Page 62 of Plays Well With Others

My toes curl.

My limbs feel loose. He’s gentle this time. It’s more like a caress. And it’s a stark contrast to the way he kissed me on the counter. I want more of this kind of kiss too. The kind that has me melting in his arms.

But it ends far too soon. When he breaks it, he shakes his head, like he’s trying to clear the kiss.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, since worry is never far from me.

He scrubs a hand across his jaw. “I should have asked first.”

I roll my eyes. “Carter, you have blanket permission to kiss me. You did just fuck me like a rock star on the counter. We’ve agreed to more. You can kiss me whenever.”

“Yeah?” He sounds doubtful.

“Yes,” I say emphatically, and it’s sweet that he asked. I love that he wants to make sure I’m good with everything. But it’s unnecessary.

He doesn’t seem convinced though. “It just feels…like something a—”

Ohhh.

He doesn’t finish. But I can guess the rest of it. His reticence wasn’t over consent. He’s wondering if free kissesshouldbe part of girlfriend lessons.

Because kisses can lead to feelings.

My heart sinks annoyingly. I’m a little disappointed that he’d worry I might get clingy. But rationally, I understand. He doesn’t want to lead me on. But that’s okay since I don’t want to be led. I don’t want a boyfriend. I don’t want someone who can hurt me. I’m not ready for real romance, and I won’t be for a long time. “Carter, we’re friends,” I say, trying to reassure him. “I want to stay friends. Neither one of us wants more. But I think we both want sex,” I say, hitting the flirt button a little harder now.

That earns me a naughty smile. “We do.”

“So, you can kiss me anytime. Think of it as part of the whole sex thing and girlfriend lessons. It’s like we’re…” I cast about for the word I thought of earlier. “Un-dating.”

His brown eyes sparkle. “That’s what I was calling it in my head before too.”

“And while we’re un-dating we can…wait. What’s the un-dating equivalent of sex?”

His brow knits. “It’s not de-sexing. I don’t ever want to de-sex. And un-sexing should not be a thing either.”

I grab my phone from the coffee table and look up prefixes. He slides closer and we huddle together, checking out a list of prefixes online. “Oh! Extra is an option.” I try it on for size. “Extra-sexing. Maybe, but that also sounds like it’s beyond sex.”

“What’s beyond sex? Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know about a world beyond sex,” he says, then peers at the screen, then at me with a wicked glint in his eyes. “Super,” he says, lingering on that word like it’s a tasty treat.

“We’re super-sexing,” I say, nodding too, liking that a lot. Except as we stare at the list once again, there’s another prefix that feels just a bit better. I turn to him right as he’s turning to me, and in unison we say, “Ultra-sexing.”

“Let’s ultra-sex and un-date,” he says.

“Deal,” I say, then I grab another cookie and make a show of dipping it into milk before I bite it. He grabs one and makes a show of crunching into it dry.

As we snack, we plan our next un-date.

When we’re done, I’m glad I faced all the questions I had earlier head-on. But one issue still nags at me. I want to let it go, but I can’t. So I clear my throat. “Carter?”

“Yeah?”

“Were you friends with Izzy first?”

“Huh. I haven’t really thought about her in a while,” he says, a little stunned, it seems, that I brought her up.

But he hasn’t answered me, so I press. “Were you? I thought you said you were when you told me about her.”

Something like regret flashes in his eyes. “Sort of. She’s a friend of Hayden’s,” he says. Hayden’s the kicker on his team. “And we’d all do karaoke together and stuff.”

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