Page 38 of Beautiful Noise

I narrowed my eyes and he grinned, offering a lazy shrug. “I’m being honest. Women want to fuck a lot more than they admit. They just don’t like being judged, which means I have to spend time convincing them that I won’t.”

“Which brings me back to my main point. I’m a relationship person. You clearly are not. I don’t want casual sex and not because I care about being judged. When I figure out my life, I want to invest in a man I see a future with. You and I are not in the same space with our expectations for the future. One and done, that’s all I have to offer, but considering that’s your usual m.o. I don’t see why you can’t agree that friends or roommates are all we should be.”

He stared at me for a long moment and I half-expected him to tell me to get the hell out of his studio but he closed his eyes and shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this shit.”

When he looked at me again, his eyes traveled over my body once more before he said, “Okay… friends.Butwith one stipulation.”

“Okay?” I frowned.

“You hang out with me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I’ve never done the friend thing and since you’re offering to be my test subject, you have to actually be my friend. Friends hang out. They do shit together…”

“Without sex.”

He smirked. “I’m not asking you to be my friend with benefits but I also won’t say no if that’s what you have in mind…”

“It’s not.”

“Aight, then. Just friends, no sex, but we hang out and do friend shit.”

I arched my brow. “Do you know what friend shit is?”

“Yeah, man. I have friends, Ri. They just know to wear pants around me which is good because I have no interest whatsoever in seeing them naked.”

“Shake on it?”

His eyes were on me again. “You’ll just have to accept my word for now because if you come over here to shake my hand…”

“Your word is good enough. I’m going to get dressed. You been up all night?”

“Pretty much.”

“Then I’ll make breakfast and you should probably get some sleep.”

He smirked. “You telling me what I need to do.”

“Nope, just being a good friend.” I smiled and left his studio, knowing I was setting myself up for failure but Ezren wasn’t looking for anything serious and I wasn’t looking to waste my time with a man who had no intention of giving me his all. Friends would have to be enough.

When I made it back to my room, I slipped on the bed and dialed Gwendolyn. She didn’t answer but before I could lock my phone, she was ringing me back.

“Hello, dear. Is everything okay?”

“Yep, everything is perfect but I wanted to ask you something.”

“Shoot…”

“Elite has me on the schedule here for the weekends.”

“Would you prefer other days? I can change the request.”

“No, it’s not that. This house is brand new. I’ve cleaned every inch of it but really there wasn’t much to do. I can’t imagine your son will barrel through here like a tornado creating more work. He spends most of his time asleep or in the studio. It’s not beneficial for me to be scheduled to clean every weekend and definitely not the entire weekend. I appreciate that you’re trying to help but…”

“I thought we agreed that you would use this time to figure out your life.”

“We did but you’ve already made sure I’m not homeless. Paying to clean a house that doesn’t need to be cleaned is a bit much.”

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