Page 65 of Rules to Love By

“Says the guy who could stop traffic.”

“But not warrant toaster pops in bed.”

“Well.” Eli gently moved Marcus’s plate back in front of him. “Clearly, not every guy you’ve slept with is as smart as me.”

Nodding, Marcus picked up his fork. “Or as kind, or generous, or beautiful.”

“Well, now you’re just pandering. But don’t worry. If it comes up, I’ll probably sleep with you again.”

Marcus snorted but only poked his food around on his plate. “I’ve had a lot of sex on first dates, you know.”

“Well, I have not.” He put down his utensils, folded his arms on the side of the table, and watched Marcus until Marcus gave him back his full attention. “I usually wait until the third or even the fourth date. So. We did it your way. That went swimmingly.”

Marcus frowned.

“Now we try it my way. See how that works out.”

“How’s that? Have three more dates before we have sex again?” He snorted. “I’ll tell you how that will work out.” He couldn’t think of a single guy who’d ever come back for a second date, never mind four.

“Here’s the thing. I’ve only ever had very boring, vanilla sex with guys I’ve actually dated. And never on the first date. You have never had more than one date with the same guy.” He went back to arranging a perfectly balanced mouthful of food, egg on top of pancake on top of bacon. “I’ve had my first. You should get to have yours. Only seems fair.” He popped the forkful of food into his mouth.

“So.” Marcus thoughtfully cut himself a smaller piece of pancake, then spread Tris’s jam over it. “Is this our second date, then, since it’s our second meal together? Or does the porridge count, and this is our third?”

“I’d say that since we’ve been together constantly since dinner last night—and my coming down for food doesn’t count, since you were always in the bed I rented us, and so arguably, in my bed—this is still our first date.”

“Seems very technical.”

“You’ll find I like to stick to the rules.”

Marcus nodded. “I imagine that makes the negotiated sex easier.”

Eli speared him with a look. “It is essential to make the negotiated sex work. If you break the rules you negotiated, everything falls apart. People get hurt.”

“People get hurt even without the rules,” Marcus pointed out.

“You’re not wrong.”

For a few minutes, Marcus watched Eli eat and wondered if he’d just agreed to negotiated sex. Or just negotiated dating. Was that how normal people did things? He had his lower lip between his teeth, trying to figure that out, when Eli looked up.

“Okay?” Eli asked.

“Are there rules to this four-dates thing?”

Eli swirled his knife in the air over Marcus’s plate. “Eat your breakfast.”

Marcus narrowed his eyes. “Is that a yes?”

It took a while of Eli cutting up his food and arranging it into tidy bites before he replied. He was still watching what he was doing when he finally spoke. “If I say ‘eat your breakfast’ and you want to punch me for telling you what to do, then no. Obviously that’s not going to work. But if I tell you to eat and that makes it easier for you to eat without your stomach flipping over every five minutes, then maybe it’s something.” He looked up. “But I don’t know. I told you, the negotiations never spilled into my dating life. So this is new for me, too.”

“How did you know my stomach was flipping?”

“It was a hunch, actually.”

“Accurate.”

“And?”

Marcus picked up his fork. “And… today it helps,” he admitted. “Tomorrow, I don’t know.”

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