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Florenza clicks the mouse, flipping a card and hums in response, but her eyes don’t budge from her game of Solitaire.
“Do you think men and women can, you know, have sex without things getting complicated?”
She stills, then hits pause on the game, something I’ve never seen her do unless someone walks in. She swivels her chair around to face me.
“Who are you thinking of having the sex with?”
“Oh, no, no. It’s not me.” I focus on my quinoa salad, which tastes like cardboard, and fight a blush. “I’m reading this book and in it, the girl has a friend. Well, not a friend.” I stir my salad, burying my spoon. “They don’t get along, like at all, but the guy thinks they don’t get along because they’re… because they…”
I wish I’d never brought it up.
“Does the girl like him? In the physical way,” Flo asks.
I emphatically shake my head, then stop. “Well… She thinks he’s good looking. He’s very good looking, actually.”
“And does she feel more for him? Or only that he is very good looking?”
I lift my eyes from my Tupperware. Florenza purses her ruby red lips, but I can’t tell if she’s hiding a smile or buying my bullshit.
“No, the girl doesn’t. Absolutely not. He’s a pain in her ass.”
Florenza’s laugh is sincere and warm. “Then the girl,” she pauses and winks, “should sleep with him. Get the tensione out of the way.”
“And what if the girl doesn’t sleep with him?”
She returns to her game and releases a heavy, sad sigh. “Then they will continue to argue and one of them will have to move out.”
I think about it, then stop mid-bite. “Wait, I never said they were roommates.”
A smile hints at the side of Flo’s mouth. “Oops, my wrong.”
“You mean, my bad.”
I laugh along, but while I eat my bland lunch and watch her play her game, all I do is chase away the question hounding my mind: could I actually sleep with Joe?
Even in my hypothetical world, the idea has my heart racing and my stomach in knots.
Sex with Joe.
There’s no telling where this will lead. But there’s also no use denying it will probably end with one of us getting hurt.
Still, as I make my way home after work, I can’t stop thinking of what Joe said and Florenza’s advice.
On a cosmic level, sex with Joe is a horrible idea. We’re roommates. We’re not even close friends. He’s best friends with my best friend’s brother.
But, then again, I haven’t been able to find a good argument against it, either. Well, at least not a very convincing one.
Every day this week, I’ve seen women subjected to horrible things. Treated like pieces of garbage. And they’ve all reminded me I need to take charge of my life and stop waiting for a perfect, and hopefully decent, guy to appear.
Joe is decent. He’ll get me my favorite dinner because he thinks I need it, and he likes to watch the same classic 80s rom-coms I do.
Who knows? We could have fun together. As much as I hate admitting it, he might be right. I’m attracted to him, even when he gets on my last nerve. And he’s a tad sleazy and has probably slept with half the city, but something about him draws me in.
He’s not all bad. As a matter of fact, the only things I think are bad about him are assumptions. He’s funny, smart and charming, sometimes too charming, but I do like him. Even if I hate his guts a little, too.
What I can’t shake is that he is the one who suggested this, which I suppose means he’s attracted to me, but can I count on that?
Still, it’s a nice option to have in my back pocket, in case I need…
