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Ben
Twenty-four hours earlier...
“I slept with Lainey.”
Seb doesn’t bat an eyelid or spit out his drink. No shock registers on his face.
“Did you hear me?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Then why aren’t you saying anything?”
“Doesn’t need to be said, does it?” Seb looks away from the two women eyeing us from the other side of Barnaby’s, and then grins at me. “Oh yeah, it does. I told you so.”
I shake my head because he couldn’t resist. “You did, yeah, and I still didn’t see it coming.”
“You’re the only one who didn’t. You’ve gone on and on about Duncan deserting us by getting involved with someone, and now you’re about to give up your bachelor ways, too. I should have been the one complaining this whole time.”
“I’m not giving them up, Seb.”
“Sure you are. Lainey was your hot non-girlfriend and now she’s going to be your hot, actual girlfriend. Don’t worry,” he slaps me on the arm. “I’m not going to give you too hard a time about abandoning ship. Lainey’s smart and funny. She’s all right.”
“She is, but we’re not together. I’m not interested in being in a relationship again. How many times do I have to tell you and Duncan that?”
Finally, for the first time since we started talking about this, Seb looks something other than certain. “You’re not going to go out with her?”
Banging my head against a brick wall would be less painful. “What have I been saying this whole time? Lainey knows I don’t want a girlfriend. We’re friends.”
Seb snorts. “You can’t stay friends with a chick once you’ve banged her.”
Hadn’t I thought the very same thing a week ago? Wasn’t I still worried about how it was possible, especially after the awkward phone call and texts we’d exchanged this week?
“Well, I’m going to try.”
“Unless the sex was bad and you guys had no chemistry, you’re up shit creek without a paddle.” Seb takes a sip of his beer, looking over at the women still eying us up before turning back to me. “So, was it?”
“Was it what?”
“Was it bad? Or was it good?”
Was it good? Sex with Lainey knocked my socks off. The word good doesn’t begin to describe it. Every night this week, I’ve pictured her on top of me, kissing me, fucking me. I’ve beat off every single night, remembering the way she felt, tasted, and looked. Which is why I’m here tonight. I need to try to hook up with someone else so I don’t screw things up anymore with Lainey.
The idea of losing her makes me feel panicked and tight chested. We’ve been friends for such a short amount of time and yet she’s come to mean so much to me. I don’t want to lose her. But if we’re going to stay friends, I have to purge our session from my memory, and hopefully replace it with a new one.
“Thought so,” Seb says. “It was good, wasn’t it?”
I grunt. “Doesn’t mean anything. It can’t mean anything. We’re friends and that’s all we’re going to be, no matter how good it was.”
“Does it go on the top ten highlight reel?”
I run my hand over my jaw, feeling the day’s growth. My night with Lainey is a contender for the number one spot, right up there with my first time with Amber, but Seb doesn’t need to know this.
“It was good; let’s just leave it at that.”
Seb’s smirk is annoying as fuck.
“Are we going to go over there and talk to those women or not?” I ask.
