Page 101 of Friends with Benefits

She laughs against his lips. “Cool.”

It’s new to Theo. Kissing like they have all the time in the world. Maybe they do. Maybe this can be their life if they’re both brave enough to let it be. Because kissing her doesn’t feel casual. It feels like a medical emergency. Theo knows what it is to be tangled up in Evelyn Bloom, but never has he felt so out of control of his emotions. He carries her to his bedroom and removes the layers of clothes between them, removes every barrier between them until his heart thrashes against hers. Her lips are on his skin, and his hands cup her breasts, and every movement is slow. Intentional. He didn’t know it could be this good. He always knew it would be this good. Theo’s unsure how both things can be true. When Evelyn wraps her hand around his length he sighs into her mouth and wishes this could be enough. Theo wants nothing more than to still believe that this is casual, that he’s capable of casual with her—that he isn’t, hasn’t always been, so in love with Evelyn Bloom.

21

“When are you going to admit that you and Theo are finally fucking?”

Evie’s eyes snap up from the pottery wheel in front of her, the already precarious lump of clay collapsing in her hands. “Gen.”

“Are you not?”

Her nonanswer is the answer.

“I knew it.”

Evie ignores her, re-forming the wet clay in her hands before slapping it onto the center of the wheel. They’re at Green & Bisque, a pottery studio just around the corner from the bungalow that’s no longer theirs. If Miss Stella’s was Evie’s second home during their adolescence, Green & Bisque was Imogen’s. Her sister has braved the 110 on a regular basis, returning to pottery. Evie’s positive there must be a closer studio, but she’ll never complain that Imogen has found a reason to be in Pasadena more. It’s not lost on her that Imogen’s pull toward home grows stronger and more frequent as her countdown to Denver begins.

“Ev.” Imogen is pulling handles for a set of mugs that she just threw on the wheellike it’s easy. Her knack for ceramics is undeniable. “How long?”

Evie lifts her foot from the pedal. “Since New York.”

“What? But… that wasover a month ago.” Hurt flashes in her eyes. Evie hasn’t told her sister, has actively avoided telling her, because of this reaction. With the slightest quiver of Imogen’s lower lip, her big-sister brain activates, and she’ll do anything to make that expression go away. Imogen knows this. Evie knows that Imogen knows this. Still, she’s powerless to it. “I thought you were mad at me.”

“Mad at you?”

“About Denver. You sort of disappeared after I told you.”

Disappeared?

“What? I’ve just been busy with work and—”

“Fucking Theo.”

“Gen.”

Imogen lays out her handles to dry with a shrug, then cleans up her station and heads to the sink to wash her hands as if she didn’t just accuse Evie of disappearing so casually. If Evie’s hands weren’t covered in clay, she’d scroll through her text history and read their near-daily correspondence out loud. Disappeared? Evie doesn’t disappear. She stays.

Isstaying.

Really, it’s everyone else who disappears.

“This makes so much more sense.” Imogen dries her hands, then returns to sit at the wheel next to Evie’s lopsided bowl. “God. Finally.”

“It’s casual.”

“Is it?”

Another reason Evie has been avoiding this conversation?Imogen is the only person who can get away with calling bullshit. “It has to be casual.”

“Why?”

“I—” Evie swallows. Attempts to regain control of the conversation, control of her emotions. “Because it’s Theo.”

Imogen rests her hands on her shoulders. Applies gentle pressure. It’s something she’s done since they were small, whenever Evie’s anxiety lifted her shoulders to her ears. “I never need to do this when Theo’s around,” she says. “Do you even know that? I noticed when I was, like, ten maybe? Ever since, I’ve been searching for that kind of ease. A best friend.MyTheo.”

This observation?

It’s so disarming.

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