Page 7 of The Moment We Know

There was silence on Jules’s end for several moments and then she finally murmured, “That’s actually very considerate of him. And smart. He’s obviously given this a lot of thought.”

“He has, actually.”

Paige then proceeded to give a quick rundown of the ‘sexual baby steps’ she and David were going to be taking, as well as the ‘ground rules’ he’d laid out. At the last second though, she left out the part where they were going to ignore the elephant in the room—his relationship with Ashley. Paige was pretty sure Jules wouldn’t approve of that particular rule and debating it right then wasn’t something that needed to happen. Especially after Jules quasi-erupted after hearing about the masturbation mandate.

“I’m at a loss right now,” she sputtered. “Why in the almighty hell would you agree to not being able to masturbate when you’re alone? It’s barbaric.”

Even though Paige had been dismissive of David’s explanation earlier, she recycled it now. “We’re … priming the pump.”

“Priming the pump?”

“That’s what he called it.”

Jules groaned. “What a fucking idiot.”

At Jules’s assessment of David, Paige found herself defending him. “He said I’d thank him for it later—”

“I meant you.”

“Well, jeez. Thanks.”

“I really wish I’d been there when this deal was in the works. I would’ve negotiated better terms for you.”

Paige shook her head at the thought of Jules sitting at David’s kitchen table last night, being some sort of arbitrator. “What are you, Jimmy Hoffa? It wasn’t a Teamsters meeting.”

“If it had been, you’d have gotten a much better deal. At the very least, you’d still be able to use your vibrator whenever you wanted to.” Jules exhaled loudly. “Don’t you know anything about collective bargaining?”

Before Paige could respond to what was obviously a rhetorical question, another text from David came in.

DAVID: Keep these evenings open. Unless something comes up for either one of us, these are date nights.

This was followed by the picture of her schedule with approximately half of her available nights circled, which obviously corresponded with his. She assumed that’s when Jacob would be staying with Ashley, since they were all Wednesdays and weekends. The circled dates made everything suddenly very real to Paige, and as she wondered which one would be the first time they’d have sex, her heart tripped.

This was going to happen.

PAIGE: Okay. It looks like we’ll be seeing each other a lot.

DAVID: Yes, starting with tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up at 6:30 p.m.

“Paige? Paige!”

“Sorry.”

“Are you ‘multi-tasking’ with David again?”

“Yes. He was texting me about our date nights.”

“That’s sweet. Now tell him I demand you be able to use your vibrator whenever you want.”

“Yeah, no. I’m not going to—”

Another text from David came in, diverting Paige’s attention once again.

DAVID: I’m still thinking about your boobs.

Paige laughed before she could stop herself.

“What’s so funny?” Jules demanded.

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