Page 37 of Friends with Benefits

“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” Tanya declares. “You may kiss your spouse.”

Their eyes meet. Theo’s expression is meant to convey that this doesn’t have to be akissbecause speaking from experience, kissing her is so damn dangerous. But before he can even process what’s happening, Evelyn presses her body flush against his, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his lips to hers, initiating it.

Their third kiss.

The first time, they were thirteen, just children, awkward and anxious to get their firsts out of the way. It was too wet and so weird and both vowed to never do that again, a vow they kept for an entire decade. Until it happened again. Theo had just turned twenty-three, Lori had just died, and theywere both so tangled up in each other’s grief that it sort of, oops, just happened.

Theo and Evelyn laugh about the first kiss.

They never mention the second one.

In the aftermath, both pretended that they were too intoxicated to remember—but of course Theo remembers. It’s more than muscle memory, it’s mastered choreography, the way his body reacts to hers, pulling her closer, despite his brain screaming at him tostop. He tells his brain to shut up, but then it reminds him that Jacob is here, and he honestly needed that reminder. Theo absolutely cannot go feral on his best friendin front of his estranged father.

But he doesn’t stop kissing her.

Why should he? It’s their third kiss. And just like the first two, it doesn’t count.

It’s not real.

9

Evie hauls the last of the cardboard boxes that contain her life into the empty bedroom in Theo’s apartment.

Her bedroom.

In their apartment.

Evie’s still getting used to that—calling ittheirs.

She places the final box on top of the stack in the corner of the room, winded from multiple treks up and down the steps that lead to and from Theo’s second-story unit. Their unit. Evie wipes the sweat from her eyebrows, the back of her neck, between her thighs. She then turns on the window AC and sticks her face directly in front of it, closing her eyes and letting the cool air shock her system, allowing herself a minute to catch her breath. It’s been ten days since Evie married her best friend, a week since their apartment application was approved, and five days since she gave notice at her job. Next week, she’ll say goodbye to a podcast she started working on straight out of undergrad and to a team of people who, besides Saskia, she’ll likely never speak to again. Once she’s onthe other side of this job, she’ll have a week to unpack and decompress before she starts working under Sadie Silverman. Her hero.

It’s all been A Lot.

Evie places her hand over her fluttering heart, not sure of the source of its overreaction—whether she can blame moving heavy boxes in the heat or the reality that this room ishers, that she lives here.

With Theo.

The boxes, she decides.

It has to be.

Sure, Evie’s life has changed in these first ten days of marriage. But so far, true to his word, nothing about her relationship with Theo has. His vows did not burrow their way into her heart. When his tongue slid into her mouth, it did not alter her brain chemistry because she already knew that Theo is a fantastic kisser. Objectively. They spent their wedding night watchingSurvivor. He cooked vegan enchiladas. She helped clean the kitchen, then drove back to Gen’s because the apartment wouldn’t be theirs until Micah and Pranav moved out the following weekend.

At the time, another week and a half on Gen’s couch felt like an eternity.

“Evelyn?” Theo’s voice enters the room. “You okay?”

“Overheating,” she says.

“Same.”

Theo joins her, stands at Evie’s side, and though her eyes are still closed, she feels his left arm press against her right, an indication that he, too, is hinged forward so his face is next to hers. He still smells like mint and eucalyptus and their adolescence. This is exactly how afternoons practicing new choreography in the bungalow would conclude, with the fan speed setas high as possible, with the temperature as low as it could go, with Evie and Theo almost cheek to cheek, their breath ragged, their hearts pounding in unison. This position? It brings Evie back to being sixteen, to the height of her crush, her lust, all the unruly feelings she vomited into a trash can after the most embarrassing promposal to ever promposal. To imagining their ragged breath, their tangled limbs, in an entirely different context…

Evie swallows.

Stands straight.

Theo is still bent over, shirtless, and seemingly on the verge of making out with the AC. Her eyes follow the planes and contours of his back—from his sculpted deltoids to the sharp jut of his shoulder blades, down the curve of his spine. He relaxes into a forward fold, drawing her eyes to the tattoo on his left bicep.Slow down, you’re doing fine.Billy Joel. A lyric from “Vienna.” The same song tattooed on her ribs. Theo then stands and pushes matted curls off his forehead, that tattooed bicep flexing.Hot, she thinks.Theo is hot.Evie finds it better to acknowledge it, the attraction, the occasional filthy thought that comes with it, than to deny it. He’s her best friend. Her platonic soulmate.

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