If Only You (Bergman Brothers, #6)(78)

“So.” Ziggy crunches down on one of the fucking incredible chocolate cookies she gave me, brushing away crumbs as they fall onto the book cradled in her lap.

I peer up from the book I’ve been leafing through, one of her favorite fantasy romances. We swapped genres. Ziggy handed me this “romantasy” as she called it; I gave her one of my favorite dystopian sci-fi novels. “So?”

“Why did you give your part to Gabe halfway through Act Three tonight?”

I set aside the book and angle myself toward her, brushing her leg with mine where we sit on the floor, leaning against opposite bookshelves. “It seemed like the considerate thing to do. I was supposed to be there on time to read Benedick, and I got there late, interrupted him with my entrance.”

She smiles. “And a very dramatic entrance it was.”

I make a theatrical bow. “But Gabe was on time, ready to read Benedick, and I know Shakespeare Club is a big deal to Ren’s theater buddies. I figured it would be fair to split the part, given that.”

Ziggy tips her head and pops the last of the cookie in her mouth. “Gotcha. Well, that’s nice of you.”

It’s also not the whole truth. The whole truth is, I know that play. I know it very well. And I know Beatrice and Benedick have a damn good love confession in Act Four and Act Five too, for that matter. I couldn’t… I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t look at Ziggy, even though we’d be playing roles, and tell her I love her. I couldn’t say that to her and have it mean nothing.

Not…that I plan on saying those words to Ziggy in the future and meaning them. But still, she’s someone who means so much to me after just a few short weeks in my life. She’s someone I want to cherish and be good to and enjoy the hell out of. She’s my friend.

Your friend, huh? Who you just made out with and dry humped right to the edge of a body-shaking orgasm?

Yes, well. This is true. But Ziggy and I made a promise. We enjoyed each other like this, and now nothing will change. As she said, there’s such a thing as friends with benefits. And while I’d originally hoped to keep my hands off her entirely, that’s been blown to shit since the night on my deck, when I felt her up thoroughly, when she kissed me so damn well, my legs gave out.

I have managed, however—and I plan to continue doing so—to keep this new level of physicality one-sided. I can give her whatever she needs, when she shows me she needs it, make her feel incredible, without taking anything for myself.

I can be good to her. That’s all I want to be—so damn good to her.

But maybe not so good as to let her eat all my gluten-free chocolate cookies.

“Easy does it, champ.” I drag the cookie container back my way.

Ziggy gapes at me. “I’ve had three!”

“Three?” I crunch into another cookie. Jesus Christ, these are a fucking dream. How they’re gluten-free is beyond me. “Yeah, that number’s accurate if you multiply it by an exponent of three.”

“You butthead.” She shoves me in the hip with her foot. “I’ve had three.”

I grin, putting the book back in my lap as I pop the rest of the cookie in my mouth. “Whatever you say, Ziggy dear.”

She sighs, plopping her book back in her lap, too. It’s quiet for a couple minutes, nothing but the soft shush of paper as we turn pages, the occasional crunch as I bite into another cookie.

But then, in a move of pure stealth, Ziggy grabs the container, steals another cookie, then shoves the whole thing in her mouth.

“Woman!” I lunge for her, laughing as she shrieks around her cookie and bolts upright, taking off down the aisle. “Those are my gluten-free cookies!”

“That I special ordered for you!” she yells around her bite, taking the bend of the aisle sharply and whipping around it.

I nearly catch her, rounding the aisle just a second later. “You’d deprive a chronically ill man the simple joy of eating three dozen chocolate cookies filled with buttercream icing and almond meringue biscuit? For shame.”

She cackles as we round the bend back to my end of the aisle where my cookies wait, like delicious little sitting ducks, poised for her to steal them all.

“Swear to God, Ziggy, if you take them—I love my chocolate cookies.”

She hops over the container, then spins, flushed and smiling as she meets my eyes. I stare at her, warm and worked up, aching to tug her into my arms again and touch her, learn her, make her flushed and smiling for an even better reason.

Slowly, she bends and picks them up, then snaps the lid on.

“I’m glad you love the cookies.” Her voice is quiet as she peers up at me. “Because there’s lots more where they came from.”

I take the container from her, peering down at the cookies through the lid, then back up. “Where did you get them, anyway?’

“Viggo,” she says.

I scowl. “Goddammit.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to like him. But I think I’m going to have to, if he baked these.”

She smiles. “Viggo’s a piece of work, but everybody always ends up loving him. You will, too.”

“I don’t love anything except hockey,” I remind her.

Ziggy’s smile widens as she reaches for my hair and smooths her fingers down my temples. Then she spins her wrist, opening up her hand. A chocolate cookie sits in her palm. She picks it up, then offers me a bite. “Says the man who just admitted he loves these cookies.”