Page 78 of Friends with Benefits

“I will hate you if you don’t stay.”

Evie is jolted from the memory as the train pulls into West Fourth Street. She exits the station, then follows her phone to Washington Square Park in search of a face she only knows from photos. Dev Kumar waits for her by the fountain, hands stuffed in his pockets. When their eyes meet, he smiles and she’s so relieved she feels like she could cry.Do not cry.Evie sent Theo’s suitemate and closest college friend a message on Facebook as soon as she booked her flight because while she hates nothing more than asking someone for help, she needed an assist to pull off this surprise. His answer was immediate,gotchu np!, but she didn’t trust it until his warm brown eyes met hers.

She never trusts it.

People showing up for her.

“Evie?” Dev asks.

She throws her arms around his neck. “I can’t believe I’m meeting you.”

He laughs. “Honestly? Same.”

Dev drags her suitcase through the slushy park to the dorm on its west side. They chat pre-reqs andSurvivorand it’s easy, small talk with Dev. Theo got him intoSurvivor. She leaves her ID with security and follows Dev through the turnstile, into the elevator, up to his room.Their room.It’s clean but cluttered, the shared living area, with a small flat-screen television and half-finished puzzles covering the coffee table. Dev unbundles, tossing his puffer and scarf over a kitchen chair, then asks Evie if she wants anything to drink.

“Water or Bud Light?”

Evie laughs. “Water, please.”

He pours water from a Brita and nods toward Theo’s room. “I’m pretty sure he’s in class, but feel free to chill in the meantime.”

Her reply is interrupted by his phone ringing. She sees the name on the screen.Ammi.Dev retreats to his room, shrugging, like,You know how moms are, and then she’s alone and once again on the verge of tears because Naomi is somewhere in New York and has no clue that Evie is so close and it’s so ridiculous, this primalwantto understand Dev. Her desire to have a mother who calls too much, to have a mother who calls at all.

She chugs the water.

Swallows her Naomi feelings, then places theLostmug in the sink and kills time excavating Theo’s room. Even if she didn’t help him select his sheets, she would know which side of the room is his based on the collection of posters hanging above his bed. Billy Joel at MSG and Camp Half-Blood.The Song of Achilleslies open on his bed and the sight of it splits her heart in half. Last week, Evie sent a string of incoherent texts about how Madeline Miller ruined her life and now he’s already halfway through the book and with this tangible proof that he misses her, too, she feels so relieved and incredibly stupid all at once.

Evie sits on Theo’s bed.

Next to the book.

She hasn’t seen him in six months, but when he asked her what she wanted for her birthday she knew she needed to go to New York, to Washington Square Park, to his dorm, to his bed. Knew she needed to be wherever he is,right now. But now that she’s here? Evie hasn’t thought up an explanation forwhyapart from the embarrassing truth.

I think I’m in love with you.

Before those words even have the chance to alter their trajectory, Theo stumbles backward into his bedroom attached by the lips to someone else and time slows down into the longest, most mortifying five seconds of her life. He slams thedoor shut and presses her against it. Her hands cover his ass. His mouth is on her neck. Caro’s neck.

It’sCaro.

Theo’s…

Caro.

“Fuck.”

Her voice sends him backward.

Theo blinks, so confused. “Evelyn?”

She stands so fast her ankle hisses. “Oh my God. I’msosorry.”

Caro adjusts the hem of her shirt and fills the silence that follows. “Hey! Theo didn’t mention you were visiting.”

There’s no edge to her tone, not a single hint of frustration that she’s been cock-blocked or an ounce of jealousy. Caroline Shapiro-Huang has never felt threatened by their friendship. Evie, on the other hand, feels something akin to fury that Theo failed to mention his on-again-off-again situationship with Caro seems to be very muchonand she wants to scream, to vomit, to…

“You’re…?”

“Leaving!”

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