Page 2 of More Than Friends

So, at twenty-four, I packed up and moved from Arizona to the Hamptons. Before moving, I applied to work at Pembroke on a whim, not expecting to get the position. So many people apply to work at one of the most expensive country clubs money can buy, I didn’t think I actually had a shot. When I was offered the position, I had to accept. It was my sign to commit to moving. While my degree was in business and my lifelong dream was to open up a photography business in the Hamptons one day, I couldn’t say no to the waitress job. Pembroke is a country club for the richest of the rich, and they pay their employees well. Even though it wasn’t a job I thought I’d have after graduating, it was a way for me to move to the Hamptons and make enough money to be able to live there. Working at Pembroke has allowed me to save money to hopefully open up my dream photography business one day, while also living in the place I fell in love with years ago.

Little did I know that moving to the Hamptons and accepting a job at Pembroke would lead me to becoming best friends with one of Pembroke’s most prominent members.

I park in front of the house. From the front, it looks like the cottage-inspired homes that line the roads of Southampton, modest even. You wouldn’t know there’s an extra addition to the house and that inside it’smassive. Jude takes pride in the renovations he’s done. He’s here more than his friends, opting to escape here even in the off-season. He turned the home into something beautiful, and I can’t help but appreciate the view every time I visit.

I’m staring at the gray shingles of the house when the front door opens and Jude steps outside.

The moment my eyes meet his, my lips turn into a smile as I push my car door open. I can’t help it. Jude has one of those smiles that makes you immediately want to smile back—and he’salwayssmiling.

“Char!” he exclaims, his long legs eating up the distance between us quickly. His eyes rake over me before going wide. He lets out a whistle. “Wow, you really did spill coffee all over yourself.”

I roll my eyes before stepping out of my car. “I told you it was an emergency.” I look back at the coffee that’s all over my seat but decide to clean that up later. Right now, I need to get my clothes clean before doing anything else.

Jude opens his mouth to respond, but my view of him is cut off as I strip out of the polo golf tank that is my uniform and head inside.

TWO

JUDE

A strangled noiseleaves my throat as I follow closely behind a half-naked Charlotte.

“I didn’t realize we were stripping,” I remark, following her to the laundry room on the main floor.

Charlotte tosses a dirty look over her shoulder. “How else am I supposed to get my clothes clean?”

Her response wipes the smirk from my face. She’s got a point.

She walks into the laundry room with me close behind her. “Please tell me you have stain remover,” she mutters, beginning to open up cabinets. I take her coffee-stained shirt from her hands and let her resume looking as I take it over to the sink on the other side of the room.

“Yeah, I should.” I lay the shirt flat on the counter next to the sink. Luckily, the classic Pembroke green hides the coffee well. With some water and stain remover, she should be able to go to work with nobody knowing of the spill.

“Have you ever even been inside these cabinets?” she asks, a teasing tone to her voice. I turn around to find her walking closer to me with a bottle of stain remover in her hand. She sets it down next to me before bending over and pushing her skirt down her thighs.

There’s a split second where it’s hard to breathe as I try not to focus on the fact that she’s standing next to me in nothing but her bra and underwear.

Is that a thong?

I force myself not to look. “I do know how to do my own laundry, thank you very much,” I rasp. My pulse spikes, but I close my eyes in an attempt to gather myself and play it cool. It doesn’t matter that Charlotte is standing next to me in tiny scraps of fabric. It’s a normal Friday morning, where I’m just helping out a friend to clean up a mess.

“I didn’t know if that was taught at boarding school or if you just had people do it for you.”

I step to the side as she comes up closer to the counter next to me. She wets the fabric of her clothes before laying them flat once again and starts to spray them with the solution. I watch her as she works, making sure I keep my eyes safely pinned on her face.

Charlotte has been one of my best friends for almost a year now. No matter how much I’ve flirted with her, she’s always made it clear that she has no interest in being anything other than friends. I’ve respected it. At first, her disinterest was a bruise to my ego. But the more she denied me, the more I wanted to get to know her. The more I got to know her, the more I liked her being my friend. She’s incredibly cool. Not many women call me on my shit, but it’s one of her favorite things to do.

“Did you manage todrinkany of—” My words fall short as I make the mistake of looking at her, completely forgetting for a moment that she’s almost naked. Another weird noise comes from deep in my throat at the sight of her in nothing but her bra and panties.

I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t look away from the way her breasts pool over the cups of her lace bra. The bra is a nude color,and her thong is a bright pink. My lips part, and suddenly, all I can think about is how dry my mouth is and how desperately I need a drink of water.

Charlotte sticks her hand in my face, her fingers snapping. “Eyes up here, lover boy.” She laughs at the same moment I feel blood rush to my cheeks.

I meet her eyes immediately. I expect to find her upset, but instead, she looks at me with a lifted blonde eyebrow.

“Sorry, I…” My words trail off because I don’t know what to say. It feels like I can’t take a full breath. I just really wasn’t expecting to see my best friend in nothing but her bra and thong, and I definitely didn’t expect the sight to steal the air from my lungs. This is Charlotte.My best friend.

“You were checking me out?” She pulls her gaze from mine and works on getting the large stain out of her skirt. She really has to scrub at the fabric. There’s more coffee on the skirt than there was on her shirt.

“I wasn’t checking you out.” My words come out hurried and jumbled. I wasn’t checking her out. Ican’tbe checking her out.