Page 153 of Holding On To Good

Lily and Hayden exchanged a very smirky, isn’t-she-cute-in-her-delusions? look.

“After you and Caleb amicably and mutually consciously uncoupled,” Lily corrected, complete with air quotes around the word mutually, “Rose bet me fifty dollars you and Urban would get together before the end of the year.”

Willow blinked. Blinked again. “You bet on me?”

“Yes.”

But it still wasn’t computing. Maybe she needed another mimosa. “You and Rose had a bet? About me and Urban sleeping together?”

“Yes,” Lily repeated, drawing the word out until it was three syllables. “Keep up with the conversation, would you?”

“Keep up with it? I’d rather get out of it. And forget it ever happened. I can’t believe my own sisters, two of the most important women in my life, wagered about my love life.”

“I can’t believe you were sucker enough to actually take Rose’s bet,” Hayden told Lily. “Any and all gloating she subjects you to is well deserved.”

“I thought it’d take longer,” Lily defended. “They’ve been dancing around each other for their entire lives, for God’s sake. I figured at their current rate—and both of them being so freaking oblivious—it’d take them at least a few more years before they realized the truth.”

Willow knew better than to ask but she couldn’t help herself. “What truth?”

“The truth that you and Urban are meant to be together,” Hayden said.

“We’re not together,” Willow insisted. As for the meant to be part, she’d stopped believing that half a lifetime ago.

Way too much time had passed for her to start thinking it could possibly be true now.

Helping herself to a strawberry from Hayden’s plate, Lily leaned toward their friend. “This is the part where she tries to convince herself, by informing us and everyone she speaks to, that she and Urban are just friends.”

“No, we’re not just friends.” That ship sailed the moment he dropped to his knees and licked her to a mind-altering orgasm. “More like friends with benefits.”

“First of all, there’s no such thing as friends with benefits,” Lily scoffed. “Friendship, by definition, is a platonic relationship. Sex is not platonic. Therefore, there’s either no sex or no friendship.”

Hayden nodded. “She’s right. It’s the first rule of friendship. Thou shall not screw each other’s brains out.”

“It’s my friendship,” Willow said, digging in her heels as the idea became more and more appealing in a best of both worlds sort of way. “I can make, or break, any rule I want.”

“Secondly,” Lily continued, as if neither of them had spoken, “the whole concept of friends with benefits is that both parties agree—whether that agreement is verbalized or not—not to expect more than sexual gratification from the aforementioned benefits; i.e., no becoming exclusive, no getting jealous of other potential sexual partners and the biggie, no falling in love with each other, which, of course, is what always happens to one of the parties involved, leaving the other party to wholeheartedly regret the day she tried to weasel out of taking her courage in hand and finally going after the man she’s been crazy for her entire life. A man, it should be noted, who obviously has deep and abiding feelings for her as well, even if it’s taken him way longer than it should’ve have to finally make his move.”

Lawyers. They were even worse than psychiatrists.

“I’m not trying to weasel out of anything,” Willow insisted. “I’m trying to make the best of a possibly awkward and friendship ending situation.”

Having sex with Urban blurred the boundaries of their friendship. And now she was outside the safety of those borders, lost and confused and scared. They couldn’t just change the entire scope of their relationship from friends to lovers without facing a few consequences.

But they could expand that scope. Move those lines a few inches so there was room to include various and, if she was lucky, multiple acts of mutual sexual satisfaction.

That wasn’t being gutless. It was smart. A way to explore their mutual attraction without irreparably damaging their working or personal relationship.

But Lily, secure in her relationship with a man who adored her, her burgeoning baby belly and their exciting, love-filled future, didn’t get that.

Pregnant women. So smug.

“Take it from somebody who’s been there,” Lily said. “Flings, whether friendly or not, have a way of getting complicated.” She patted her belly. “This is going to end in tears. Yours. And possibly with you on your knees begging Urban’s forgiveness.”

Then she snatched the other half of bagel from Willow’s plate and sauntered away.

Willow glared at her sister’s retreating back for a moment, then turned to Hayden. “I suppose you have something to add?”

“Nah. I think Lily covered it. Although if I did have something to add, it would probably be a kind, gentle and loving reminder that Urban is a good guy. A great one. And that he cares about you and he’d never do anything to hurt you.”

---