Page 117 of Friends with Benefits

“Talk.”

Theo shrugs.

Repeats, “I fucked up.”

“Not tome, Cohen.”

“I can’t.”

“Because she needs a beat?”

“Yeah.”

Theo spills his guts to his former roommate about his current roommate, his best friend, his wife. Tells Micah the truth.I love her.States it so plainly, so obviously, and it terrifies him. Hasn’t it always? Isn’t it, on some level, why he applied for the curriculum coordinator position? He knows Evelyn Bloom enough to anticipate her reaction, that history would repeat, that she’d push him away. Theoknew. Yet he applied.

“Okay. So.” Micah drums his fingers on the quartz countertop. “Just to be clear. You can’t talk to her untilshewants to talk to you?” Theo tosses back what is left of his drink and considers for the first time how often those four words—I need a beat—are wielded to end a conversation, oftentimes before it even begins. “You know that’s not cool, right? Disengaging when shit gets real is… super unhealthy.”

Still, his instinct is to push back. “Ev just needs some space to process. You know?”

Micah shakes his head. “Theo? I’m going to say this as gently as possible, because I love you. Get the fuck out of my house.”

“I can’t drive.”

“I’m requesting an Uber. I’ll drop your car off before my lab tomorrow.”

“You have a Saturday lab?”

“Go home, Theo. Talk to your wife.”

“Micah.”

“Karl with a K will be here in five minutes.”

An eruption of cheering pulls Micah’s focus before Theo can push back, shifting his gaze toward the living room as Pranav jumps to his feet, then onto the couch.

“Checkmate,bitch.”

Theo spends the next forty-five minutes in the back seat of Karl with a K’s Lexus LS emboldened by two-and-a-half fruity cocktails and Micah Solomon.You know that’s not cool, right?Honestly? No. Theo has never much thought about how these beats makehimfeel. Six weeks, when she attended a dance intensive in Santa Barbara. Five days, after he admitted to being the reason she got into her fellowship. Four years, following the aftermath of spring break. Well. Evelyn would never call their college years abeat. It’s not like they ever stopped talking. No. They just got busy.

Busy.

Busy.

Busy.

Bullshit.

Theo fumbles with his keys, standing on the doormat of their apartment. Is he a doormat? Does he ever consider howanythingmakes him feel?I need a beat.Evelyn may utter the words, but Theo latches on to them as permission to avoid, to deny, to not feel anything at all. Inside, he flips a light switch, his eyes instantly drawn toward the stack of papers on thekitchen island, thick and held together with a binder clip. In bold are three words that he saw coming.

PETITION TO DIVORCE

Cool.

Theo saw this coming, but it’s still a fucking blow to the chest. His whole life, Evelyn Bloom has dictated the terms of their relationship, and it was always enough for him, to just be in her life.

Talk to your wife.

His heart leads him to her room and he knocks, his knuckles rapping the hollow wood twice before he twists the doorknob and lets himself in to find Evelyn wrapped in her electric blanket, watchingGrey’s Anatomyon her laptop. Katherine Heigl is on the screen. ClassicGrey’s. An episode she’s likely seen countless times.

---