How to End a Love Story(65)

“Helen,” Saskia whines now, wineglass in hand. “I thought we were friends. Why are you being so cagey about this?”

Helen ducks her head and tries to grab the remote from Nicole.

“Because she’s relishing in the fact that she has gossip,” Nicole answers, shoving the remote under her shirt. “Stop being a cunt and tell us what the deal is with your date. Is it with Greg?”

“No, I told you I wasn’t seeing him again,” Helen says. “It’s . . . I don’t know. A weird new thing.”

Nicole eyes her shrewdly.

“Why is it weird?” Saskia asks.

“Um,” Helen says.

“Is it someone we know?” Nicole asks, her eyes narrowing.

“I—”

“Holy shit, you’re fucking Grant,” Nicole says.

Helen turns beet red, which doesn’t help her case as she denies, “No, no, no. I’m not. We’re not fucking.”

“But you want to!” Nicole says, and smacks Helen with a throw pillow. “Bitch, I fucking knew it!”

Saskia looks between them, her mouth agape. “No . . . no, really?”

Helen drops her head into the throw pillow in Nicole’s lap and lets out a muffled groan. “It’s . . . complicated.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Nicole says, patting her hair. “When you bang, is he the one in charge, because he’s Suraya’s number two? Or are you, because it’s your books and therefore your show?”

Helen snorts at this.

“How did it start?” Saskia asks, sounding a little awed.

“I don’t know,” Helen says. “We went home for winter break and it was . . . different.”

“Hot,” Nicole offers supportively.

“But now we’re back here, and it’s . . . I don’t know.” She flips up and stares at the ceiling, as if she’s lying on her therapist’s couch. “It’s like the whole time we were in New Jersey, we were in this twilight zone of not the past and not the present. Nothing felt real—maybe that’s why it was even . . . possible. Ever since we’ve come back to LA, it’s felt like . . . like there could be real consequences.”

“Consequences like what?” Saskia prompts.

Helen considers. Probably something like—liking him too much to walk away at a sensible time and getting stupidly attached and forcing herself into an entirely avoidable, impossible situation.

“I don’t know, I’m just talking absolute shit,” Helen mutters. “It might not even be a date. His email just said, ‘Come over.’”

Nicole snorts. “Yeah, he means on his dick.”

“I would like to do that,” Helen says with an air of tragic resignation, and Nicole and Saskia burst into laughter. She feels a giddy, unexpected sensation of relief then—as if sharing this secret has somehow made it easier to bear, though she knows none of the vital facts have changed.

“What you need is a good, old-fashioned terms-of-services agreement,” Nicole says at last. “That way, everything stays aboveboard and everyone’s on the same page. Extremely vital in any situationship. The earlier you talk it out, the better.”

It makes enough sense that Helen texts him shortly before midnight—

If I come over tomorrow, can we talk terms of service first?





The response is almost immediate—

What services are you interested in?





She flushes, thinking of him awake in his bed, waiting for a response from her. She debates the pros and cons of a teasing versus a serious answer, but a second message comes from him first—

See you in the a.m.





Grant opens the door before she has a chance to knock.

It’s Saturday morning and he’s still wearing sweatpants, an old T-shirt, and a sleepy kind of expression as he combs a hand through the tousled mess of his hair. He leans against the doorway idly, and suddenly she wants to plant herself face-first into his chest, so she can hear the rumble of his laugh as she rises and falls with his breathing.

But that would be an insane thing to do, so instead she nudges his slippered foot with her sneaker.

“Fuck, you look good in yoga pants,” he says finally, and pulls her inside the door as she laughs.

“I haven’t read the script,” she murmurs, between kisses that taste like peppermint toothpaste.

“Who cares,” he says, burying his face in her neck.

“Grant.” She tries to bring his head back up but succeeds only in tangling her fingers in his hair instead.

“Who decided on a five-day workweek?” he says, kissing his way down to her collarbone. “Let me go back in time and murder them.”

“I missed you too,” she exhales, and after a brief pause, he rewards her with a bruising, hard kiss on her mouth as he pulls her into his body.

Her hands slip under his T-shirt to rake nails down his chest, and she feels the vibration of his growl of approval.

“We should talk about—this,” she murmurs against his mouth.

“Stop kissing me, then,” he answers, impossibly.

She slides a hand from the back of his neck to smooth down the front of his T-shirt, finally separating them. From the lips, anyway—he drops his forehead to hers and fiddles with the bottom of her cropped sweatshirt.