Don't Look Back

Chapter 8 - Ian

October 2018
Boston, MA, USA

After my morning jog and calisthenics, I stretch my shoulders until they give a loud, satisfying crack.

The sound makes Helena stir in the adjacent room. "Christ, are you made outta broken Lego bricks?"

Leaning against the doorframe that separates our two bedrooms, I cross my arms and grin. A romantic man might have sat on the edge of her bed and brushed a few golden locks from her face. Or planted a gentle kiss on her lips. But we've never felt that way about each other.

As always, I simply smile at Helena. A kind gesture that she returns.

"Gimme those stats," she demands.

"Three-point-five-seven miles at thirty-one minutes and fifty-eight seconds," I report without needing to check my watch. "Average heart rate one forty-two. Calories burned four hundred and seventy-six."

"Nice!" Helena stretches and hops out of bed. "Now get ya ass outta those clothes and shower with me. You need one, and we've gotta hit the rails in half an hour."

Without a hint of self-consciousness, Helena strips naked and tosses her nightwear into the laundry basket. "Let's go, Ace."

There's no arguing with Helena. Commander is her default mode.

Personally, I like it.

After I step into the shower, she vigorously rinses the conditioner out of her long golden waves while I lather my body.

"Turn around," she orders me like a drill sergeant. "I'll get your back."

When she soaps me down, I can't help how Sylvia flashes before my mind's eye, taking her place. My body reacts. Decisively.

Really? Now? Fuck a doodle doo.

"Ya sure about that whole no more sex thing?" she asks as though it's one of the household chores.

God, I love her! Not like Sylvia, of course. But our ability to speak without filters and view sexual needs as simple maintenance is refreshing in a world full of liberal pretension and tip-toeing on eggshells. Whenever Helena speaks with all the diplomacy of a Königstiger, it stirs something inside me. It's the closest thing to butterflies she can manage.

Because it's fucking honest.

Before Sylvia and I reconnected, I'd have accepted her offer and repaid her in kind. A mutually beneficial exchange, so to speak. Not now, though. As weird as it sounds, it would feel like cheating on both of them. Even though I'm still single.

Because in my heart, I'm not.

"Hey, you awake?" she quips. "Or just your rod?"

"Thanks for the offer, but it'll dissipate."

"Suit yourself." Helena shrugs and climbs out of the shower, wrapping a fuzzy towel around her body. After using her fingertips to clear some steam from the mirror, she begins to apply her makeup like an artist. "Mind if I grab the leftover pizza for lunch?"

"Go ahead."

Helena's one of those rare women who can separate sex from romance, at least with men. Or at least with me. We make a handsome, compatible power couple--at least on paper, at parties, in the sheets.

If only I could silence the grumbling of my heart.

My colleagues think I'm crazy for not "putting a ring on it," as they phrase it. They don't know about our friends with benefits arrangement. Or, I suppose now it's friends without benefits. Either way, I don't intend to divulge any details about our private life.