Friends With All the Benefits

28 Ethan

I t wasn’t easy. It wasn’t bloody easy at all.

Nat was finally gone from the cottage, but it was nothing to celebrate. Ellie was quietly furious at Nat, and more than disappointed too. She was much more upset over Nat’s decision than she let on, and I did my best to console her. But every time I reached out to touch her, there was a wall that wasn’t there before.

She no longer responded when I pulled her to me, and I had to stop myself from mauling her sweet body every time I reached out to her. Every time I reached out to kiss her, I had to stop myself. Every time I felt the surge of arousal rise in me, I had to stop myself from going to Ellie and having my way with her. We weren’t doing any of that any longer. My body had gotten too used to hers in our few months together.

A part of me was furious that I could no longer have her, but I did my best not to let it show. Ellie didn’t deserve it. I knew that I had no right to feel angry in the first place. This really was for the best. Ellie was right that this had to stop before it got any further. She had fancied herself in love with me a long time ago, and it would hurt her if she fell for me again because we were intimate. Even though I didn’t have feelings for Ellie, she was still important to me, and I didn’t want to hurt her.

Otherwise, everything else was still the same. We still hung out together. We still ate together. We still did things around the house together. We were still friends, just no longer with benefits.

I was the one who told her our one rule was that sleeping together didn’t mean a thing, so why did it feel like I had just been dumped?

Even so, I wasn’t going to let any messy feelings get in the way of me being a good friend. I took her out to a nice dinner yesterday, and it seemed to help her get over Nat. Right now, I was at work on my lunch break, scrolling through newly released movies on the cinema app, trying to pick a good one to take Ellie to tonight.

A familiar voice interrupted me.

“Ethan, good to see you again.”

I looked up from my phone to see Renae smiling at me. She was back and she was as beautiful as I remembered.

“Oh, hey. Welcome back. Congratulations on the promotion.”

Renae beamed. “Thank you. I’ve wanted to move up for ages, but never thought I was good enough. Sally gave me the push I needed.”

“And here you are,” I grinned. “It’s well deserved, and I’m sure plenty of people here are happy to have you back.”

“So…” Suddenly, Renae looked a little shy.

I gave her an encouraging smile.

She took a deep breath, then said, “I know this is forward of me, and I may have misread the signs, but I thought you were kinda into me before I moved. Now that I’m back, I’m wondering if you would like to grab dinner sometime. You don’t have to, of course. And you can tell me I’m way off base, and we can pretend this conversation never happened.”

Oh.

It completely caught me off guard. The first thing out of my mouth was, “Sure. I’d love to.”

Renae beamed at me, and we set a date for tomorrow night. I ate lunch feeling like a zombie the entire time, then walked back to my desk in a haze.

I should have been elated. This was a second chance. This was everything I wanted before Renae moved away. Ellie had been right to end things between us because I wasn’t sure if I would have said yes to Renae if I was still sleeping with Ellie, no matter that we made no promises to each other. My grand master plan was back on track, so why did I feel an impending sense of dread instead?

~

I told Callum about my upcoming date with Renae when he got back from his lunch meeting. The first thing he said to me was, “What about Ellie?”

“Ellie won’t care.”

“Have you two even talked about how you feel about each other?” Callum sighed.

“No, because there’s nothing to talk about. We don’t have feelings for each other except lust. Besides, you’ll be happy to know that we’ve ended things between us. We’re better off as friends,” I blithely replied, but something about it failed to ring true.

Callum looked at me as if he could tell I didn’t mean it. If he called me out on it, he would have been right.

There was nothing between Ellie and me except friendship, but had I wanted there to be? I still didn’t know, but I couldn’t deny that I had gotten attached. But none of that was going away. Ellie and I were still good friends even though we weren’t sleeping together, so I hadn’t lost anything by our arrangement ending. And if things went well with Renae, I wouldn’t even miss having someone warm my bed.

The thought of Renae in my bed instead of Ellie made me cold inside, but I ignored it. These things took time, and no matter how much I still craved Ellie’s touch, I knew it would fade away with time.

Another unwelcome thought occurred to me. If things went well with Renae, would Renae have a problem with my former hookup buddy being my housemate? I ignored that thought too. That was a problem for another time, but whatever happened, I promised Ellie I would never turn her out and it was a promise I intended to keep.

Callum asked me another question. “Is going out with Renae something you really want to do?”

“Honest answer? I don’t know. But I’m going to go so I can find out.”

“And are you going to tell Ellie about it?”

“Of course. She’s my best friend, just like you are.”

Callum gave me another withering look. He didn’t look happy with me, but the only thing he said after that was, “Okay then.”