Not Pretending Anymore, Ward, Penelope [books that read to you TXT] 📗

back to simpler times. Take Bryant and me, for example. We went into an exclusive relationship right away. At the time, I didn’t give any thought to the idea that it might not be a good idea since I travel so much for work. Recently, we’ve been having some difficulties, so I suggested we pull things back a little—keep our relationship more on the casual side.”

“I take it that conversation didn’t go too well, since you’re using your own situation to warn me off anything happening between me and my roommate.”

She shook her head. “No, it didn’t. Bryant doesn’t like the idea of a non-exclusive relationship because it’s hard to go backward once you’ve moved forward. That’s why I think you might want to give some serious thought to anything happening with your roommate. Once you go there, it would probably be hard to rewind.”

She’d said a whole lot of words, but the only part I heard was non-exclusive.

“So, where are things with you and Bryant now, if you don’t want the same thing?”

Julia sighed. “He told me to give what I really want some thought—basically an ultimatum. Either I’m with him and him alone, or I’m not with him at all.”

I nodded. “Wow. Okay. Sounds like you have a big decision to make.”

She surprised me by reaching out to touch my hand. I looked up, and our eyes met. “I do. I care about you, Declan. So maybe we should both take some time to think about what we really want, rather than making any rash decisions.”

Well, well, well. My eyes dropped to her lips, then raised to meet her eyes again. “Yeah. That sounds like a good idea.”

A half hour later, Julia hugged me goodbye—something we rarely did. As I shut the door behind her, I probably should have been elated at how shit had gone tonight, but instead, I felt a weird turmoil in the pit of my stomach.

Molly must’ve heard the front door, because she came out of her room a minute later.

“How did it go?”

She still had on that little black dress, and I couldn’t help but notice how much more shapely Molly was than Julia. Julia’s body type was more waif, whereas Molly had feminine curves. And tonight, in that dress, it was impossible not to notice how dangerous those curves were.

I forced my eyes to meet hers, though it wasn’t an easy feat.

“It went well. She said she told her boyfriend she wants to be in an open relationship.”

“Oh wow! Like our fake relationship!”

I chuckled. “Apparently Bryant gave her an ultimatum. It’s either exclusive or nothing. So she’s thinking about how to proceed.”

“Well, if she’s even considering that she wants to see other men, clearly the current guy isn’t the one.”

“Yeah.”

“So our diabolical plan seems to have worked.”

“Thanks to you. I can’t imagine any woman who wouldn’t be jealous of the way you look tonight. You went all out.”

Molly blushed. “Are you going to bed?”

“Nah, not yet. I’m not tired.”

“Would you want to take a walk and get some ice cream? I have such a craving for strawberry right now. There’s a place two blocks away that I love.”

“Sure. That sounds good.”

“Okay! I’ll throw on some jeans real quick and be right back.”

I felt a little disappointed that she was going to lose the sexy dress, but it only made sense. Plus, it wasn’t easy to keep my eyes off of her in that getup, and I didn’t want to get caught ogling.

She came back out wearing a pair of ripped jeans and a T-shirt, but honestly, she looked just as beautiful as she had all done up. I didn’t realize I was staring until she called me on it.

“What?” She wiped at her cheek. “Did my eyelashes come off again?”

I chuckled. “No. I was just looking at you. You don’t usually wear that much makeup.”

She pointed to her eye. “Yeah, now you know why. I’m not exactly a wizard with this type of stuff. Gluing my eye shut wasn’t the first complication I’ve had with cosmetics.”

“You don’t need all that crap anyway.”

She arched a brow. “Really? So you’re saying you didn’t notice me a little more with all the work I put in tonight?”

“Of course I did. I’m a man, and you made it hard not to notice. But sparkle only gets a person’s attention. It doesn’t keep it.”

Molly smirked and bumped shoulders with me. “I made it hard, did I?”

I opened the front door and extended my hand for her to walk through first. Damn…her ass looks fantastic in those jeans, too. Shaking my head, I blew out a deep breath.

My roommate was most definitely making things hard on me.

***

The next morning, I smiled, seeing my sister Catherine’s name flash on my cell phone. She was my favorite person to screw with, so I leaned back into my chair and tossed my pen on my desk before answering.

“Satan’s house of sins. We got porn, gambling, and prostitution. What can I do you for?”

“Ha ha. You know, when I became a nun, you were supposed to start being extra nice to me.”

“Who says?”

“It’s in the rule book.”

“What rule book?”

“The nun one.”

“I’m going to call BS on that, Sister-Sister. I’d like to see this rule book you constantly claim exists.”

“Well, you can’t. It’s strictly for nun eyes only.”

I chuckled. “How’ve you been, Cat? What’s new out in sunny California?”

“Well, I started taking a yoga class, so that’s new. I love it. Have you ever tried yoga?”

I pictured my sister in full nun garb reaching up into warrior position; even though I knew she actually rarely wore the whole outfit. “I gave it a whirl once,” I said. “But I found it hard to concentrate during the class.”

“Really? It does just the opposite for me. I find it completely conducive to focusing. Maybe you didn’t have a good instructor.”

“Nah. The instructor was fine. I probably just needed to be in the first row.”

“Oh, you mean you couldn’t see her from the back?”

“No.