Page 58 of The Player + The Pact = I Do

“Do you remember that costume party you dragged me to a few years ago?” I ask Sophia.

“The one thatwasn’ta costume party?”

I nod. “And that guy from the party that I got chatting with?”

“The one you really liked who ended up being a dick?” We’d talked about it for weeks afterward. Sophia wanted me to text him, find out where he lived and then send him weird things in the mail. I think we’d both been drinking pretty heavily at that point.

“Right,” I say. “I didn’t tell you because I know you would have thought I was crazy, but that’s Leo. My boss. My fiancé. He’s the guy from the party.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Sophia says, grabbing my shoulders. “Are you serious? Why didn’t you tell me when you realized?”

“I thought you’d tell me to tell him to shove his job up his ass, and I really wanted the job.”

She releases me and slumps back onto the bench. “Yeah, I probably would have told you that.”

“And he didn’t recognize me, being human color and all. I just tried to pretend I hadn’t met him before. That he wasn’t the guy from the party.”

“I’m so confused,” Natasha says. “Can we double back?”

We fill in Natasha about the details of my first encounter with Leo. She listens with rapt attention.

“And kismet wouldn’t be shaken off,” she says, slowly shaking her head.

“You can’t dodge destiny,” Sophia says. “You and him haven’t come out of nowhere at all. You’ve been simmering for two years!”

I try not to groan. It all sounds so cheesy. It was a coincidence.

“If you’re fated to be together, then the sex must be off the charts. Tell us everything!” Sophia says, and my heart leapfrogs into my feet. “I always think sex with rich, powerful, good-looking men must be a complete letdown because they’ve no reason to try.”

I nod, thinking back to last night. In no way was it a letdown. Things had been simmering between us for a while, but the boil? I wasn’t expecting it. I wasn’t expecting to feel the things he made me feel. I wasn’t expecting to feel so comfortable with him, like I could be every version of myself, bare in every sense, and he’d worship every part of me.

“You’re saying it’s bad?” Natasha asks.

I shake my head. “He has no business being so good in bed,” I say. “Maybe that’s why I said yes.”

We dissolve into laughter and another round of shotsgets delivered to the table. It feels good to laugh. Every smile makes my dad feel a little further away.

“Now that I know how good the sex can be, I don’t want to go back,” I add. I hope memories of last night will fade, because if they don’t, I’ll never be able to settle for anything less.

“Does he have any single friends?” Sophia asks.

“I’m not sure Jamie would like you asking that question,” I reply.

She sighs. “Yeah, well, we’re on a break. We never see each other and it’s not like we’re working on changing things so we do. We’re in this weird limbo, which is fine if we were twenty, but I’m about to hit thirty.”

“God, Sophia, that’s shit,” I say. “But a break? What does that mean?”

“That we’re delaying the inevitable breakup, I suppose.” She nods and tips back her shot. She winces. “You’re right. It’s shit. And what’s worse, I can feel us both inching toward the exit and neither of us is trying to stop the other.”

I squeeze her hand. We’re going to need a lot of alcohol.

“You deserve someone amazing,” I say.

She nods. “You too.”

I don’t say anything and Natasha looks between us like she’s missing something.

“I don’t think men learn to fuck by talking about it in front of the game,” Natasha says out of nowhere. She adopts a deep voice, before going on to say, “‘Yo, dude, I discovered my girl’s G-spot last night. You gotta try this thing with a finger.’ So just because Leo is perfect, doesn’t mean his friends are. But it might be worth a try.”

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