Page 49 of Just Best Friends

Len searched the kitchen, pulling out a set of oven mitts and setting the dip on the counter. “Sure as hell I do. And better yet, you should go and meet someone.”

I laughed. “What?”

“You heard me,” he grumbled, rounding the room back to the table. I pulled a trivet free from under the game board and Len set the dip down.

“Are you offering me advice on how to win over Thea?”

“Millie has me watching a bunch of romance shit, and yes, I’m giving you advice. Don’t fuck this up. Or rather, let her fuck this up. Because she will.”

“Thea? No, she won’t.”

He laughed, throwing the oven mitts onto the counter, grabbing the chips and setting them on the table between us. “She absolutely will. What other reason is there for her to still be single?”

“She literally just broke up with her boyfriend.”

Len scoffed before shoveling dip onto a chip. “Boyfriend? That man wasn’t her boyfriend. He was her hook up buddy.”

“She called him her boyfriend.”

“Boyfriends meet your friends. They spend the weekend with you. They hang out at your house. Thea and that guy were convenience dating.”

“Convenience dating?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Fuck you,” Len jammed the chip into his mouth, chewing loudly. “Don’t give me that look. I’m trying to help.”

He was trying to help, in his aggressive Len way. I appreciated that, even though it’d been entirely unexpected.

“I’m just saying she doesn’t really want to be in a relationship. Or at least she hasn’t before.”

I winced, realization dawning on me. “And I’m freaking her out, because we can’t be casual.”

“Not ‘we.’” Len pointed a chip in my direction. “You.”

“Me?” I grabbed a chip out of the bag.

“Yeah,” Len said, his mouth full. “You can’t keep anything casual. You’re a serial monogamist.”

“A serial monogamist? First off, where did you even learn that term? Second, I haven’t been in a relationship since Emily.”

Len shrugged. “Millie listens to some sex advice podcast when she’s cooking. I picked up some things.”

I laughed. “You’re just full of surprises tonight. Then please explain how I can be a man with only one long-term relationship and a serial monogamist? Since you’re a sexpert now.”

He grimaced, pulling away from me. “Fuck, man. Don’t make it weird. You stayed with Emily for what? Seven years?”

“Eight.”

“At least five too many. You didn’t even want to marry her.”

Emily had been my high school sweetheart, one I didn’t exactly know how to break it off with. “Probably six years too many, to be honest.”

“And since then, how many dates have you been on?”

“I’m not exactly keeping track,” I winced. Eight. Eight dates.

“And all of them had second dates, right? And third?”

I nodded.

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