“Why did you have to say that? Those are the worst four words in the English language. It’s too early in the morning for ‘we have to talk.’ You can’t ‘we have to talk’ me before I’ve even started the coffee. That’s not fair. Come back here.”

He pulled her back down onto his chest, and she didn’t resist.

“Sorry, I know, I know.” She tried to relax against him, but she couldn’t. “But Alexa said last night that she asked you to be in the wedding.”

His fingers traced a pattern on her shoulder.

“She did. I’m going to be a bridesman! Wild, right?”

Oh my God, what was wrong with men? He was so cheerful and relaxed about this.

“I’m also in the wedding.”

She felt him nod his head.

“I assumed you were. And?”

She couldn’t take it anymore and sat back up.

“And? And that means that we’re going to be around each other all the time for the next—I don’t know how long! Doing wedding events and helping her with clothes or whatever and all the stuff with the wedding, and it’s clear that even though you irritate the hell out of me, and I assume I bug you, we can’t keep our hands off each other. What are we going to do?”

He sighed and sat up.

“I think we should stop fighting it. Stop pretending to ourselves—and to each other—that we’re not going to end up in bed together every single time we see each other, because I think we both know now that it’s going to happen.”

She threw up her arms. Why was he acting like this was such a simple and obvious solution?

“But why does it have to happen? We saw each other at Alexa’s parties for years and nothing like this happened until last summer!”

He folded his arms behind his head and lay back down.

“Why can’t you get a champagne cork back in a bottle once you’ve popped it? That’s how it was before; this is obviously how it is now. Are you really going to tell me it’s not true?”

She really wanted to tell him it wasn’t true, especially when he had that smug look on his face, but she couldn’t do it.

“I guess not, but . . .”

He got out of bed and pulled sweatpants out of a drawer.

“If you’re going to make me talk about this, we have to do it in the kitchen while I make coffee. Come on.” He threw her an oversize hoodie. “It’s cold in there.”

Maddie grumbled as she followed him into the kitchen. Was this why Alexa was friends with someone as annoying as Theo? Because he had the same obsession with coffee as she did? Maddie drank coffee every morning and all, but come on.

She stood in the corner of his freezing kitchen, her arms wrapped around herself, the hoodie covering her from shoulders to butt, and watched him fill up and turn on his electric kettle, grind and measure coffee, and then set up little cones full of ground coffee on top of mugs. This was the third time she’d been here for coffee in the morning, but the first time she’d really paid attention to the complicated way he made coffee. She’d been so distracted the other times, she hadn’t even realized he started by boiling water instead of just pushing a button on a coffee maker like a normal person.

“Oh God. You’re one of those annoying coffee people.” Maybe better than the annoying beer people, but only slightly. “A normal coffee maker is a lot faster, you know.”

He nodded without turning around.

“I know. I like it better this way.”

She watched him make the slowest coffee in all of California.

“I can’t believe I slept with someone who boils water every damn morning to make their coffee.”

He looked up from pouring the water.

“Actually, it’s not boiled; I heat the water to exactly two hundred five degrees in order to get the best—”

“You should stop talking now if you really want to have sex with me ever again.”

He shut his mouth and set a full mug in front of her. She opened the fridge for the milk while he poured the water over his own coffee grounds.

“Okay.” He poured milk into his own coffee and turned to face her. “Where were we? Oh, right, you couldn’t deny that we’re going to end up in bed together every time we see each other now.”

She grunted in frustration at her coffee mug. The problem was, he was right. She glared at him.

“How does someone who heats his water to exactly two hundred or whatever put milk in his coffee? Don’t all you annoying coffee people take it black?”

He looked down at his mug. Was that a blush she saw?

“I drank it black for a long time before I let myself admit I like it so much better with milk and gave myself permission to stop punishing myself.” She grinned, and he looked up at her and grinned back. “But stop changing the subject! We were talking about you and me and the likelihood this is going to keep happening over and over again, remember?”

She remembered.

“Okay, fine! I admit it! It’s going to keep happening again! But we need some ground rules if we’re going to do this.”

He picked up his coffee mug and walked back into the bedroom. She followed.

“I like rules. Hit me with them.”

“Okay.” She took a sip of coffee and got back in bed. It tasted just like the stuff she made in her coffee maker, except hers was not quite as bitter. “Rule one: no one can tell Alexa.”

He set his coffee on his bedside table and got in bed next to her.

“Hasn’t that always been the rule? Did you think I was going to burst into Alexa’s office Monday morning and say, ‘Lex, guess what? I’m sleeping with your best friend!’?”

She pictured the look on Alexa’s face if he did that and had to grin.

“If we’re going to make rules, we might as well spell all of them out,” she said.

He leaned against the headboard and picked up his mug.

“Good point. What’s rule two?”

“This ends with the wedding. Maybe by then we’ll have gotten it out of our systems, and we can go back to ignoring each other.”

He nodded.

“I can accept that. Anything else?”

“Rule three: no dates, just this.”

He tilted his head and smiled at her.

“What does ‘this’ mean?”

He knew what she meant. She gestured at the bed.

“This.”

He put his mug down, and in one quick motion pulled her on top of him.

“You mean this?” He kissed her. She relaxed against his body and kissed him back. She moved her fingers up and down his bare chest. Damn it, why did this have to be so good?

“Mmm, yes, I mean this.”

He nodded as his hands unzipped the hoodie.

“Okay, just checking: do we also get to do this in the hallway, or on the couch, or even in the kitchen, or are we restricted to just my bed?”

She shook her head and tried to concentrate on something other than the touch of his skin, his body underneath hers.

“We can do this anywhere we want.”

“Mmm.” He pulled her legs along either side of his so she was straddling him. “I like the sound of that.” He bent down and licked the tip of her nipple. “All these rules sound good to me. Anything else?”

“Just . . . one more.” She brushed her hand over his hair. “Rule four: we only see each other when we’ve been with Alexa. We’re doing this because we have to, not because we want to.” She let out a moan as he sucked her nipple into his mouth.

He rolled her over so she was now underneath him and pulled back. Oh God, why did he stop?

“You get four rules, I get one: no sleeping with anyone else,” he said. “I don’t like sharing.”

Maddie grinned at him.

He leaned down to kiss her but she pulled away.

“One more question,” she said.

“Hit me,” he said.

She gave him a mischievous look.

“Next time, will you dance to ‘Pony’?”

He sat back and grinned.

“That depends on what I get in return.”

Maddie pulled him back down to her.

“I’m an only child. I’m not a big fan of sharing myself.”

They didn’t talk about rules or anything else for a long while.

Chapter Six

MONDAY MORNING, THEO GOT INTO WORK EARLIER THAN USUAL. IT was the week before Memorial Day weekend, and he knew from experience there would be at least a crisis a day from Monday to Thursday, until everything went dead on Friday. He sort of loved weeks like this.

He sat down at his desk, still with the grin on his face that had been there since Sunday morning. He couldn’t quite believe his luck. He half expected that next time he’d see Maddie and suggest she come back to his place, she’d shudder and tell him that she’d been feverish or concussed or otherwise out of her mind when she’d agreed to their deal. He needed to find a way to see her as soon as possible, just to make sure this whole thing was real.

He spent the first hour at work cleaning out his email box and getting himself back down to inbox zero. He always felt off and disorganized if there were any emails in his inbox at all, and last Friday had been so busy that he’d left the office with twenty in there. He’d planned to deal with that on Sunday, but Maddie hadn’t left his house until midafternoon, and at that point, he’d been in no frame of mind to deal with work.

Alexa poked her head into his office and he jumped. Oh God, had thoughts of Maddie been on his face? She was usually so good at reading him; please let her not be able to see right through him right now.

“Morning,” she said. “Ready for the week? Boss in yet?”