Page 8 of Friends with Benefits

Jeremiah raises his hand. “My cousin Lola says that Mrs. Delgado is taking her class to the zoo this year.”

“Who is Mrs. Delgado?” Milo asks.

“Ms. Garcia,” Annabelle says, likeduh. “She got married, so she’s Mrs. Delgado now.”

“That’s so patriarchy of her,” Sierra says.

“Are we going to the zoo?” Kaia asks.

Theo shakes his head. “We’re going to Kidspace.”

He braces himself for the collective groans, and his kids don’t let him down.

“Kidspace is for babies!”

“Mr. Cohen. I had my birthday party there in, like,first grade.”

“We never got to go to the zoo!”

“That’s not fair!”

It’s hard for Theo to calm his students down, to assure them that Kidspace will be a great time. They’re right. He won’t gaslight them into thinking that a museum they’ve already visited multiple times in their nine short years of life is better than a day at the zoo—or a visit to a planetarium. He just lets them vent and groan until the bell rings and bus numbers are called. Milo is right, itisn’tfair. And Theo doesn’t want this to be a teachablelife isn’t fairmoment for his kids. They’ll learn that—if they haven’t already—on their own.

He just wants them to stare up in wonder at the stars.

As the classroom empties and Mr. Cohen becomes Theo once more, he makes a promise to himself that this year somehow, some way, his kids will see the stars.

3

Evie sips on matzo ball soup as Jeff Probst extinguishes the flame of Theo’s winner pick with a dimpled smirk.

“Milo is such a little shit,” she says.

“I know. But he usedembargocorrectly in a sentence.”

She hears the pride in his voice and thinks that school would’ve been a more bearable place if there had been more teachers like Mr. Cohen.

After the eliminated castaway’s inspirational final words, Theo stands and makes his way to the kitchen for seconds. The entire bungalow smells like Lori Cohen’s matzo ball soup, like their childhood. Theo makes it upon request. It’s one of the few meals that’s guaranteed to soothe her stomach when she’s having a Not Great Pain Day. She’s in remission. For now. But stress can trigger a flare. Rage can, too. Evie is stressedandpissed. A terrible combination for her body, despite being in clinical remission for five years—her longest stretch offor nowsince her diagnosis a decade ago. It’s the forever qualifier with chronic illness. For now. Her case is classified as mild. For now. Her diet and the medication administered by infusionevery eight weeks keep the inflammation in her colon at bay. For now.

It used to make her so angry.

Itstillmakes her anxious.

But right now, the soup helps, even if it doesn’t quite taste the same as when Lori made it.

Does it ever?

Theo sinks into the opposite end of the worn jade patent-leather couch. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Fuck Ross!!is the only text that Evie sent Theo aboutGinger.

Besides the arson threat she sent to his work email in a moment of impulsive fury.

She places her soup mug on a coaster and turns up the heating pad resting across her stomach. “I have to withdraw my application.”

Theo’s eyebrows scrunch together. “What?”

“I don’t qualify.”

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