Our food came, so the question sort of hung in the air for a bit. Fi laughed as she watched me eat more pasta than I knew what to do with. She stirred around the spaghetti on her eggplant parm, lost in thought. She still hadn’t answered my question.
“So will you?” I asked again.
“Depends on where I’m at with my book.”
I nodded. “If you’re busy, I understand. I don’t want to impose on your work. It would mean a lot to me, though.”
She seemed to mull it around. “Well…maybe I can work on it tonight.”
I smiled up at her. I didn’t think she understood how much that meant to me. How much she meant to me.
Chapter Seventeen
FIONA
I never understood when I read romance books and the heroine went on and on about wanting to lick the hot hero’s abs...until Riley was putting together my bookshelves with no shirt on. Why did he have to take his shirt off? I tried to write, but watching the cut man put together furniture was too distracting for me. I couldn’t focus, and it felt a bit too hot in here. I wanted to run my hands down his ripped body and kiss the length of his forearm tattoo.
I was very horny and was deprived of sex from my hot best friend/husband, but I didn’t know how to bring up the conversation with him. I was really bad at asking for sex. Even when I was so uncomfortably horny.
“Sweetheart?” Riley’s voice came back to me, but it felt like he was far away.
“Hmm?” I asked but was still slack-jawed, staring at his insanely ripped torso. When did my best friend get so cut?
“Eyes on your writing.”
BUSTED.
My face flushed, and he laughed. This man made my blood pump and my panties get wet. I wanted to jump him, but at the same time, he hadn’t exactly been open to us getting physical again. Why was he keeping me at arm’s length? He said he wanted this to work, but he hadn’t broached sex with me again, and I was starting to get self-conscious about it. Did he not want me anymore? Did he just want a wife to come home to? But he would continue to fuck whomever he wanted when he wasn’t here? We should have talked about this stuff, but I was too scared to know the answers. If I found out Riley had been fucking other women, it would have broken me.
Riley swore under his breath.
“What?” I asked.
He looked down at his phone. “Do you care if Benny comes over tonight? He might need to crash here.” He gestured to the twin-sized bed that was shoved up on the back wall. I eyed it. I wasn’t exactly sure if six-foot-four Benny was going to fit in the spare bed.
“It’s your condo!” I told him with a shrug.
He stared at me and rubbed the bridge of his nose between two fingers. He crossed the room and knelt down so we were at eye-level. He brushed my hair out of my face and tucked it behind my ear. I nearly melted at the gentle gesture.
“Fiona, I thought we talked about this. I’m all in for this to be a true partnership. This is our home, not just mine, so of course I’m going to ask you if it’s okay with you if my friend comes over because he got into another fight with his girlfriend.”
“It’s fine with me, but I think I need to move into the bedroom. You shirtless is a distraction.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.
I shoved him away and took my laptop into our bedroom. I put headphones on and drowned out the rest of the world. I only came out to the smell of some really good food a few hours later.
I stepped into the kitchen to find Benny behind the stove, stirring some sort of meat in one of the frying pans. It smelled amazing. Riley was sitting at one of the barstools nursing a beer.
“Um…hi?” I asked.
Benny looked over his shoulder and smiled at me. “Hi, Fi. Figured I’d make myself useful by making dinner since Riley said I could crash here tonight.”
“What are you making?” I asked.
“Chicken tinga tacos. It’s nothing special,” Benny replied with a shrug of his wide-set shoulders.
Riley smiled while he peeled the label off his beer bottle. “He’s so modest.”
“It smells awesome. Riley, you should have asked Benny to marry you instead. I think he’d be a better hockey wife.”
Riley laughed.
That got us both the finger from the big man in the kitchen.
“How’s the writing going?” Riley asked.
I wrung my hands. “Don’t ask! Ugh, it’s terrible. Everything sucks, and I’m sure my publisher’s gonna ask for my advance back.”
I pretended not to notice the two men share an uneasy glance. “What did your agent say again?” Riley asked, trying to be helpful.
I grumbled, “To send it over.”
“Sweetheart, turn it in.”
Benny turned off the burner. He turned to the three plates he had laid out on the counter with a soft tortilla shell laid out on each. He spooned the meat filling onto all three, along with diced avocado, onion, and some sort of soft cheese I didn’t recognize, and squeezed lime onto them. He handed me the first plate. “Here, ladies first.”
I took my plate to the dining room table Riley had set up in the space in front of the big window. The two big men joined me. I took the first bite and moaned in ecstasy. “Holy shit!” I exclaimed.
“Good, right?” Riley said with a grin. “That’s why the ladies all love Benny here.”
Benny frowned. “Damn, this is still not as good as my abuela’s.”
“So your grandmother taught you how to cook?” I asked
I didn’t really know anything about Riley’s teammates. I had met TJ Desjardins last year in passing; he seemed like a fun guy, and he definitely hit
