Page 54 of Friends with Benefits

Fuck. She feels those two words right between her legs. Tomorrow, Evie will blame exhaustion for the way her brainshort-circuits. Not for the undeniableattractionshe feels in this moment, but for allowing the thought bubble to even enter her brain that maybe Theo is attracted to her, too. It’sTheo. Why is she so flustered?

You’re horny.

Duh.

It’s not Theo.

It’s that Evie hasn’t had sex since… well, since before she signed a marriage license.

“Anyway! Dinner. Veggie burgers cool?”

Evie nods. “Great.”

“Cool.”

It’s theI need to get laid, statepiphany that allows Evie to laugh it off, to revert back to herself. “Didn’t know you were a corgi guy, Theodore.”

“Me either,” Theo says simply, then shuts the door on his way out.

Evie locks the door behind him and blasts music so loud she feels the bass reverberating in her bones, then reaches for the vibrator inside the velvet bag in her night table drawer and denies, denies, denies the attraction in the privacy of her own bedroom, where she is absolutely not imagining her best friend, herhusband’s, hands, mouth, tongue between her legs.

12

Evelyn’s legs in a tennis skirt are a problem.

She’s knelt on the pickleball court, lathering SPF onto her exposed legs. It’s 8:00 a.m., an hour before the tournament is set to begin, because she wants to practice on a real court before their first match. In the nine days since accepting Ms. Connors’s invitation to the Foothill Elementary Faculty Pickleball Tournament, Theo and Evelyn have been studying the rules, watching serving tutorials, and listening to the most popular pickleball podcasters. Last night, they stayed up until 1:00 a.m. volleying a wiffle ball back and forth across their living room, using their recently thrifted couch as a makeshift net, then agreed to an early arrival today because it isn’t in their nature to half-ass anything. Not when the alternative is winning.

But.

Winning requires focus.

On the game.

Theo is focused on something else entirely, sipping water as his eyes—safely hidden behind tinted aviators—fixate onthe flex of Evelyn’s calf muscles, on the way her hands move in methodical circles up, up, up each leg, on their refusal to miss even a millimeter of skin. Satisfied, Evelyn stands, then lifts and folds over the hem of her tank top so as not to sunscreen stain it while she protects the sliver of midriff exposed to the sun and it’s so hot. Sun protection. Evelyn.

“Get my back?” she asks, handing him the tube of sunscreen and pivoting.

Theo wordlessly applies sunscreen to the back of her delts, her traps, her upper lats exposed by the halter top that’s his new favorite shirt because it gives him an excuse to touch her. His eyes shift down to that skirt—thatskirt—wondering what tiny animal print is covering her ass today. It’s another problem, his inability to stop thinking about his best friend in goddamn corgi panties. Theo swallows. Hard. Pulls his eyes back up as his hands linger on her shoulders, massaging out a knot and when she lets out a soft moan…

Fuck.

He lets go.

“Thanks.”

Evelyn takes the sunscreen back, swipes an extra layer of protection over his prone-to-burning nose, then jogs across the court to drop the tube in her duffel bag—completely, thankfully, oblivious to the effect that she has on him. She props one foot on the bench next to her and reties neon pink shoelaces. Theo’s aware that he’s still staring at her, that he has been since the moment they stepped onto the court, that he cannot stop—

“Theo?”

His eyes shift toward the voice that pulls focus from Evelyn, a voice spoken from lips that taste like strawberry ChapStick. Her red hair is not chaos curls splayed on a hotel pillow, but twoperfect braids cascading down her back. Theo glitches, seeing this woman on a pickleball court in Pasadena. So entirely out of context. Her aquamarine eyes flicker to the gold band on his finger and he catches the furrow of her brow, the question in it, before her expression resets to neutral indifference.

“Violet?”

“You know my sister, Cohen?”

That voice belongs to Juniper Delgado. Theo’s closest teacher friend, turned zoo proposal thief, now nemesis. She smiles at him, a sincere one because, of course, Juniper doesn’t know she’s been demoted from friend to nemesis. Of course, he’s only actually beefing with her in his head.

He blinks.

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