Page 99 of The Boyfriend Goal

When it comes back online, I’m sure we broke our roomie rule, but sure, too, we’re on a collision course to smash others. Maybe ones we didn’t even set. Unwritten rules like don’t fall for your roommate.

Though I’m pretty sure I broke that one a while ago.

The rest is just details.

31

NO GHOST HERE

Josie

The Internet can prepare you for a lot of things—orbit-shattering orgasms among them. But can it truly prepare you for the back-to-earth moments after the O? Like when you need to, well, clean up? It’s all so terribly awkward once the penis slips out.

“Excuse me,” I say a minute later, then hop out of bed and dart into the en suite bathroom as quickly as I can, leaving Wes to dispose of the condom.

I straighten up, pee, wash my hands, and re-emerge into his bedroom. Wesley must have ditched the protection quickly. He’s now lying on top of the covers, arms parked behind his head, skin sweat-slicked, looking entirely too sexy and sated.

The moment’s still weird though.

Because…do I go home?

As in, downstairs?

Do I stay here?

No research prepared me for this truth of modern sex—banging your hot-as-hell roomie is great until you have to figure out who’s kicking who out of bed.

My stomach flips with fresh nerves as I take tentative steps in my birthday suit into the bedroom. But I stop near the doorway, the entrance to the stairs just beyond.

“Sooooo,” I begin.

Translation: what’s next?

Wes rolls his eyes. “Get the hell over here, Winters,” he says, patting the bed.

My body throws a parade, confetti and ticker tape raining down inside me. Feeling wanted, I hustle my naked booty back to bed and flop next to him. I grab my glasses and slide them back on.

He props himself on his side, parks his head in his hand. “Were you going to sneak out?” He sounds playful as he calls me on it.

“Is it sneaking out if I live here too?” I counter, even though I’m still uncertain. How do you go from having great sex to not knowing what to do next? Why didn’t I do my homework on that?

“Yes, it’s sneaking out, so don’t do it,” he says.

“Still so bossy,” I say, but I think I love his bossy side. It settles me. Makes me feel comforted. My chest is warm, and my cells are a little fizzy.

He tugs me closer, buries his nose in my hair. “The hotel pillow smelled like cinnamon that morning when you were gone. Your lotion, right?”

My heart sprints. He remembered what I told him at the ice cream shop the night we met. “Yes. Good memory.”

“I was hoping you were going to still be there. At the hotel in the morning,” he murmurs, sounding lost in time as he absently strokes my hair while revisiting our first night together.

I feel lost in time too, but in this heady moment. “I was hoping you’d find me,” I say, admitting something I hadn’t fully processed that morning. Something I didn’t truly realize till I bought a cactus to get his last name.

“I’d thought it might be a clue. A line in your letter.”

“Which line?”

There’s no hesitation as he says: “Maybe I’ll see you around the city. It’s big, but it’s small too. You never know…”

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