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My heart races again. “I didn’t know that option was on the table.”
“I didn’t say it was,” she counters quickly. “I just wanted clarification.”
My lips twitch as I try not to smile. “Frenemies with benefits?”
She rolls her eyes. “No way. That’s literally the worst romance trope of all.”
“What do you mean?” I protest.
“I’m obviously too well read to fall for that one.” She gestures toward some of the books stacked around the room. “I’m not entering any with-benefits agreements with you. No couple in history has ever come out of that arrangement unscathed.” She crosses her arms and leans back against the headboard.
“But we’ve already established that the benefits are amazing. Those other couples must have been missing that element,” I point out.
Her subsequent silence wounds my pride more deeply than it should.
“Or maybe it wasn’t all that amazing for both of us. Okay, then,” I say quietly, looking down at my lap. Well, that explains a lot.
“I actually meant the part about them falling in love, you know, because it’s impossible not to form an emotional connection after a while,” she explains. “And I’m pleading the fifth on the other part.”
I feel myself frowning—no, pouting. “Wow, that bad, huh?”
She sighs in frustration. “Stopbouder-ing. It was the opposite of terrible, okay? I’m just trying to throw a wet blanket on this … well, whatever that was just now.”
I should be embarrassed by the combination of relief and heat that floods my chest. “Chemistry?” I supply, my smile growing wider by the second.
“Sure. Let’s call it that. Just don’t get cocky on me.”
I pull up the sheets and pretend to check beneath as I snicker quietly.
“Ugh. Aren’t you like, thirty?” She’s trying not to smile.
“Thirty-one,” I return. “But my sense of humor just turned sixteen.”
She rolls her eyes, but the corner of her mouth turns up slightly. “If we’re really going to have a baby together—as friends—then we’ll need to set some boundaries.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Isn’t laying down the ground rules another one of those stupid romance tropes, or whatever you call them?”
“How would you know that?” she asks, rearing back in surprise.
“JD makes me watch too many rom-coms.”
She snorts. “That tracks. But we’re just going to have to risk the ground rules, anyway.”
“Fine. But this is a negotiation.”And I am well-equipped for negotiation.I gesture with my hand. “Ladies first.”
She lifts her chin haughtily as she begins, ticking the first one off on her index finger. “No unnecessary touching.”
“Touching is necessary for sex,” I remind her. She looks unamused. “All right, here’s my counter: no sex—unless you ask explicitly—but I want unlimited rated-PG kissing and cuddling rights.”
“Really?”
I shrug. “I told you, I like touching you. Is that so hard to believe?” She doesn’t answer, so I continue pleading my case. “Besides, maybe you’ll need a totally platonic foot rub one day. And I’m going to want to feel the baby moving.”
“Okay, then why kissing?”
“I have my reasons. It’ll make more sense later,” I maintain, though I have no defense.
“All right. I’ll raise you no nudity, and you’ve got a deal.”
