MORGAN
“Only you, Morgan.” Petra’s husky laugh is legendary and has people sitting at nearby tables turning to glance at her, obviously recognizing the voice of one of America’s favorite talk show hosts.
“You sound just like my friends when I told them what happened in Bermuda.”
“Trouble sure has a way of finding your love life,” she says, shaking her head. Her bright blue eyes are sparkling and her wide mouth is spread into a grin, but she’s not laughing at me. She drops her voice low and says, “So no one else knows that Danny is Aidan Renaud?”
“Just me and him. And now, you.”
“Your secret is safe with me. I’m a vault.”
“Which is why I told you.” I take the last sip of my wine and set the glass back down. “I need advice. I have absolutely no idea how to proceed here. Our chemistry is great, but for all the reasons I already mentioned, I should probably stay away. I need a nice, stable guy I can settle down with, and Aidan’s neither of those things.”
“See that’s the thing,” Petra says. “He just suggested you should be friends with benefits, and you’re already thinking long term.”
“I knoooow. It’s because I have no idea how to do this whole casual thing. I’m a relationship kind of girl.”
Before Petra reconnected with Aleksandr, she was the queen of one-night stands. I’m not sure why, but casual relationships were kind of her personal brand.
“Okay,” she says hesitantly. “But you’ve already decided that Renaud’s not the type of person you want a long-term relationship with, so that makes him kind of perfect as a friend with benefits. You know the sex will be great, and the more you see him, the more you’ll remember all the reasons he’snotrelationship material. It’s actually perfect.”
“I don’t know if that sounds perfect, or terrible.”
“What could be terrible about having great, no-strings-attached sex?”
“Because when the sex is that good, I bet I’d overlook a lot to keep it going longer.”
“You don’t have to overlook anything, Morgan. That’s the thing with casual, you don’t have to see a future with the person or try to change them. You just enjoy it for what it is: good sex.”
She must see the doubt on my face, because she winces and adds, “Maybe you’d be better off finding a guy who’s looking for a long-term relationship like you are.”
“And therein lies the problem,” I say as the waiter approaches and Petra hands over a credit card before he can even give us the bill. “I don’t generally have trouble attracting guys, it’s keeping them interested that’s the issue. It could be that I’m attracting the wrong guys, but it doesn’t seem to matter how different they all are, the one constant is that they don’t want to stay withmelong-term.”
I’m so used to this that I’ve accepted it as fact. I don’t even get teary-eyed about it the way I used to. I’m pretty freaking great at my job, I have amazing friends who are all badasses themselves, I’m attractive enough, I do nice things for people whenever I can. There’s no reason I can identify that I’m not attracting the right type of guy.
“Yeah, that doesn’t make sense to me,” Petra says, folding her napkin and setting it next to her empty plate. “You’re talented, successful, beautiful, and nice—everything a guyshouldbe looking for.”
“And yet, I’m never quite what they want.”
“Maybe the problem is that men in your generation are all overgrown children,” she says.
“You’re like six years older than me,” I say with a laugh.
“Maybe you just need an older man, then?”
“Funny, Aidan is your age. And he doesn’t have any female friends, aside from me.”
“Maybe this situation could be mutually beneficial, then,” she says, with a lift of her dark eyebrows. “You learn how to do casual, he learns how to be a good friend to a woman.”
My bark of laughter is louder than I’d want in a restaurant, and my cheeks turn pink as people turn to stare. I lower my voice when I say, “I think trying to have sex with your female friends is exactly whatnotto do if you’re being a good friend.”
She lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Yeah, but your situation is different because you slept together before you were friends. Besides, given everything you told me about work, you don’t have time for a relationship right now anyway. So in the meantime, why not have great sex?”
The idea has merit, especially when she points out that I truly don’t have time for a relationship right now. Growing my business and furthering my career shouldn’t stop me fromhaving great sex, too. And who better to do that with than the guy who I already know will fulfill my needs?
The game is tied 4-4 halfway through the third period. The way the teams are so evenly matched between their veteran players and guys from the AHL affiliates who are trying to secure a spot on their team, means the game has been both exciting and frustrating. High-scoring games always are.
When Alex Ivanov steals the puck right off the stick of one of our rookie defensemen, spins behind the goal, and passes it to New York player Owen Jimenez, who slaps it into the net before our minor league goalie can get to it, I groan. From my spot in the media room, I watch Petra in the stands, jumping up and down and hugging another player’s wife.
