This Changes Everything Read Free

already set up their bimonthly binge of TV. Lately it had been Battlestar Galactica . They’d been doing this now for four years. This whatever it was. This friendship based on pizza and immersive serial television. It was much better now that he didn’t pretend to be learning to play the piano. The first two months of their acquaintance, he’d sat at the bench of her upright piano and failed to play the simple tune any better than he had the week before. Finally she’d suggested they have a beer. The lesson had been much more enjoyable for both of them after that. Another month or two later, they’d ditched the piano altogether and added pizza.
    It was the most perfect friendship she’d ever had.
    “I owe you for the pizza,” she said, “but there’s no way I’m handing over hard-earned cash for that bitter swill you pretend to like because it’s trendy.”
    “This again? I refuse to take any of your tiny dollars. Do I need to make another graph comparing our net worths?” He saluted her with his second beer. “And you’d love ale if you’d let your taste buds evolve. How can a woman with so much personality be so damn bland about everything she puts in her mouth?”
    She grinned. Even when he was complaining about her, he snuck in a compliment. “You sweet talker,” she said. “How was Hugo?”
    “Didn’t get a chance to talk. Trixie came in with her dog.” He flinched. “It was horrifying, actually. All that blood. And I’ve never seen Trixie upset like that.”
    “After I hung up, I remembered who she was.” Sly often talked about his brilliant friend, Mark, and his family. “After all, how many Trixies can there be?”
    “This is the only one I know, and that’s enough.” He sank onto her old sofa and closed his eyes. “She has a romantic frame of mind.”
    Ooh, this sounded good. “She hit on you?”
    He looked at her without turning his head. “Oh yeah. Sucked me off right there in the car.”
    She hit him. And not as hard as he deserved. “The poor lady.”
    “The poor lady thinks you’re in love with me.”
    “Maybe I am,” she said, burping into her hand.
    “Obviously.”
    “Everyone thinks that. I mean, look at you. Seriously hot. Dark, smoldering eyes. Broad shoulders, tight ass, flat abs. Wavy hair that probably feels really good to slide your hands through.” Still holding her beer, she got up on her knees and patted his head. “You’re like a cologne commercial.”
    He snorted and swatted her hands away. “Settle down. Are we going to watch this thing or not?”
    Laughing, she flopped back down and reached for the remote on her coffee table. Well, it wasn’t really a table—just a shipping box with a blanket thrown over it—but it did have coffee on it occasionally.
    Sly dimmed the lights. They gingerly put their feet up on the box, eating their pizza and drinking their beer, and fell into their typically relaxed, comfortable, happy coexistence.
    When the show was over, Cleo frowned at the screen, unhappy with the ending because it left her hanging, wondering if she’d be able to wait until two weeks from now or if she’d sneak-watch the next episode by herself, like she sometimes did, and then have to pretend to be surprised when they watched it together.
    She flicked on the lights and saw that Sly had fallen asleep. Dark head tilted back, handsome nose in the air, strong jaw slightly less strong.
    He really was a good-looking devil. And fairly rich by now with a few successful start-ups under his Gucci belt. Trixie wasn’t the only person to assume she was in love with him. Her mother the ex-therapist was also a tiresome believer.
    Few, however, ever suggested he must be in love with her . She knew she was perfectly adorable in a geeky-tomboy, curvy-real-woman kind of way, but her type and his type seldom paired up in life or the imagination. Not even hers.
    And could she ever love a man who couldn’t even carry a tune?
    But she enjoyed his company and