Page 13 of Bang Buddies With Benefits
Her demeanor changed, sorrow overtaking the happiness. “Although, they’re both paired up now, two by two, like they’re going to have to board Noah’s Ark and start reproducing. They probably will too—Ellie’s been talking about starting a family for years, and now that she’s engaged, it’s only a matter of time. This summer’s already packed full of events where I’ll be the third wheel—or fifth wheel or whatever—something everyone else is more concerned with than I am. The bigger deal they make of it, the less I’m looking forward to attending any of them.”
If anything, the news only solidified that my idea was the perfect solution for us both. “Exactly. The summer is always chock-full of couple stuff, and I get the same treatment. My family alternates between trying to set me up and treating me like I have leprosy, relegated to the lonely table in the back. For some reason telling them I’m choosing to be alone only makes them worry more.
“Then there’s my brother’s wedding in two months, and guess who he’s marrying?” Since Cat didn’t know any of the people involved, I didn’t actually make her guess. “My ex’s brother.”
“As in…?”
“The same woman I recently ended things with, yes. For the second time this year, at that.” Missing each other during our brief interlude convinced us to give one more shot at working out our issues. That, in turn, destroyed any chance of us remaining friends—a myth about as big and tentacled as the kraken symbol I’d designed for the bar and had inked into my skin. If not for the ugly end, however, we might’ve at least been able to pull off civility.
“Turns out it wasn’t a sign, us reconnecting. It was the romance between our brothers, and we should’ve left them to it without attempting to reignite ours.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I’m Noah’s best man, and Julia’s Jeremy’s maid of honor. Her sisters are acting as groomswomen, and I’m going to have to deal with her and the entire Carrington family several times over the next two months, and I could use a wing woman to survive it all.”
According to Noah, Julia was still pretty bitter. He worried about screaming matches as much as he fretted over us hooking up again. Which would of course result in screaming matches before and/or during the ceremony.
“Basically, I’m suggesting we temporarily add benefits to our fuck buddy arrangement. I’ll be your fake fiancé and send you flowers and all that other cheesy shit, as well as attend that fancy work party with you, and you can be my fake girlfriend and help me stay sane while I help Noah finish up the wedding prep and attend the ceremony.”
“Couples’ Island: survivor edition,” Cat said in an ominous tone, and we both chuckled.
“Exactly. An alliance is the only way we’re going to survive. Better yet, at the end of the day, we’ll release all the stress from faking our way through our social functions with crazy-hot sex. Win-win.” It was a risk, but she’d initiated the hand holding earlier today, so I curled her hand in mine. “So? What do you say?”
“I say this is the best idea you’ve had since we snuck upstairs during that lavish New Year’s Eve party, climbed onto the roof to watch the fireworks, and both ended and started our year with a bang.
5
Catalina
“Wait,” Ellie said, lowering her drink to the circular table we’d claimed as our own years ago. If anyone else dared to sit there on Friday nights before we showed up, we were personally affronted. We let it slide, of course, usually by hovering at the bar so we could pounce as soon as it was abandoned. “I don’t understand. Why do you need a fiancé?”
“I don’t,” I said, my heart palpitations insisting I draw that line between fiction and reality. “The partners are so old school, and yes, it infuriates me. But even without that issue, they also caught Zac and me well on our way to in flagrante, and I had to say something. It just sorta popped out.”
“Kinda like Zac’s penis, it sounds like,” Penny said, and she and Ellie broke into laughter. She jabbed her elbow into my side, sending my breath out of my mouth in a whoosh. “Come on. You’d be the first to mock us if the tables were turned. I also seem to remember you toasting to my giant dick right as Archer came up to talk to me one night.”
“Yeah, but you liked him and were pretending not to at the time.”
Penny snagged a handful of fries and swiped them through the housemade ketchup she often waxed poetic about. “I fail to see the difference.”
“The difference is, Zac and I aren’t togethertogether, and will never be. This could impact my career.”
“But from what I’m hearing,” Ellie said, “you found a way for it to impact it for the better, so I still don’t see why you’re so worked up over it.”
Worked upwasn’t the phrase I’d use, but I guess it was a potato potahto situation. Only Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head weren’t forced into one box, as if one couldn’t be purchased without the other. Hell, now the toy could be anything it wanted to be, and why was a plastic spud more progressive than the men running my law firm?Ugh.
I sipped at my drink and arranged my reply, same way I always did in court. Not that Penny and Ellie wouldn’t give me the grace I so rarely got from a judge, prosecutor, and jury, but after a handful of years practicing law, it stuck. “I guess it’s because I’m proud to be a strong, independent woman. When Penny needed to exude big dick energy, who taught her?”
The blonde in our trio of besties reached between her legs and adjusted her non-existent package. “You did.”
A smile crept across my lips, allowing me to unfurl my fingers from their fisted position.
“That’s right. I never would’ve landed a spot at such a big firm if I hadn’t done that, either. And now they want me to downplay that side because they’re worried my dick’s bigger than theirs?”
“Which hello,” Ellie added, swinging her cocktail glass wide enough some spilled over her hand. “Of course it is.”
The trigger on my temper twitched, one tiny movement from going off. “That’s what this comes down to. Not showing my commitment, like they claim, but forcing me into a preconceived box of what a woman should act like; who she should be. All through law school, I forced myself to walk the line with my male professors because presenting a view that clashed with theirs or showing them up in class impacted my grades. I thought I was finally past that bullshit.”
Penny scooted the basket of fries toward me, her way of suggesting I drown my sorrows in crispy potatoes and ketchup. “As much as we all hope to get there, I’m afraid we’re still climbing that pile of crap. We keep on trucking through the goo, often in our four or five-inch heels, so that the future generation starts that much higher.”
Sadly true. All three of us had forced ourselves to bow to the king of the hill at one time or another, the fact that it was a mountain of shit notwithstanding. “Yeah, and that’s why I’ll play their misogynistic game—for now, anyway. But I’m still pissed as hell that I have to pretend to be engaged in order to convince the partners I should be promoted over Mark.”
“Doeshehave a significant other?” Last year, I would’ve thought Ellie was fishing to see if the guy might be worth a setup. That was before a phone update from hell had led her to finding the one.
