Page 58 of Enemies with Benefits

Anything I might have said in return was lost in the face of an apology I would never have predicted. I didn't think he was even capable of the words, let alone use them for me. I supposed it was a sign of the war that was waging inside him, which, if I were honest, I understood all too well.

I sighed. “If it makes you feel any better, at least your first time was somewhat fun."

"Was it?"

"Dude, you got offhard."

"You didn't your first time?"

"No, we were both drunk off cheap boxed wine at some party, both of us so deep in the closet we would have passed Narnia if it existed. Just drunken awkward fumbling, some groping, he got off in thirty seconds flat and made a mess of my shirt, and then ran when he got that post-nut clarity. Little shit left me in the lurch. So I got my bi awakening and didn't even get an orgasm out of it."

Jace snorted. “You know, it shouldn’t, but somehow you getting fucked over like that does make me feel a little better."

"Wow, it's nice to know my suffering is good for something."

"I think you've managed to recover in that amount of time."

"Yeah, well, the bad sex maybe. Took me a little longer to deal with what that meant for me. And even longer to lose my best friend."

Jace's brow jumped. “Wait, you fooled around with Logan?"

I couldn't help but laugh at the open shock on his face. “Yeah. Sometimes, I wonder if that was part of why we were so close for so long. Both of us were closet cases, and both of us were into each other. But the minute we tried to step out of the closet, hefreaked out and backed deeper into it, and decided he wasn't as into me as he thought."

"Oh, so he didn't...you guys didn't?—"

"Nothing else happened between us. After that, he stopped talking to me, went off to college, and got on with his life, without me in it. Last I heard, he married some girl a year later, had two kids, got divorced, had two more kids with two more women, and now works for some construction company and apparently bitches endlessly on Facebook about how fucked up the system is because he's broke all the time from child support."

"Jesus," Jace grumbled, wrinkling his nose. "No offense, but from how much of a man whore you used to be, I would have expected you to have a kid out there."

"Mmm, that's a bold claim for you to make," I said, glancing over at Micah, who was now practicing floating on his back. I recognized it as a sign that he had probably gotten himself too riled up earlier and was consciously doing something that still required focus, but was far calmer. It was something Moira had worked with him on over the past few years, and at eight, he was clearly able to do it on his own.

"Alright, that's...actually fair. Never mind."

I laughed, raising my hand and making a cutting motion. “Plus, I took care of any possibility of that happening many years ago. You wouldn't believe how hard you have to fight to have something like that done. Doctors are so convinced that eventually you'll change your mind."

He cocked his head. “Wow, you actually found a doctor willing to do that?"

"Yep."

"How?"

"Female urologist. If there's anyone who understands that you don't want to risk kids and want a procedure done at a young age that most doctors refuse to do just in case, it’s a woman."

"That was good thinking."

"I have my occasional moment."

"Regretted it like the other doctors said you would, yet?"

"Nope. How about you?"

"What do you mean?"

I glanced over at Micah, smirking when his head sank beneath the water before he corrected himself, snorting water in the process. "Regretted procreating yet?"

"No," he said quickly. "I mean...I'm not sorry the kid exists, he's a good kid. I was just...never sure about being a parent, and now it turns out I didn't get a choice, and now I've got that choice, and it just...it's a lot."

"You know, it's alright not to know yet. Not everything has to have an answer right away. My sister didn't exactly give you much of a chance to deal with everything beforehand."