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She nibbles her lip thoughtfully. “I think Harriet figured it out when I didn’t show up on time this morning. I don’t think that’s ever happened.”
“You know what else never happens?”
“What’s that?”
“You never take a day off.”
“Isn’t the goal in life to be doing work that you love, so that you don’twantto take a day off?”
“Touché.”
We head toward Frankie’s Coffee House—which I can see even from a distance looks dangerously similar to a Starbucks.
“Seriously though, why don’t you take a day off some weekend? We could do something.”
I feel a shift in her, a sudden stiffness even in the hand that I hold, and her eyes flash with something I can only define as caution. It’s as though I can see all the red flags waving in her brain.
Dammit. I overstepped.
“Look, I know you’re not into dating me,” I add quickly.
“It’s not that I don’t want to. I actually do. But with Harris gone, with my job coming to an end—”
“You don’t want to add to your plate. Believe me, I get it. So let’s just be… friends with benefits for the summer.”
I hate that term. I hated it the first time I heard it back in high school and I hate it even more now.
Friends with benefits, to me, sounds like a friend who might have a cool car you can borrow from time to time, or the neighbor who loans you their leaf blower every fall. That’s what a friend with benefits should be.
But how else can I describe this thing between Millie and me that won’t have her running away?
“Friends with benefits,” she murmurs as though she’s chewing on the words for a bit. “Just something on the weekends, so neither one of us gets too…” Her voice trails.
“Addicted,” I offer because I could definitely see getting addicted to sex after a morning run.
Her eyes snap to mine, a little relief in them, as though it’s the first time a guy’s ever known her well enough to finish her sentences. I feel some measure of pride in that, at the same time it makes me think of that asshole she was engaged to, years ago. I’m betting the only time he finished a sentence for her was when he’d cut her off and shift the topic back to himself.
“Exactly,” she agrees. “And then this fall, we just—don’t keep in touch.”
Oof. That sounds harsh. “Not at all?”
“No. Because if I don’t hear from you, then I might—”
“—worry that I’m deployed,” I finish for her. And I hate that it makes sense. “I’m cool with that, Millie.”Liar, liar, liar!Damn that little voice in my head.
I watch her shoulders sag.
“God, it sounds so cheap somehow,” she mutters.
Futile, is more the word I’d choose. But I don’t say so.
“Cheap can be sexy,” I offer instead, my eyebrows waggling. “A clandestine affair. Sex over your lunch break. A quickie in the back room.”
She giggles. “I don’t think you’re capable of a quickie.”
“Apparently, Mrs. Marge agrees with you.” I stop a couple doors away from Frankie’s. “But I’m capable of anything where you’re concerned. So as your friend with benefits, do I get to kiss you in public?”
I see her grin return, and it warms my heart to see it. I really don’t want to be a source of frustration or worry for her. She deserves better than that.
