Page 115 of Friends with Benefits

God.

He sounds like such aloser.

Theo drops his phone and rolls out of bed because he needs coffee and a shower. After, he tosses a hand towel over his shoulder and cracks two eggs into a sizzling frying pan. Waits for Evelyn to text him back. When the door to Topher’s room creaks open, Theo cracks two additional eggs. His roommate always emerges from his slumber just in time for eggs. In return, he cleans the kitchen. It’s a win-win. His eyes shift toward the door, toward Toph. Except. Not Toph.Evelyn?

Evelyn… in a Metallica shirt that skims her knees.

Toph’s shirt.

“Hey.” Herjust woke upvoice is raspy and he feels like such an idiot for believing that this visit meant something more. “Toph and I ran into each other—”

“It’s really none of my business.”

He attempts a lighthearted tenor, ano big dealshrug to mask how much he hates that Evelyn woke up in someone else’s clothes, in someone else’s bed. Cuts her off because Theo has no right to feel any kind of way about who Evelyn wakes up next to, but that doesn’t mean he needs to know how the fuck it happened. Theo returns his focus to the eggs, doesn’t want them to burn. He flips the omelet, then pours two cups of coffee.

Evelyn shakes her head. “Oh. No, thanks.”

She’s refusing coffee? “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. No, I’m…” She chuckles, awkwardly. “I’m just currently on this, like, gluten-free, low-FODMAP diet? Sort of… still in the process of relearning what I can and can’t eat?”

“Oh.”

He looks at her. Registers how much thinner she is and is overwhelmed all over again by how much he misses her, by how much he’smissedbecause his life is so far away from hers. He’s found his footing in New York. It took months. In the beginning, everything about New York was so loud, incredibly overstimulating, way too much. Theo couldn’t focus during classes. His anxiety became unmanageable. He only ever felt like himself onSurvivorWednesday, while watching his favorite show and texting with his favorite person. By mid-October, the homesickness was suffocating. He called Evelyn afterSurvivorbecause he missed her voice, becausehe wanted to mention that he’s considering transferring. Coming home.

He remembers the pain in her voice, so soft against his ear.

You have to stay.

I will hate you if you don’t stay.

Her words reminded him of a conversation they had after she was discharged from the hospital, in the aftermath of his careless mistake that shattered her dance dreams, and a diagnosis that recalibrated her future entirely.Obviously, New York is off the table. I can’t dance and… I have to figure out what the fuck is going on with my body.

Theo completely understood, was grateful even that he hadn’t committed yet.USC has an excellent teaching program.

What? Just because I’m not going doesn’t mean… no. You have to go.

I—

Theodore. You can’t stay. New York is your dream.He could hear the panic in her voice, the pain.You’re going. Promise me.

And because he didn’t know how to articulate thatshewas so much a part of that dream, he promised, committed, and went. Then felt like such an asshole during that phone call in October because he was here, and she wasn’t, and he wascomplainingabout it. So again, he listened to his best friend. Stayed. Called Caro. Became really good at compartmentalizing. Convinced himself, his heart, that it was for the best. If he stayed away from her, he wouldn’t have to deal with any of it. Her. These reckless feelings.

Except.

Now he doesn’t even know what his best friend can and cannot eat.

“Eggs are cleared.” Evelyn nods at the carton on the counter. “Scrambled. Plain.”

Theo nods. “I can do that.”

“Thanks, Theodore.”

His shoulders settle as soon as she says those three syllables.

Theodore.

Okay.

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