The Roommate Agreement(59)

“Although,” she went on. “You should have figured that out maybe before you had sex.”

I rolled my eyes. “Listen—we’d already crossed the line. We’d both admitted how we felt. Going on a date with him was fun, Brie. It was the most fun I’d ever had with anyone, and it felt right.”

“Then why not just be in a relationship? I know you’re a bit of a relationship-phobe—”

“I am not a relationship-phobe!” I pulled my glass of Coke toward me. “I’m just…reserved with my emotions, but he already knows how I feel. It’s not like we’re getting into a normal relationship. We live together. We’re going from zero to one-hundred, and we need to ease ourselves into that.”

“Did you sleep in your bed last night?”

“Yes.”

“Were you alone?”

I shoved a chicken tender in my mouth. “No comment,” I said around a mouthful of food.

Brie smirked. “So you’ve had sex twice. You’re at least at the fuck-buddy stage of being in a relationship. Fuck buddies with feelings. That’s sticky.”

“Yeah, and it’s sticky before feelings,” I muttered. “Regardless, I don’t see why we need to label it. Why can’t we just figure it out as it happens? Let it evolve naturally?”

“I think you’ve realized what you’ve done and now you’re trying to backpedal,” she said, putting down the half of her burger she’d been holding. She turned knowing eyes on me. “Your issue ever since you told me you had feelings for Jay was the fact he was your best friend. It was all centered around that. Not the fact that you had them—the fact you had them for him. You’ve talked about it already. You’re the one who decided to make a go of it. Get your shit together.”

I stared at her. I hated it when she was right. She was right now, and she knew that I knew it.

“If your friendship is that strong, breaking up is going to be awkward for a little bit, but you’ll get through it. Hell, if you fight, he and I can swap places. I’ll come live with you for a few days, and he can live with Sean. God knows I need a break every now and then. I keep suggesting saving up for the Bahamas, but he wants to come with me.” She winked.

“I’ll come instead. I think a vacation is what I need.”

“The last time we went on vacation, you took a notebook to the beach.”

“If inspiration can strike on the toilet, it can strike on the beach.”

Brie rolled her eyes. “I know. You wrote half a book by hand.”

I grinned.

“I’m just saying that everything can be changed. Hell, if you’re really uncomfortable, tell him you’ve changed your mind.”

“I haven’t changed my mind. I just want us to move at as normal a pace as we can. Most people don’t live together when they start a relationship.”

“Okay, I get that. That makes more sense than you being freaked out about being in a relationship at all.” She shoved two fries in her mouth and tilted her head as she chewed. “Although,” she said when she’d swallowed them. “I feel like I should be surprised that you’re dating each other, but I’m not. You just kinda…fit together. You’re a lot more uptight than he is, but he’s a hot damn mess for a grown-ass man. You make him a more responsible person, and he encourages you to have more fun. Somehow, you just work.”

I sighed, trailing my chicken tender through the ketchup on my plate. “First, I resent you saying I’m uptight.”

“You are uptight.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to say it.” I sniffed. “But you’re right. We do balance each other out. I always thought that was why our friendship worked as well as it does, but maybe that’s the perfect basis for a real relationship.”

“Exactly. And think about it like this: you’ve already worked out the kinks in your relationship thanks to the roommate agreement. You both know what pisses the other person off. Like how Jay never wears pants.”

“Oh.” I held up my chicken. “We changed that yesterday. Instead of the rule being ‘must wear pants,’ it’s now ‘no pants are the best pants.’”

“And that’s how you ended up having sex twice in two days.”

“No. I ended up having sex twice in two days because sex with Jay is pretty damn great.”

“And that’s enough for me,” Dad said, turning on his heel as soon as he arrived at the table.

My cheeks flamed. Brie laughed so hard she choked on her own spit. That was single-handedly the worst moment of my life. My dad knew we’d been on a date—obviously—but now he knew his daughter had sex on the first date.

Did that rule count since we lived together?

I know one date that wouldn’t count—eating dinner at home. We did that, oh, every night?

I snorted to myself at the thought. Maybe I was taking the whole idea of dating Jay too literally. I was thinking about actually dating. Movies, restaurants, days out, nights out, drinks at a bar…

That wasn’t really viable for us. Plus, we didn’t need that time to get comfortable around each other. We already were. He’d seen me at my deadline worst with three-day-old sweatpants and hair that hadn’t been washed for five days. I’d seen him with a little too much overgrown stubble and wing sauce on his shirt after a late night watching football.