The Goat in the Bedroom

When your love life stinks and you're clearly the worst at choosing someone who won't break your heart, why not ask your best friend to find you a date? Unless of course … you're in love with her.

I've been friends with Artemis since high school, when we bonded over crushing on the same guy. Six years later, we’re roommates in our shiny new post–college lives—she's training for the Olympics while I start my pro football career. We’ve both recently had bad break–ups and she says if she’s going to get back out there, she needs dating lessons. Naturally, she asks me—her completely platonic roommate—to teach her. We practice eye contact. Hand holding. Cuddling during movies. Because that's what best friends do, right? Practice intimacy? For science?

She thinks I'm being helpful. I think I'm losing my mind. Meanwhile, I'm out here sabotaging her dates, getting jealous of my own teammates, and having heart–to–hearts with our pet goats about my feelings while she's literally in the next room. But we're definitely just friends. The evidence we might be idiots:

• The documentary crew filming my rookie season knows.
• Our pet goats know.
• Everyone knows. EVERYONE.
• The only people who don't know? Us.