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The silence that fell between them as Juliet considered his words was fraught with tension. He truly wasn’t sure what she was going to say. But she hadn’t pulled her hand away. Though he wanted to press, he waited.
Whatever happened next, he needed her to be completely on board. He didn’t want her to feel pressured into anything.
Slowly, she nodded, and his chest tightened and released.
“Okay. But we’re going to need to talk through some boundaries.”
Relief flooded through him. She wasn’t saying no.
“Boundaries are good. Like, I don’t think we should tell our parents right away.” He hoped she wouldn’t take that as an insult, but it had to be put out there. He wanted to keep their parents out of it as much as possible until absolutely necessary. If it ever was. There was still a part of him that wasn’t sure how this would turn out and was prepared for the worst, but he knew he at least wanted to try.
“Agreed,” she said immediately. “I don’t think we should tell anyone outside of the club for now, just in case.”
In case whatremained unspoken but after a moment Orlando nodded. There was a reason he had never talked to anyone else about Juliet before, so it wasn’t really going to change anything. If he did need to talk to someone, he could talk to Jafari, who was already a member of Black Light and who had been there for that fateful roulette night. He’d also had his own issues with the woman he’d met that night, though they were now happily married.
That Black Light Roulette magic at work.
“If things don’t work out, we’ll go back to what we’ve been doing,” he said.Whenthings didn’t work out. As much as he wanted to believe in roulette magic, he still couldn’t stop the much more realistic thought from worming its way through his brain.
“You mean you avoiding me completely?” She smirked at him. “That’s fine. I don’t think our parents cared even if they noticed we were doing different holidays. In fact, I think we should probably keep that up until we get to a point where we’re telling them we’re a couple.”
The very idea of telling his mom and Lawrence that he and Juliet were together made Orlando want to squirm in his seat, but it wasn’t like they were going to be doing that any time soon. Juliet had been the one to bring up not telling them in the first place, so at least they were on the same page there.
* * *
Juliet
Holy shit.
She couldn’t believe that she was sitting here negotiating an actual relationship with Orlando the freaking day she and London had broken up.
Talk about an Olympic rebound.
Which was also why she wanted to be so cautious about everything. She was pretty sure she was not making great decisions right now. But she was also getting something of what she wanted —and if Orlando ghosted her again, she was not kidding about hunting him down. Brooke would help her. There was no one better for hunting down a man who’d done her wrong than her best friend.
“I think that’s smart,” Orlando said. “And we’ll have to agree on the right time to tell them anything, if we get to that point.”
“Agreed. No dates outside of Black Light right now either. The last thing we need is for someone who knows us to see us together and say something to our parents.” Because they did know a lot of people in the area and it would be just their luck to randomly run into someone.
“Black Light or our homes.”
“Well, I’m staying with Brooke right now, so let’s say your home.”
Orlando blinked, as if just remembering that the whole reason she was there with him right now was because she’d broken up with her boyfriend that morning. Or maybe he hadn’t realized she’d moved in with London.
“My home, then,” he said, recovering quickly.
It did stir a little bit of uneasiness in her stomach. Was she moving too fast?
No. It wasn’t like they were jumping into arelationship-relationship. It was more like a sexual partnership. One that would fulfill the needs she’d been ignoring while she was in a relationship. Which also needed some more parameters as far as she was concerned.
“This is going to be exclusive, both dating-wise and sexually,” she added on.
“Agreed,” Orlando said immediately, settling some of her nerves. Juliet didn’t want to share him, even if they were keeping things secretive, and the idea of him seeing anyone else made her want to throw things. So none of that. She was relieved he was on the same page, although he seemed like the possessive type, she hadn’t been one hundred percent sure.
They stared at each other from across the table. Juliet felt her nerves tick up a notch.
“Hard limits?” he asked.
