - to create what to say in retaliation. So she just stood there, looking at him, as Adrian stared back. The two of them apparently both unsure how to proceed from this moment.

"Zee, you can have this."

Snapped out of her shock by Logan's voice, Zehra looked at the key he was holding out to her, but shook her head: "No, it's yours," she said. Her voice sounded tired to her ears, and she felt it as she gave Adrian what she hoped was an apologetic look before heading off to his bedroom.

Jesus... she hadn't wanted things to escalate that much. Fuck her temper! Needing to cool off, Zehra headed into the shower and didn't come out until she felt calm. Calm enough to apologise to Adrian perhaps, but when she exited the bathroom - towel wrapped around her tits - she only heard laughter from the living room, and the familiar feeling of being sidelined by her boyfriend and his best friend led her into Adrian's bedroom and an early night.

She wasn't asleep when Adrian finally came in, slipping beneath the covers to gently cuddle up behind her. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I shouldn't have-"

"Shh..." He kissed the back of her neck. "We'll talk in the morning."

Reaching back behind her, she felt his cock and gently encouraged it. Without a further word Adrian slipped on a condom from the bedside drawer and made slow, intimate love to his girl; as both of them avoided talking about earlier, using sex to comfort each other in place of words.