It wasn’t that I didn’t want him there. I did. I’d never wanted anyone to stay the night more in my life. And that’s exactly why he needed to leave.
This had to be sex and only sex. This wasn’t a relationship. It couldn’t be. Ever. I could never let him mistake it for one. I had to be crystal clear about that. I was a dead end worse than Celeste, and if he ever developed feelings or things ever got fuzzy, I’d have to end it.
He needed to go.
“Josh, we’re not cuddling. This is a sex thing.” I tried to wriggle away from him and he laughed, nuzzling my neck.
“Knock it off. We’re two grown-ass adults. We can share a bed for a night. And I’m not cuddling you—I’m using you as a body pillow.”
I gave him side-eye that he couldn’t see. “Well, I’m not making you breakfast in the morning.”
“Thank God.”
I smirked. “Fine. Stay. But don’t go catching feelings. I mean it. We are not a thing. Got it?”
“Using me for sex. Got it.” He pulled me closer and kissed my shoulder.
“Stop!”
“Good night.” I could tell he was smiling.
I gave up my struggles and tried to relax. The rise and fall of his chest moved rhythmically against my back, and with every exhale, I sank deeper into him, like I belonged there.
Like I was loved.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to push the feelings down.
This was a bad idea. I didn’t know if I could compartmentalize this like I thought I could. Especially if he was going to be pulling this shit.
And why was he pulling this shit? Didn’t guys prefer noncommittal sex-only situations? Didn’t he say he wasn’t ready to date? I was making this easy for him.
My tired mind drifted off into sleep, and while I was somewhere in the fog, buried in his strong arms, he put his nose to my hair and breathed in.
Josh
We stood in her kitchen eating cereal, looking at each other. She ate hers out of a measuring cup because she “likes the handle.” It made me smile.
“Don’t smile at me.” She gave me a warning glare. She’d been feisty from the moment she woke up. It was adorable.
Her hair tumbled wild around her face, still curled a little from the party, and she wore nothing but an oversize sweatshirt that bared one shoulder and the light-blue lace G-string I’d gotten to take off her last night. She was beautiful. So fucking sexy.
“I can’t even smile now?” I grinned at her. My heart was so damn happy.
Waking up with her was like Christmas when you see you got everything you wanted. I woke up with a grin on my face, and then she’d gotten up and jumped me again.
It had been a good morning.
“I need to make sure you’re clear on the rules here,” she said over her cereal. “This is a booty-call situation. That’s it. Friends with benefits.”
Yeah, she’d said that last night—a few times actually. I’d been so focused on the sex part of that statement I hadn’t really processed the rest of it. I’d been a little distracted at the time. Now that we were clothed, and my brain was working properly, I was ready to address this.
“What if I don’t want to be just friends with benefits?” I smiled at her.
“Then we’ll only be friends.” Her face was stony.
Wow. Okay.
Was she really bent on this booty-call thing? I’d half thought she was just giving me shit last night with the whole “thanks for the sex, get out now” bullshit. She liked to give me a hard time—it was her thing. I didn’t think she was entirely serious.
I decided to poke her.
“Oh yeah? So we can see other people, then?” I took a bite of my cereal with a smirk.
Something flashed in her eyes. “Of course. Bone whoever you want.” She shrugged, looking away from me.
I studied the side of her face. Her forehead wrinkled the way it did when she was frustrated. It bothered her—I could see it. So if it bothered her, why was she insisting on it?
“Well, we should probably start using condoms, then,” I said casually, calling her bluff.
“Fine. We probably should have used them anyway.” She put her cereal in the sink.
This was not the answer I had hoped for. She didn’t like condoms, so I’d been expecting something snarky along the lines of, “Well, I’m not the one who wants to see other people.”
Now I’d just talked myself into using a condom. Fuck.
I set my cereal down on the counter. “Well, you’re on birth control. And of course, if we agreed to be exclusive, we could keep—”
“Nope. Condoms are fine.”
She walked out of the kitchen, and I watched her go with a wrinkled brow. But I didn’t have time to get further into it with her. I had to be at work in twenty minutes. I’d slept all of two hours last night. I was exhausted and work was going to suck because of it.
It had been worth it.
I washed my bowl and went looking for her. She sat on the couch with Stuntman Mike, her laptop on her lap.
“I gotta go to work,” I said. I’d talk to her about this later.
I put my hand on the back of the couch and leaned down to kiss her, and she jerked her head back. “No. We don’t kiss unless we’re fucking.”
The comment gave me a small, unexpected jab in the heart. “Why?”
“Because this is a sex thing, Joshua. It will only ever be a sex thing. We’re not dating. There are not going to be any public displays of affection or hand-holding or any of it. If you can’t deal with that, then let’s stop this right now.”
I stared at her, and she looked back at her screen, emotionless.
“Okay.” I straightened up. “Well, I’ll see you in a few days. For sex.”
“Bye,” she said, talking to her computer.
I gave her one more lingering look. She never raised her eyes.
A wall. An enormous wall had suddenly come up between us. What the hell?
I didn’t understand it. Could she actually be serious about this? She didn’t want to date me? At all? Ever? Why?
This wasn’t some girl I wanted to call at 2:00 in the morning to bang and leave. I liked her. I more than liked her—I wanted to be with her. I’d been hoping this was the start of something between us. If she’d wanted to be exclusive, I would have slapped on the boyfriend title in a second.
Could this be about Tyler? I mean, I guess I just thought by how quickly she’d thrown herself at me that she wasn’t too upset over the breakup.
We hadn’t talked about it—I certainly wasn’t going to bring up Tyler if she wasn’t, and she hadn’t broached the subject. She didn’t really filter, so if he’d been on her mind or the breakup was fucking with her, she’d say it, right?
But the only thing she was saying was that she didn’t want me.
It ate at me the whole way to work.
Once I got to the station, Shawn put me through a two-hour list of shitty probie chores. By the time I had a chance to talk to Brandon, he was working out.
The gym was a large gray-carpeted room off the apparatus bay. One treadmill, a bike, and an elliptical that nobody ever used sat in a row facing a mirrored wall. Three weight benches, a punching bag, and a rack of weights lined the other wall with a view of the fire engine through a large window.
I grabbed a cup of water from the watercooler by the door and took a weight bench next to where Brandon sat doing curls. “Hey. Sloan’s car broke down on us last night. Stranded us in a fucking parking lot in Skid Row.” I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees, holding my water cup between my legs. “And I hooked up with Kristen.”
Brandon finished his set. “Well, I can’t say either thing really surprises me.” He pivoted to face me and grinned, bouncing his eyebrows.