Page 62 of Best Friends, Tennessee

I could watch him like this forever. In a relaxed haze after he’d just come, looking like for once, he didn’t have a worry in the world.

“You’re always welcome to,” I said. “You didn’t let me loan you even a thousand bucks to help with your moving costs. So please, consider the blow job a favor.”

“It was good,” he said simply. I could tell he was running out of steam. Not knowing what to say, and probably very sleepy after he’d come.

As I walked to the hallway, I paused to look back at him for a moment. “You know, I’ve always been curious what it mightbe like to have a friend with benefits, too,” I told him. “So don’t sweat it, okay? Night.”

I made it to my bedroom, shut the door behind me, and took a deep breath before the enormity of the evening hit me all at once.

“Holy fucking hell,” I said under my breath.

Everything caught up with me. The alcohol. The things I’d said.

The way everything had just changed.

All at once I felt elated, like I had just jumped off of a cliff I’d been afraid of all my life—a jump that part of me thought might kill me.

But another part of me knew that the cliff had water at the bottom. That if I took the plunge and fell, I might fall in and find something beautiful.

It was still dark when I woke to the sound of my bedroom door gently opening.

“Mmm,” I hummed, looking over to see Ori’s silhouette in the low light.

“Hi,” he said, padding over to the opposite side of the bed. He pulled back the covers and slid underneath, getting cozy right away.

“Hello,” I replied, shifting in bed, still in a half-sleepy state. All at once a sharp cold hit my arm and I winced. “Fuck. Fuck, Ori, your hands are so fucking cold—”

He laughed softly, squeezing my arm with his ice-cold fingers once before pulling back. “Sorry. I need to heat up.”

“Damn right you do,” I said.

I turned toward him and felt for his hands under the covers. When I found the little blocks of ice, I clasped my hands around them, rubbing quickly and warming him up.

“My personal heater.”

“Is that what you’re using me for, after all?”

“Yup,” he said. “Our whole friendship has been a ruse so that I can get you to warm my limbs up whenever I want.”

I chuckled, giving him a little shove. His hands were approaching a normal temperature now, and I pulled back, taking a deep breath.

I felt that gentle tug throughout my whole body as I smelled Ori in bed next to me.

Goddamn, it felt good having him in here with me.

“You said you wouldn’t end up in my bed.”

He hummed, and a moment later I felt his fingers on my back, gently scratching it. It was a slice of fucking heaven.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I lied.”

Well you can lie to me all you want, if it feels this good.

I was sinking back into sleep quickly, relaxed by his touch and the weight of him next to me in bed.

I liked sleeping next to somebody.

More than I liked to admit.

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