Full Package(40)

The gesture both warms my heart and makes me think. Josie’s always been a toucher, so it’s not out of place. But it feels so . . . couple-y. So boyfriend-girlfriend. There’s a part of me that desperately wants that with her. That wants to just crack open my heart and tell her how I feel.

Because inside, I’m on cloud nine. I’m a happy motherfucker, just kicking back, eating pizza with the best girl I know. Our physical connection is mind-bogglingly good. We get along like two peas in a pod. She’s been my friend forever. Hell, we’re about to play a game of Scrabble before we go for round two.

But there’s the rub.

Because all this floating on a cloud of complete and utter dirty, sexy, fantastic happiness is just smoke and mirrors. It’s a trick designed flawlessly by the human body. Why, oh fucking why, does falling for someone have to be such a rush? Such a high?

But I know the answer.

There’s a reason for the release of those endorphins. Chemicals are in our system so falling in love will make us procreate. This rampant contentment swirling inside me is all just basic survival-of-the-species shit. It’s an illusion of brain chemistry.

And as long as I keep my head on straight, I can’t be fooled by risky feelings.

Even though a part of me wants to throw caution to the wind, to listen to this hammering in my chest, to just say, “Hey, it’s you and me, let’s defy the odds.” Fucking, eating pizza, and playing Scrabble.

Yeah, there’s no need for anything more.

Until Josie clears her throat. “So . . .”

And that one word sucks up all the oxygen in the room.

All the happy, floaty, let’s-get-drunk-and-screw vibe vanishes. It evaporates into the night. In one syllable, I know it’s time to talk.

Though Josie and I can chat about anything, whatever comes after the “so” is the one thing I’m not ready to discuss. Because what’s happening with us is fraught with too many complications. Screwing your roommate is like operating on a kidney, only you can’t do it without harming a main artery. Too many systems are linked together—the home, the friendship, the sex, the rent. Even the utilities are part of our sex life.

Naturally, my next step is to try to defuse the bomb.

“By ‘so’, you mean the two-letter Scrabble word S-O, or the three-letter one that’s an action performed by a seamstress?”

She laughs, shakes her head, and sets her hand on my thigh. “Chase,” she says, and her tone is friendly but serious at the same damn time.

“Yeah?”

“We need to talk about what’s going on. With us.”

Like a steel rod has been implanted in my spine, I straighten and say roughly, “Okay.”

Why does dread flood me at the mere prospect of this conversation?

Oh, right. Because the last woman I felt this way for had an affair while we were together. Ergo, relationships and me don’t get along well. I open my heart, and it’s stomped on. Add in the little, tiny, miniscule fact that falling for your friend means you’re likely to lose that friend when the relationship goes belly up, and all I want to do is imitate a monk.

Well, just the vow-of-silence part. Not the other vows.

“You know how everything blends together for me?” she asks.

“Josie in a mixer,” I answer.

A small smile is her response. “And this”—she points from her to me—“has the potential to make one big milkshake of emotions.” The look in her eyes is fierce and resolute. “I know myself. You know me, too. You’ve seen how emotions all spill over. I don’t try to compartmentalize. I’m no good at it. It’s all here,” she says, tapping her chest. “And with you and me, I can see this becoming the biggest milkshake of all. We’re friends, we’re roommates, and now we’re lovers. I can’t keep all the ingredients separated. Do you see what I mean?”

For the barest sliver of a second, I imagine we’re going to skip the hard part. She’ll say she’s fallen for me, too, and let’s just live like this forever and ever without a thing going wrong.

“Do you mean you like milkshakes?” I ask carefully, because I’m not sure if this is her preamble to telling me she’s had the same goddamn epiphany I have and that we’ll be the first pair of friends in the history of the universe not to fuck up the transition to the next “ship”—the one that goes with “relation.”

There’s a first time for everything, right?

She laughs lightly. “I do like milkshakes, Chase,” she says and runs her fingers down my chest. “But you can’t have them for every meal.”

“The milkshake diet is completely physician approved,” I deadpan.

But she’s not in the mood to tease, or to eat sweets all day long, evidently. “What I mean is,” she says, “I want us to be careful. I want us to have an understanding. I don’t want to get my heart broken, and I don't want to hurt you, and most of all, I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”

And that’s why I kept my mouth closed in the first place, and why the zipper on it will stay shut. Her words only cement the need for me to compartmentalize even if she can’t. To keep love on one side, and sex on the other.

“Separate drawers,” I say with a nod. I mime opening a bureau. “We need to keep this sex thing in a separate drawer”—then I close it—“and the friendship in another.”