Page 98 of Better Left Unsaid

Allie shook her head and basically shoved the binder at me. “Look before you leave.” She narrowed her eyes when I didn’t move to uncross my arms and take it from her. “So help me God, Dominic Deluca, I will fly to Italy if I have to and pester your ass.”

I wasn’t sure I was up for their antics. Not today. “Why isn’t Maria here herself? Because we all know that if you want me to see that thing so badly, then whatever is in there has to do with Maria, which means she told you all that I love her.”

Bianca rolled her eyes. “I called that one years ago.”

“It was pretty obvious,” Allie added.

Jade shrugged. “Even I saw it,” she inserted.

I groaned, uncrossing my arms. “So, you all saw it. Why didn’t you say anything to her?”

“It wasn’t for us to say,” Perla answered for all of them.

“Plus, you two are weird, so we couldn’t be sure. There was no use in stirring up trouble for no reason,” Allie said, giving me a lopsided smile.

Meanwhile, I seemed to remember them having no trouble poking us, individually and together, about our bond.

“So how about it? Will you take the binder and see for yourself the kind of mistake you’d be making if you get on that plane?” Allie pushed.

I nodded and took the binder she held out for me. “You want me to read this whole thing? Then I’ll definitely miss my flight.” No question about it.

“So miss it!” Bianca shouted, throwing her head back dramatically. “Seriously, have you been listening? We’re going to leave you with the binder. Just read it. The pages that you’ll be most interested in seeing are tabbed.”

My finger scanned over the yellow tabs sticking out of the pages. “Okay,” I finally gave in. “I’ll read it.”

“Thank you,” Allie said, heaving a sigh. “Other than that, how have you been? Gina did the cutest thing the other day.”

I laughed, because how could I not? This family was unlike anything else. “Just go,” I replied, gesturing toward the door.

I turned to sit down and see what they were making a fuss about. “This better be good,” I said, looking down at the binder.

Great. Fantastic.I was talking to an inanimate object.

I shook my head, unbelieving how messed up things had become. “The tabbed pages,” I spoke to myself, opening the binder and turning to the first one.

Wow, this wasn’t just any binder. It was the dummy copy of the issue Maria had been working on—she’d told me about it very briefly. I took a second and let my eyes roam over the page, the layout. I knew I had to read the article, but I wanted to look through all of it. If this spread was any indication, then Maria knocked it out of the park, just like I knew she would.

There was nothing—and I meant nothing—in this world that Maria couldn’t do. She just needed someone to remind her, and I’d never minded signing up for the job.

Before I sounded even more like a schmuck, I decided to do as asked and read the damn feature.

How to Uncomplicate Friends with Benefits

By Maria Morelli, Editor-in-Chief

I’ve been doing the friends-with-benefits thing for a little over three years, and it’s more difficult than navigating a stick. The car, you guys, get your heads out of the gutter. It’s no surprise sex makes you feel good. It makes you feel empowered and confident. It makes you feel sexy. But it’s more than that, especially when it’s with someone who knows you better than you know yourself. Then those feelings are all over the place. You tell yourself it’s just sex. You make yourself think there’s no way you could have real feelings for him. You remind yourself of the rules. Of which, by the way, you need plenty.

So how can we uncomplicate it? Well, by its very nature, friends with benefits is an arrangement that’s not meant to last forever. But, as people, it’s in our nature to fall into routines, especially those that are hard to break.

I hadn’t thought about that at the time I suggested my best friend and I become FWB. We’d just had sex—great sex—by the way. No, amazing sex. Oh, forget it, it was fantastic sex. The point is, right out of the gate, emotions, or at the very least hormones, were involved. We were horny, we were fresh off a high from being satisfied, and we started something that became bigger than either of us could’ve ever imagined at the time. It’s not a bad deal, I’ll tell you. But it’s not without its complications.

And in truth, I have no idea how to uncomplicate FWB. I’m not sure it can even be done. For me, it has proven to be as complicated as a trigonometry problem.

See, one thing I learned is that the line between friends and lovers is even finer than that of love and hate. You can’t keep them distinct. No, not even with rules. Why? Rules don’t preclude emotions. Emotions! Get! Involved!

In all fairness, he caught feelings before I did, or at the very least before I was smart enough to recognize I did. But, the point is, it happened. To both of us. Did I tell him about my feelings, though? No, of course not. Why would I? Yeah, stupid girl walking.

So what happened exactly? Well, he confessed his feelings first. I was caught off guard. Scared, really. Scared to lose my best friend if I said the wrong thing. Scared to even consider the prospect that I, too, may have broken the no emotions rule and fallen for him. Scared that he would soon come to realize he’d made a mistake. So I said nothing. Well, I said “oh.” Frankly, it was almost as bad as saying “thank you.”

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