“Might as well be!” she counters.
“Fine.” I sigh, handing her the notebook. “You write it down then.”
“Fine,” she says. She opens a drawer on the coffee table and takes out a marker. “Go on.”
“Rule four-point-five: If you find yourself in need of a little break from rule number four, you come to me.”
She moves to write but then pauses, head whirling up to me. “What?”
“I think it’s only fair. I’m going to be dying without some form of sex. My hand is only so good. If you find yourself needing some stress relief, I will be of service to you. As a generosity.”
“A generosity,” she says slowly.
“Yep,” I lean forward to start filling my plate with sushi, “take it or leave it.”
She stares at me. “You know I will absolutely never be utilizing this rule, correct?”
“You say that now,” I say, “but after the second month, you might be changing your attitude.”
Her eyes burn into my face for a moment. “Fine, then I’m adding another rule, too.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Rule four-point-seven-five: For every month we do this, and I manage to resist the unfathomable temptation of sleeping with you, you pay for one dog’s adoption fees at the shelter.”
I raise a brow. “That’syour counteroffer?”
“It’s important.”
“Fine, two dogs will get their bail covered, and then you’ll have to think of all of the other ones who are sitting in those cagesallalone when you’re moaning my name in my ear.”
She looks at me for a long time, before she shakes her head and jots down my rule as rule four point five, with her counter rule in the fine print. When she drops the notebook between us, I look at it and nod. It’s then that I notice her signature at the bottom of the page:A. Doll. All pretty and round and sweet. She dated it, too. Like this is binding.
“Sign it,” she demands.
I hate how that bossy tone makes me ten times more attracted to her. I lean over and scribble my name next to hers. Date it, too. And only then do I realize this is actually happening. The girl on the other end of the couch, the one who burst into my life that night atIcebox, is going to pretend like she’s my girlfriend for the foreseeable future. She’s going to save my life.
It’ll cost me some money, and her some pride, but we’re doing this.
“Oh, and Carter?”
I glance at her, sipping my wine.
She flashes me a sinful smile. “I haven’t had sex in three years.”
I cough into my drink, sending red wine spraying over the rim of the glass.
Well.
I don’t think rule number four-point-five will ever come to fruition. Together, we might also save the entire canine population.
My faux girlfriend is a nun.
CHAPTER TWENTY
arden
I cannot believeI’m doing this.
