Page 2 of The Best Friend Experiment
Brooke supposed they sort of did, if you didn’t look too closely. Brown hair, brown eyes, medium heights and builds. But where Monica’s complexion had a uniform golden glow, Brooke’s went to paleness and freckles. Lots of freckles.
“I just want to prove I can beat her at something. It’s not a weird love-hate obsession, like with you and Mathias.”
“Bite your tongue!” Tara shot back. “Mathias is my nemesis. It’s not a love-hate obsession, it’s hate-hate.”
Tara and Mathias were both third years, and they’d been feuding since the moment they first laid eyes on one another.
“Because of that one time he accidentally upset your experiment two years ago.”
“That was no accident. He totally did it on purpose!”
“I seriously doubt that. You should let it go.” Brooke actually thought Mathias was pretty nice. And his Norwegian accent was kind of sexy.
“It’s not just that. He doesn’t follow the cleaning schedule unless you nag him about it, and he’s always using my pipette tips instead of refilling his own tip boxes. Plus he leaves crumbs all over the desk in the office.”
“Why don’t you talk to him about it? Maybe if he knew it bothered you, he’d try to improve.”
“Screw that. I’d much rather wage a silent war of passive aggression. Like with you and your bestie Monica.”
“Fair enough,” Brooke said, knowing there was no point trying to reason with Tara. She was completely unreasonable on the subject of Mathias. There was actually a pool going among the grad students about when Tara and Mathias were finally going to bang it out. Brooke had twenty bucks on the week of October 4-10, which was coming up fast.
“That reminds me: What’s a mansplainer’s favorite animal?”
“A whale, actually,” Brooke answered automatically. “You told me that one last month.”
“Dammit! I’ll have to up my game. Right! Good luck with your ELISA. I’m off on my run. Back in an hour.” Tara gave a salute on her way out the door.
Brooke went back to working on her hormone assay. Twenty minutes later, as she was putting her samples on the plate shaker where they’d spend the next two hours, she felt her phone vibrate in the pocket of her lab coat. After disposing of her gloves, she went into the shared office next to the lab and checked her messages.
She grinned as she saw the text from her childhood friend Dylan.
Hey! What are you doing week after next?
Brooke hadn’t heard from Dylan in months and hadn’t seen him in years, but it didn’t matter. They were the sort of old friends who could pick back up at a moment’s notice. Every so often, one of them would randomly reach out to the other, and they’d fall right back into talking like no time had passed at all.
They’d always been like that: drifting in and out of each other’s orbits, but always coming back around again eventually. As reliable as the sun and the moon.
Brooke: Nothing much. Why?
Dylan: I’m coming to LA for a shoot! Wanna hang while I’m there?
Dylan was an underwear model in New York City. Honest to god. It made Brooke giggle every time she thought about the fact that she was friends with a real live underwear model.
Technically, he didn’tjustmodel underwear, but it was more fun to think of him as an underwear model than a shaving cream model, cologne model, wristwatch model, or any of the other myriad products he’d pimped.
Brooke: Yes! I’d love to see you!
Dylan: Any chance I could crash on your couch?
Brooke: Of course! Mi casa es tu casa.
Brooke’s phone rang a moment later.Call from Dylan Priceit said on the screen, above an old prom selfie of the two of them all dressed up in formalwear and making silly faces for the camera. She’d forgotten that was the photo she’d assigned to him and smiled at the memory, feeling a rush of fondness for her oldest friend.
She’d met Dylan when she was seven, the day her family had moved into the house across the street from his in Baton Rouge. On her first day of second grade at her new school he’d been the only kid she knew, and he’d made a point of introducing her to everyone as “my new friend Brooke.” His status as her favorite person in the world had been pretty much cemented from that moment forward, and the two of them had been inseparable through elementary school.
Once they got to middle school, Brooke had tested into the accelerated classes, while Dylan struggled to maintain passing grades. Still, they’d managed to stay friends, even into high school, as she juggled honors classes while he got involved in track and band.
Dylan had been a gangly nerd with glasses, braces, and acne—until the summer before their junior year, when he experienced a huge growth spurt, got his braces off, and his mom got him Proactiv and contact lenses. Almost overnight, Brooke’s sweet, dorky friend transformed into a total hottie. Girls started taking an interest in him for the first time, and he made the most of his newfound popularity, dating his way through most of the marching band’s woodwind section.
