Page 48 of Friends with Benefits

She bumps her shoulder against his.I love you.It’s in these moments, when Evelyn is teasing him—literally calling him a clown—that the three words he’s become an expert at downplaying surface as a thought bubble in his brain. It used to scare the shit out of him, but now he accepts it. He loves her.Of course he does. Why shouldn’t he think that her silliness is adorable, want to burn down and rebuild healthcare in America for her, obsess over her tattoos?

Theo can love his best friend.

He’s notinlove with her.

“Ms. Connors knows.”

Evelyn nods. “Okay.”

“I should probably start wearing the ring to school.”

Her eyebrow twitches. “Okay.”

“I… also signed us up for a couples pickleball tournament.”

“What?”

He recounts the entire interaction as he nails the back of the bookcase to the assembled frame—explains that he didn’t mean to, it sort of just happened, really he was extorted. Evelyn relocates to one of the beanbag chairs, her expression shifting from initial annoyance to amusement listening to him overexplain the simple truth that his boss asked him to do something that’s absolutely not in his job description and he couldn’t say no.

“Only if you’re up for it. Obviously.”

“Yeah. I’ll do it… if you come to breakfast on Sunday.”

His pulse spikes. “Evelyn.”

Every Sunday, she’s gone before he even wakes. On those quiet mornings, Theo laces up his sneakers, blasts the nextSurvivorpodcast in his queue, and runs. After Lori’s diagnosis, Theo would run until it hurt, until he was bent over and retching because physical pain could befelt. Now he has Brian. Still, he runs every Sunday, a ten-mile loop that takes him right past his childhood home during Evelyn’s breakfasts with Jacob. He’s thought about stopping. Knocking. He never does. Instead, he picks up speed and doesn’t slow down until he’s home.

“That’s my offer.”

Her eye contact?

It’s challenging.

He does a cost-benefit analysis, then sighs. “Okay.”

A pickleball partnership solidified, they stand and flip their finished bookcase upright, positioning it against an empty wall in the living room, then break for dinner. Afterward, she populates the shelves with their books, semialive plants, and framed photographs. So many photos. Tiny Evelyn and Imogen in matching tutus. Theo’s bar mitzvah. Evelyn, ten or eleven, wearing giant headphones, behind a sound mixer at Pep’s recording booth. Theo, eight, and Lori on the spinning teacups at Disneyland. Evelyn and Theo, fourteen, cheesing after the tap duet that earned them first place at a regional competition. Them, seventeen, unironically practicing theDirty Dancinglift. Evelyn, twenty-four, cheeks flushed and lips turned down in a pout post-hike. Theo, twenty-six, cheeks flushed and lips turned up at a karaoke bar in Koreatown.

“What?” Evelyn’s looking at him, nose scrunched, as if trying to decipher his reaction. “Is it too much?”

He shakes his head, any lingering feelings about their deal dissolving in real time. “No! These are awesome.”

“I thought they’d make the space more… I don’t know. Homey?”

Theo takes in these candid but curated moments of their history, ignoring any feelings about the noticeable gap in their timeline as he looks over at her in his sweatshirt, then asks, “Are there more?”

Evelyn’s smile is small. She disappears to her room, returning a moment later with a stack of prints. They spend the rest of the evening in the beanbag chairs, their shoulders pressed together, choosing the most ridiculous photos from their lifeto display in their apartment. Their home. Evelyn holding up a chocolate chip cookie the size of her face. Theo’s freaked-out reaction to an eagle landing on his head at the San Diego Zoo. Them, at Miss Stella’s, seeing who can hold a headstand the longest.

Theo remembers hating it, Evelyn always sticking a camera in his face.

Now?

He thinks it’s pretty awesome that these exist.

Also. Does she really not know that he used to be so in love with her? Does she not see how many times the camera caught him looking at her with goddamn hearts in his eyes? It’s just… so obvious to him. A part of him wants to acknowledge it. Laugh at it. But he stays quiet as she continues to sift through the photos, Theo looking increasingly lovesick in each one.

When Evelyn gets to the end of the stack, she stands. “Question.”

“Answer.”

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