Chase taps his temple. “Pockets. Noted.”

  When we reach Target, we head in together and I call up the registry on my phone. “Let me see what’s in my price range.” Then I roll my eyes, showing him the list as we pass the women’s clothes and head to baby wear. “I am not buying her nipple cream.”

  Chase cringes. “Diaper rash cream is a gift no-go too.”

  “Exactly. Get that yourself. Same thing applies for pacifier wipes.”

  “Are those all on there?”

  “Cassie is very thorough,” I say with a nod.

  “Show me the list.”

  We stop by a display of sapphire blue towels, and I hand him my phone. As he reads a new tale of horror, his deep brown eyes glaze over. “You know what? This is far too complicated. Just pick something that’s not practical and it’s my treat.”

  “You really don’t have to get something for my sister.”

  “It’s not for your sister. It’s for you. I like doing things for you,” he says.

  My heart softens even more. “You’re so sweet, especially since I’m dreading this shower,” I say as we turn down the next aisle.

  “I know. It makes me sad that your family doesn’t quite understand you.”

  “Me too. I think I’m just used to it by now,” I say with a shrug.

  But what doesn’t make me sad is getting to spend this little extra bit of time with Chase in a Target on a Thursday morning, especially when he says, “But I like to think I understand you.”

  My heart speeds up, beating at a rapid clip as I meet his gaze. “I think you do too,” I say, then I whisper, “And I like it.”

  “Me too,” he says, and we lock eyes for several heady seconds till he adds, “Dying to kiss you.”

  “Same,” I say.

  He leans in slightly but then pulls back. “Dammit. If Ryker can’t kiss you in the store, I can’t either,” he says.

  What is he doing to my heart? His loyalty to his friend is too appealing.

  Once we’re out in the car and away from crowds in a quiet part of the parking lot, he presses a kiss to my lips that I wish could last longer.

  I wish so many things could last longer.

  But still, I’m acutely aware that our time is running out. It feels like the middle of a vacation when the calendar inexorably flips. You pass the midway mark, and you just wish you could make the hours go on and on and on.

  But you can’t. Vacations always end. Just like this unconventional arrangement will in a few more days, no matter how hard my heart beats around my men.

  Dorothy makes a wiggling gesture with her fingers. “Come to mama,” she says to the pot of chips on the table in the community games room. We’re at the condos where she lives just over the Golden Gate Bridge, and she’s decimating Ryker and me in poker.

  Ryker huffs. “I bet this deck is weighted or something.”

  “Or perhaps you’re just not as good as I am,” she says, matter-of-factly, sliding the chips next to her.

  “I’ve won before. A few times,” he says, all grumbly and Ryker-y.

  “You cling to that, why don’t you?” She winks at me as she shuffles the cards.

  “You can’t be good at everything, Ryker,” I tease, jumping on the pile-on-Ryker train.

  “I’m very good at cards,” he says, insistent.

  “Pfft,” Dorothy says. “The universe doesn’t give out gifts that freely to everyone. You’ve got to take your pick. Sports or games.”

  “She’s right,” I weigh in, totally on Grandma’s side.

  Dorothy shoots me a wise smile, her eyes crinkling at the corner. “Listen to your girlfriend. She knows what she’s talking about.”

  Ryker’s lips part, and I swear the correction is forming on his tongue. He’s about to say I’m not his girlfriend. And really, I should say the same too. But I feel kind of like a jerk saying that. Or maybe I enjoy the sound of the word girlfriend too much.

  “She’s a friend,” he says evenly, but perhaps like it costs him something.

  Dorothy rolls her eyes. “You can call her a friend, but I can tell the truth.”

  “Grandma…”

  “You’re not fooling me,” she chides, and I hide a smile.

  “Grandma,” he says again.

  “Seriously? How many times are you going to Grandma me? You’ve spent this entire card game making eyes at her.”

  My stomach swoops. I dip my face, trying to hide my laughter, or maybe it’s my hope. This silly hope that’ll never see the light of day that I could be both their girlfriends. But that’s crazy. That’s not the real world.

  “I already told you,” he says, but it’s a pointless argument.

  She’s decided. “I don’t care what you told me. I can see with my eyes. I can feel it,” she says, tapping her chest. “Now, let’s play another round.”

  She deals and when I take out my phone and snap another shot for his social media feed, I don’t feel like his friend either.

  I feel like I belong to both of these guys. The trouble is I don’t know what to do about all these new feelings that don’t have a home in the real world.

  Ryker drives me back to Chase’s place a little later. “Thanks again for coming. And the pics. And…being so cool with Grandma,” he says as he crests Divisadero.

  “Of course. I love her already.”

  “Pretty sure she feels the same about you,” he says.

  As he drives, I glance over at his hands on the wheel, then my eyes travel up his arm, checking out his ink once more.

  He told me to ask him about them in bed, and I never did. But now seems as good a time as any. “So, why compasses? Is it for travel? Adventure? Something else?”

  At the light at the top of the hill, he shoots me a smile that says my question was inevitable. “It’s a reminder that if I get lost, I can find my way back.”

  “To what?”

  “To wherever I’m supposed to be,” he says, then holds my gaze for a long, weighty beat.

  My heart flips for him, like it did for his best friend earlier today. And since we’re in his car with tinted windows and the light is still red, I say to him what Chase said to me at the store. “Dying to kiss you.”

  Ryker curls a hand around my head and kisses me for a hot, heady second. That’s all, and I want so much more.

  Later, I’m alone at the dog park, urging Nacho through the triple hoops, then cheering him on when he nails all his skills.

  “Who’s the best boy in the world?” I call out, and he jumps—okay, it’s more like pogo sticks—up and down.

  I pick him up and give him a kiss on his snout, then glance around. Is someone going to take my picture? Ha. I’m not interesting without a famous athlete by my side.

  Fine by me. I never wanted the spotlight, but as I leash up Nacho, and leave, I feel a pang in my chest. A wistfulness.

  Next week, I won’t come to this park. I’ll be in my own tiny studio in the Outer Sunset, taking a bus to work across the city, and using any little extra dough on doggie daycare for this little love bomb.

  I’ll be back to my regular life.

  Though I can’t help wondering what it’d be like to come here to this park, not just with Chase but Ryker too? To laugh and play, like I did with Chase at Target, and Ryker with his grandmother? Then to kiss?

  My heart squeezes. I want that but know I can’t have it.

  When my phone rings a minute later, I answer it right away. It’s my mom, and it’ll be good for me to focus on my regular life.

  “Hi, Mom,” I say, trying to sound upbeat.

  “Hi, sweetie. Just wanted to say hi,” she says, and we make small talk as I circle the outskirts of the park. But soon the conversation comes around to her favorite topic. Romance and matchmaking.

  “So how’s everything with your new beau? When can we meet him? He seems so nice. I read all his press coverage. What a good family man. Did you know he pays for his brother’s college? Oh, and he donates to cancer research and animal rescues, and he’s such a good one.”

  My shoulders tense. I’m going to let them down all over again when this silly little pretend girlfriend thing ends. “Yeah, he’s great,” I say.

  And so’s the other guy too.

  But how would I ever say those words to them? They’d never understand what I’m feeling right now.

  She and my dad were high school sweethearts. They had the perfect wedding and have the perfect marriage, the perfect daughter in Cassie.

  I’m just…well, me.

  29

  THE PAGE-TURNER CLUB

  Trina

  On Friday morning at breakfast, the clock is ticking faster than usual. Just this weekend and then I’m moving into my own place. I want to stop time, but instead, we’re making wedding plans.

  “Neither one of us has a game tonight,” Chase says at the island counter. “We want to take you shopping when you get off work. To Charlotte Everly’s. For a new dress to wear this weekend,” he says, and whoa.

  These guys don’t fuck around. She’s the new it designer. I can’t afford her stuff. I can only salivate over it. “I love her designs,” I say.

  “Good. Then you should wear one of her dresses when you dance with each of us on Sunday,” Ryker adds.

  “Then when we undress you after here,” Chase continues.

  “And then we’ll spread you out on the bed in your new lingerie we’ll have bought for you.”

  I swoon. “Yes.”

  I’m fantasizing about Sunday when a notification pops up on my phone. Seriously?

  It’s Jasper.

  The preview pane says You got to meet my idols. The least you can do is pay me back for those tix you stole.

  I snort-laugh. “Please,” I say, then I finally reply to Jasper for the first time since I left him.

  With a GIF of monopoly money.

  I show the guys and they smother me in righteous kisses. “Our book babe is badass,” Ryker says and once we finish breakfast, they walk me to the door, where Chase hands me a brown paper bag.

  “You said you had a busy day today so in case you can’t get out for lunch, I made you something.”

  My eyes widen. I’m officially melting before I go into work. “What is it?”

  “A peanut butter sandwich with fresh strawberries,” he says.

  “My favorite.”

  Though these two guys are my favorites too.

  That evening, Kimora shakes the black and gold paperback in frustration. “Nope. I will never forgive Angus for not burning down the world for Lorelei.”

  Aubrey sits on the edge of the couch, pointing to the cover with her perfectly polished nail. “He’s a hero, not a villain. He’s not supposed to burn down the world.”

  “An antihero,” Kimora insists, pointing a dismissive finger at the book in question.

  I’m at book club that night, in the comfy “living room” area in a back corner of the store. The ladies and I are hanging out on sofas, eating cheese and crackers while debating the super-spicy football romance—a dark romance—we read recently.

  “Maybe we need a romantic comedy for the next book club, and we can debate levels of cinnamon roll heroes,” Prana suggests, with a kick of her red flat.

  “Only if the book is five chili peppers hot,” Kimora insists.

  I give Kimora a c’mon look. “You know me. I know you know me. You know I’d never give you anything less than the full spicy treatment in a Page Turners pick.”

  Kimora sighs happily. “All I need is some spice and for the world to leave me alone.”

  “Amen,” Aubrey seconds.

  We spend the last few minutes of book club choosing our book for next time, finally settling on Only One Bang In The Room from Kennedy Carlisle. Bonus points? The super adorable pink cover with the cartoon couple on opposite sides of the bed.

  “Bets on how long the hero and heroine hold out?” I ask.

  Aubrey raises a hand. “Ohh! One night.”

  Kimora flicks her braids off her shoulder. “Two. My money’s on two.”

  Prana weighs in. “Good things come in threes.”

  Well, yeah.

  “May the best woman win a Fresh Out of Fucks mug,” I say, then hand Kimora the mug prize from tonight. I picked it up at Effing Stuff down the street as a prize for the reader who accurately predicted the chapter for the first bang. Even though my friend didn’t like the book, she still deserves the mug.

  We all say goodbye, and Aubrey sticks around to help me straighten up. “So, how’s life in The Pound Palace?” she asks in a low voice as I crush the cracker boxes so I can recycle them.

  A shiver runs down my spine as I think about all the things we’ve done this week. I check the Edvard Munch-style clock on the wall above the horror section. I’ll be meeting the guys at the coffee shop around the corner in ten minutes. Just enough time to share with my bestie.

  “It’s wild,” I whisper, then I tell her a little bit about when they tied me up the other morning. “I swear, I had no idea sex like this was possible.”

  She fans her face. “I knew it. I knew those dirty books weren’t a lie. But rather, a secret roadmap to the promised land. And as God is my witness, someday I will find my way there.” She smiles. “Tell me more.”

  But I don’t tell her more about the nookie. Instead, I tell her about the way I felt all soft and squishy from our new pact. My stomach dips, like a roller-coaster car. “And I don’t know what to do about it. I mean, this thing is ending, and I’m fresh off a bad breakup. These burgeoning feelings are just…” I wave a hand searching for the words. “Heightened emotions.”

  Aubrey’s uncharacteristically quiet for a moment. “You really like them.”

  I wince. “Yes.”

  She brings me in for a hug. “Just have fun. And know that I love you,” she says.

  That’s girlfriend code for I’ll be here for you when your heart gets broken, or even just bent.

  I let go and say goodbye to her, trying to brush aside my feelings.

  Best to focus on the way I feel in bed, not out of bed.

  A little later, I’m all done, so I say goodbye to Pedro, who’s closing up tonight, then head outside, but once I push open the door, it’s not my two temporary roomies surprising me.

  It’s my ex.

  30

  FIVE CHILI PEPPERS

  Trina

  Lift my chin. Look him in the eye. Then walk on by.

  That’s my plan at least, but the second I head down Fillmore Street, Jasper’s by my side, keeping pace, his dumb man bun bouncing stupidly. “Monopoly money? Really? I thought you were more mature than that.”

  I fume, jerking my gaze at him. “Who the hell are you to lecture me on maturity?”

  “Who the hell are you to say it was wrong of me to make one mistake, then just go and take something that belonged to me? Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  Red plumes of anger billow through me. “Did you just equate cheating on me to taking your hockey tickets?”

  “I did. You knew how much I wanted those tickets, and you just stole them. They’re worth a lot of money.”

  The gall of him. “Did you need the money for rent, Jaspie?” I ask as we pass Effing Stuff, the mug shop. I’m fresh out of fucks to give, but I’d sure like to throw that mug at his stupid face. “Because that’s all you care about.”

  “No, I care about meeting Weston and Samuels,” he says, and I want to shove a bar of soap in his mouth for having the nerve to breathe their names. He’s a little man brat, and they’re real men. “That was all I wanted. But the way I see it is we could be even, and I could just forget about it if you give the tickets back to me and I’ll go to the calendar kickoff,” he says, plastering on a nice voice.

  I scoff.

  But I’m mad at myself. What did I ever see in Jasper the Jackoff? “So that makes us even?”

  I power walk down the block, the coffee shop in my crosshairs.

  “Yes, and I think you should take my offer. Otherwise I could report you to the cops, you know.”

  This guy.

  I stop in my tracks in front of the shop, fueled by both righteous rage and utter disbelief. “The cops? Seriously? Do you even hear the words coming out of your mouth? Do you even listen to what you say?”

  “Yeah, what did you say?”

  I turn around at the sound of Chase’s voice. He’s here in the doorway of the coffee shop along with Ryker, cups in hand.

  Chase wears a blue Henley and jeans, his bulging muscles evident under the fabric. His brown eyes are fierce as he stares down at Jasper. Ryker is right next to him, a black T-shirt revealing all his tattoos.

  “Oh!” Jasper blinks, then smooths a hand down his plaid shirt. Yes, Jasper tuck it in. That’ll impress them. “You guys are the best and I just really wanted to meet you.”

  Jasper sticks out a hand. He actually offers his hand, like they’d want to shake it.

  Ryker lifts a finger. “Yeah, we’re dying to meet you too. Let’s get out of the way though so we can chat some more.”

  His tone is faux friendly and Jasper has no idea.

  I’m flooded with anticipation as the two big, broad hockey players walk along the side of the shop to the parking lot behind it, coffee cups still in their hands.

  Jasper follows them gleefully.

  I do the same.

  They stop on the asphalt, Jasper’s back’s to the wall of the coffee shop.

  Ryker tilts his head to Jasper. “So she lifted your tickets. That sucks. What the hell?” he asks, staring at my ex with over-the-top concern.

  It takes everything in me to keep a straight face as I stand a few feet away. I won’t reveal they’re on my side.

  Jasper points at me, j’accuse style. “Right? Can you believe it? She doesn’t even like hockey, and she stole my VIP experience! How could anyone do that?”

  Chase shakes his head like he can’t believe it either. “Bro, that must have been so tough.”