“No, Cowboy, you’re the jackpot,” she says, sitting up a little straighter. “I know I’m bringing this up out of the blue, but I just figured…we’ve both thought about it, we’re both single, and we already spend so much time together. It could be fun.”
“What exactly are you proposing?”
“Casual sex. You and me.”
If my brain wasn’t fried before, it definitely is now. “Friends with benefits?”
She shrugs. “Or fuck buddies. Whatever you prefer. What do you think?”
That this is insane. That this isn’t worth the risk of potentially losing you. That I’m not sure I can ever go back to just being your friend.
“Walker?” she asks, reaching across the table to take my hand. “Talk to me.”
“No.”
“No?” Her face falls, and with it, so do her shoulders as she leans back into her seat, taking her hand with her. “What do you mean no?”
The sad look on her face almost makes me want to eat my words.
“I’m not having sex with you, Sunny.”
“Can I ask why not?”
“Because you’re my friend,” I tell her the truth, despite the burning at the back of my throat because the words feel like acid on my tongue. “And I’d like to keep you around.”
“We’d still be friends.”
“Not if we sleep together.”
She stares at me for a hard second, and I watch any hope she may have had that I would change my mind deflate from her body. With it, anxiety creeps in and presses down on my lungs. “Okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, Walker.” Her laugh wraps around me, filling me with relief as the tension seeps out of the air between us. “It’s not like I can force you to sleep with me. You don’t want to, and that is okay,” she says, smiling brightly.
“We’re okay then?” I ask, waiting for the other shoe to drop like she might have a delayed reaction to my rejection.
She nods her head, sliding to the edge of the teal booth she’s sitting in. “Nothing you say to me would ever make us not okay, Cowboy. Especially not a boundary. I kind of like you,” she says, stepping down to the black and white tiled floor. “You’re stuck with me. Sex or not.”
“Where are you going then?”
“Showing you what you’re missing out on,” she teases, smoothing her hands down the length of her body. She directs my attention from her collarbones, over the swell of her breasts, and to the small of her waist before finally landing on her perfect handfuls of an ass. When she sees the way my eyes follow her hands, her face lights up. Like my checking her out is a small victory. “But I do have to get home. I forgot I have an early lecture tomorrow, but we’re good.”
“Promise?” I ask, holding my pinky up.
She smiles, wrapping her finger around mine before pressing her lips to my cheek. Her breath a whisper across my skin. “Promise.”
The lights are on in the living room when I unlock the door to my apartment and step inside, spotting my roommate sitting crisscrossed, computer in lap on our green fabric sofa. Setting my bag on the kitchen table, I move around the sectional and take the side Flynn and her cat, Fish, aren’t occupying. The second I do, the ball of cream and brown-striped fur uncurls from her spot along Flynn’s thigh and moves toward me.
“Hey, girlie,” I say with a smile, scooping her up to lie on my chest while kicking my feet up on the square coffee table in front of me. “Did you miss me?”
“It’s really unfair she likes you better than me,” Flynn groans, moving her headphones down to rest around her neck. “When did you get in?” she asks, unclipping her shoulder-length auburn hair from its updo before running her fingers through it.
“Just a minute ago,” I say, running my hand along Fish’s back.
“How was your night?” she asks, shutting her laptop to rest it on the couch cushion next to her before reaching for the brown-knitted blanket and snuggling in deeper to the mustard and floral throw pillows propped up behind her. “Did you get the rest of those case studies done? The last one was brutal.”
I nod my head, chewing my bottom lip. I can’t even begin to remember what I read, not after that conversation with Sonya. Anything that wasn’t her hands sliding down her body, showing me exactly what I was missing out on, flew out the window the second she fled. Now, it is all I can think about, and after a year and a half of living together and nearly two and a half of being friends, Flynn can read my face like the back of a book.