Page 40 of Friends with Benefits

“A lady friend?”

Evie scrunches her nose, as if that’ll mask her blush that’s something fierce. “I can just stay with Gen.”

His eyes sparkle with amusement, like this is funny. It annoys Evie. She’s trying to have a serious conversation. It’s not like they don’t talk about sex, as if they’re incapable of it. Theo knows Evie hooks up with Saskia every time they’re in LA. Evie knows Theo never sleeps with anyone more than three times because of attachment issues that he won’t deny. Sex has never been off the table, in a conversational sense. Evie likes that they’re so open about it. She’s never felt any kind of way about Theo’s sex life.

But in all fairness, she was never living with him.

“Within reason, obviously,” she continues. “I mean, I can’t stay with Geneverynight. So.”

“Evelyn.”

“Theodore.”

“How much sex do you think I’m having?”

She swallows. “Um. A lot.”

Once again, Theo laughs, like this conversation is so hilarious. “You won’t be at Gen’s every night.”

“Good. Because I’m happy to go. Just not every night.”

Theo nods. “Cool. Noted.”

She holds eye contact for a moment, then lets the subject circle back to furniture while they finish dinner, a back-and-forth debate that amounts to an IKEA date in their calendar. It’s in hers asHELLbecause Evie’s certain that if hell is real, it’s the Burbank IKEA. Theo has quizzes on plant structure to finish grading. Evie insists that she’ll clean, that she’s happy to, so he retreats to his room and she scrubs the ceramic pasta pot until her fingers prune, reading way too much into that entire conversation because her anxiety manifests inoveranalyzing every social interaction, the moments where she sounds like an absolute idiot always on max volume.

But not with Theo.

Never with Theo.

Yet currently with Theo.

She moves on to loading the dishwasher.

I can just stay with Gen.By trying not to make things weird… did she make things weird? She doesn’t know. Shedoesknow that she’d rather stick her hand in a jar of mayonnaise every day for the rest of her life than hear the real,actualsounds that come out of Theo during sex. If she heard them, lips on skin, hands on ass, his frustrated groan—

Glass shatters on the floor.

Evie looks down helplessly at the cup that slipped out of her hand.

Fuck.

THEO’S HOUSE, SEVENTH GRADE

Evie

“You’re off, Theodore.”

Theo’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. “I really don’t think—”

Evie restarts the song, Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida,” her index finger smashing against the play button on his boom box with more force than necessary because she doesn’t want to talk to him right now. She doesn’t want to be here, with him, around him, at all. Nope! But if she didn’t spend this Sunday rehearsing with Theo, like every other Sunday since fourth grade, she’d need to offer an explanation she isn’t willing to give. An explanation she’s not sure she even understands. Every time they make eye contact in the hallway and he looks the other way, it literally feels like her guts are being ripped out of her stomach. Theo is supposed to be her safe space. He’s the only person who knows the truth about her living situation. Evie tells everyone that she’s been staying with her grandparents because her mom has “a gig in New York.” In reality, she has no clue where her mother is. It’s been six months since Naomi took a beat. Six months since Evie has slept through the night. Imogen kicks her in the shin in her sleep because,even though they have their own rooms in the bungalow, her sister cannot—will not—sleep alone. Unconscious Imogen wraps her limbs around Evie, as if she’s terrified that if she doesn’t hold on tight, her sister will leave her, too. How can a person, amom, claim to love them… then leave them so easily? Evie has a perma-bruise on her left shin. That is love.Stayingis love.

She thought Naomi loved her.

She thoughtTheoloved her.

Now, in his backyard, when it’s just them, she can almost believe it. When they’re alone, Theo is himself. At school? He’s someone small, someone who follows Connor and Matt and the Four Square Jerks around like they walk on water.

It’s so frustrating.

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