What Lovers Do

“Really. What’s going on here? I detect an angry tone. Have I done something wrong? After dinner with my parents and what happened following that, I assumed you needed some space. Was that not correct?”

I squeeze the excess water from Cersei’s front side as he works on her backside. Shep has been doing all kinds of wrong things.

Smiling.

Laughing.

Flirting.

Looking sexy.

Existing on the same planet as my pregnant and unavailable self.

“I have a friend going through some … things.” I pause, eyeing him for a second as he works the towel over Cersei. “She broke up with her boyfriend, but he won’t move out. Now she has to go through an actual eviction process which could take months to get him out.”

Shep sets the towel aside and takes Cersei to the drying station. “Sounds about right.” He nods.

“Right? No. There is nothing right about it. It’s her house. The mortgage is in her name. She makes the mortgage payments. He hasn’t even had—” I bite my tongue before my rant goes into overdrive.

“Typical.” He shakes his head. “By ‘right’ I meant typical. I agree. He shouldn’t have a right to stay there, but the law seems to allow good people to live on the street while protecting freeloaders.”

“What should she do?” I ruffle Cersei’s coat while Shep continues to dry it.

A smirk bends his lips. “She should have better taste in men.”

Okay. I deserve that. She (imaginary friend) deserves that.

“For the record, the guy had a job when they met. And he was handsome and charming. My friend is a sucker for love; she simply has the worst luck with men.”

“Maybe it’s a sign.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugs. “Maybe she needs to figure out why she has the worst luck with men.”

“It’s luck, Shep, for which the whole mysterious concept implies lack of human control.”

“I realize this. Meeting the wrong guy might be bad luck but allowing him to move in with her sounds more like a poor decision on her part.”

“You know what I think it is?”

“I don’t,” he says. “But I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“I think she’s too nice. And people take advantage of nice people, and then they make it seem like it’s the nice person’s fault, absolving themselves of any wrongdoing in the matter. I hate that … you know? I hate when being nice becomes a flaw.”

Shep’s eyebrows lift a fraction. Does he think I’m losing it? I may have gone too far defending my “friend” and her niceness.

“So I guess my point is this …” I have no point. Well, that’s not entirely true. My silent point is that I’m attracted to Shep. I know I can’t have him, nor should I want him even if my life weren’t in a little disarray. However, I don’t like watching him flirt with Riley. Or is he just being Shep?

I blow out a long breath. “We went from strangers to conversing friends to friends who golf and spend the weekend in Sedona. Then that crossed over into a new kind of best friend category. And I’ll admit … I had the ‘when in Vegas’ mentality. But now we’re home. And you know I only offered you a temporary friendship, but …”

But what? I have no clue.

Cersei buries her nose in the corner of the drying station. She wants nothing to do with my ridiculous antics to get Shep’s attention.

“Okay.” He nods slowly. “I keep forgetting about your arranged marriage, criminal activity, and homelessness. My bad. How about this … you tell me exactly what you do and don’t want from me. I endured the mind-fuck thing with Millie, and I’m kinda over it.”

That’s easy. I want Jimmy out. I want the gestational period for this baby to be six weeks instead of forty weeks. I want Riley to find a different job. And if I’m going big … I’d like a tiny peek at Shep’s retirement portfolio to calculate the chances of him needing free housing in the future.

“I like golfing. And spending time at the dog park.”

Shep offers another slow nod, eyes slightly squinted. “So you want to be friends, the kind that golf and take their dogs to the dog park?”

I nod and Shep refocuses on Cersei’s fuzzy butt.

“I like talking to you on the phone too,” I add.

He grunts a laugh without giving me his gaze. “It would have been easier for you to have simply said you don’t want a friends-with-benefits relationship.”

He’s so wrong. I want all the benefits.

“Can we do that? Can we go back to friends without benefits?”

“It’s like you read my mind.” He turns off the dryer when Cersei decides she’s had enough.

“I read your mind?” I put Cersei’s collar and leash around her neck.

“Yes.” He saunters to the wash bin we used and begins to clean it.

“You wanted to go back to just friends again?”