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“You’re not the only one,” she said. “I would be a sucky girlfriend that doesn’t want to put anyone first but herself.”
“You don’t do that with me,” he said. They sat down and started to eat. Both of them putting a portion of the two dinners on their plates.
“Because there is no pressure,” she said. “I don’t do well with pressure.”
“Doesn’t seem that way to me,” he said. “You’ve got a lot of pressure in your life and your job.”
“Yep. I do well there. But with men, not so much. Really, Royce. I like what we’ve got. I’ve seen the change as you have, but I’m worried it will shift our dynamic. Which of course I don’t want to happen.”
“I understand that,” he said. “That is why we should be able to talk about this like friends and come to terms with it. Maybe we need new rules. Or added rules.”
She was slurping up her pasta and got some sauce on the side of her face. He laughed at her and reached over to wipe it off. “What new rules? Will they be kinky?” she asked.
It was the heat in her eyes mixed with the words that had his dick shifting in his jeans. He started to eat faster.
“We can add that kind of a rule if you want. What I was going to suggest was that in private we are more than our original arrangement. That we are open and free with each other. No holding back. But once we aren’t together behind closed doors we still do what we’ve been.”
Her head shifted back and forth for a second. “That’s doable. I mean, we kind of have been doing it anyway. See, I can compromise. Yay me. My mother would be so pleased.”
He laughed when she said that. “Speaking of your parents,” he said.
“I wasn’t talking about them,” she said, stabbing at a scallop. “This is out of this world.”
“It is pretty good,” he said. “Have they said anything to you about Emily?”
“No,” she said. “They are good at giving me space. I told you I like my space.”
He wondered if he just infringed on it by bringing this up. But he hadn’t done it once since the first time she’d told him about the letter and then her conversation with her parents.
“You do. But as a friend—”
“More than a friend right now,” she said, smirking at him. Damn, she was a riot. He was glad that he brought this conversation up today and wasn’t so sure why he was nervous about it.
He looked at his watch. “As a boyfriend for the next twelve hours or so.”
“That’s better,” she said. “This is fun. I hope you know I’m just busting on you. I’m good with it all. I guess I want to make sure that we still have this freedom to have fun. I really don’t want that to change with us. I’ve never experienced it with another guy and deep down I wonder if it’s because I haven’t felt that pressure with you like I have with someone else.”
“I know you better than you might want me to,” he said. “And if you don’t want to talk about Emily you don’t have to.”
“There isn’t much to say,” she said. “I have been doing some internet searches and I’m coming up empty. I’m starting to wonder if she is married and that is why I can’t find anything on her.”
“I can reach out to Zander if you want,” he said.
“I’m not sure. How well do you know him? Is he someone that will tell someone else that we are trying to keep things from?”
He grinned and reached for a piece of bread that came with their dinner. “No. Zander and I went to school together. He worked for the Durham Police Department and then realized he wasn’t one for rules and political agendas. He left a few years ago and started his own PI firm.”
“I think I might like him,” she said. “If you’re willing, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to talk to him. You can just give me his number and I’ll reach out.”
“No,” he said. “I’d like to be there with you. I know it won’t just be the two of us behind closed doors, but you can trust him. For something this big in your life, you shouldn’t be alone.”
She nodded her head. “Thank you for that.”
They continued to eat and then cleaned up their dinner and put the leftovers in the fridge. “Dessert in the kitchen or the bedroom?” he asked.
“I think we eat it now,” she said. “Because once we get to your room I don’t want to come back out for anything.” She ran her finger down his chest.
“You like toying with me, don’t you?”
