It had been going well too. Better than I ever would have imagined. Maybe not having the pressure of putting the datinglabel on our relationship helped, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that not only was I becoming good friends with my childhood nemesis, but I was also quickly developing feelings for her. Big feelings. That should have scared me to death, but for some reason it didn’t.
“At least your mother isn’t on your ass about getting a girlfriend, that must be a relief.”
“Yeah, except now she’s pestering me about us getting married! Can you believe it? Any other parent would be like,You’d better date for a year or two to be sure, butnot mine. I swear that she and Mrs. Robbins are picking out china patterns.”
“No one wants china anymore. It just sits around collecting dust.”
I laughed. “Yeah.”
“Do you think this is your forever relationship?”
There was something wistful in Robbie’s voice that made me curious that something was awry in her love life, but as her supervisor, I didn’t want to pry.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to enjoy it while I can.”
Chris
“Do you have plans tomorrow? Should I take off and get out of your hair?”
Julia and I had been dating… excuse me,friends with benefits… for six weeks now. Even though things had been going well, we were both still being careful. Not assuming that we’d see each other. Negotiating sleepovers on a case by case basis. Texting daily but not sharing any endearments. Not being too personal – other than sex that is.
Somewhere over the past six weeks, I’d fallen head over heels in love with this woman. The problem was, I had no idea how she felt about me. I was pretty sure she had at least a little affection for me, but whether it rose to the level of girlfriends and forever I had no idea.
Julia was surprisingly guarded, but in a way that made her look like an open book. It was hard to describe, but it felt like she shared parts of herself openly to hide the parts she didn’t want them to see. I knew all about how she felt about her mother’s matchmaking and I’d heard story after story about her job. But she was surprisingly taciturn about her ADHD, although I had the sense she was a little embarrassed about it. She never mentioned her previous relationships or talked about her friends, even though I knew she had some. And while she seemed to appreciate physical affection, I was always the one who initiated it.
I needed to talk to her. I’d read enough romance books to understand how annoying it was when one or both of the protagonists had a dark moment solely because they couldn’t bring themselves to have a grown-up conversation about what was going on. Then again, that was harder than it looked.
“I don’t have anything going until tomorrow afternoon,” Julia said sleepily. “You’re welcome to sleep over if you’d like.”
I was welcome to sleep over wasn’t exactly an invitation.
“Do you want me to?” My voice sounded small, uncertain.
She rolled over to squint at me. Her dark hair was a wild mess around her, spilling over her bare shoulders and both of our pillows, making her look like some ancient goddess.
“I just said I did.”
“No, you said I was welcome to stay over, as if it didn’t matter to you either way.”
“It doesn’t,” she shrugged. “Whatever you want to do is fine.”
I felt a rush of annoyance that propelled me right off the bed. After all we’d shared, didn’t I matter to her at all?
“Okay I’m going to head out.”
“Wait, are you pissed?” she asked, her face becoming more alert. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is that I can’t read you,” I said, pulling on my pants with way more force than was strictly necessary. “I can’t tell if you like spending time with me, or if you just like having sex, and if so, is it the sex in general or is it sex with me? I mean, do you even like me?”
Julia sat up in bed, her face creased in a frown. “I’m confused. What’s happening right now?”
“We need to talk.”
She groaned. “Fuck. That doesn’t sound good. Okay, let me get dressed for this.”
“I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
She came out a few minutes later, her mass of curls twisted up in a messy bun. She was dressed in loose shorts, and an ancient sweatshirt that slid off one shoulder, leaving it bare. I tried not to think about how good that exact patch of skin tasted when I licked it.
