Page 34 of Good Pucking Luck

I’m not sure the math is mathing here, but Rylan’s oversized grin says he’s convinced.

This idea of his, though, it’s not half bad. It’s really fucking good. I could get loads of experience and practice just fucking someone, without the relationship part. Loads of practice not being the guy who falls in love with the first man to ask me out and then end up dumb enough to propose to him. Plus, Rylan isreallygood at sex. Which brings me to my next question. “Will you be sleeping with other people?”

I’m not sure why that matters. We’re not in a committed relationship, but I need to soak up as much experience with him as I can before I go try it with anyone else, and it’ll feel weird ifRylan is having sex with other people and I’m not. It’ll feel like what Malcolm did to me.

“Nah. You’ll keep me busy enough. Plus, I don’t want their sex juju to cancel out your magic cum.” He winks in this flirty way that should look dumb but doesn’t. “What about you?”

“I have a feeling you’ll keep me busy enough too.”

Am I really doing this? I think I might be.

Rylan holds his hand out like we’re making a business arrangement, and I guess we are. “Deal?”

I shake his hand. “Deal.”

What the hell have I just done?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Rylan

Hayes and Ijust agreed to exclusively sleep with each other for the next six months, and you’d think that would feel weird to me, but it really doesn’t.

Instead, I just get up to flip the chicken, trying to ignore the giddy tingle in my gut. “So…your parents started the Rockwell hotels, and now you’re part of the business?” If we’re going to do this friendship thing too, we should get to know each other. Plus, I can’t imagine having steady sex with someone I know nothing about.

“Yeah, they met in high school. Both overachievers, but also the kind of people everyone liked. They started dating, went to college together. I have no idea what made them thinkhotel, but whatever it was, it worked.”

He gets up and walks across the deck, looking around. Something about the way he said his parents were the type of people everyone liked sounds very much like he doesn’t think he is. And okay, maybe I can see a little bit why he would think that because he’s adorably prickly, but it also makes me sad…and makes me hate The Prick even more.

“The first Rockwell was in New York, right? Is that where you’re from?”

“Yes and no. The first Rockwell was there, and it’s where I was born, but we traveled a lot. My parents love their fast-paced lifestyle and living like they didn’t have a kid, but they also, oddly, loved me a lot too. They weren’t the type of parentswho would leave me at home with nannies, so I went with them everywhere.”

“It’s not strange for your parents to love you, cutie.”

He waves me off. “That’s not what I mean. Not really. Just that a lot of the people in their circles did leave their kids at home. New York is home base, though.”

“I bet it was nice when you went back and could spend time with your friends.”

“Oh, I didn’t have friends. What about you? Where did you grow up?” he asks as if he didn’t just drop a heartbreaking bombshell.

“What do you mean you didn’t have friends?”

He turns to face me, nose wrinkled up cutely. “It wasn’t a big deal. I knew people, of course, but I was…different. I wasn’t like most of the kids I was around. We spent time together because our parents knew each other, and we lived in the same neighborhoods and went to the same events, but I can’t imagine they liked me very much.” His words are spoken so matter-of-factly, like it’s something he doesn’t care about or has made peace with a long time ago, but for me, it makes my heart soften.

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“Don’t do that, Rylan. You didn’t know them, and those are the facts, and that’s okay.” He pulls up my sweats that are slung low on his hips. “I should probably go.”

“Nope. You can’t go. You’re having dinner with me. It’s part of our arrangement.”

“I don’t remember shaking on that.”

“It was in the fine print.”

“We have a verbal contract.”

“I mumbled it.”

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