Total pages in book: 244
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
“Oh, I’m very helpful. I included lots of helpful pointers in Mister Benefits.”
“There will be no benefiting,” I insist, as I shake some nuggets into a bowl, enough for two days, since this solitary creature is surely looking forward to forty-eight hours solo. “Especially since we’re all going to be in a house full of other people. Many of them are straight.”
“Ohhhhhh,” he says, drawn out, as he drops his voice to a stage whisper on the streets of Tahoe. He lives in New York but he’s here on the West Coast for our Friendsgiving event. “Because straight people don’t have sex?”
“That’s not the point and you know it,” I say to TJ, relenting a bit.
“I think your woke straight friends know what gay sex is,” he says. “Bet some of the ladies watch man-on-man porn too. Do you know that one-third of women who identify as straight watch gay porn?”
I press a palm to my cheek, let my mouth fall open. “Wow. I had no idea. Literally, no clue. I’ve never had any of my straight female friends whisper that little confession in my ear like they couldn’t wait to finally tell me two dicks in a scene turns them on.”
“I’m just saying . . . they probably all know how it works.”
“They probably do. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to entertain them that way aurally. I’m not going to have sex in a guest room in a house full of people,” I say, frustration bubbling up inside me. But it’s not frustration over TJ. It’s over all this . . . stuff I need to think about.
Or not think about.
TJ cracks up, scrubbing a hand over his bearded jaw as he walks past a ski shop. “That’s your rule? No sex when other people are in the house?”
“Yes. Also, River and I aren’t sharing a room at Nisha’s, as you know,” I add as I open the cooler on the counter and drop in the farm veggies I picked up this morning—carrots and Brussels sprouts.
“Well, then you’re definitely not having sex at the house. Because sex only occurs when you’re in the same room. As long as there are separate rooms, all dicks stay in pants.”
This is not the state of mind I need to be in when I slide into the car for a four-and-a-half-hour drive with River. Goldilocks jumps onto the kitchen counter and sniffs the bowl of food. I pet her head for the allowed three seconds before she snarls. Cats. What can you do? “Why are we talking about sex?” I ask as I head to my bedroom to grab another shirt. I might want to wear something that shows more . . . muscles. That’s one of the reasons I go to the gym so much—muscles don’t make themselves.
“Because you’ve been wanting River for years,” TJ says.
His bluntness officially pops my bubble of avoidance.
“Don’t remind me,” I sigh as I toss a blue Henley into my backpack.
“Someone has to.”
“No. No one has to. Literally, no one. I’m well aware of how I feel. But that’s okay,” I say, keeping calm. “It’s fine. It’s all for the best that we’re not a thing.”
With an I-don’t-buy-it expression on his face, TJ stops and parks himself on a bench along the cobbled sidewalk. A faint dusting of snow covers the ground from a storm a few days ago that dumped a few inches on the slopes. He adopts a serious expression. “O, I’m going to level with you for a minute.”
“Okay,” I say tentatively.
“Have you ever considered just telling River how you feel?”
My gut twists. “That I’ve thought about having sex with him a bajillion times?”
TJ scoffs, shaking his head. “No. I’m not actually talking about sex this time.”
TJ and I have been friends since I started working in sports marketing. His twin brother, Chance, is the star closer for the San Francisco Cougars, and even though I work for the other team in the city, I met TJ at a sports award event and we grew close over the years. TJ and Chance are an interesting study in contrasts—one is straight, one is gay, one plays professional baseball, the other is a best-selling romance writer. They both totally support each other, and they also rib and trash-talk each other till the cows, horses, and sheep come home.
Sort of like my sister, Grace, and me.
Family—gotta love ’em.
“Then what are you talking about?” I ask.
“I’m talking about why you want to have sex with him. You’re into the guy, and you have been for years,” he says, plain and simple.
And too on the mark.
I groan, sagging my shoulders, slumping down on the edge of my bed. “Why do I pour out my pathetic heart to a romance novelist?”
TJ laughs. “Pretty sure we’ve both served up our war stories.”