The knock on the door made my stomach churn and suddenly I felt the need to throw up. Facing Eric again was probably the dumbest idea ever. Yes, I wanted to come to terms with the past and finally get over it, but maybe I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready for him to get angry and possibly push me out of his life forever once I told him I was completely done with him romantically. I still wanted him as a friend and if he rejected me then I would be worse off than I was before. F-ck, I shouldn't have agreed to this. How could I get out of it at the last minute?

There was another knock. I swallowed hard. I couldn't just keep avoiding this. It was time for me to step up as a woman, give back his grandmother's ring and let him know what the deal was. Andy was in the picture now and I had to get rid of this Eric baggage before I could even think about us being an item. With force, I made myself stand up from the bed and walked over to my door. I opened it and came face to face with Eric.

He hadn't changed a bit. His honey blonde hair was pushed back in a business-like manner. He was wearing a tan, clean suit as if he had just got out of a business meeting or something. Eric was always the type of person to overdress for every occasion. He had to be the best-looking guy in the building and he normally was. When his brown eyes met mine, he put on a joyous smile before pulling me into a tight hug. It was a friendly hug and it only lasted for a few seconds. "What's up, Dee? No long time no see, huh? You look gorgeous, like damn, I didn't know if I knocked on the right door or not for a second," he joked.

I laughed but also rolled my eyes at him. "Thanks, Eric. You look good as well."

"I have the perfect place for us to go tonight. I did some research and there's karaoke night at this bar by the beach. I was thinking we could go and show up everyone there with our awesome singing skills." I couldn't sing for sh-t, but Eric was a pretty good singer. With my horrible voice and his angelic voice, we somehow balanced each other out. When we were together we did karaoke night every week. It was like a tradition of some sort. The bar we went to back home had a picture of us on their wall and it deemed us as the karaoke champions. I wondered if it was still there.

"Oh God. If I knew we were going to do karaoke, I would have worn my lucky karaoke shirt!"

"The ugly one that looks like something that a dad would wear in Hawaii? No, thanks! You always embarrassed me with that shirt. Plus, I think the crop top is pretty cute," he told me with a small smirk.

"Yeah, whatever. Let's go."

Eric had gotten a new sports car and during the ride to the bar, he was showing me all of the things it could do. He never treated himself to anything so it was nice to see him giggling and playing with his car like a little boy. "Nice new car. Nice new suit. You're turning into a real rich f-ckboy," I joked when he opened the door to the bar for me.

He pretended like he was going to hit me with the door before playfully pushing into the bar. The place was crowded with a bunch of people drinking and writing on papers. A hostess greeted us and handed us a sheet of paper. "Hey, guys! Tonight is karaoke night! We're doing couples tonight, so if you two are interested please just fill out the paper and turn it in at the bar within the next hour. We'll get started then."

I muttered a few curse words under my breath. Of course, the night that I came with my ex was f-cking couples' night. Way to make things awkward. Eric took the paper and we found ourselves a booth. He chuckled as he silently read from the paper. "Romantic songs only. Don't be afraid to get touchy on the stage. It might make the judges love you even more. To get yourself loose, we have half off drinks tonight as well!"

I laughed at how lame the paper was and snatched it from Eric. "I don't know what you're thinking but we're not getting touchy. We're winning this clean," I told him before he got any ideas.

Eric shrugged his shoulders. "Makes no difference to me. I think we're going to win just from how classy I dressed today."

"Why are you even wearing a suit, f-ckboy?"

"Stop calling me that!"

"F-ckboy," I said after a giggle.

Eric groaned but I knew he wasn't truly annoyed. He was just being a dramatic little b-tch. Within a few moments of silence, he was back to acting like his normal self and he answered my question. "I'm dressed in a suit because I got accepted into the School of Medicine at UCLA. I just got from my final interview."

My mouth dropped open and Eric was smiling at his own success. "I'm so proud of you, Eric! Like wow, you really deserve this. You're going to be great in whatever field you chose to go in, like I can't believe this. I feel like a proud mother!" Eric chuckled and tried to contain his smile. I knew his parents were going crazy about this. Being a doctor was always Eric's dream. Unlike most people, he didn't want it for the money. He had genuine love in his heart for every human being and he wanted to save lives.

"Thanks, Dee. Since I was coming from L.A., I decided why not to go a little off course and stop by here to see you. So enough about me, how's life been?"

"Obviously, not as good as yours but it's been pretty good. I'm taking a breather from school as you probably already know. I'm not working or anything." Compared to him, I sounded like a complete bum. When I was with him, I was always on the top of my game. All I did was do volunteer work and study for the medical school exam. Now I was lucky if I got out of the bed and stopped watching Netflix.

Eric's smile faded slightly. "Well, do you still want to be a doctor?"

"I mean, yeah. In good time." I paused and started into his eyes. They were filled with worry. I inhaled sharply. Actually, I really don't know. Medical school is a lot of time and effort. I might need something to better match my lifestyle."

"Delaney, you're the smartest girl I know. Ever since I've known you, you've talked about how much you wanted to be a doctor and how much you wanted to help people. We all go through our doubting stages, but you're going to be a great doctor. The patients need more people like us that actually give a crap about them. You can take a break now, but you need to get on the ball." I groaned and he chuckled lightly. "Okay, I'm sorry for lecturing. You know I've always been protective over you." He reached across the table and took my hand softly.

I bit my lower lip and swallowed hard. He was so gentle and has always been one of the sweetest guys I've known, but f-ck, he wasn't for me. I really wish we could make it work but it just wasn't realistic. "I'll be okay, Eric. Let's just keep our eyes on the prize. If we win this karaoke contest, we can get an actual trophy and two hundred bucks."

"Keep our eyes on the prize, huh," Eric asked as he stared at me.

"F-ckboy," I said through coughs.

Eric laughed before biting his lip. "I miss you a lot, Dee. We may be broken up but I still care about you. Despite that stupid ass night, I really love you, Delaney. I f-cked up. I don't expect you to take me back. I actually don't want you to take me back. I just want to formally say I'm sorry. Cheating on you on your birthday was such a f-ckboy move."

"I miss you too, Eric. I miss hanging out all day doing absolutely nothing. I miss annoying your little brother. I miss us being carefree best friends, but you're right, there's no way we could ever be an item again. And that's why I brought you this." I reached into my jean pocket and pulled out the gorgeous, diamond ring he had given to me to keep. "Some girl really deserves to have this in the future."

He looked down at the ring and thankfully he took it without protesting. He put it in his chest pocket and nodded simply. "I saw your parents the other day. They asked me about you. I told them that we haven't talked in a while. You should call them sometime. They're worried about you."

"I'll call them," I said simply. "For now, I'm really f-cking stoked that you're totally fine with being friends so can we fill out this form so we can have some fun?"

The karaoke contest started and after a few drinks, I was more than ready to dominate any so-called couple that tried to win the prize over Eric and I. We weren't even a couple and we were the best-looking couple there. We started off the first round with a classic, "No Air" by Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown. We floated around the stage, hit a couple of dance moves and the crowd and judges seemed to already love us. After three more rounds, we got to the finals. We were competing against a gay couple who was winning the crowd with their sassy hand motions.

We were in California. No way was a straight 'couple' about to beat a gay couple. It just wasn't fair. Eric and I accepted our defeat. We put on the best performance we had, but the gay couple won. We took the L and congratulated the couple before finding our way back to our booth. "That was rigged," Eric grumbled as he stuck his lollipop in his mouth. We got lousy lollipops for getting second place. "F-cking lollipops. They got two hundred dollars and a trophy and we got f-cking lollipops. Just wait until I tell Kristen about this."

I raised my eyebrows with sudden interest. "Who's Kristen?"

Eric's face turned red and he looked around the bar suspiciously. "She's someone I've been kind of talking to. I have a huge crush on her, but I'm not sure if it'll go anywhere."

"You have a girlfriend! Eric has a girlfriend! Hey, everyone-"

Eric reached over and covered my mouth quickly. "If they find out we're not a couple, they'll confiscate our lollipops, dumbass!" He slowly removed his hand from my mouth and looked around to make sure no one thought some kind of domestic violence case was going down. "And she's not my girlfriend. I really like her though. I met her a couple of months ago. Are you seeing anyone? You've been texting someone nearly all night," he teased me.

I bit my lower lip and looked down at my phone which had just vibrated on the table. "Yeah, her name is Andy. She's really sweet."

"She better be."

I laughed. "Or what? What are you going to do?"

"It depends. Could she beat my ass?"

"Hmmm. I don't know. It's like 50/50."

"Well, if she's not good to you then I'm just going to write her a strongly opinionated essay on why she's an asshole," he said slowly.

"You should meet her one day. Maybe we can go on a double date the next time you're near here."

"That sounds good."

Eric and I sat in the bar and talked for hours. We didn't leave until the bar closed and even when it did, we went back to my place and talked until the sun came up. I forgot how fun it was to just sit down and talk to him. He was one of the few people that I could talk to all day and not get tired of. He told me a lot about Kristen, how she was in law school, hated cats and how gorgeous her caramel skin was. I told him about Andy. I kept it clean by saying she did "business." He'd freak out if he knew what she really did.

At the end of it all, I felt ten times better about things between Eric and I. Coming to terms with our friendship and relationship status put my mind at peace. I could move on in my life and put all the past behind me. Now I could finally focus on Andy.

-

Do you guys like Eric?