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The very idea hurt in places she didn’t know could hurt.
“But,” he said after she hadn’t spoken for a few minutes. “I also don’t want you to go without your favorite thing.”
Her eyes shot to his and she knew she looked overly eager but she didn’t even care.
“Or worse, kiss a bunch of losers who might be mean to you,” he added.
She was already nodding. “That’s a very good point. What if…what if it doesn’t have to mean anything more than just kissing?”
His mouth tugged up on one side. “Just kissing for kissing sake?”
“Yeah,” she said hopefully. “And we can have very strict boundaries so it never gets weird.”
His good humor was back. “What kind of boundaries?”
“Like…” She thought quickly, incentivized like no other. “We don’t kiss in front of other people.”
“Okay,” he agreed easily.
“And we don’t kiss in any bedrooms.”
“Bedrooms off limits, okay.” He nodded.
“And no kissing anyone else because then it gets complicated.” He narrowed his eyes and she hurried to add, “If we meet someone else we want to date or whatever then the kissing stops.”
But just the idea of Asa kissing someone else filled her with intense jealousy. She pushed that aside to think about later. Or never.
“Do you have any?” she asked him.
He thought about it while finishing his ice cream cone.
“We don’t tell anyone,” he said. He meant Nikki and she totally agreed. “And if either one of us starts having a problem with it, we have to tell the other. No hiding it.”
He gave her a look and she was pretty sure she read his mind. He meant if she caught feelings, which could lead to expectations.
“Agreed,” she said, her throat tight.
He looked at her like he wasn’t sure she was really all right with it. But she wasn’t going to tell him that it was too late for the feelings part. She already had some pretty significant feelings for him.
But it was because of those feelings she knew she’d be able to keep to the boundaries set down and not risk losing his friendship.
Because now that she had him in her life, she was going to do what she could to keep him. Even if that meant pretending her feelings for him were less than they actually were.
Maybe he could love her. Maybe he could fall for the idea of her. But all the stuff that came with her? No one could love that. Not for long anyway.
But for the moment, they had this.
And if she was smart about it, she could keep him in her life while also keeping him removed from all the shit that surrounded her. And she would be the only one who knew the significance of what he’d given her with his friendship.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ECHO
ASA
One week after their night-time motorcycle ride and they hadn’t kissed again.
He’d had plenty of chances. More than he could count. Opportunity wasn’t the problem. The problem was the boundaries. Specifically the one where he said that if one of them had a problem with it, they would tell the other.
