Page 64 of Keeping the Score

His eyebrows tug together. “You don’t have to.”

I hesitate. “Um… should we talk about this?”

“I guess that would be the mature thing to do.” He jerks his head toward the door, and I follow him out of the bedroom, We sit on his couch, one lamp still on.

“Obviously, I’m attracted to you,” I begin.

He groans. “Fuck, me too.”

“I think we’ve both been fighting it for a while. Because we knew it wasn’t a good idea.”

“We’re friends,” he says quietly. “I like being friends with you.”

Is he saying that’s all he wants?

“I also like kissing you. And fucking you.”

A smile hovers on my lips.

“And I don’t want to lose you as a friend.”

I give a tiny nod. “I know. Me too.”

“Because I’m not really made for relationships.”

Yeah, he told me that.

And me… well, even if I no longer believe that the reason my marriage ended was because of my own shortcomings, I already made the mistake once of falling in love with a professional athlete who only cares about one thing—his career. So getting involved with Ford in a romantic way would just be heading for trouble.

“I don’t think I am either,” I say. “We talked about that.”

“Phhht. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“You say that now. But if we got involved, maybe you’d find out.” He says nothing and I continue. “I haven’t had sex in a while. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. So this was… good.”

“Good?” He elevates an eyebrow. “You know it was better than that, Andi.”

“Okay, yes, it was amazing and hot and…” And frankly, a little scary. “But my point is, I think we both needed that.”

He regards me impassively. “Are you saying it’s one and done? This is it?”

I nibble my bottom lip. “It could be. Or… we could keep doing this… just, you know, for the sex. But not get involved emotionally.”

His lips quirk. “You bring the friendship and I’ll bring the benefits.”

I have to smile. “Yeah. No expectations. No commitment. It ends when it ends.”

“And you think we can still be friends after that?”

“Sure.”No, I’m not sure.

He goes silent for so long, I don’t know what to think. Then he says, “Okay. I’d be an idiot to turn that down.”

“Exactly!” I pause. “Would it help if we had rules?”

“I’m always in favor of rules.”

“I know. Okay. Like I said, no expectations, no commitments.”

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