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หน้าหลัก / Romance / Friends With Boundaries (That She Keeps Breaking) / บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 6

บททั้งหมดของ Friends With Boundaries (That She Keeps Breaking): บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 6

6

The Merger

—CARLY—Okay, let’s get one thing straight. Ben from Marketing is sweet. And persistent. Like a puppy who’s been told ‘no’ a hundred times but still thinks this stick is the one you’ll throw.He was leaning in my office doorway again, looking like he’d practiced his smile in the mirror. “Carly. You’re looking… strategic today.”I didn’t look up from my screen. “That’s the goal, Ben. What’s up?”He took it as an invitation and sauntered in. “The new wrench campaign. I wanted your brilliant mind on the tagline. Thought maybe we could brainstorm over drinks later? That new speakeasy under the bridge?”This was, by my count, attempt number seven. I finally swiveled my chair to face him, giving him my best ‘polite but busy’ face. “Just email it to me. My brain’s pretty much welded to this vendor report until five.”His smile didn’t even crack. “You say that every time. One day, I’ll find the report that doesn’t have you in its clutches.” He winked. Actually winked. “I’m a patient man.”I m
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Rule #1

—CHARLIE—Let’s get something clear. I don’t have bad luck. I make my own luck. I built a division of my father’s company from the ground up before I was twenty-five. I close deals that older men sweat over. My life is ordered, clean, and under my control. Always.That control doesn’t end at the office. It’s in the loft, the bar, the bedroom. I apply the same principle: identify the point of diminishing returns and exit cleanly.In business, that’s before the competitor undercuts you. With women, it’s before the morning.The night is for pleasure. The morning is where it all goes to shit. They get quiet. They start looking at the ceiling like they’re measuring it for curtains, imagining where their photos would go. They want to talk.That’s why I have a simple rule: don’t let it get to morning in my bed.By 3 AM, I’m walking them to the door, their coat in my hand, a final, genuine compliment on their lips. They leave feeling desired, not dismissed. No messy feelings. No false hopes.
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The Only Exception

—CHARLIE—It all felt weirdly normal.I mean, I’d lost count of the nights Carly had crashed at my place over the years. There was that infamous month during senior year when her parents were renovating and she basically commandeered my guest room—which, for a solid week during a brutal heatwave, had devolved into us sharing the one room with a functioning AC. One bed, a mountain of pillows between us, and a constant stream of her complaining about my taste in movies. So, her moving in? Not exactly uncharted territory.Which is why, later that same night, I wasn’t prepared.I was in bed, propped against the headboard, laptop balanced on my knees as I scanned a supplier report from Sweden. The loft was quiet, just how I like it. Then the door opened.No knock. It just swung inward. Carly stood there, backlit by the hallway light. She was wearing my gray Wayne Construction hoodie—the soft one I’d been looking for last week. It drowned her, hanging off one smooth shoulder and ending hig
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The Architect

—CARLY—Okay, fine. I didn’t really have an argument with my dad.It was more like a… spirited discussion about quarterly growth projections that I strategically escalated into a door-slam-worthy exit. I needed an excuse. A good, solid, believable excuse to pack a bag and insert myself into Charlie Wayne’s personal orbit for an undetermined amount of time.Don’t judge me. Or do. I don’t care.I mean, come on. We’ve been best friends since we were in diapers. Our fathers, in a fit of bizarre, macho sentimentality, gave us matching ‘C’ initials like we were a brand partnership waiting to happen. I’ve seen him through chickenpox, his embarrassing middle-school poetry phase, and that time he tried to grow a goatee. He knows my deepest secret (I’m terrified of lobsters) and my most shameful memory (the 8th grade talent show disaster). We are, for all intents and purposes, cosmically intertwined.And he is still, staggeringly, blissfully, oblivious.Charlie is the smartest person I know whe
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The Annexation of Peace

—CHARLIE—The first thing that hit me wasn’t the smell.It was the dip in the mattress. A soft, warm hollow on the other side of the California king. My body knew it before my brain did. The weight of another person. A presence.Carly.The night came back to me in a flash. The hoodie. The laptop. That quiet, weird line about spending time. Her curled up in my goddamn spot. She hadn't left. She'd stayed. In my bed.A hard, swift rule, broken.A hard, swift rule, broken.But the guard dog in my chest didn't even growl. It yawned, rolled over, and went back to sleep. It’s Carly. Stand down.Then the smell came. Bacon. Coffee. Something buttery.I opened my eyes. The other side of the bed was empty, the sheets tangled. The scent was coming from my kitchen. My kitchen, which hadn’t seen more than a blender and a coffee machine in six months.I didn’t get up immediately. I lay there, listening. The low sizzle. The clink of a plate. A soft, off-key hum. It was the sound of an invasion that h
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The Golden Cage

—CARLY—The lobby of Dorrington Mechanics was all polished concrete, steel beams, and the low hum of ambition. It smelled like coffee, printer toner, and money. It was my second home. The fight with my dad was a tactical fiction; walking away from my company wasn’t an option. This place was in my blood, just like a certain six-foot-two distraction was.I pushed through the glass doors of my corner office, expecting the serene, empty space I’d left in a manufactured huff yesterday.My executive chair—the expensive, ergonomic one that cradled my ambitions—was facing the window. It swiveled slowly to face me.Emilia Stone, Chief Marketing Officer, my best friend, and professional pain in my ass, was lounging in it like a queen on a stolen throne. Her blonde hair was a perfect cascade over one shoulder of her impeccably tailored blazer. Her expression was pure, unadulterated gossip.“Spill,” she said.I dropped my bag onto the sofa and walked to a filing cabinet, refusing to give her the
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