14. CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 14

“Put down a boundary just to cross it back and kiss you”

Lost Cause – Emily James

Nathalie

“ W elcome to the post-Halloween lunch debrief,” Maren says as I slide into our unofficial but very official booth at Maren’s favorite Thai restaurant. “We have so much to talk about.”

“The regular, ladies?” Eric asks. He knows our orders by heart and is the greatest waiter ever.

“Add an extra plate of spring rolls,” Sawyer says, “I’m starving.”

He nods and disappears, and my stomach sinks.

Do I tell them I fooled around with Deon? Do I keep it to myself?

Deon and I haven’t spoken since what happened on the couch Saturday night. When I finally crawled out of my Hobbit hole yesterday at the respectable time of 1 P.M., Deon was gone, no sign of him but for a note and two pain pills he left on the counter.

Be back soon. Have to work out and run errands.

I’m not sure when he left the note or at what time he placed me into my bed, but when I woke, I was tucked into the sheets in the guest room and not curled against his chest on the couch. When I returned from dinner with my family, it was late, so I crawled back into bed and slipped into a deep slumber.

It’s only been twenty-four hours, but I miss him.

He’s quickly become the brightest part of my day. I loved living alone, but it was lonely. When I would come home, it was just me and my decrepit apartment. The freedom was nice, but I enjoy living with Deon.

He eats my food like I’m the greatest chef on the planet, and he’s a fan of my dating show. He tolerates my messy tendencies and doesn’t judge me when I inevitably leave my shoes lying around or an empty glass on the kitchen table.

Most of all, I like the time we spend together doing nothing. Reading on the couch. Watching Gordie chase after a toy. Cleaning up after dinner. Silently working on a puzzle before bed.

The moments of quiet unimportance are the ones I cherish most.

“There is a lot to go over, so I’ll start.” Maren chugs half of her Diet Coke. “Someone threw up on our porch, I caught a couple trying to get it on in the greenhouse, and you and your fake boyfriend’s Instagram post is doing far better than mine, and I’m pissed about it.”

“Our what ?”

“The photo you took at the party? Deon posted it yesterday. It’s all over the internet,” Sawyer says, flipping her phone around to show me the photo.

And there we are, Deon, Gordie, and I dressed up in our costumes. I’m beaming at the camera, attempting to wrangle Gordie and Deon…Deon is smiling at me.

If I didn’t know any better, I would say we look like a real couple.

“Read the caption,” Maren presses and I scroll.

Happy Halloween from this family of Hobbits and a tiny dragon. Nathalie, if you see this, I hope the costume wasn’t a rental, I ripped the pants.

My hands fly to my face to conceal the blush creeping onto my cheeks.

He didn’t rip the pants, I did. And I had a hell of a time doing it.

“Would you like to explain why private Deon Adams is sharing with the world that he ripped his pants?” Sawyer asks, her eyebrow ticking upward.

“I would also like to know,” Maren adds.

I shrug a shoulder and shove a spring roll in my mouth to avoid answering their questions. I already had to answer a million questions last night at dinner with my family. I don’t think I’ll survive another inquisition.

Questions lead to answers, and the more questions I answer, the greater the possibility I reveal my uncomfortable truth: I may have a small crush on my fake boyfriend turned roommate turned fake boyfriend with benefits.

I’m shocked it took this long for it to happen, but as I stare down at the photo he posted, my chest tingles with the obvious beginnings of a crush. I think they’ve been brewing since he tagged along for Book Club and have only compounded with every single one of his thoughtful actions and cocky smirks.

My heart beating in my vagina every time he walks into a room should have been a clear sign.I’m blaming my ignorance of my feelings on the fact I never felt this way around the other men I’ve slept with.

Some of them were nice, but that’s all they were. They would enter a room, and I would force a response. When Deon walks into a room, I have to bite back a giddy smile.

Jumping into bed with him may have been a bad idea.

They both wait me out until I’m squirming beneath their heavy stares, and the words tumble out.

“I may have ripped the pants.”

The confession is no louder than a breath, and I purposefully smash the words together so they understand as little as possible.

This is Deon’s fault. No one would have known about our little deal if he hadn’t gone rogue and posted a photo and caption without telling me. He chose a great photo, though. We look fabulous.

But now, I have to answer questions that leave me vulnerable.

The baffled, stunned looks on my friends’ faces tell me they heard my confession.

As Eric sets down our plates, Maren drags my Pad Thai out of reach.

“You eat after you explain,” she says, holding my lunch hostage.

My stomach grumbles in protest, and as quickly as possible, I supply Maren and Sawyer with the cliff notes version of Saturday night.

McDonald’s drive-through.

Mind-boggling orgasm.

No communication since.

I casually leave out that I have a small crush.

When I finish, the table is eerily silent, and I swipe my meal from Maren as she processes and dig into my food.

“Oh, wow.” Maren blinks, the most stunned I’ve ever seen her in my life. “Wow.”

“That’s exactly what Deon said after I gave him a blow job,” I quietly admit between bites and Sawyer cackles.

“Pay up, Parker,” Maren declares with a smirk, palm outstretched.

“She didn’t admit it,” Sawyer counters. “You haven’t won yet.”

“Admit what?” My eyebrows crinkle. “Did you guys bet we would sleep together?”

That’s not nice of them, but all of our friends bet on stupid shit, so I’m not surprised.

“No. Sawyer, and I bet you have a crush on him,” Maren says, and the blood drains from my face.

“W-What? When?” Maren lifts a brow, and Sawyer relents, dropping a piece of paper into Maren’s palm. “I—I didn’t admit to anything!” I yell, desperately trying to convince them I don’t have feelings for Deon.

Developing feelings for the man you’re fake dating is dumb.

Harboring feelings for someone who doesn’t believe in love is downright idiotic.

Agreeing to be his fake girlfriend with benefits is certifiably insane .

I have decided to do all three of those things, but I don’t want to admit that to Sawyer or Maren, not when I’ve barely come to terms with it myself.

I’m going to get myself hurt in this agreement, and I have only myself to blame.

Sawyer smiles apologetically. “You really didn’t have to. Your response was enough.” She pats my hand. “We had a feeling.”

“A feeling?”

“You spent all of Halloween talking about him while he was gone, and then he came back, and you were glued to his side.” Maren raises her voice an octave to mimic me, “ Did you know Deon likes mint chocolate chip ice cream? He’s so tidy it’s insane. We watch a dating show together, and he even made a bracket. Did you know he does puzzles? ”

“That’s not true,” I defend, though it falls short. I may have spent a chunk of time talking about him, but I was updating them. They always want to know the details, so I was simply giving them that.

“I don’t think it's a bad thing,” Maren admits. “You two work well together. He’s reserved and cautious, and you bring out a bit of playfulness in him. He couldn’t do any better than you.”

I blush at Maren’s compliment, but the truth of the reality is he doesn’t want a relationship the way I do, and I’m not going to force that on him.

“We’re not compatible,” I say, and the words sour my stomach, ruining my meal.

“How so?” Sawyer asks, “You seem pretty great together.”

“I want the loud type of love,” I admit quietly, “the ‘I can’t breathe without you’ kind of relationship that sets your world on fire. I want what you two found. Deon doesn’t want that.”

Maren hums. “I didn’t think I was going to fall in love with Jack. I was quite clear I wanted the opposite: for him to stay far, far away.”

“Henry was in love with me for years, and I had no idea.” Sawyer chuckles, “If you told college Sawyer she was married to Henry, she would have called you insane.”

“I don’t understand.”

“People change. Their desires, their dreams, what they want in life, it’s not concrete. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to get married, but I couldn’t imagine not being Jack’s wife,” Maren says softly.

I mull over Maren’s point.

People can change, I believe that. But I know Deon. I’ve uncovered slivers of the trauma he carries from his last relationship, and I will not beg anyone to choose me—ever. It’s a rule I made for myself.

As the saying goes, ‘If they wanted to, they would’.

Deon Adams is not an exception to my rule or the saying. Wanting to sleep with someone is far different than wanting to date them, to have a real relationship with them, to build a life with them.

I know this, and I’m okay with that.

At least, that’s what I’m going to tell myself.

“He doesn’t want to date or have a relationship. I respect his decision.”

Eric drops the bill, and before Sawyer can protest, Maren’s card is out of her wallet, and Eric is swooping back to the table.

They definitely practiced that maneuver. It was executed far too well to be a coincidence.

“Regardless,” she says as she puts on her coat, and Sawyer and I follow her out of the restaurant, “I’m glad you ripped his pants. I have many logistical questions, but I think they can wait until I don’t have a grant proposal due.”

I stop in my tracks as an unmistakable pair of shoulders fills my vision. Broad, corded shoulders pulling against a thin workout shirt. Shoulders I ran my fingers along on Saturday.

“Deon?”

He spins, a smile pulling his lips upward as I awkwardly stand in the entryway of GameChangers.

What is he doing here?

“Oh my God,” Sawyer whispers beneath her breath.

Sawyer squares her shoulders, and I stand rooted in terror that she’s going to mention any part of our lunch conversation. The deal. The orgasm. The fact I have a crush on him, and I shouldn’t. Doesn’t matter what she says, all of it is embarrassing.

“Hey, Deon,” she says, walking right past him. Once his back faces her, she turns and mouths, we are totally talking about this later , then disappears up the stairs to her office.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, meeting him halfway as he stalks toward me. I pause, unsure of what to do or say or where to put my hands. Do we touch in public? Are we pretending he didn’t eat me out two nights ago with such intensity I questioned my existence in the universe?

Before I rot my brain contemplating my hand placement, Deon drags me into a hug, and I sink into the embrace. He gives wonderful, comforting hugs like the human version of a weighted blanket.

“I wanted to see you,” he admits, murmuring the confession against my skin.

He wanted to see me ?

Well, fuck. I can feel my heart expanding like the Grinch at the end of the movie.

“What?”

“We’ve barely seen each other since Saturday. I had an afternoon free and thought we could talk…” he trails off, voice growing unsure.

“Oh,” I choke out. I avoid touching my face, though the fiery sensation is a dead giveaway I am sporting the world’s worst blush.

“Are you busy?” Deon asks, rubbing his neck as I peel myself from his chest.

“No?” The answer comes out as a question.

I’m unsteady.

I didn’t expect to return to work and find him standing in the lobby, nor did I expect him to look so god-damn good while he’s standing.

His dark skin is flushed, likely from practice this morning, and he fills out the athletic wear wonderfully, muscles pressing against the fabric. The hotness blinders are long gone. I threw them out the window when I agreed to his proposition and then stomped on them when I realized I was in over my head and developed feelings.

I’m speechless as he clasps my hand and leads us to my office. He kicks the door shut and spins, crashing his lips against mine. I go from speechless to breathless, clutching his biceps as he presses my body against the door .

His palms slide down my back to squeeze my ass and drag me closer as he controls the kiss. I am entirely at his mercy as his tongue probes against my lips, attempting to deepen the kiss.

A massive thud echoes in my office, and we jolt apart.

I blink, clearing my vision to look down through the glass window on the back wall of my office to find Sawyer holding a basketball at her hip with a wild look on her face. She drops the ball, and her hands fling up with a double thumbs up.

Deon makes a choking sound.

“That’s not one-way glass?” Deon asks, shifting behind my desk to hide the erection I felt pressed against my abdomen.

I shake my head, afraid to move in case my legs give out. I manage to wobble to my desk and fall into the seat. Deon sits on the other side of the table, and a sense of déjà vu smacks me in the chest.

“I-Uh...” I fan myself in an attempt to cool my flaming skin. “What did you want to talk about?”

I choke out the question, and Deon smirks. He fucking smirks.

“I wanted to make sure we’re on the same page,” he says, placing my pencils and pens back into the cup, one by one.

“About?” I lift a brow in a flimsy attempt to take back control of the situation. He showed up, kissed the ever-loving shit out of me, and is now cockily lounging in my office, tidying the space.

I’d like to think I would be able to shoot the shit with him if I wasn’t on the precipice of a massive realization I developed feelings for ‘I-don’t-date-Deon Adams’, but alas, here I am, completely frazzled and unsettled.

He stacks papers in neat piles, focused on his task, and I take an eraser and throw it at him. He catches it smoothly and drops it onto the desk .

If I thought his grin was cocky before, this smile blows that one out of the water.

“About our deal on Saturday.” His features are sober. “I haven’t seen you, and I wanted to talk about it in the daylight without the influence of alcohol or McDonalds.”

“Oh.” I pause, and Deon must misinterpret that because his eyes focus back on the papers. I throw another eraser, and this time, it hits him in the forehead.

Bewildered eyes meet mine, and I make the stupidest decision of my adult life; I agree to our insane, fake-dating-with-benefits deal.

“I’d like to continue our deal if you do.”

I give him the out if he wants to take it.

“And it’s just sex?” he asks.

Well…That’s the idea.

Will I nail the execution? Unlikely, but I’m willing to give it a shot.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to fall in love with you or anything,” I joke, and Deon forces out a choppy laugh. Well, that didn’t land how I hoped, but I barrel onwards, trying to hide how uncomfortable I am. “I promise. It’s just sex. I won’t make it weird after the auction. Promise.”

He blinks, and instead of shutting my mouth, I continue to babble like an idiot with a crush. Which, I guess, I am.

“It will be like we never even slept together after we stop sleeping together. I’ll wipe your dick from my memory.”

“I think I get the idea,” he mutters, rubbing his temples.

I extend my pinky finger, and he grasps it, partaking in the most sacred of oaths. A heavy, long-forgotten sensation sparks right beneath my diaphragm.

Oh, fuck.

I quickly rip my hand away.

“Rules! We need rules!” I rummage around my desk for a piece of paper. I quickly scribble Deon and Nathalie’s Guide to Casual Sex on the top in pink ink.

“Rules?”

A crinkle forms between Deon’s brows, and I focus on the paper and not how adorable he is when he’s confused.

“Yes. Rules. So the lines don’t become blurred.” I start a list. “We need a word to initiate sexy time.” At this point, I’m scrambling to create a boundary that will keep my crush small. “How about ‘artichoke’? If either of us wants to get down and dirty, we say artichoke to let the other know, and they can say yes or no.”

My hand flies across the page to write down my rules.

“Is that really—” I cut Deon off, and he gives me a startled, worried look.

“No touching outside of sexy time or when we have to pretend in front of people. We keep our hands to ourselves unless the other person says the code word.”

That should help. If there are no surprising kisses or lingering touches, I’ll be able to wrangle my little crush and obliterate her.

“Will you stop calling it ‘sexy time’?” Deon starts fiddling with the trinkets on my desk.

“Do you have any rules?”

“I think these rules are stupid,” he grumbles, and his disapproval of the rules is slightly shocking. He should love these. They prevent any feelings or relationships from forming, two things he’s made clear he wants no part in.

“No sleeping with other people, obviously,” I say jokingly, but Deon’s gaze darkens to a shade I’ve never seen before. There’s anger in his features before it quickly morphs into embarrassment.

His voice is nearly a whisper when he says, “Please don’t do that.”

Guilt lodges in my throat at my failed joke.

“Deon,” I lay a hand over his, ignoring rule number two, “I was only kidding. I would never sleep with someone else while I was with you. Trust me when I say that.” He nods, but the air in the room is heavy. “I think what we have now is good,” I say awkwardly. “If we want to add anything, we can let the other person know and put it on the list.”

“Sure.”

Deon’s demeanor is stiff and I said something that upsets him. I was only kidding. I would never jeopardize his image or hurt his feelings by sleeping with someone else while I was with him.

Real or not, Deon has my loyalty.

“Artichoke?” I whisper, leaning over my desk to meet his gaze. The green of his eyes is paler today, a soft shade of sage, and when he nods, my heart jerks in my chest.

Our kiss isn’t heated, like the one earlier, but it’s tender, and it makes me re-think my agreement to fake dating with benefits. It’s not supposed to be anything more than the physical aspect, but as his hand softly trails along my cheek and I sink into the touch, it surpasses physical and plants itself firmly in the emotional section of my mind.

We break apart, and he smiles, diffusing the previous tension that lingered in the office.

“Wanna help set up for the after-school program?” I ask, but I mean, Wanna do something in the craft room while I cool down in here and re-collect my marbles, which I’ve lost sometime since Saturday?

“Put me to work,” he responds with a smile, and my mind immediately leaps to a different kind of work, a much more pleasurable type of work.

Fucked.

I am completely fucked.

Don’t do it.

Do not do it.

I chant the phrase in my mind as I covertly watch Deon in the craft room. He’s precariously perched on a small chair, surrounded by a small army of children vying for his attention.

God damnit.

He extends his hand, and I frown as Lina, one of our shyest children, slips a beaded bracelet onto his wrist.

How the hell am I supposed to wrangle this small crush when he’s spent all afternoon by Lina’s side, offering her words of encouragement in the gym when the older kids tried to exclude her from ball hockey?

Instead of letting her sit on the sidelines, Deon grabbed two sticks, handed one to her, and passed the ball with her on the other side of the gym. In the few hours they’ve spent together, she’s said more words to him than I’ve heard her speak in the year she’s been coming to GameChangers.

Deon’s eyes twinkle when they meet mine, and I know my cover is shot. I slide out from behind the storage bins and awkwardly wave.

He shakes his head but gestures me over.

Lina’s eyes are downcast, focused on her bracelet when I reach the table.

I swear to all things holy, if Deon Adams does something charming and considerate right now, I might lose it.

“Lina,” he prods, voice soft, “This is my girlfriend, Nathalie.”

“Hi, Lina. How’s your drawing?”

She shrugs, and I don’t let it sting that she likes Deon more than me.

“I was talking to Lina,” Deon says to me, “and she said she likes my bracelet.” He lifts his hand to show me the friendship bracelet I gave him on our awkward first fake date. “Would you be able to show her how you made it?”

Lina’s eyes lift in intrigue, and I slide into a chair, ignoring the way Deon called me his girlfriend or that he still wears the bracelet I gave him.

I ignore it all as I explain the knots and patterns.

That’s my new plan, I decide, as Deon attempts to make his bracelet: ignore, ignore, ignore.

Deon follows along, working on his bracelet as I help Lina pick out colors and tie the knots. Periodically, I glance at Deon, but he’s focused on his task, tongue pressed against his cheek in concentration.

“How are you doing?” I ask, trying to peek at his bracelet, but his palm blocks my view.

“Don’t look until I’m finished,” he grumbles, and I sigh, turning my back so I can’t see.

“That looks great, Lina!”

She confidently ties the knots, and the bracelet grows. I show her how to braid the extra string at the end and then put the bracelet on her wrist.

“Can we do this again tomorrow?” Lina whispers, eyes darting around the room.

“We can do this every day if you’d like.”

She nods, and fondness for the shy girl fills my chest. I’m helping her start her second bracelet when Deon murmurs, “Give me your hand.” I spin, but he shouts, “Don’t look!”

I roll my eyes, bemused by his dramatics, and throw my arm out behind my back. His fingers graze the inside of my wrist, and my skin tingles.

“Okay. You can look now.”

I shift to face Deon, who wears a hesitant and hopeful smile, before glancing down at my wrist. A friendship bracelet, orange and pink, is tied around my wrist beside the matching one with Deon.

“It’s amazing!” I beam down at the bracelet, “The colors are so cute!”

“They remind me of you,” he admits shyly.

He’s said that before. Orange and pink remind him of me. It didn’t make sense, but I figured he was somehow referring to the flowers.

“What do you mean? The colors remind you of me?”

In the shyest tone I’ve ever heard from Deon, he admits, “They remind me of the sunrise. Full of promise and hope for a new day. You give me that same feeling.”