by Lauren Layne
He pulls back, slowly, reluctantly, and I brace myself for his look of smug victory, but surprisingly he doesn’t look triumphant. He looks…confused.
Much like I feel.
I force myself to smile, suddenly desperate to take us back to where we’ve always been. Easy. Casual. Friends.
“Looks like you’ll have to watch The Bachelor reruns on Hulu for a while, huh?” he says.
His grin is just a little bit slower to emerge than usual, but when it makes an appearance, I breathe a sigh of relief.
“So?” he asks. “Still think it was gross?”
“It was okay.”
His palms are against the wall on either side of my head, and he slowly pushes back, putting space between us, and I’m both relieved and disappointed. “Okay?” he says.
“Okay, so you were right,” I concede quickly. “But so was I.”
“How do you figure?”
I flick a finger against his shoulder. “I told you that this could be better if you liked the other person.”
He lifts an eyebrow and goes to retrieve our beers. “What makes you think it was better?”
It’s my turn for a stung ego now. “You’re telling me that all of your kisses are like that?”
Please say no.
He retrieves his beer. Takes a sip as he considers my question. “No. Not all kisses are like that.”
My stomach leaps in relief.
“Okay, so you may have been on to something,” he grumbles. “Maybe this friends-with-benefits thing could be…beneficial.”
My belly flips. Not so much with the satisfaction of being proven right, but with a quick stab of panic at what he’s saying. Of what we might be on the verge of doing.
“Maybe we should rethink it,” I say.
He gives me a look. “You’re not going to try and tell me it was gross, are you?”
Quite the opposite.
“No, I just…maybe you were right. About things getting too complicated.” I take a sip of the beer he’s handed me. It’s totally warm, which makes me wonder exactly how long that kiss lasted.
“Well, that’s the beauty of being adults, Parks. We get to decide what we make complicated, and what we let be pure, uncomplicated fun.”
I’m tempted. Oh, how I’m tempted.
“So how would this work?” I ask.
He rolls his eyes. “It’s your idea. Didn’t you work out any of the details while you were stewing on it the entire drive home from your parents’?”
Damn. Sometimes it’s like the guy’s inside my head.
“Well,” I say, licking my lips, “I was thinking that the first rule is that there are no rules.”
He laughs. “I bet your head just exploded. You love rules.”
“I know, which is why this needs to be different.” I rush to explain. “There’s no limit on how many times we can…hook up. No timeline. We stop when it stops being fun.”
“Is this an exclusive thing?”
My turn to laugh. “Now it’s your head that’s exploding. Do you even know what exclusive means?”
“I’ve heard of it,” he grumbles. “I’m just wondering…are you going to flip your shit when I bring another girl home?”
“Okay, here’s where I’m at with that,” I say. “As long as we’re doing this—whatever this is—it’s just us. But the moment you decide you want to go back to your different-girl-every-night routine, just say the words, and we call this off, no hard feelings.”
Ben squints. “What about you? Same rules apply?”
“Yup.”
Not that I envision myself having a constant stream of bed partners like Ben, but I’m hoping that hooking up with someone I trust is exactly what I need to unlock my constant overthinking.
Maybe get me to just live instead of thinking so much about living.
“Okay,” he says simply. “When do we start?”
Again with the stomach flips.
“One more thing.” I hold up a finger. “I think we need some sort of safe word.”
Ben chokes on his beer. “What kind of things are you into, Parks?”
I roll my eyes. “Not that kind of safe word. I mean like if one of us wants out of the arrangement, for any reason, they can just say the word, and we end it, no questions asked, never to be mentioned again. And we go back to how we were.”
“But I thought we just agreed we weren’t going to let it be complicated.”
“We’re not,” I say quickly. “Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be prepared. A fail-safe.”
He shrugs. “Fine. What’s the word?”
“Something random,” I say. “Something that we won’t say in regular conversation.”
“Monogamy?” he asks with a cocky grin.
“I was thinking more like…kumquat, or something.”
Ben busts up laughing. “Your safe word is one that contains cum, and a syllable that rhymes with twat?”
I blush. “You think of one, then!”
“How about cello,” he says.
“Like the musical instrument that nobody outside of a high school plays?”
“Exactly,” he says. “You barely know what it is. I definitely don’t know what it is. It’s for sure not going to come up in regular conversation.”
“All right,” I say, considering. “Works for me.”
“Okay, then. So…when do we start?”
His eyes drift over my body, and I laugh. “You are such a guy.”
“That kiss was hot, Parks. It’s not weird that I say that, right?”
“No,” I muse. “Oddly, it’s not. And yes, it was. Hot, I mean.”
Understatement.
“So what are we waiting for? My bed or yours?”
“Oh, that’s another thing,” I say. “You’ve got to keep your sheets clean. That or it’s always going to be my bed.”
“Overthinking it,” he says with a shake of his head. “Trust me, when we get into it, you won’t be caring whether or not the sheets are clean.”
“I’ll care.”
Except I’m not sure that I will. Not if he does other things as well as he kisses.
Ben finishes off his beer and drops the bottle into the recycling bin. Portland is rubbing off on him. When he first moved to Oregon he used to throw away recyclable products like it was no big deal. I’ve trained him well.
He turns to face me. “Okay, obviously your overactive mind needs time to process this, so I’m going to go watch TV and relish my complete control over the remote. You let me know whenever you want to kick this off.”
“Tomorrow night, eight o’clock,” I say, before I lose my nerve.
He pauses in the process of reaching for another beer. “Oh, hell no. We’re scheduling this shit?”
I lift my chin. “That’s how I work. Take it or leave it.”
And then, just to be a little evil, I let my tongue toy with my bottom lip. Slowly. Deliberately.
He notices.
“Fine.” His voice is gruff. “Eight tomorrow.”
Ten minutes later, we’re both sprawled on the couch. I’ve lucked out, and there’s no sports that he cares about on TV, so he’s settled on some suspense-thriller movie neither of us have seen.
His legs are outstretched in front of him on the coffee table. Mine are stretched across his lap so I can lie on my side while watching the movie.
It’s just like always. Nothing feels different; nothing feels weird.
Except one thing is a little different.
I find that I can’t wait until eight o’clock tomorrow night.
Chapter 10
Ben
I like my job. I really like my job. And I seem to be pretty good at it, because rumor has it that I’m up for a promotion.
But today?
Today I can’t concentrate for shit.
And I’ve become a clock-watcher. As in, I’ve become one of those sad day jobbers who look at the clock constantly, only to realize in outrage that just five minutes have p
assed since the last time they looked.
Except most people are anxiously awaiting five o’clock. The hour when they can jet to happy hour or yoga, or just get the hell out of Dodge.
Five o’clock means nothing to me. I need it to be eight o’clock.
The time when I’m going to see Parker Blanton naked.
The thought should fill me with dread, or at least panic. She’s my best friend. It should be…wrong.
But after that kiss, I’m pretty sure the only thing wrong is that we haven’t thought of this before.
No-strings-attached sex with the hottest girl I know, who I won’t be dying to get rid of after?
Hell. Yes.
I try to turn my attention back to my computer. I’m a product manager on the e-commerce team, one of a half dozen assigned to the men’s golf section.
I fucking love it. I know it’s not cool to get all geeked out on a day job, and I certainly never expected to, but it comes pretty easy considering I didn’t know much about websites before I started here, and knew even less about golf.
My days are made up of brainstorming enhancements for the section, writing the requirements documents for those enhancements, then testing them, et cetera.
There’s something very satisfying about managing the entire life cycle of something, and it’s hard not to pat myself on the back for trusting my gut and not going to law school.
Even if it did put me at odds with the old ’rents.
“Wanna grab a burrito?”
Jason Styles has his palms resting on the ledge of my cube wall, chin resting on the backs of his hands as he gives me a pleading, hungry look.
I glance at the clock. “It’s 11:07. I’ve barely finished breakfast.”
“Exactly,” he says. “We can beat the lunch rush.”
I open my mouth to argue, then close it, shrugging as I lock my computer. Why the hell not? It’s not like I’m getting anything done. Not with guaranteed sex on my calendar for later tonight.
Jason’s right about Burrito King—and yes, it’s called that—the line takes us two minutes instead of the usual twenty. “Let’s eat it here,” Jason says as we wait for our number to be called.
“Avoiding Sandy?” I ask.
Jason’s grunt tells me I’m right.
I shake my head as I fill up my cup with Coke. “I told you, dude. You have got to stop hooking up with girls you work with.”
“How else am I supposed to meet women? Not all of us can just walk into a bar and emerge with twenty phone numbers.”
I ignore this.
“You know, I wouldn’t have this problem if you’d let me ask out Park—”
“Nope,” I say, before he’s even finished the sentence.
“But she’s single now.”
“How do you know?”
“I ran into her at Starbucks the other day. I think she was giving me hints.”
“Trust me. She wasn’t.”
Parker thinks Jason’s a total tool, and I can’t blame her. The guy’s one of my better work friends, but he’s got a bad habit of talking to women’s chests. He’s also got a knack for spending an hour chatting up a woman at a bar, only to get her name wrong at the end of it. And he wonders why he doesn’t get any phone numbers.
“Hey, speaking of Parker…” Jason says.
I whip my head around in the direction he’s indicated. No Parker, but it is her BFF Lori.
She seems to sense our gaze, and her face lights up in a smile as she beckons us over.
“She’s so hot,” Jason mutters under his breath as we make our way toward the gorgeous blonde.
“Hey, join me!” she says, gesturing toward the empty chairs at her table. “I skipped breakfast today and was starving but couldn’t talk Parker into an early lunch.”
She’s talking to both of us, but her eyes never leave mine, and I’m struck by the weird realization that this is one of the first times I’ve ever been around Lori without Parker.
Jason and I both sit down, he a bit too close to Lori, but she’s cool and doesn’t seem to mind.
But ten minutes into our lunch, I’m getting distinct vibes of weird. Despite Jason’s very dedicated attempt to draw Lori into conversation, she manages to shift everything back to me.
“Were you at that concert, Ben?”
“Ben, doesn’t that remind you of the time that we…”
“I’m not sure what I’m doing this weekend. Ben, do you have plans?”
Lori’s always been flirty. I guess I’d always thought it was just sort of her personality.
Now, without Parker around to redirect conversation, I’m wondering if it’s not a little bit more than that.
I finish my burrito and lean back in my chair. Jason is rambling on about how his uncle has a shot at getting Super Bowl tickets.
I glance at Lori—how can you not, when you feel someone’s eyes burning into you?—and she gives me a shy, private smile.
I smile back, reflexively, but one thing is abundantly clear: Parker and Lori’s Monday morning gossip session hadn’t included the little arrangement Parker and I made.
Lori and Parker are tight, and even though Parker and I aren’t a thing, there’s no way Lori would be giving me all sorts of blatant hints if she knew that I was about to see her best friend naked in, oh, eight hours and ten minutes.
Not that I’m counting or anything.
“Yo, Olsen. Where’d you go?”
I glance over at Jason, who’s giving me an impatient look.
“Sorry, what?”
“I was just saying that the four of us should go try this karaoke place my cousin told me about on Friday. Lori’s free, and I’m sure you can talk Parker into it. You in?”
He gives me a look that informs me bro code demands I say yes, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from asking which girl’s going to be the object of his slobbery affection on Friday night.
Still, I’ll confess that I do love a good round of tipsy karaoke, and he’s right—I can definitely talk Parker into it, because she also loves karaoke. Give her a glass or two of champagne, and you’ll be fighting her for the microphone.
“Sure, why not?” I say.
Lori’s smile turns into an all-out beam, and I have the first stab of awareness that my arrangement with Parker has the potential to get a tad more complicated than we thought.
Chapter 11
Parker
I keep waiting for things to turn weird with Ben and me.
I was braced for it this morning when we bickered over whether or not he used my towel again.
(He did. I totally know he did.)
I waited for it while he gamely sang along to my Taylor Swift album with me on the way to work.
I waited for it on the way home while I listened to him rant and rave about how his most recent work project had been put on hold because the funding had been applied to a higher priority project that he thought was “complete and utter bullshit.”
But by the time he helps himself to the chicken Parmesan I made for dinner, deliberately ignoring the salad, my fear has all but subsided.
Maybe we really can do this. Because, so far, the looming naked time hasn’t done crap to rattle our friendship.
Now, granted, we haven’t exactly seen each other’s nether bits yet. That will be the true test.
I sneak a peek at the clock. Seven fifteen.
Forty-five minutes.
I wait for nervousness or second thoughts to settle in.
Waiting…
Waiting…
Nope. I’m pretty damn excited for this. My lady parts are in need.
“Hey, you wanna go to karaoke on Friday?” he asks.
“Oh, right,” I say, using my fingers to pick up a long string of mozzarella cheese and plop it into my mouth as I settle at the kitchen table. “Lori mentioned it. Some new place that Jason found?”
“I don’t know that it’ll be any Cody’s,” Ben says, referring to our favorite karaoke bar from college. “
But I’m game if you are.”
I shrug. “I’m in.”
I love karaoke. I love singing in general, really.
Ben sits down at the table across from me, shoveling a huge bite of chicken into his mouth. He washes it down with a swallow of beer and then leans back in his chair. “Hey, has Lori said anything about me?”
I glance up at him in surprise. “What, you mean like she wants to meet you under the bleachers after study hall?”
“You know what I mean. I was getting…vibes from her at lunch today.”
I slowly chew my mouthful of salad and then swallow. “Well…she wants to jump your bones, if that’s what you mean.”
He lifts his T-shirt, revealing perfect abs. “Right?” he says. “Who doesn’t? But no, I mean…never mind.”
“What?” I ask, tilting my head.
“I was just curious if you told her about you and me, and our…arrangement.”
“Nope,” I say emphatically, “I was kind of thinking we could keep that quiet. You know, so people don’t start making weird assumptions.”
“Agreed,” he says quickly. “It’s just…I get the feeling she wishes I’d ask her out or something. Maybe I’m being a conceited ass. It’s probably nothing.”
I glance down at my plate. It’s not nothing. His instincts are dead-on.
I feel a little stab of guilt.
Guilt over the fact that Lori is truly interested in Ben as a potential boyfriend, and I’ve been steering her clear of him, only to then go and hook up with him myself.
Still, it’s not like I’ve been vag-blocking her out of spite or jealousy.
I just don’t want Lori to get her heart broken when he doesn’t fall back. Because Lori’s at risk of falling for him.
I’m not. My eyes are wide open. Eyes that maybe, definitely, appreciated the flat, ribbed stomach he’d just flashed a few seconds earlier.
I’m only starting to get really into a yummy visual—a visual of me licking the defined lines of Ben’s abs—when a thought hits me.
One that’s way more disturbing than Ben’s six-pack.
“Do you like Lori?” I ask.
He pauses in chewing his chicken, and the look on his face is comical. And relieving.
“No,” he says, once he’s swallowed. “I mean yeah, sure, I like her, but I’m not…I don’t—”