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CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

arden

“This feels like it’s getting serious.”

I pop some pretzels into my mouth, kicking my feet up on the coffee table. “It’s not.”

Whitney shoots me a look, digging her fork into her microwave meal. “You’re spending the night now.”

“That’s what happens when you hook up with someone,” I say.

There has been no hooking up. No sex. Nothing even close.

This is a deal, a business arrangement, and nothing more.

Apart from that one kiss on Declan and Penny’s balcony, which took me by surprise and had my heart working all out of whack, this relationship has been transactional with a side of a pretty decent friendship.

“How would you know?” Autumn grumbles, yawning beside me on the couch. “You haven’t hooked up with anyone since the Stone Age.”

I roll my eyes, but she’s right. I haven’t.

I used to miss it, but once you go long enough without it, the itch goes away.

After the fog of lust evaporated, I realized how much more I enjoyed my life without men around to rain on my parade.

That’s what they do. Relationships, situationships, friends with benefits—whatever it is.

Men always find a way to add more stress to my life than they do orgasms.

What I do miss, and which never really went away, is a longing to matter.

To someone. To be someone’s first choice.

To escape the ache of loneliness that seems to rear its ugly head every so often.

But it’s manageable. Nothing makes you feel lonelier than sex with someone who can go days without talking to you.

I don’t want to deal with that garbage again.

Whitney snorts.

“The closest you’ve been to coming in three years was with your current boyfriend’s best friend,” Autumn mutters, eyes closed and nuzzling into the pillow. She starts to laugh at her own words, her shoulders shaking.

I smack her leg roughly, which only makes her laugh harder.

“I have a vibrator, thank you very much.”

That night at Declan’s was a rarity. Autumn and Whitney had come back to his house with me.

That was near the earlier stage of my dry spell, too.

They were very supportive of me getting laid for the first time in a bit.

Imagine their disappointment when I rolled up to work the next evening, hungover, miserable, and thoroughly unfucked.

Whitney shakes her head, shoving some food in her mouth. “Still can’t believe you didn’t sleep with him.”

Well, it was probably for the best now. I love Penny. This weird, working relationship with Carter also involves her and Declan in some messed-up way, and if I had slept with him all of those years ago, it might have made this whole situation harder to endure.

“Worked out, didn’t it?” I am still lying to them and I hate it .

“True.” Whit nods.

“You need to bring us to a game,” Autumn says, eyes still closed. “I want to see what it’s like to be one of those Instagram girls, sitting close to the ice and taking pictures with suggestive captions for their stories.”

Whit nearly chokes. “Oh my god, I’d die to go to another game. I haven’t been in ages.”

I don’t know if Carter can just swing extra tickets. The section we sit in is a specific couple of rows reserved for wives and girlfriends, and those tickets belong in specific hands. I make a mental note to ask to use one of my favours as a fake girlfriend while I can.

“I’ll check with Carter.”

“Sitting on that dick is proving to be so beneficial,” Whitney says with a happy sigh.

She doesn’t know the half of it.

“I have yet to sit on it,” I remind her. Let her think we just fooled around a bit.

Waking up and not feeling the instant panic over money, over what bills are due and what new ones are coming in, it is only now just starting to simmer.

I have my automatic payments set for a couple hundred dollars a month toward my outstanding bills, and in time, they’ll actually lower.

I don’t spend every waking moment bogged down by stress anymore.

It comes in waves, but for the most part, my brain has quieted.

I don’t think Carter understands how much that means to me. How important that is.

I can enjoy my free time. That’s a luxury I wasn’t certain I would have until I was much older. This might not be an actual relationship, but Carter has infused my life with colour again, and I’m not even sure he knows it.

The lack of stress, the freedom, the financial relief, all of those are important.

But even the small moments with Carter are vibrant.

I look forward to the nights when I’ll get to watch the way his mere existence makes a room come to life, or the way his eyes sparkle and every single person in the vicinity becomes mesmerized by them.

He’s breathing life back into me with every date that is on his schedule.

I find myself yearning for more than three times a week.

As if he can hear my every thought, even when he’s miles and miles away, my phone buzzes.

Carter

Hi, girlfriend. Tomorrow is my day. Anything you want to do?

He’s in Minnesota right now, but he’ll be back tonight. I smile at my phone.

Me

Isn’t deciding those things a part of your job?

Carter

Yes, but I’m a gentleman. We’ve done a lot of games, dinners, and bars on my account. If you want to do something specific, I’m all ears.

I think about it for a second. There are hundreds of things I’d want to do, and fifty of them involve that bathtub in his condo, but that might be considered a waste.

He forgets that I’ve also had a lot of say in what we do on our days.

We’ve gone to the shelter to visit Wanton, and the last time we were there, he was going to pay the adoption fees for two dogs since I promised him that I wasn’t going to sleep with him by the end of November.

He paid for all of them instead.

I cried. He let me without saying anything.

If another two months pass with no sex, he said he’ll pay for the cats next. I don’t want to admit the relief I felt when he spoke as if this deal would extend past the end of the year. I’ve been staring at the calendar with dread in my stomach.

Me

Can I sleep over again?

Those three dots appear and vanish so many times that I wonder if he’s getting the wrong idea.

Carter

To spend time with me or my tub?

Me

Do you want me to lie to you?

Carter

You wound me.

Yes, a sleepover and food can be arranged, but that’s not all we’re doing.

Me

No?

As much as my heart pulls at what that little sentence might mean, I yank it back into its lane. There will be no funny business here. There is no place for sex in a fake relationship. Think of the cats, Arden. The cats need homes!

Carter

No. I have an idea. I’ll pick you up at seven.

Me

Fake girlfriend duties shall commence at seven.

Carter

Nah, this one isn’t for my fake girlfriend. This one is just because I think you’ll like it .

I stare at my phone for a few seconds. I hate the way I’m smiling down at the screen. I hate the way that warmth floods through me in the same temperature of his hugs. I hate the way I’m starting to bloom in the light of Carter Forkerro’s attention.