Page 39 of Friends with Benefits

Theo strains the pasta. “Furniture Panic?”

“Furniture Panic,” Evie confirms.

Theo plates the dishes at the counter, then presents them on the island, the closest thing to a kitchen table in their apartment. Two barstools are among the few pieces of furniture that survived the Purge—also known as Micah and Pranav taking all the furniture that rightfully belonged to them. Other survivors include a set of beanbags, a struggling calathea, a fifty-inch flat-screen television mounted on the wall, and all Theo’s fancy kitchen shit. Theo doesn’t own a real couch—just every hyperspecific cooking gadget, from an avocado slicer to a tofu press.

“Maybe we should take some of the bungalow furniture,” Theo suggests gently. “For now. It’s just sitting in storage anyway.”

“No.” Evie shakes her head, unable to explain how wrong that feels. As much as she loved the bungalow, she doesn’t want the apartment to feel like Bungalow 2.0, doesn’t wantreminders of the place she lost in this new space that she’ll eventually lose, too.

“I get it.”

With Theo, Evie rarely has to explain.

“Unrelated to Furniture Panic…” She takes a bite of cooked onion coated in the cashew-based primavera sauce, and it’s so delicious she almost weeps. “Um. There’s no good lead-in to this so… I’m just going to say it. Jacob posted a photo of us online.”

His jaw hangs. “He did not.”

Evie opens Facebook and shows him the picture she had no idea Jacob took, too distracted by Theo’s hands on the small of her back, by the stubble on Theo’s cheeks scraping her palms, by the mutual face sucking. She watches him process it—theCongrats to the happy couple!caption, the number of comments, thethumbs-upin the corner of a photo way too hot for a Facebook feed.

“Fuuuuuck,” Theo hisses, taking the phone and scrolling through the comments.

“My mom saw this. He hasn’t posted since…” Evie doesn’t finish that sentence. “I didn’t think.”

Theo removes his glasses and drags his hands down his face. “Hedoesn’t think. Are you okay? Have your parents…”

“Reached out?” Evie snorts. “Nope.”

David doesn’t believe in social media as a concept, which just feels like an easy out to not keep in better touch with his children. But Naomi? She hearted Jacob’s photo this morning. Evie felt so stupid scrolling through the list of names, checking to see if her mother’s was among them. Pathetic for wondering if this news would be worthy of a phone call. More hurt than she’ll ever admit that nope, it wasn’t.

“I’m sorry, Evelyn.”

She shrugs.

Chews.

Swallows.

And moves on.

“I don’t have the heart to tell Jacob to take it down, but at least we can untag ourselves and scrub the evidence.”

“Scrub the evidence,” Theo repeats.

Evie nods, her expression serious. “If that photo is tied to our social media it has the power to, like,ruinsex for the duration of our marriage.”

Theo chokes. “Evelyn.”

“What? I’m serious! People—generally speaking, of course—do not choose to bang married people.”

“Well. You should’ve thought about that before you mounted me in front of my dad.”

“Theodore.”

He snorts, then concedes that she’s probably right about scrubbing the entirely fake but positively incriminating face sucking and immediately locks himself out of his account due to too many password attempts. He had to download the app first. Theo hasn’t had Facebook on his phone since undergrad. Really, he should be thanking her. She’s salvaging his—their—sex life.

Speaking of.

“While we’re on the topic, we should probably establish some rules, like, for bringing people back to the apartment. Right?” When Theo doesn’t respond right away, just stares at her, bemused, she continues. “Sock on the door is cliché but effective. I’m also happy to vacate the premises when you bring a lady friend home. Just give me a heads-up.”

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