Page 34 of Reckless Kiss

Chapter 11

It was Sunday and I had a house full of people. I had no choice but to throw one of my biggest and most appetizing football parties or I might never see Jeffry again. It was bribery plain and simple, and it had worked perfectly. The entire gang was there. Most I only saw from time to time but Jeffry was usually around for lunch or dinner at least once a week.

Not so since Hope came along. Nope, now he spent all of his spare time with her.

And yes, before you ask, I was jealous. He wasmybest friend and now I had to share him. Luckily Hope fit in with our routine and it was simply a case of providing the bait in order to lure them out of their domesticity.

“The food is incredible!” Jeffry clapped me on the back. I was in the kitchen assembling a fresh tray of jalapeno poppers, gourmet cheese, and prosciutto.

“I thought the jalapeno poppers might do it.”

“Do what?” he asked as he popped one in his mouth.

“Get you and Hope out of the house.”

“We leave the house all the time,” he scoffed.

“Really? When was the last time we had lunch?”

Jeffry grinned, his cheeks warming with a blush. “Hope provides better lunchtime entertainment.”

“Of that I have no doubt. I was just hoping that every so often you might seek alternative entertainment. Especially considering our last conversation about Esme.”

“What?” he scrunched up his face in the universal sign of confusion.

“You didn’t want to have sex with her. You explained that you wanted sex and friendship. You said that sex wasn’t fundamental to life.” For fucks sake I could recount his speech word for word. It had been playing in my head on repeat ever since.

“Yeah, well, I also said Ilovedsex, if you remember. I just approach it differently than you do.” He shrugged. “And for the record, just because we’re together all the time doesn’t mean we’re fucking all the time.”

I must have looked confused because he laughed.

“What?”

“You might be the master of the bedroom. You might even be the pussy whisperer. But you, my friend, are clueless when it comes to relationships.”

That sounded like a compliment but I had a feeling it wasn’t intended that way. “Well since I have no interest in relationships I guess I’m doing okay.”

He laughed harder, shook his head. “Oh man. I should yank the bathroom mirror off the wall and bring it in here so you can take a good hard look at yourself.”

I straightened up to my full height. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“No interest in relationships? Says the man who put on a football party to get his friends to hang out with him? Man, youloverelationships. Carefully curated ones, sure, but your friendships? They mean a hell of a lot to you, Leo. You might not see yourself tied down in a regular one-on-one situation with a woman, but I’ve got a newsflash for you—you’re in a lot of relationships.”

“That’s—that’s not the same thing!” I sounded pathetic even to myself.

“It’s exactly the same thing. Face it; if I were an attractive woman who needed sex the same way you do, you would have married me. You like to talk to me. We hang out comfortably. You miss me when I’m gone.” He batted his eyelashes.

“Fuck off.”

“Hand me the tray and I will.”

So I handed my best friend-slash-asshole the tray of food and waited until the kitchen door swung shut before I started sulking.

Marry Jeffry? Preposterous. Sure he was my favorite pain in the ass, and yes, I did miss him enough to spend a small fortune on snacks, but the idea of him as a woman?

No. Just no.

I grabbed my beer and chugged, tossed the empty in the recycling and retrieved another, attempting to scrub my brain of the image of Jeffry in red lingerie, prancing around my bedroom.

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