Between Friends (Friends with Benefits) (8 page)

“Wasn’t that lonely, though?” My family wasn’t super close, but I couldn’t imagine not seeing them in years.

“It would have been, but by that time I had a surrogate family in Justin’s.” He cleared his throat and offered me a tremulous smile. “Listen to me, droning on about boring-ass stuff. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m glad you shared this with me. Thank you.”

Evan’s hazel eyes shone with mischief as he leaned toward me. “Thank me.”

Smiling, I brought my lips to his for a soft, slow kiss. “Take me home and I will.”

“Ms. Washington, I don’t know how many times I can explain this to you,” Gilbert Stein said. He rolled his eyes. “We’re on a deadline here! I
cannot
have this”—he waved his hand—“Julia person fucking up my plans. Now, either you get her on track or I’ll have to find someone more capable of doing the job.”

I took a deep breath and smiled. After two months of back and forth, I was finished. “You know what? I think it’s about time you meet this Julia person, and perhaps the two of you can hash it out.” I raised my eyebrows. “Yes?”

“Oh, God, yes, please. I don’t have time for anymore nonsense.” Mr. Stein straightened his tie.

I held up a finger. “I just have to run it by the boss, but I’m sure it will be okay. Would you wait here for me, please?”

He sat back in the chair with a huff. “Whatever, whatever. Make it snappy, though.”

I closed my office door behind me and took the elevator to the tenth floor, which held the upper echelon of the art department. Taking advantage of her receptionist’s absence from her desk, I strode to Cassie’s office and rapped on the door with my knuckles.

“Yes?”

I opened the door and peeked my head in. “Is this a good time?”

Cassie nodded and held up a finger. “Okay, I’ll see you then,” she said into the phone. She smiled. “I love you, too.” She ended the call and looked at me. “What’s wrong?”

I walked into the office and sat down in one of the chairs in front of her desk. “Sorry I interrupted your call.”

Cassie waved my apology away. “What’s up?”

“Mr. Stein is livid.”

“Mr. Stein is always livid.”

I nodded. “True, but more so than usual.”

Cassie gave me a blank look. “Okay,” she said slowly, “so…”

“I think it’s best if he and Julia meet to discuss his vision one-on-one so there’s no further misunderstanding.”

Cassie scoffed. “You want to put Julia in the same room with that man?”

“Yes, a million times, yes.”

“You do realize he may not survive the meeting?”

I shrugged. “We all have to go sometime.” I gave her a dazzling smile.

“Stacy!” Cassie laughed and shook her head. She pinched the bridge of her nose as she closed her eyes. “This can’t end well.”

“It probably won’t in any case. This way, we can at least say we went along with the client’s wishes as much as possible. You know, except for the actual ad thing.” No matter the hoops they’d jumped through, the man had been impossible to please.

Cassie drummed her fingers against her desk as she stared at me.

“Did I mention that this meeting would be at Mr. Stein’s request? Well”—I considered it—“more like at his order, but whatever.”

The drumming of the creative director’s fingers stopped. She pressed a button on the desk phone.

“Yes?” a voice said through the speaker.

“Lola, get a hold of Julia for me and ask her to come to my office, please.”

“You got it,” Lola said before disconnecting.

“You know what I’m thinking?” Cassie asked as she looked at me.

“What?”

“I’m thinking I’m this close”—she held her thumb and her index finger less than an inch apart—“to telling Mr. Stein that Innovative Images is clearly not the agency for him and that he should seek design assistance elsewhere. Only, you know”—she shrugged—“not in such a calm, polite tone.”

I clapped my hands together. “Yes! That would be perfect.”

Cassie frowned. “If you want to ditch him, then why try to set up a meeting between him and Julia?”

“Oh, I
want
to ditch him.” I sat back with a satisfied smile plastered on my face as I crossed my arms. “But if he were to have an animated meeting with Julia first, well”—I held up my hands—“all the better.”

Cassie narrowed her eyes. “Ooh, that’s kind of mean.” She smiled.

I laughed.

“What’s with you lately, anyway?”

I feigned ignorance. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been a lot… happier, more relaxed, in the last few weeks.”

Sex with two amazing men could do that to a person. But no way was I telling the creative director of the advertising department that. I shrugged. “I guess I’m just in a good mood.”

“Hmm… It sure is lasting a long time.” Cassie rested her chin on her palm as she looked at me. “I have a man who puts me in the very same long-lasting good mood, you know. So, who’s the guy?”

I swore I suddenly felt a chunk of the glazed donut I’d had at breakfast make a brief return appearance to lodge in my throat. I gulped past it and made a show of picking at my cuticles. “There’s no guy.”

Cassie scoffed. “Right.”

“There isn’t.” It was kind of, sort of, true. There was no guy. There were two of them.

Cassie opened her mouth to press the issue when Julia burst through the door. “What’s wrong now? Did Eric do something stupid? Because I am
not
your little relationship fairy that flits around cleaning up your mess—” Julia finally looked at me and frowned. “Oh, hey, Stacy.” She looked at Cassie and then back to me. Her eyes grew wide as she threw up her hands. “Oh no, no,” she said, shaking her head and backing up toward the door. “I don’t have time for Stein’s shit today. I’m PMSing like crazy and that old coot will surely take me over the edge, straight into homicide.”

“Stein wants to meet with you,” Cassie said. “I’m giving you two crazy kids my blessing.” She smiled.

Julia looked at me. “You do understand that your client may be army crawlin’ outta that meeting once I break his kneecaps, right?”

I nodded vigorously. “I, too, give my blessing.”

Julia’s eyebrows drew together briefly before she shrugged. “Whatever.” She turned and opened the door. She paused and turned to us. “Tell the bastard I’ll be in the Atoka Room in twenty,” she said, referring to one of the conference rooms, which were all named after Oklahoma cities. With that, the no-nonsense redhead left.

Cassie and I looked at each other.

“Well?” she asked.

I shrugged and got up. “I’ll go tell the bastard.”

*      *      *

Nina chewed a bite of her egg salad sandwich as I relayed the morning’s events to her.

“And I swear you could hear yelling all the way down to the elevators.” I laughed. “Julia really put ol’ Mr. Stein in his place. When he came out, his face was beet red and he stormed off muttering about crazy redheads and the other insane broads running the place.” I sighed. “I loved it.”

Nina frowned. “Doesn’t this mean you lost your biggest account ever? Why the hell are you so happy?”

I shook my head as I sipped my tea. “That’s just it; he blustered and bitched, but he came to my office about an hour later to tell me that he’d thought about it and the original ad would work after all.” I rolled my eyes. “Despite the hell he put everyone through, can you believe it?”

“That man sounds unstable.”

“And I’m gonna ride his unstable ass all the way to the top.”

The couple seated at the next table over glanced my way.

I laughed and gave them a little wave.

Nina smiled as she shook her head. “You’re something else lately. Justin and Evan must be keeping you pretty happy.”

I gave her a devilish grin. “You could say that.”

“So does this mean you’re not free to hang out tonight?”

“Well, they’re coming over, but—wait, how the hell are
you
free? I thought this thing with James was starting to take off?”

Nina held up a hand. “Whoa.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “What?”

“They’re coming over? They’re
both
coming over?” She leaned forward. “At the same time?”

I shrugged. “They’ve done that a time or two.”

Nina’s mouth dropped open.

“It’s not like that. We always kept it light… hung out as friends,” I said, casting a look around at the people seated near us.

She stared past me and her eyes glazed over as her voice took on a wistful tone. “Oh my God, I see
so
much DP in your future.” She frowned as she looked me in the eye. “How the hell did
you
get so lucky? I was doing the one-night stand thing long before you even thought to get out of the missionary position.”

The female half of the couple seated near us gasped.

“Hey,” I said indignantly before realizing she was right. “Wait… what the hell is ‘DP’?”

Nina stopped with her glass of lemonade halfway to her mouth. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I shook my head and gave her a blank look.

Nina slapped her hand to her forehead. “Girl, DP as in ‘double penetration.’ You know, when you do two guys at once.”

I wrinkled my nose. “How could a woman manage
that
?

“Good Lord, have you been sheltered or what?” Nina laughed.

Yeah, so I’d been an uptight, Prudence McPrudeypants the majority of my life. My ex had already brought that to my attention; Nina didn’t have to rub it in.

She sighed before continuing the impromptu sex education lesson. “One dude’s bangin’ on the back door while the other’s beatin’ down the front.”

I stared at her blankly.

She raised her eyebrows.

“Oh,” I said, slowly. “Oh?” Then my mind finally came up with a visual to complete the explanation. “Oh!” I glanced around before leaning forward and dropping my voice to a furious whisper. “Nina!”

“Watch some porn, girl. It’ll teach you some things.” She finished the rest of her lemonade before sitting back. “If the three of you haven’t been… you know, then what do y’all do when you get together?”

“We talk, we watch movies, we go out to dinner, we
make
dinner. We just hang out.” I smiled. “And this whole dating two guys thing is awesome because if one doesn’t want to do something with you, there’s a good chance the other will. Justin, for example, isn’t into the whole arts and culture scene, so if I want to go to a gallery or a museum or something, Evan goes with me. And if I feel like going to catch a game or something, then Justin goes with me because Evan’s not a sports guy.”

Nina stared at me as I droned on and on.

“Oh! Did I tell you Evan wants to open up his own bar?”

She shook her head slowly, but said nothing.

I nodded. “He’s been saving up money forever. He only wants a small place, though, but I think it’ll be great. He’s actually looking at some properties next week. That’ll be cool because then both he and Justin will own their own businesses and—” I frowned at Nina. “What?”

“You’re dating two guys? Dating?”

“I’m not—we’re only—”

Nina pointed at me. “Your words, not mine. ‘This whole dating two guys thing is awesome because…’ ”

I closed my mouth as my words rushed back to me. When had we crossed the line from casual, no-strings-attached sex to dating? “Fuck.”

Nina nodded. “Oh yeah, DP, in fact.” She smiled and toasted me with her now empty glass. “
Salud!
”

“Lord, have mercy,” I said to Doodle as I scrolled through pictures of women engaged in what was so quaintly known as DP. I clicked one of the videos. My living room was instantly filled with loud moans, grunts, and screams.

I grimaced. This looked painful as hell, actually, but I was still intrigued despite myself. I quickly stopped the video and all sounds ceased. I closed the laptop and set it on the coffee table before looking at Doodle. “You learn something new every day.”

Of course, I now couldn’t help but imagine myself sandwiched snugly between Justin and Evan. I closed my eyes as I sat back on the couch and thought about it. They were almost more than I could handle separately; together they would damn near kill me. But what a sinfully delicious way to go. I allowed myself to get lost in a dirty, intense reverie.

Their mouths on me. Hell, my mouth on them. Would they take turns bangin’ on my back door while the other beat down my front? My nipples hardened at the thought and I almost moaned out loud. I felt my pussy dampen as it started to ache. My eyes snapped open. Now was not the time for a sexy daydream. I’d be hot and bothered and they’d both be here. What would I do then?

DP.

Nina’s voice rang loud and clear in my head. New Stacy wasn’t
that
new. But shit, now that she had put the idea in my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Damn her. The knock on the door jarred me back into reality. Justin? Evan? Maybe both? Doodle started barking as I rushed to door. Smiling, I yanked it open. “Hey! Come in,” I said.

“Hey,” Justin said, leaning in to kiss me. He stopped abruptly before his lips touched mine. Instead, he pressed a quick smooch to my cheek. Then, with a boyish grin, he held up the sack he’d carried in. “Beer.”

“Hi,” I said, trying not to smile. If Evan hadn’t been there, I knew that kiss would have landed on its original target. That kiss also would have turned into way more, in record time. He looked good enough to lick in those well-worn jeans and a plain white T-shirt that showed off his tattoos.

Evan bent down to play with Doodle, who’d run over to jump up on his legs. “Hello,” he said, standing and moving his face close to mine. Just as I anticipated, his lips found my temple, not my mouth. They never gave me anything than the most chaste of kisses when they were around one another. I tilted my head, taking him in. “My, don’t we look especially handsome.” Evan was quite at home in jeans and a T-shirt, as Justin was, but the man pulled off a more conservative look with ease.

Evan glanced down at himself. In black slacks and a light blue dress shirt with the cuffs rolled up, he shrugged. “I had to meet with a loan officer at the bank today.” He gave me an easy smile. “But thanks.”