Page 70 of The Alice Equation (The Laws of Love 1)

“Oh—um—good.”

“I mean, you know, we’re friends, right?” Her lips tilted up at the corners as she met his eyes, a little shy, a little challenging. “Whatever happens from here on, we’ll always be friends.”

“Yes, of course.” The car juddered as his foot slipped slightly as they took off from the lights.

“Well, then, why not be friends with benefits?” Her voice reminded him of a comp?re on a game show. “Like Polly and Jake. If you want to, that is. I mean, only until I’ve met a nice guy on Tinder, and you meet someone you—”

Nggggggg. Now he was biting the inside of his lip so hard he’d probably drawn blood. He battled to pull himself together. He did casual brilliantly, for Christ’s sake. He was the king of casual. So how come Alice was all of a sudden beating him at his own game?

Aaron forced his shoulders to relax, his foot to stop cramping over the pedal. This was good news. Perfect, in fact. They had another couple of months of the fake dating thing. Why not add in sex? His cock bounced in agreement.

“That… could… work.” The words came out in slow motion. His brain was having trouble playing catch-up. Already they were in Alice’s street and he had to focus on navigating the tightly parked cars before coming to a standstill just past Rowena’s house.

“I mean, if we’resupposedto be dating, we might as well go the whole hog.” She was gathering up her bag and before he knew it, she’d leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. “It will be more convincing that way, don’t you think?”

He turned and looked at her. Her face hovered, like she might kiss him again, and if he wanted, he could lean forward and take that rosebud mouth in his, pull gently at her lower lip with his teeth, lick it better. He shut out all the things he wanted to do to Alice. Would another two months be enough?

It would have to be.

He forced a smile, and for a second he thought he saw a shadow pass over her face. But then the perky smile was back in place. “Give it some thought,” she said and waved her bag at him as she got out. “Thanks for the Tinder tips. I’ll probably use some—minus the butt plug.”

Their eyes held for a beat more and he felt like he was drowning. Then he pulled himself together. Gave her his best cheeky grin, the slightly lopsided one he knew got women every time. “Thanks for today,” he purred. “I enjoyed it.”

Understatement of the century. But she’d never know. He’d never own up to how much it had blown his mind.

She snagged at her lower lip with two little white teeth. “Me too.”

For a second he watched her as she sashayed up the path. Only for a second. He couldn’t cope with the way it made him feel to see her walking away.

* * *

The queue for banh mi rolls was longer than usual. Alice flicked an impatient look at her watch. She’d locked the shop, put theback in ten minutessign on the door and followed her urge for a treat at the Vietnamese bakery three doors down from the Book Genie. Call it comfort food. Honestly, who cared. Today was not a vego day. She wanted—needed—banh mi with beef spilling out the sides and extra fresh chilli. She had to sweat out some sexual tension.

Sure, she was still proud of herself. She’d managed to survive the most amazeballs sex of her life (Polly’s description was right on the money) with the man of her dreams and not make a complete idiot of herself afterwards. When she’d walked into the house and collapsed on the sofa where Polly was watching what was probably episode 2043 ofOutlanderwith a box of assorted Lindt chocolate balls in front of her, Polly had raised an eyebrow and observed, “Now here’s a woman who has just been right royally shagged.”

Which meant Alice had to spill the beans on how the plan had worked perfectly. Not every technicolour detail, of course, but enough for Polly to get the gist. Afterwards Polly had crowed, “Brilliant. You little sex goddess, you.”

Except now it was only Monday lunch time—onlyMonday; it felt like a century had passed—and her sex goddess status was slipping with each hour that went by with no contact from Aaron.

“Yes, please?”

Startled, she realised she had somehow got to the front of the queue. She ordered, her mouth watering as she watched customers disappearing out the door with their paper-bag-wrapped rolls. The problem with the friends with benefits arrangement, she decided as she stepped back to wait for her order, was that it changed the rules. Suddenly you weren’t just friends who contacted each other with a funny YouTube clip or some outrageous bit of world politics, you were… something else. Something that hovered between a friend and a girlfriend without the clear status of either.

The concept that had seemed a stroke of genius was now making her want to devour seriously spicy food and donuts in large quantities. Who was she trying to fool? She wasn’t Polly. She’d never have Polly’s sexual panache. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Her heart did a roller coaster, dumping her hard when she saw who it was.

Why did Rowena always have the worst timing in the world?

“Hi Mum.”

“Darling. How are you?”

“Good, how’s England?”

“Raining. Do you know it’s rained every day so far in July?”

“Everything must be very green.”

“Very. Now look, sweetie, it sounds busy there so I’ll be quick.” Alice didn’t bother to enlighten Rowena she was in a café, not the Book Genie. “I wanted to alert you to a package I’ve sent you.”

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