best of all best friends

by biblionerd07

Summary:

Betty's determined to try a casual fling, but she can't bring herself to sleep with a stranger. So Daniel offers to be her friend with benefits. Just casually, of course. No strings. Definitely no feelings.

Notes:

Happy birthday, Eva! About 40k of them being absolute dummies who are completely dating but the only people who don't realize it.

Betty sighs a bit as she gets to her floor. She’s so tired. And she’s trying not to cry again after everything fell apart with Zachary Boule. Hilda did her best to cheer Betty up, but there’s only so much she can do.

Betty’s not paying enough attention and all but collides with someone in the hallway outside her door. “Oh, sorry,” she says. Then she stops. It’s Daniel, coming from Amanda’s apartment. “Oh, hi.”

“Hey,” he says.

“What’s wrong?” they ask each other at the same time.

They both laugh a little. “You first,” Daniel says.

“No,” Betty says. She shakes her head. “No, nope, nuh-uh.” But her voice breaks a little and she has to look away.

“Oh, my God, Betty,” Daniel says, concerned. “What happened?”

Betty blows out a breath. “Just, um, that guy.” She forces a little smile. “Well, it’s over. Not happening.”

Daniel sighs. “Okay, what are you doing right now?” he asks. Betty just gestures toward her door. She was going to go inside and put on her pajamas and cry some more. “You want to go get drunk?”

“Yes,” Betty decides.

“Wow, I didn’t really think you were going to say yes,” he admits.

“Does that mean you don’t actually want to?” she asks.

“No, I’m definitely game. Let’s go.”

She turns around and leaves with him. “So what’s wrong with you?” she asks as they head down the stairs.

“Just all this stuff with my mom and Tyler,” he says, shaking his head.

“Your brother,” Betty says. What a bombshell that’s been.

“She lied to me for half my life,” Daniel says. His voice is small, hurt. Betty puts her arm through his and gives him a little squeeze.

“Sorry,” she says. “I can’t really make that better.”

He sighs. “No. And you’re obviously feeling really bad tonight if you’re not even going to try or give me some speech about how I should hear my mom out and let her explain.”

“For the record, I do think you should hear your mom out and let her explain,” Betty says as they get out into the street and start walking. “But you’re allowed to be hurt. And take some time.”

“Yeah,” he says.

“But tonight, alcohol,” Betty says.

Daniel laughs. “See, I knew you were learning from me in this friendship. It’s a two-way street.”

“Okay, things I’m learning from you are drinking to avoid my problems and sleeping with professionally inappropriate people,” she says. “Things you learn from me are trust and genuine human connection.”

“Wow,” Daniel says. “Okay. You are in a mood.”

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“No, it’s fine, you’ve definitely earned it over the years,” he says. “But wait, you did sleep with him?”

“No, I didn’t get a chance to yet,” she mutters.

That cracks Daniel up. She hopes he enjoys the laughter, because she knows he’s going to be mad when she tells him what happened. “Are you more upset that it’s not happening or that you didn’t sleep with him?” he teases as they go inside the bar around the corner from Betty’s apartment. When Betty doesn’t laugh, he frowns. “Oh, wait, did he do something?”

“Yeah,” she admits. They sit down at the bar. “But I want drinks before I tell you.”

“Okay, what do you want?” he asks. “Your banana daiquiri thing?”

Betty laughs. She used to always order that when he was paying because she thought it was fancy and expensive. “Honestly? I just want vodka.”

“Oh, God, what did he do?” Daniel demands. He orders them both shots and pushes hers over to her.

Betty knocks hers back and then makes a face as it burns its way down her throat. She shakes her head a little. “Gah.”

“Spill.”

Betty sighs. “It’s so humiliating,” she says, not meeting his eyes. “He acted like he really liked me. And I really liked him. I thought things were going so well. You said you didn’t care, so we didn’t have to sneak around anymore. I was going to go to his premiere with him, but he said he was taking his mom.”

“Oh, you must’ve liked that,” Daniel says. “You love moms.”

“I do love moms,” Betty agrees. “But then I decided to show up anyway, just with tickets from Mode. To surprise him.”

“Yeah?” Daniel says apprehensively.

“He was there with a date,” Betty reports. She huffs and looks down into her empty glass.

“Not his mom,” Daniel guesses, nodding at the bartender. “He lied to you.”

“He couldn’t take me to his premiere,” Betty says. She downs her next shot and tries not to sputter. “He had to take a model. That’s who he dates. And he said we could keep dating. Just…no one could see us together.” She clears her throat and blinks hard. “No one could see him with me.”

“You are kidding me,” Daniel says, voice tight with anger. “What a jackass. Oh, I’m going to find him, and—and I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Betty asks, actually laughing a little. “I think he’d fight back, Daniel. And we both know how that’d go for you.”

“Okay, here I am, trying to defend your honor—again, I might add—and this is the thanks I get.” Daniel shakes his head while she laughs at him some more. “Well, fine. Worth it if it got you to laugh.”

“I punched him,” Betty admits.

Daniel gasps and laughs. “Betty! Well, good.”

Betty sighs. “Thanks. I just feel so stupid. I thought—” She sighs again. “I really thought it would be different this time.”

“The only one who should feel stupid is him,” Daniel says. “He’s obviously an idiot. He would’ve been lucky to take you to his premiere.”

“Thanks,” Betty says despondently. It’s easy for Hilda and Daniel to say things like that. Neither of them have any idea how it feels. She takes his shot because he didn’t drink it yet.

“Don’t say thanks like that,” Daniel says, imitating her. Badly, if she does say so herself. “You still don’t believe me. You’re beautiful, Betty. And he’d be so lucky to be with you. You’re gorgeous, you’re smart, you’re talented, you’re hardworking, you’re kind—come on. You’re perfect.”

“You can say it all you want, Daniel,” Betty says, voice breaking a little. “But once again. Here I am.”

“I mean, he did like you,” Daniel points out. “He was obviously attracted to you.”

“But not enough. He didn’t want to be seen with me. It would hurt his image because I’m…” Betty shakes her head. “Me.”

Daniel sighs. “I’m sorry he was stupid and let other stupid people distract him from what’s important.”

“What’s important?” Betty asks, rolling her eyes and readying herself for some big speech about her inner beauty. Most of the time, she gets it. She told him once I’m fine with who I am, and she really is. But it hurts to get this message over and over, this glaring neon sign that there’s something so wrong with how she looks.

“That you’re out of his league anyway.”

That actually makes Betty laugh out loud. She just wasn’t expecting it. She sighs and tips her head back to look at the ceiling. “You know what, though? I think I need to not be in a relationship. I always go for a relationship and it doesn’t work out.”

“Well, you’ve been single for a while,” Daniel points out. “Since Matt left.”

“I know, but what I mean is…” She clears her throat, blushing. “Maybe I’ll just…” She shrugs. Oh, God, she can’t even say it. “I’ll stay single. But I’ll still. Have…”

“Fun buddies?” Daniel blurts, insultingly incredulous about it.

“That’s such a gross way to say it,” Betty says, wrinkling her nose.

“Okay, whatever, friends with benefits,” he amends.

“I don’t see why it has to be called friends with benefits,” Betty says. “I think all friendship comes with benefits.”

“Oh, my God,” Daniel groans, rolling his eyes.

“But yes, fine,” Betty says. “I’ve never done that. It’s always been so serious all the time. Maybe I just need to try casual, right?”

His eyebrows are practically in his hairline. “You’re really going to do a friends with benefits type thing?” he asks. “Wow.”

“What wow?” Betty demands.

“Just…doesn’t seem like something you’d want,” he says with a shrug.

“Oh, okay, you think I can’t get a guy to do it,” Betty says hotly.

Daniel looks at her like she’s crazy. “I didn’t say anything even close to that.”

Betty blows out a breath and deflates a little. “That’s what I’m worried about,” she admits. “I mean, how do you find someone to just casually have sex with occasionally?”

“You see someone you like, you make a move on them, and then you say, hey, want to casually have sex with me occasionally?”

“Your attitude is really bugging me tonight,” she informs him conversationally.

“Probably because you need to have sex more than just occasionally,” he mutters. She gives him a dirty look and he holds his hands up in surrender. “Look, Betty, you want to have a casual fling, you can have a casual fling. It’s not going to be a problem of finding someone. I just don’t want you to try something because you think it’ll be better and then regret it.”

Betty sighs. “I do want to try it, though,” she says. “I’m a young professional in the city. That seems like something I could try.”

“Sure you could,” Daniel agrees.

“But how do you do it?” she asks.

“You just have sex and don’t get into a relationship,” he says with a shrug, like that explains anything.

“But what do you do?” she presses. “You just…you just have sex, no date or anything ahead of time?”

He shrugs again. “I’ve had friends with benefits like that. No date beforehand, meet up for sex, no cuddling. Go home as soon as we’re done.”

Betty swallows down dismay. “I don’t think I can do that.” She knows for a fact there’s no way she could do that. It sounds so cold.

“You don’t have to. I’ve had friends with benefits where we go to dinner first and cuddle after and stay the night. Or do all that but don’t stay the night. Or we go to dinner first but don’t cuddle after, or don’t go to dinner but cuddle after. You get to make up whatever rules you want.”

“I do like making rules,” she muses.

Daniel laughs at her a little. “Okay, let’s look around. Do you see anyone you like? I’ll be your wingman. I bet you shaved your legs and everything for that theater nerd. We don’t want that to go to waste.”

Well, she’ll say this for Daniel—he does know the effort women put in before sex. “I can’t just pick a guy in a bar,” Betty says, grabbing Daniel’s arm.

“Why not?”

“What, I just let a complete stranger into my apartment?” she asks. “What if he’s a murderer? What if he’s a stalker?” She gasps. “What if he’s a loud chewer?”

Daniel’s cracking up at her. “First of all, stop watching so much Dateline when you live alone.”

“I do need to do that,” she agrees.

“Second, I’ll wait right here at this bar and if he starts to murder you, call me and I’ll come rescue you.”

“Well, he wouldn’t be a very good murderer if I had time to call you before he kills me,” Betty points out.

“Do you want to have sex or not?” Daniel asks.

“I don’t know,” Betty says, cringing. “I might’ve been…more confident in theory.”

“Okay,” Daniel says. He has a definite tone.

Betty narrows her eyes. “You are not going to taunt me into this.”

“Okay,” he repeats. He still has a tone. Betty hates that it’s making her annoyed enough to possibly work.

“Daniel, stop,” she insists.

“I didn’t say anything,” he says with a shrug.

Betty huffs angrily and starts looking around. He snorts and she sticks her finger in his face to shut him up. It’s a Wednesday night, so it’s not like the bar is full, but there are plenty of guys hanging around. There’s a guy in the back corner who looks promising. He has kind of a sexy hiker vibe. He’s wearing a hat and has a beard.

“I can’t just go up to a guy and talk to him,” she says, blushing.

“Betty, I promise every man is praying a beautiful woman will come up to him and do the hard part,” Daniel says.

“Not every man,” Betty counters. “Not gay men.”

Daniel rolls his eyes at her. “Go talk to him,” he urges.

“What, just walk up and say hi?” Betty asks.

“Sure,” Daniel says. “You don’t really need a line. Who is it?”

“That guy back there with the hat,” she says.

“Beard?”

“Yeah, him,” she says.

“Huh,” Daniel says.

“What?” she demands. “Out of my league?”

“Oh, my God, stop thinking I’m saying that,” he says, elbowing her. “I just didn’t know that was your type. He doesn’t look anything like the other guys you’ve dated.”

“Well, that’s kind of the point,” she says. “Trying something new.”

“Alright,” Daniel says. “Go talk to him.”

Betty feels like she’s not herself as she slides off her barstool. She’s had three shots, so that’s making her a little braver. But she’s also thinking about what Hilda said about writing a new story for herself. Maybe to do that, she needs to be bolder and try new things.

“Okay,” Betty says. She straightens her shirt and pushes up her glasses.

“Wait,” Daniel says. He reaches over and pulls her hair out of her collar, smoothing it down a little. “You don’t have any lipstick in your purse, do you?”

“I came from my dad’s house,” Betty says. “We’re lucky there’s not an empanada in my purse.”

“There’s not?” he asks disappointedly.

Betty laughs. “Okay, I’m going. Wish me luck.”

“No, you don’t need luck,” Daniel says. Betty takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders. She walks back toward the guy she saw. He raises his eyebrows a little when he sees her coming.

“Hi,” she says brightly.

“Hi,” he says.

“How are—do you—” Betty licks her lips. Well, this is going swimmingly. “I’m Betty,” she says.

“I’m Jackson,” he says. He’s smiling. That seems positive. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“God,” Betty says. “I had no idea it’s really that easy.”

Jackson laughs. “Well, you did the hard part,” he says.

“That’s what Dan—my friend said,” she says.

Jackson buys her a beer and Betty does her best to drink it without making a face. At one point, Daniel turns around to check on her. He wrinkles his nose when he sees her take a sip, because he knows she hates beer. But he widens his eyes and gives her a thumb’s up.

And then there’s a moment when Jackson leans closer to say something in Betty’s ear and she gets it. This is when she’s supposed to kiss him, ask him back to her apartment. Close the deal. The thing is though…

She can’t.

She’s getting tenser and tenser as she talks to him. He’s the manager of a sporting goods store and he laughs easily and Betty cannot have sex with him. He’s a complete stranger! She can’t do this.

“So,” he starts to say.

“Sorry,” she blurts out.

“Oh.” He leans back, away from her.

“I—I thought I could do this,” she explains. “Pick up a stranger and take you home and have sex with you and never talk to you again.”

“Yeah?” he asks, eyebrows going up interestedly.

“But I can’t do it,” she goes on.

“Oh,” he says again.

“You’re very nice,” Betty tells him. “And handsome. And thank you for the beer.”

“Okay,” he says. He sounds a little confused. “Would it help if we had sex and did talk after?”

“No,” Betty says, because he missed that the problem was that he’s a stranger. “But thank you.” She walks back to Daniel, defeated.

“You leaving?” he asks, grinning at her.

Betty sits on the stool beside him. “Nope.”

“What happened?” Daniel asks. “He was totally into you.”

“I can’t sleep with a stranger, Daniel!” Betty cries. “It’s too weird.”

“Hey, it was still brave for you to go talk to him,” he points out. “So at least there’s that.”

“I guess I’m just doomed to be alone,” Betty says despondently.

“Do you want a banana daiquiri now?” Daniel asks sympathetically.

Betty sighs. “Yeah.”

They share the banana daiquiri, because Betty’s had three vodka shots and about a quarter of a beer and that’s a lot for her on a weeknight. She’s not actually drunk, but she doesn’t want to get drunk.

“Do you actually want an empanada?” Betty asks after they finish the daiquiri. “I don’t have one in my purse, but I have four in my kitchen.”

“Really?” Daniel asks.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Daniel blocks her from Jackson’s sight while they walk out to avoid any awkwardness and they go back to Betty’s apartment. “Did Justin have his acting thing tonight?” Daniel asks.

“Yeah, Hilda said it went really well but now he doesn’t want to go to acting class,” Betty says.

“Didn’t he have to kiss that girl?” Daniel says. “Probably teenager drama.”

“Probably,” she agrees.

Daniel sits down on her couch and Betty’s taking off her coat when he says, “I’ll do it.”

“Do what?” she asks distractedly. Her hair’s caught in her scarf and her necklace.

“I’ll be your friend with benefits.”

Betty drops her scarf. “Um.”

“If you want,” he says with a shrug. “I’m not a stranger. And I’m good at casual.”

“Aren’t you and Amanda…?” Betty asks, completely unsure about what to focus on here. Her brain’s working at about half its usual speed. There’s no way he’s really offering what it sounds like he’s offering.

“Well, first off, that’s casual, so that wouldn’t be a reason not to,” he points out. “But we also haven’t in a while. She’s been busy or something, I don’t know. And I actually tried talking to a woman tonight, but…” He blows out a breath. “I guess something’s wrong with me. It doesn’t work with a stranger anymore.”

“That doesn’t mean something’s wrong with you,” Betty says.

Daniel shrugs. “Well, I’m just saying. I could always sleep with anyone before.”

Betty’s whole body feels a little shaky. How can he just offer to sleep with her so casually? He’s acting like he just offered to buy her a bagel.

“Won’t it be weird?” Betty asks.

“Yeah, that’s why I said something’s wrong with me now,” Daniel says.

“No.” She shakes her head. “I mean, if we—won’t that be weird? You’re my friend, and I don’t want anything to ruin that.”

Daniel shrugs again. “It’s not weird if we don’t make it weird.”

“I make a lot of things weird,” Betty points out, getting a little shrill now.

He laughs. “It’s not a big deal,” he says. “But you’re right. We are friends. You’re one of my best friends, Betty. So if you’re not totally on board, we don’t do it. I don’t ever want to do anything that could mess up our friendship.”

“You don’t think having sex could mess up our friendship?” she asks. They clearly have different kinds of friends.

“Sex is more serious for you than it is for me,” he says with a shrug. “I kind of forgot about that. To me, friends can have sex, no problem. But obviously not to you. So it’s fine. Just thought I’d offer. Can I have an empanada now?”

He’s lazing on her couch, being so sweet about their friendship and Betty’s feelings, and Betty’s thinking about all the things she’s heard about him and sex. Her mouth’s going dry. It has been a while for her. And she’s pleasantly tipsy. And she did shave her legs.

“Okay,” she says, heart slamming against her ribs.

After a second, he asks, “Do you want me to come get it?”

“Well, yeah, I guess so,” Betty says, kind of surprised. She assumed he’d know what to do in this situation more than she does.

“Okay.” Now he sounds confused. He stands up and walks right past her into the kitchen.

“What?” Betty asks.

“What?” Daniel asks.

“I meant okay, friends with benefits!” she cries.

“Oh, I was thinking about those empanadas,” he says.

“Oh, my God,” Betty groans. “I can’t even get this right when you asked me to! It’s already weird!”

“Alright, calm down,” he says, holding up his hands. “Sorry. Let’s start over. You’re saying yes to friends with benefits?”

“Yes,” Betty says, butterflies in her stomach.

“You’re absolutely sure?” he checks.

“I am absolutely sure,” she says, which is a lie. He huffs, because he can tell she’s lying, but she cuts him off. “I am! I want to try this and I think you’re the best person to try it with.”

“Okay,” he says. He licks his lips and it makes her eyes go wide. “Do you want to start right now?”

She nods shakily. He steps closer to her and Betty’s stomach drops. He just looks at her face for a second and she tries not to look away. He smiles at her and nods. Then he puts his hands on her hips and Betty has to swallow hard.

“I don’t know if I can look at you during this,” Betty blurts out.

Daniel snorts. “I think I’m offended.”

“You think?” Betty asks, kind of distracted. “You don’t know if you’re offended?”

“Okay, don’t make a face, but honestly, I’m having a hard time thinking anything concrete right now. The blood is rushing away from my brain.”

Betty tries very hard not to make a face. She knows she’s not entirely successful. “It’s not because you’re not…I don’t know, hot, or whatever,” she says.

“Oh, you think I’m hot?” he asks, smirking at her.

“I think I know you as a friend too well to see your face and…” Betty sort of just gestures between them.

“So you want to have sex, but you don’t want to be in a relationship, but you can’t have sex with a stranger, but you can’t have sex with a friend,” Daniel summarizes. Okay, when he lays it out like that it does sound a little silly. “Maybe you should just buy a vibrator.”

“Daniel!” she shrieks.

“Betty, not everyone’s cut out to do no-strings sex,” he says with a shrug. “That’s okay.”

Betty narrows her eyes at him. “Are you trying to do reverse psychology to make me sleep with you?”

“Absolutely not,” he says. It sounds like he knows he’s offended this time. “I know I don’t have the best reputation, but even I know manipulating someone into sex is wrong, and I would especially never do that you.” Then he huffs. “Besides, I don’t need to do that.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“You don’t want to have sex with me, fine,” he says with a shrug. “Super easy to go find someone who does.”

“Super easy?” she echoes. “I thought you said it’s not working with strangers.”

“I didn’t say it would be a stranger,” he says. “My phone is full of women I know who would jump at the chance to sleep with me.”

“Okay, arrogant much?” she scoffs.

“It’s not arrogant if it’s just a fact,” he says. “I get no complaints.”

“Okay,” Betty says. “I can’t believe this is sort of working.”

“I’m not trying to trick you,” he insists.

“I know that!” she tells him. “But for some reason you being arrogant is…” She shrugs, blushing.

“Oh,” he says. Now he’s smirking again. “Well then. Let me be arrogant some more.” Then he kind of stops. He licks his lips, brow furrowed. “Um.”

Betty bursts out laughing. “You can’t think of anything else?”

“I told you, thinking is not really happening right now.” He shifts a little and Betty does not let herself look down.

“Seriously?” Betty asks. “That fast?”

“Like flipping a switch,” he confirms. “We brought up having sex, my body gets ready to have sex.”

“Sheesh,” Betty says. “Honestly, it takes me a long time to be ready. Sometimes I don’t even get all the way ready and then I don’t…” She stops talking. This is so awkward.

Daniel crosses his arms. “Betty,” he says. “Are you telling me sometimes it’s not…good?”

“It’s always fine!” she says quickly.

Daniel’s eyes bug out a little. “Fine?” he says.

“Yeah, I mean, whatever,” Betty says self-consciously. “It’s good. It’s fine. Not really…that big of a deal.”

“Not that big of a deal?” he asks.

“Stop repeating what I’m saying in a shrieky voice,” she says grumpily.

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” he says. “Are you saying sometimes you don’t even…you know, finish?”

Betty covers her face with her hands. “Most of the time.”

“Most of the time you do?” he checks.

Betty blows out a breath, blushing so hard she can feel heat coming off her cheeks. She can’t believe she’s admitting this. “No.”

“Oh, my God,” he says. He sounds almost faint. “Betty, what the hell? Didn’t you date that one guy for like your entire life?”

“Four years,” Betty says. That probably seems like an entire life to Daniel, whose longest and sole positive relationship was six months.

“Okay, so if you had sex every day for four years—”

“Every day?” she echoes, shocked. “No.”

“You didn’t have sex every day?” he asks, just as shocked as she is. “What, every other day?”

Betty kind of laughs a little, surprised by his surprise. “Maybe once a week.”

He actually takes a step back. “Maybe once a week?”

“What did I say about repeating things?”

“Oh, my God, no wonder you don’t think sex is a big deal! You’ve never had good sex.” His mouth is open in astonishment.

“I have!” she insists. “Henry did…a pretty good job.” She can see Daniel struggle not to repeat that. “And Matt…well, Henry was…” She breaks off, wincing.

“So Henry was better than Matt,” Daniel concludes. He shakes his head. “Those poor hundreds of women.”

“That’s not fair,” Betty says weakly. “Matt was very sweet.”

Daniel just kind of looks at her for a second, eyes narrowed. Then he takes her hands in his. “Betty. Please have sex with me right now. I need to show you better than fine. At this point it’s a public service.”

“That’s very rude,” Betty says, trying not to sound as tongue-tied as she feels. “I’m not a charity.”

“In this case, you are,” he says. “It’s okay. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve needed to step in and show someone how sex is supposed to be.”

Betty sighs. There’s that arrogance again. Why is that working? She hates arrogant guys. Maybe it’s because he’s usually so needy and not arrogant. But also…well.

He does have a reputation. Betty has fielded some of the most uncomfortably graphic phone calls she’s ever heard for him. And it’s not like he’s bad looking. She bites her lip and her stomach flips when she notices him watching that. Something Gio said to her once echoes through her head. Stop worrying about how you’re supposed to be and just be.

Betty takes a deep breath. She has to close her eyes while she says it, but she says, “Okay.”

“Okay?” he checks. “You’re really sure? I’m not going to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Betty’s heart is starting to pound and her palms are sweating, but she steps closer and gets a thrill when she sees his eyes go a little wider. “I want to.”

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Okay. Do you want me to kiss you or not?”

It’s very considerate of him to ask first. But Betty knows herself. There’s no way she could do this like Pretty Woman. But she wants to sound coquettish and sure of herself. So she sort of tosses her hair and says, “Do whatever you normally do.”

“Are you ready?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says firmly. She’s 90% sure it’s the truth. Maybe 80%.

He puts a hand on her hip and a hand on her chin and she squeezes her eyes shut when he kisses her. She kind of expected him to kiss fast and dirty, but this kiss is pretty soft. He’s giving her little kisses and backing off a little. Testing the waters, she realizes. He’s still giving her time to back out.

Even as she’s thinking that, he deepens the kisses. Oh, not giving her time to back out. Warming her up. And yes, Betty is usually a big believer in feelings being a very essential part of attraction and sex. But damn if he’s not a really good kisser. This is starting to work. It’s not like she’s made of stone.

His hand on her hip starts moving lower, and she inhales sharply. He stops, hand suddenly hovering instead of actually touching her. Okay, so this is a little strange for him, too. For some reason that strengthens her resolve.

“Do it,” she murmurs, pressing closer. “Do what you do for anyone else.”

“Yeah?” he asks, kissing her neck now.

“Yeah, do it,” she urges. Weirdness is out the window now.

“Okay,” he says. He doesn’t wait for her to encourage him more; she barely has time to blink before he’s got both hands under her butt and is lifting her up. It makes her gasp. She doesn’t really think before wrapping her legs around his waist and he nods, still kissing her neck.

He carries her into her bedroom and puts her down on the bed, covering her with his body. He takes her glasses gently off her face and puts them on her side table. Honestly, that helps calm her down a lot, because she wasn’t kidding about it being kind of weird with his face.

He doesn’t do anything else for a while, just kissing her and not even moving his hands from her hair. But then he slips his hands up her shirt while he kisses her, letting his hands roam now, and Betty can’t pretend that’s not doing things for her.

God, she can’t even form coherent enough thoughts to be weirded out anymore. It stops even really registering as Daniel; she’s mostly just focusing on the sensations and the feelings and the way her whole body is starting to feel lit up.

He pulls off her shirt and kisses a line down her neck and her throat until he’s at her bra. Then he moves back up to her shoulder and uses his teeth to pull the strap down. It’s not very practical, really, because she’d rather he just take it off her, but she has to give him props—it is very sexy.

He slips his hands under her back and unclasps her bra easily. “Oh, wow,” he murmurs while he pulls it off and reveals her breasts. He moves his mouth down to her nipple and she gasps a little. “Bigger than I thought they’d be,” he says against her. She doesn’t really have the wherewithal to think that through right now or wonder if he’s been thinking about what size her boobs are.

But then he’s leaving her chest, and he’s kissing her ribs, her stomach, getting lower and pushing down her skirt and starting to tug her panties down and then— “What are you doing?” Betty asks shrilly, whole body clenching up.

“Uh…” Daniel stops and looks at her. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t—that’s not—you don’t have to—”

“Have to?” he echoes. “I want to.”

“You want to?” she asks.

He’s looking at her like she’s crazy. “Of course I do.” He tips his head. “Wait. Betty. Tell me someone has done this for you before.”

Weirdness came climbing back in through the window. She throws her arm over her face. “Yeah, I mean, a few times.”

“Oh, my God,” Daniel says.

“Walter didn’t,” she says.

“Never?” Daniel demands. “He never did in four years?”

“No,” Betty says.

“I feel like I need to kick this guy’s ass for you,” Daniel says. “What the hell? Henry did, though, right? He had to. He’s all…earnest.”

Betty’s not entirely sure what he means by that, but she shrugs. “Yeah, I mean, a few times. And he always offered. Same with Matt. But it was just—” She shrugs again. “I never wanted to make them do it. I mean, it’s kind of gross, if you really think about it.”

“I promise you, I think about it so much, and I never think it’s gross,” Daniel says with a laugh.

“It’s embarrassing,” Betty manages to say. She’s very embarrassed right now, feeling exposed and awkward with her shirt and bra off and Daniel down by her stomach. He still has all his clothes on.

“How?” Daniel asks.

“I don’t know,” Betty says, frustrated. She can’t explain any of this. “Just…all of sex is kind of embarrassing. That’s why I’ve only ever done it with someone I know loves me. It’s so…” She makes an unsure noise. “Needy.”

“You’re embarrassed to want it,” Daniel realizes.

“I guess!” Betty says, throwing her hands up. “I grew up Catholic, okay? You’ve seen my dad’s living room and the saints.”

“Oh, Catholic guilt I can totally work around,” he says. He doesn’t immediately go back to what he was doing, but he starts running his hands up and down her legs again. Good thing she shaved them.

“What?”

“I’ve slept with women from every major world religion and a bunch of smaller ones,” Daniel says confidently. “I got this.”

“It’s just awkward,” she says. “And I might—” She stops.

“Are you worried you’ll do something weird?” he asks. How is he so shrewd about this? Maybe that’s why he’s sometimes not so shrewd in the rest of his life. All his brain power goes to sex. “Betty, I’ve done almost everything there is to do. I’ve probably done things you’ve never imagined.”

“Yeah, I haven’t imagined very much,” she admits.

“Okay,” Daniel says. “Anyway. I’m just saying, you probably cannot do something that would weird me out.”

“So what if that means I’m boring?” The question slips out before she can stop it.

“No such thing,” he says.

“You just said you’ve done things I’ve never imagined,” Betty reminds him. She’s working very hard not to curl into an awkward ball. She can’t believe they’re having this discussion at all, let alone while she’s almost completely naked and his hands are on her thighs. “And then there’s me. I’ve only been with three guys and we didn’t do anything besides…the basics.”

“So?” he says. She can tell he’s not lying, even with her glasses off. She can always tell when he’s lying to spare her feelings. “Basic doesn’t mean boring. It just means fundamental. And trust me, when I do it, nothing’s boring.”

She has no idea how this is the same guy who always needed twenty minutes of handholding and pep talks to run meetings he’d called. Again, all of his confidence must be used up on sex so he doesn’t have any left for anything else. But if he can back it up…Betty takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” she says kind of meekly.

“Okay what?”

“Okay,” she says. She gestures downward. The heat from her blush can probably power a small city at this point.

“Okay,” he says excitedly. He flexes his fingers and wiggles his jaw a few times. “Here we go.”

“Oh, my God,” Betty mutters to herself. She truly cannot believe this is happening right now. She closes her eyes and braces herself.

He starts with kisses on her legs. She jumps a little. He pauses for a second, but she doesn’t tell him to stop, so he goes on. He’s kissing and biting at her thighs, running his hands up and down her stomach and her sides, and Betty’s already struggling to keep herself under control.

He mouths at her stomach, low but not low enough, as he pulls down her panties. Her breaths are starting to stutter now. And then he puts his mouth on her. She gasps and her hips come up before she can even think. He’s caressing her thighs and her stomach, up to her boobs and back down again, while he licks and sucks at her.

She bites her lip so hard she tastes blood. She can barely breathe. Henry and Matt never did this with so much…gusto. Henry certainly tried, but Betty was always so self-conscious she’d always ask him to stop almost right away. After a second, Daniel stops, and Betty wonders if she said something without realizing.

He leans up to look at her. “Why are you being so quiet?” he asks.

Betty has to take a few gulping breaths before she can even speak, and then all she can get out is, “Huh?”

“You’re not making any noise,” he says.

“I don’t—I never do,” she says. “During sex.”

“What?” He gives her a look like she’s crazy. “You of all people should be loud. You’re loud about everything.”

“I don’t…” She has no idea how to explain herself.

“Oh,” he says, sitting back in surprise. “You’re embarrassed again.”

“Well.” Betty shrugs, because yeah.

“No,” he says. He shakes his head, and then he slides back down. He bites gently at the inside of her thigh and makes her gasp again. “Don’t be embarrassed,” he says against her skin. “There’s nothing embarrassing about this.”

“There’s lots that’s embarrassing,” she manages to say. Just the mechanics of it all can get kind of embarrassing.

“Well, kind of,” he agrees, breathing out against her but not getting back to business. “But it’s not embarrassing while it’s happening. Just let go, Betty. Come on. Relax and let yourself enjoy this.”

“I can’t—” she tries. This is too much.

“Okay,” he relents. “Fine. But I’m going to try harder.”

“Harder?” she squeaks. And then he does. God, does he ever. He’s apparently done with the warmup and is getting right down to business, holding onto her hips and thrusting his tongue inside her. Betty thinks she might levitate off the bed.

She doesn’t really mean to or think about it, but she reaches down and grabs his hair. And then he moans and Betty can actually feel it inside of herself and can’t help it—she does make a noise. She has no idea how anyone would ever describe the noise; it’s somewhere between a whimper and a moan of her own.

He makes an encouraging sound and speeds up with his tongue, moving it up so he can slip a finger inside her. Honestly, Betty doesn’t know if she keeps making noise. She thinks she blacks out at one point when he adds another finger. She can hear the noises of his fingers and his mouth on her and it’s making her dizzy.

She actually curses, a whole string of swear words she doesn’t normally use hissed under her breath as she clenches her fingers in his hair and finishes, back arched and every muscle in her body going taut.

Then she sinks back into her bed, feeling like jelly. She pants for a few seconds, unable to even move. “God,” she says breathlessly.

“Nope,” Daniel says, crawling back up the bed. “Just me.”

She can’t even make fun of him for that. She’ll call him a god if he wants her to. He wipes off his face and it’s obscene, honestly, and it’s hot.

“Sorry,” she says, throat sticking. She’s still jolting a little.

“You’re sorry?” he asks incredulously. “For what?”

“I pulled your hair,” she says.

“Oh, God, that is not a problem,” he assures her. “That is the absolute opposite of a problem. You can do that as much as you want.”

He’s touching her, light little touches on her side, her stomach, her chest, and she can tell he’s hanging on by a thread. “Hang on a second,” she says, tugging at his shirt until he takes it off. “Just let me catch my breath and then you can get what you want.”

“Believe me, I absolutely wanted that,” he says, nosing at her hair. “Jesus, do you have any idea how sexy that was?”

She can’t even feel awkward about it. He seems to have broken down every bit of self-consciousness she was holding onto, at least for now. “I think you killed me for a second,” she says.

That makes him laugh. “That’s my specialty.”

“What a way to go,” she breathes. She gets herself together enough to roll closer to him, pressing her body against his and unbuttoning his pants, and he makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Come on,” she says, biting lightly at his shoulder. That makes him moan again. She gets it now. He wants her to be a little rough.

She’s not going to, though, not really. She thinks enough people have been rough with him to last a lifetime. Life has been rough with him. She’s not going to be, too. She runs her hands over his chest softly, down to his stomach, almost touching him but then backing off. She pulls gently at his hip, urging him closer.

“You’re sure?” he checks, shoving his pants down.

“So positive,” she promises, kissing him while he tears into the condom wrapper. He already proved he deserves his confidence and his reputation for one part of this. She’s ready to see the rest.

He rolls over on top of her but keeps most of his weight, his forearms on either side of her head, and he slides down to some quality time with her chest for a while.

It’s not that she minds, necessarily, but she’s getting a little impatient, even though a few minutes ago she felt like she could’ve been satisfied for the rest of her life. She thought he would’ve been a bit more impatient. She can feel that he’s more than ready.

He waits until she’s starting to rock her hips insistently against his and then says, “Here, let’s do this” and gently pushes on her shoulder to roll her onto her side, facing away from him.

“Uh, wow, no,” Betty says. “You are not going—”

“Oh, my God, that’s not where I’m going!” he insists quickly. “Please. You obviously aren’t ready for that and that’s not something I’d do without asking. I just thought this would be better so you don’t have to think it’s weird and look at my face.”

Betty laughs a little, but then he chooses that moment to finally ease into her. And again, she doesn’t really mean to, but she makes a noise. He presses his face into her neck, moaning nonsense words, but then he just stays there.

“Is there—are you—” She doesn’t know if something’s wrong or why he’s just sitting there. She doesn’t know if she did something to make him stop.

“You think you’re ready?” he murmurs, kissing the spot where her neck and shoulder meet. Oh, God, he’s…what, teasing her? That’s actually kind of doing something for her.

“Oh, my God, move,” she hisses, pressing back against him. She’s never this bold or demanding in bed, but he seems to like it. Besides, she’s used to being bold and demanding with Daniel.

“Okay,” he says, and then he does. She definitely does not stay quiet this time. It’s not like she’s being loud enough for her neighbors to hear or anything, but she can’t bite her tongue entirely. She definitely believes that he’s never gotten a complaint.

“Oh, God,” she gasps. “Oh, God.”

“That’s what I thought,” he says smugly. “Come on, tell me what to do.”

“You seem—oh—like you know,” she says.

“No, tell me,” he urges. “Boss me around.”

“Oh, now you want me to be bossy,” she mutters. He’s definitely complained about her being bossy before. But the truth is she is bossy, and she almost can’t help herself right now. “Faster,” she says.

“Yeah,” he says, obliging. She has to brace a hand on the bed. “What else?” he asks.

“Kiss me,” she orders, turning her head toward him. He does. She takes his hand off her hip and guides it down. She cannot possibly say what she wants out loud, but he doesn’t exactly need a tutorial. He already spent enough quality time down there that he knows exactly what she wants.

She reaches a hand back to pull his hair again when she comes, and that seems to be what he needed. He kisses her shoulder again while they both slow down, and then he pulls out and breathes against her neck for a minute, pressing little kisses there. He drops to the bed beside her and rolls his head over to look at her.

“So was that better than fine?”

“Oh, my God,” is all she says.

He nods, very satisfied with himself. “Told you.”

“You were right,” she says. “That was a public service.”

“I’m a very responsible citizen,” he murmurs, leaning over to kiss her. “That’s why I have to spread it around so much. So many women in need.”

“I’m not even going to make fun of you or be grossed out by that,” she says. “You’re honestly right.” That makes him laugh. He looks so incredibly pleased with himself. He holds up a hand for a high-five. “Seriously?” Betty asks. He is into high-fives. She just had no idea that extended to sex, too.

“That was good teamwork,” he says.

Betty can’t help but laugh, and she relents and gives him a high-five. She doesn’t know if that’s a normal friends with benefits thing or a Daniel Meade exclusive. That reminds her of something he said earlier. “You have sex every day?”

“Um, not anymore,” he admits. “Still, uh, getting back in the swing of things after Molly. And I’m not going to be, you know, like I used to be. I used to go…I don’t know, sometimes two or three times a day with two or three different women.” Betty does remember that from when she had to distract them so they didn’t find out about each other. God, he was a sleaze.

“And it always takes this long?” she asks.

“Takes this long?” he echoes. “Betty, that was nothing. That was embarrassing. We can keep going.”

“Oh, my God,” she says. It’s already been over half an hour since that first kiss in her kitchen. “No wonder you never got any work done.”

He laughs. “I know. I had two full-time jobs. One at the magazine and one servicing the women of New York.”

Betty wrinkles her nose. “Servicing?” she asks.

“You just said it’s a public service!” he reminds her. “I was so busy. I’d just have to grab a Gatorade and get back in there.”

“That’s what all that Gatorade you made me buy was for?” she asks. “I thought you were training for a marathon or something.”

“Different kind of marathon,” he says. Betty snorts. “So now what?” he asks. “Your rules.”

“What kind of rule are you looking for right now?” she asks. She doesn’t know what else they need to figure out.

“Well, I’m guessing you’re going to want to cuddle for a little while,” he says.

“Yes,” she admits. It would just feel weird not to after all that. Though this entire situation is weird. Right now that weirdness is still far away. She’s too blissed out to worry about that.

“So do you want to get dressed again first?” he asks. “And do you want me to still kiss you during the cool off cuddling period? Do you want me to stay the night or leave?”

“I’ve never thought about all this,” she realizes.

“Yeah, because you’ve only had sex with boyfriends,” he points out. “Of course you want to kiss a boyfriend and it doesn’t matter if you put your clothes back on.”

“Oh, no, I always put my clothes back on,” she says.

“You never sleep naked?” he asks.

“Naked?” she echoes. “Oh, my God. What if there’s an emergency in the middle of the night? My options are waste time getting dressed or run outside naked.” She shakes her head. “No way.” The only time she ever did was in the Bahamas, and she barely slept because she was so tense all night.

He’s laughing at her, lying on his side to face her with an arm around her waist. His thumb is brushing against her hip softly. “Don’t you have a bathrobe?”

“No,” she says. “My shower’s in my kitchen.”

He laughs again. “Okay, next time we can do it at my place. I will have a bathrobe sitting out for you. So if there’s an emergency, you don’t have to run out naked.”

“Next time?” she asks.

“Oh,” he says, looking at her. “Yeah, I mean, if you want to.”

“Yeah, I definitely do want to,” she says. She’s already thinking about it.

He’s so smug about that. “Good.”

She kisses him, realizing she didn’t tell him if that was okay. It is. He’s a very good kisser. Even though his tongue must be tired.

“Doesn’t your tongue get tired?” she asks. She has all these questions she’s thought about but never asked anyone because she was too embarrassed, but it’s hard to be embarrassed right now. It was already hard to get too embarrassed with Daniel, but now she feels like they’re going to have zero boundaries left.

He laughs out loud. “Yeah, it does,” he admits. “My jaw gets tired, too. Not as bad as the other way around, though.”

“The other way—” Oh. He means her going down on him. They didn’t do that. “Wait, have you done that? Like with another guy?” she asks, kind of hushed.

He nods. “A few times.”

“Oh, my God,” Betty breathes. That’s really not something she’s ever thought about. But she’s thinking about it now.

“Do you wish you didn’t ask now?” he asks.

“Um…no,” she says delicately.

Daniel goes up to his elbow to look at her face and gasps. “Betty!” he cries, laughing. “Wow, I would not have expected you to be into that.”

She elbows him lightly. “You said I couldn’t weird you out,” she says, blushing furiously.

“No, I mean, that’s why I did it those few times,” he explains. “A lot of women think it’s hot.”

“There’s so much I’ve never…” She shakes her head. “Never even considered. I almost don’t even know what I think is hot. I’m 26 and I don’t even know…I don’t know. I don’t know what I like.”

Daniel kisses her a few times. “I would be happy to help you find out.”

She laughs and hides her face in the pillow for a second. “I don’t know how adventurous I’m really ready to be.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, whatever. I told you. Whatever you want.”

“I feel like I kind of missed out,” she confesses. She’s never told anyone this, not even Hilda. “I mean, even before Hilda got pregnant, she was never super responsible, so I kind of overcompensated to make up for it. And then after she got pregnant, I didn’t want to…disappoint my parents. Especially my dad. So I was always really careful with sex.” She tips her head. “Also, you know, no one was really offering.”

That makes Daniel laugh. “I don’t think it’s bad that you were careful when you were younger,” he says. “You were with guys who really loved you and cared about you. Most of the women I’ve been with can’t say that about me,” he says ruefully. “But you’re older now. You can protect yourself better. I think it’s a great time to start exploring.”

“And you’re kind enough to help me out,” Betty says.

“Yeah, I’m a really good friend,” he says, leaning in and kissing her again.

“Do you want to stay the night?” she asks.

“Sure, if you want me to,” he says. “And I wasn’t kidding. If you want, we can keep going. Like later, during the night, whatever.”

“Seriously?” Betty asks. “What about sleeping?” They have work in the morning.

He laughs at her a little. “Or we can just sleep.”

“Well, I didn’t say I didn’t want it.”

He laughs harder. “Okay, good to know. If you wake up in the middle of the night and decide you want to keep going, just wake me up.”

“What, you’re just ready to go from the minute you open your eyes?” Betty asks incredulously.

He shrugs. “I might need a few minutes, but not that long.”

“Oh, my God,” Betty says. She’s blushing again. “Wow. Okay. You must have great…blood flow.” She’s sure it’s not because he just wants her that bad or something.

Daniel narrows his eyes at her. “What’s with the voice?”

“What?” she asks.

“You have a tone.”

“Well…” She honestly doesn’t even want to say this. “I would think it would be, you know, hard to be so ready to go when you’re not—” She shrugs.

“Not what?” he asks blankly.

“It’s not like you think I’m sexy,” she says, shoulders starting to hunch now. She thinks she’s ready to put her clothes back on. Her self-consciousness is coming roaring back.

He stares at her. “Did I do something to make you think that?” He gestures at her. “I thought I made myself pretty clear.”

“No, I mean—sure, you did a great job, but you can’t possibly—”

“Betty!” he interrupts exasperatedly. “Why do you do that? I’ve been telling you you’re beautiful for years.”

“You said this was charity!” she says defensively.

“Oh, my God, no,” he says, totally serious now. “Betty, that is not what I meant. I meant because you haven’t liked sex. Not because I was, I don’t know, making myself think of someone else. Believe me. I have zero complaints about you or your body.” He runs his hands over her hips as some kind of emphasis. “Besides, I really don’t do that kind of charity,” he points out, and actually, she knows that’s true. Then he blinks. “I don’t do any kind of charity, actually. I should probably start.”

“This is so weird,” she groans, covering her face. “I mean, thank you. But also…this is weird! How do we just go to work after seeing each other naked?”

“Well, that’s about half the women at Mode for me,” he points out kind of apologetically.

“Oh, yeah.” Betty shakes her head.

“Are you regretting this?” Daniel checks. “I can leave if that’s what you want.”

“I’m not regretting this.” She’s worried about it being weird, but she knows that much for a fact. She doesn’t see how it would be possible to regret that. Honestly, it might be worth tanking their friendship for that.

Okay, no, she feels guilty even thinking that.

A smirk starts across his face and it makes her start to tingle again. “Are you thinking you made a good choice?”

“Hm.” Betty pretends to think. “I don’t know. I’ll probably need more evidence before I can make a decision.”

“Need to add more to your pro/con list,” he murmurs, pulling her closer.

“God, you know me so well,” she breathes, kissing him.

He does, in fact, prove it some more. A few times. And then in the morning, it’s like the switch is just flipped off. He doesn’t kiss her, doesn’t lie around in bed with her. He gets up and says, “Okay, I’ll go so you can get ready. See you at work.”

“Bye,” she says, unsure.

He glances at her and smiles. “Betty. This is the casual part. No strings, right? So we go about our day. No big deal.”

“No big deal,” she echoes. “Yeah.”

“Is that okay?” he asks. “Are you still okay with that?”

“I actually…am,” she says, marveling a little. She doesn’t feel like she’s getting attached. Maybe because she was already attached to him. But it’s not changing. She’s not getting ahead of herself and thinking of a relationship or anything.

Daniel laughs. “Great,” he says. “Okay. Bye.”

“Bye.”

He leaves and Betty takes a second to just freak out over the fact that she had sex with Daniel and it was incredible and now she’s just going to go about her day like nothing happened.

Sometimes her life really leaves her speechless.

She gets to work and she’s not trying to catch glimpses of him or seeking him out more than she ever does. She just…does her work. It’s really crazy.

Zachary Boule does show up. Betty scowls at him. She actually kind of forgot about him. But of course he’s worried she’ll print something bad about him. “I’m a professional,” she tells him, keeping her head high.

He hands over his orthodontist’s card, at least. Daniel walks out as Zachary’s saying goodbye, and he zeroes in on them right away. “What are you doing here?” he demands.

“Daniel,” Betty cautions, putting a hand on his arm. “He just wanted to talk about the article.”

“We’re not running a profile on you,” Daniel tells him disdainfully.

“What—Daniel, if you don’t, that’s my byline,” Betty points out.

Daniel looks down at her. He opens his mouth and closes it. Then he kind of growls and Betty’s stomach drops. Oh, God, okay. She’s not getting attached, but it’s not like she can help if she’s noticing he’s sexy.

“Fine,” he says. “But just for you. Not him.” He crosses his arms. “Are you done talking to him?”

“Yeah,” Betty says, not sure why he’s asking.

He looks at Zachary. “Okay, it’s time to leave.”

On the one hand, Betty can handle herself. The bruise on Zachary’s face is proof of that. But on the other hand…well, she’s got goosebumps. And the thing is, he would’ve acted like this if she’d told him what happened with Zachary even if they hadn’t had sex. How did she not notice how sexy that was before? She needs to think about him punching Matt again.

Actually, no, she needs to not think about any of this right now while they’re at work.

Zachary leaves and Daniel turns to her as the elevator doors close. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she promises. “Thank you. And thank you for not pulling my article.”

He purses his lips. “I’d say I hope you weren’t professional and nice about it, but I know you were.”

Betty snorts. “Of course.”

He shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard to learn to be open-minded and objective when you write articles.”

That makes her laugh. “Oh, okay, this is an opportunity for you to brag.”

“No,” Daniel says. “Well, a little.”

She laughs at him again. “Okay. Thank you for making me such a professional, objective writer who won’t let my hurt feelings get in the way.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, nodding and smiling.

Betty elbows him, but then she pats his arm. “And thank you for being worried about my hurt feelings. But I’m okay.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, you know, I actually kind of forgot about him until he showed up.” She raises her eyebrows at him. “Something took my mind off it last night.”

He grins smugly. “Something was way better than him anyway.”

She rolls her eyes, but she’s still laughing. “Yes, way better,” she promises, and he preens about it. “And hey, he still gave me his orthodontist’s card so I can finally get my braces off.”

“Whoa,” Daniel says. “That’s a big deal.”

“God, I hope so,” she says, and they both laugh about it.

Amanda comes into Betty and Marc’s office in the afternoon. Betty assumes she has some kind of work related thing to talk about. She doesn’t know why she assumed that. Amanda and Marc spend some time looking at that Dude Cruise website and Betty does her best to block them out. Okay, she still doesn’t like hearing raunchy sex talk. Good to know.

“Hey, how come Daniel was at your apartment so early this morning?” Amanda asks curiously. Betty freezes. Oh, God, what if Amanda’s mad? She and Daniel have had this totally casual relationship going, but what if there’s a girl code against casually sleeping with the same guy?

“He was…it’s because he—and so I—” Betty can’t even think. Marc and Amanda are both raising their eyebrows at her. “He was looking for something,” Betty finally says, almost questioningly.

“Was it in your vagina?” Marc asks, making Betty gasp.

“Oh, that’s why she’s babbling,” Amanda says, realization dawning. “Okay, that makes sense. Aw, good for you, Betty, about time you had sex!”

“What?” Betty asks shrilly, trying to laugh. She sounds like a crazy person in a cartoon. “I don’t even know what you—what does that—”

“Oh, no, Marc,” Amanda says worriedly. “Daniel was just too much for her sex-deprived body. Her brain melted out.”

“Hey,” Betty says, even though that’s actually kind of true. She recovered.

“Honestly, you deserve the kind of sex Daniel can give you,” Amanda says. “Everyone does.” Then she narrows her eyes. “Except that bitch Deborah down in ad sales. She knows what she did.”

“Are you mad at me?” Betty asks.

“Why would I be mad at you?” Amanda asks blankly.

Betty blinks at her. “Because you also sleep with Daniel…?”

“So?” Amanda asks. Then she gasps. “Oh, my God, Betty, we’re like sisters now!”

“That’s not even a little bit how that works,” Betty says.

“Well, I’m mad!” Marc says. “Bad enough we’re sharing an office, now I’m going to have to hear your wedding plans?”

“Daniel and I are just casual,” Betty says. “Friends with benefits. No strings.”

Marc and Amanda both stare at her and then burst out laughing. “Sure, Betty,” Amanda says.

“You, no strings,” Marc agrees.

“We are!” Betty insists. “Ugh, why does everyone else get to have friends with benefits but no one thinks I can?”

“You definitely can’t with Daniel,” Marc says disbelievingly. “You two have practically been married for years, just without the sex. Now you’re having sex, too? He’ll give you his bank account passwords by dinner.” Betty doesn’t say anything, eyes cutting to the side, and Marc says, “Ha!” triumphantly.

“I already knew those before I had sex with him!” Betty hisses. “You were his assistant. And Amanda is now. So we all know his bank account passwords.”

“He never gave me his passwords,” Marc says, at the same time Amanda says,

“Nope.”

“Wait, really?” Betty asks. “You guys never had to transfer money from one account to another because he forgot which credit card he lost?”

“I’ll tell you one thing, if Daniel let me log into his account to transfer money, I would not still be working here,” Marc says.

Apparently being the more mature Daniel’s assistant comes with a lot less responsibility. Betty almost feels miffed. She used to balance his checkbook for him. That was even worse than doing his expense reports. She thought that was all part of being his assistant.

She leaves Marc and Amanda ogling shirtless men and marches into Daniel’s office. “I think you took advantage of me,” Betty says.

“Yeah, you asked me to,” he says without looking up from his computer. “I’ll do it again tonight, if you want.”

“I mean when I was your assistant.”

Now Daniel looks up. “We never had sex when you were my assistant.”

“Daniel, please focus. This is not about sex.” She puts her hands on her hips. “Marc and Amanda don’t know your bank passwords!”

“You think I would trust Amanda with my bank password?” Daniel asks incredulously. “I’m dumb, Betty, but I’m not that dumb.”

That’s actually a good point, so she’ll let the Amanda part slide. “But Marc?” she says. “I always had to transfer your money around and balance your checkbook and make sure no one stole your card. And you don’t make anyone else do that?”

Daniel closes his laptop gently. “This might be crazy, but are you mad about something that’s not about my bank password?”

“I did way more for you than any other assistant does for their boss,” Betty says.

“But in some ways, you did less for me than my other assistants,” he points out smarmily. She doesn’t laugh. He sighs. “Okay, sorry. Um…I don’t think I have a very good answer or explanation for you. Because the real reason I always had you do stuff like that is because you were responsible and I wasn’t. And I was a mess and I was almost useless. And I know it was wrong, and you weren’t really being paid for that stuff, but you were the only person I could trust to help me. And you did help me, because that’s who you are. And now, because you made me better, I don’t need someone else to do that for me.” He winces. “Sorry.”

Betty sighs. “That was a good answer,” she relents.

“Really? It was just the truth.”

“Yes, Daniel, telling the truth is a good thing,” Betty says. He kind of raises his eyebrows and she sighs again. “Sorry. I think I’m not actually mad at you or any of this. Marc said something that got under my skin.”

“Of course,” Daniel says, rolling his eyes. “Marc ruins everything. Want me to lock him in the men’s room?”

Betty huffs. “You still haven’t forgiven him for your beard?”

“And I never will!” Daniel says.

“So why haven’t you started growing it back?”

“Well, my dad always said beards were for hippies and lumberjacks,” Daniel admits.

She snorts. “Okay.”

“So am I forgiven?” he asks. He sticks out his lower lip in what he probably thinks is an effective puppy dog face. He just looks stupid.

“Only if you stop making that face.”

He pulls his lip back in. “Do you want to come over tonight?”

“Yes,” Betty says, embarrassingly loud. He smirks at her and she holds up her hands like she’s warding him off. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” he asks smugly, because he knows exactly what.

“Don’t do that,” she warns.

“Or you’ll want me to take you over there in the corner behind the door?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

“Sex at work is not something I find hot that we need to explore,” Betty says sweetly.

He sighs. “Fine.”

“But I, um, I do have some…other things,” she admits, blushing.

Daniel’s face lights up. “You made a sex list.”

God, he knows her way too well. “Maybe I did,” she says haughtily. “Maybe it’s for the other friend with benefits I’m going to find.”

That makes him laugh delightedly. “Okay,” he says. “As long as I get at least half.”

“I can give you at least half,” she decides. “See you tonight.”

“I cannot wait,” he says. She can’t either, now. But they’re both going to have to.

After work, Betty goes home and contemplates if she wants to dress up or anything, but she rejects the idea. The whole point of this is that she doesn’t have to, which is so nice. Picking an outfit always makes her feel more self-conscious than anything else.

Instead, she opens up Skype and video calls Christina. This is definitely the kind of thing Christina needs to know about.

“Hi!” Christina answers, waving at her.

“Christina,” Betty says. She’s almost whispering, even alone here in her apartment. “I…did something last night.”

“Something bad or something good?” Christina asks cautiously.

“Kind of bad, but so good,” Betty says. “I, um.” She presses her hands over her mouth for a second. It’s kind of hitting her all over again now that she’s talking about. “I had casual sex with someone I am not in a relationship with.”

Christina gasps. “Oh, my God!”

“I know,” Betty says. “And I’m going to do it again tonight. In like an hour.”

“Oh, my God!” Christina cries again. “Oh, I’ve never been prouder! Well, okay, your work or what have you, but still, I’m so proud!”

Betty laughs. Before she can go into more detail, Stuart walks in behind Christina. “Hey, the little biter’s down,” he says.

“Get out!” Christina says, shooing him away. “We are having a serious conversation. This is life or death.” Stuart looks taken aback.

“It’s not life or death,” Betty says, rolling her eyes. “I just had casual, no-strings sex.” She blushes while she’s saying it. It’s one thing to tell Christina; Stuart’s another matter entirely.

Stuart gasps. “That is life or death,” he says. “Okay, I’ll pop down to the shop. We need bread, anyway. William’s asleep in there.”

“Thank you, love,” Christina says. “Now go!” Once Stuart leaves, Christina looks at Betty again. “Tell me everything.”

“Christina, it was…” Betty’s at a loss for words. “I have never—” She swallows. “I left my body. And then I came back to my body. And I wanted to stay in my body. Because of what he was doing. In my body.” She shivers a little. “I can’t stop thinking about him…with my body.”

“Oh, God, this is hot,” Christina says.

“It was dirty,” Betty confesses, almost whispering again.

“Good!” Christina cries. “Oh, I’m glad. You deserve that. So are you seeing the same bloke again, then?”

“Oh, yeah,” Betty says. “I mean, I tried to find a random guy I don’t know, but I couldn’t do it. It had to be a friend.”

“A friend?” Christina echoes. “Oh, who, then? Was it that Jacob over in circulation? Because I always thought he looked like something could be going on down there in his pants.”

“Oh, my God,” Betty says, nose wrinkled. “No, it wasn’t him. It was…” She huffs, a little embarrassed now.

“Don’t tell me…” Christina says, realization dawning on her face.

“Daniel,” Betty confirms.

“Oh, Betty, are you not playing with fire here?”

“What do you mean?” Betty asks.

“Well, this is Daniel,” Christina says. “Is he sleeping with other women, too?”

“I don’t think so,” Betty says with a shrug. “He was with Amanda, but it seems like they sort of stopped. He’s having trouble being with anyone he doesn’t have a connection with after his wife.”

Christina hums in thought at that. “Okay,” she says. “But if you fall for him—”

“Christina,” Betty cuts her off. “There’s no way I could fall for him! He’s just Daniel. He’s my friend.” She bites her lip, remembering last night. “My friend who happened to give me five orgasms last night.”

“He did not,” Christina gasps.

“Christina, he is so good at sex,” Betty says. “I didn’t even know there was that much difference in how you could have sex. But he…I…” She shakes her head and holds up her hands. “Speechless.”

“God, now I’m sad I never went for it,” Christina says.

“Oh, you should’ve,” Betty says. This is a definite benefit of the casual part—she can say things like this and she’s not even jealous. “I think he should go on a world tour.” Then she blinks. “Oh, I guess he’s already done that.”

“More than once,” Christina agrees.

“Well, his slutty days are my gain,” Betty says. “I think I had more orgasms last night than the rest of my life combined.”

“What?” Christina demands. “God, Betty, that’s just sad.”

“That’s what he said, too,” Betty says, shrugging. “That’s why he just kept going and going.”

“Did he?” Christina asks, almost breathless now.

“Like the Energizer Bunny,” Betty says, shaking her head a little. “Every time I thought he was giving up, he just…” She swallows hard and blows out a shaky breath. “Kept going.” She looks at Christina on the screen. “I need to go.”

“Yes, you do,” Christina agrees. “Go ride that into the sunset.”

“I actually do plan to literally,” Betty admits. “Ha! I just made a sex joke. Me!”

Christina’s cracking up at her. “A few more nights with him and we could get you into some kind of leather dress or something.”

“Let’s not get crazy,” Betty cautions.

“Someday,” Christina says. “Someday I will get you to show off those curves.”

“I doubt it,” Betty says. “Although Daniel said—”

“What did he say?” Christina asks. “Better have been good.”

“Well, I said it’s not like he thinks I’m sexy and he said…well, he implied that he does,” Betty says, shaking her head. “He was probably lying, right? I mean he said he had no complaints with my body.”

“Betty, you know I love you and you are beautiful, but I think Daniel would have no complaints with a table leg if it offered itself to him. He’s not exactly discerning, is he?”

“Well—no,” Betty says, thinking it over. “Actually, he’s always been pretty shallow. He only sleeps with really gorgeous women.” He did say he doesn’t do that kind of charity. Sex charity or something like that.

“Oh, is that so?” Christina asks triumphantly. “So he’s shallow and only sleeps with gorgeous women and he said he likes your body.”

“You just tricked me into convincing myself he meant it,” Betty says, kind of impressed.

“Well, sometimes you’re the only one you’ll listen to.”

Betty snorts. “I guess that’s true.”

“Right then, go on, go have your fun,” Christina says. “I really am so glad you’re doing that. You deserve it!”

“Thanks,” Betty says, almost shyly. “Bye.”

She’s excited when she gets to Daniel’s, but she feels kind of awkward, too. She’s just showing up, knocking on the door, and going in to have sex? Like a sex delivery. Maybe that’s why some people have those delivery person fantasies.

Daniel lets her in with a smile. They go up the stairs to his living room and then he just looks at her for a second. “Do you need to talk first or do you want to just get right to it?”

“I think I’m ready to get right to it,” she says demurely, as if she hasn’t been thinking about this all day.

He smirks at her, because he can tell what she’s thinking, and then he comes over and takes her coat. He kisses her neck from behind while he does, gathering her hair and moving it to her other shoulder. After he puts her coat away, he turns her around so he can kiss her, dropping his hands to her ass and squeezing.

She’s already pressing closer, pushing at him until the back of his legs hit the couch. He drops down and breathes, “God, yeah,” when she climbs on top of him. They stay like that for a while, making out and grinding together and steadily losing more clothes, and then he says, “Do you want to go—”

“I want to do it right here,” she breathes. “Like this.”

“Oh, God,” he says, mouthing against her shoulder. “Yeah, okay.”

She sits in his lap and holds onto the back of the couch, moving down as he moves up. She gasps and catches his earlobe between her teeth. She’s definitely very close to his face this time.

It’s kind of…weird. She doesn’t know where to look. Is she supposed to maintain eye contact with him through this? She can’t do that.

“Do you want to turn around?” he asks. “Would that be better?”

“Okay,” she says, kind of relieved.

Betty starts to turn around right away and he jumps and yelps, “No, Betty, hang on! If you’re doing it while I’m still inside you need to be way more careful.”

“Sorry,” she says, cringing. “Oh, God, sorry, are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, just—” He pulls out and Betty puts her hands over her face.

“Did that kill the mood?”

“No, just go wherever you’re going to go,” he says. “It’s fine, just pick a direction, come on.”

“Okay, now who’s bossy,” she mutters.

“You’re the boss, baby, you can choose, just please.”

He’s desperate now. Betty kind of likes it. She feels very powerful. But she also gets it, because she’s feeling it too. She's desperate enough that she's not even weirded out about him calling her baby. She turns around, since they’ve come this far anyway, and he sighs in relief as he presses back inside her and gets back to work. No damage seems to be done. Which is lucky for both of them, because Betty is invested at this point.

She’s definitely getting bolder in making noise, and it seems like that really does something for him. Especially when she praises him. And she’s doing that a lot right now. She would’ve tried this position a lot sooner if she’d known it was like this. Well, probably not, but still. She tries to put her feet on the ground for more leverage but realizes she can’t.

Daniel starts laughing breathlessly. “You’re too short to touch the ground.”

“You’re laughing at me right now?” she asks. She’s not actually offended, but she really feels like she can tell him to do just about anything and he’ll follow her obediently.

“No, I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t know what’s going on.” She laughs at him until he holds onto her boobs and picks up the pace.

“Oh, God,” she breathes. “That’s—oh, my God, yes, wow, wow, wow.” She drops her head back to rest on his shoulder and moans, “You’re so good, oh, my God,” and he shivers and comes.

After she’s done and slumped back against him, he starts to laugh a little. “That was almost so bad.”

“What?” Betty asks. “That was so good.”

“Betty, you almost broke my penis!” he tells her. He has his arms around her waist and his chin hooked over her shoulder.

“Wait, it can actually break?” she asks. She thought that only happened in stupid movies.

“Yeah, it can. We obviously don’t have the same nightmares.”

Betty snorts. “Well, we will now.” She turns her head a little to look at him. “You said I’m the boss.”

“You are the boss,” he says, kissing the side of her neck. “You make the rules.”

“You’re getting so good at following rules,” she praises. She reaches a hand behind her to brush through his hair.

“Well, these are really good rules.” He laughs a little. “God, I can’t believe—I mean, last night when I asked, I was kind of drunk and I really did not expect you to say yes.”

“What?” Betty says.

“I thought it was one of those things that made me look good just for offering,” he says with a shrug.

“Oh, my God,” Betty says. “Oh, my God, this is so embarrassing.” She starts to get off him but he holds onto her waist.

“No, no, no, Betty, wait,” he insists. “I’m glad you did! I’m just saying I didn’t expect you to.”

“You didn’t even really want—”

“Yes, I did,” he cuts her off. “I just only asked because I was drunk because it lowered my inhibitions or whatever.”

“Since when do you have inhibitions?” Betty shoots back.

“Look, I’m sorry, I’m saying all of this wrong,” he says. He sighs. “I’m not saying I didn’t want to or I had to be drunk to want to. I’m just saying I never would’ve thought you’d go for it, and if I wasn’t drunk I would’ve been paying more attention to not wanting to make you uncomfortable. Because talking about sex does make you uncomfortable,” he points out.

“Yeah,” she has to agree.

“But I’m so glad you said yes,” he goes on. He kisses the back of her shoulder. “You’re so—you take a little while to decide if you can do something, but then once you do, you go all in. It’s great.”

Betty turns her head a little to look at him. “Do you always think it’s great, or just when you get sex out of it?”

Daniel blinks a few times. “I don’t think there’s a good answer here. So I’m going to offer to get back to the sex so you forget your question.”

“Wait, you were drunk last night?” she asks. “And you still did all that?”

“You know by now I do some of my best work drunk,” he says. She gives him a look and he adds quickly, “Okay, used to! Jeez. You are the boss.”

They end up in his bedroom, eventually, and during a break in the action Betty takes time to consult her list.

“Oh,” he says, looking over her shoulder. “You really made an actual list.”

“I ranked everything in order of how much I want to try it,” she explains. “But weighted against how embarrassed I am. So some of these are things I really want to try, but I’m really embarrassed so we’re going to have to work our way up.”

“Okay,” he says. He shakes his head and huffs. “Leave it to you to make no strings sex organized.”

“Well, a little structure can be good,” she says defensively.

“Yeah, I mean, structure is definitely what I think of when I’m thinking about sex.” She turns her head to give him a dirty look and he laughs. “No, it’s good,” he says. “This is what I meant when I said you go all in. Did you put a box at the end of each one so you could put a check inside after we do it?”

She did do that. And she just checked off some of the stuff they did tonight. But he’s definitely making fun of her. Betty groans. “Sometimes you make me want to…drown you.”

“Drown me?” he cries. “That is so violent and so specific. I feel like it would be way more normal to say you want to smother me with a pillow.”

“Well, that’s a lot harder,” Betty points out. “You’re bigger than I am. So to smother you, I’d have to hold you down and keep the pillow pressed over your face. If I drown you, I just have to keep you under the water.”

He stares at her for a minute, jaw dropped. “Why does it sound like you’ve put thought into this?”

“I’m a writer,” Betty says defensively. “I think about these things.”

“About murder?” he asks.

“Oh, please, it’d be justifiable homicide.”

“You know what, I’m outta here,” Daniel says, making absolutely no move to get up. “I will go somewhere else where my sparkling personality is appreciated.”

“And where is that?” Betty asks, making him huff. “Also, this is your house.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“One thing I’m not sure about,” she starts. “I was, you know, researching—”

“Uh, what?” he cuts in. “What do you mean by that?”

“I…” She’s bright red now.

“Oh, my God, are you saying you watched porn?” he asks, amazed.

“Why are you acting like it’s something I’ve never done before?” she demands.

His eyes are wide now. “You watch porn?”

“Well, no, not really,” she admits, and then he laughs at her. “There was just so much…slapping going on,” she says uncomfortably.

Daniel stops laughing. “What the hell were you watching?”

“It kept coming up in so many videos,” she defends herself.

“You want to slap me?” he asks, looking a little worried.

“No!”

His jaw drops. “You want me to slap you?” he asks, horrified.

“No, I don’t want you to slap me!” Betty cries. “I was worried you’d want to!”

He sighs in relief. “Oh, my God. I do not want that. If you really wanted to try that I’d rather have you slap me. I don’t think I could slap you even if you asked me to.” Then he tips his head and makes a considering noise. “Except your ass. That’d be good. Not too hard, though,” he assures her.

“We’re getting off topic,” Betty says. She’s blushing now. And she needs to add something to her list.

“Are we?” he asks. He’s not even being flirty about it; he’s genuinely asking.

Betty snorts. “Well, I guess not really,” she agrees. “But I want to tell you something.”

He can tell she’s being more serious and stops joking around. “What’s up?”

Betty swallows hard. It’s kind of funny to feel awkward about anything with him at this point, but still. “I—” She clears her throat. “I, um. Thank you. For all of this.”

He raises his eyebrows. “It’s not exactly a selfless chore or anything,” he says with a laugh. He puts his hand under her chin and turns her head so he can kiss her. “Seriously, I really don’t want you to think I’m just doing you some favor. I am getting so much out of this.”

She huffs. “Okay, yeah. But I just mean…” She tries to gather up her thoughts. “You are…very good at this. At…” She makes a face. “Sex.”

“Wow, you said it,” he says, grinning. “But thank you.” That’s definitely going to his head.

“But I think part of why it’s so good is me, too,” she says.

“It’s definitely you,” he agrees, kissing her shoulder.

“No, I just mean, um, I’m being more…open. And I’m letting myself like it more. Maybe I could’ve had a better time with Henry and Matt if I would’ve let myself, you know? I don’t know if they were necessarily not that good at it, but I think I was too stressed out. I was always so focused on how the sex would play into our relationship and whether I was doing a good job and I was so worried about it being special all the time that I think I got really…”

“In your own head about it,” he says, nodding. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” she says, kind of relieved that he seems to be getting what she’s saying. “But you’re helping me—you’re making it easy for me to not be in my head about it.”

“So is this a roundabout way of saying you don’t actually think I’m that good at sex, but I’m just good at letting you relax?” he asks, kind of suspicious.

“I said you’re very good at sex,” she points out. “Like two seconds ago. You are. You definitely have skills.”

He’s smirking now. “Oh, thank you.”

“I’m just saying, thank you for keeping me from being weird,” Betty says.

Daniel huffs. “You’re welcome,” he says.

“And thank you for…all the orgasms,” she adds awkwardly, because that seems like it deserves a special mention.

“You are very welcome,” he says. “And thank you, too.”

“My pleasure,” she says. She snorts. “Literally.”

He gasps a little, delighted. “Betty, you’re making sex jokes now!”

“I know!” she cries. “This is my second one today.”

He laughs and leans in to kiss her. “So proud.”

“That’s your legacy,” she tells him. They’re both laughing now. “Some people get business empires, you get my sex jokes.”

“Honestly? I’ll take it,” he says. “Who cares about business?”

“Well, maybe don’t say that at work,” she points out.

“Oh, yeah,” he says. He scoots a little closer. “Okay. What’s next on your list?”

Sometimes he’s very good at staying on task. And it’s only fair that she show him her appreciation.

 

Betty’s at work when Hilda calls, and Betty realizes, guiltily, that she hasn’t talked to Hilda in a few days. “Hey, Hilda.”

“Hey, Bobby has to work tonight—do you want to come with me to taste wedding cake samples?” Hilda asks.

Betty gasps. “Oh, my God, yes!” she cries. “This is my favorite thing you’ve ever invited me to!”

Hilda’s laughing at her. “Okay, good.”

“I got too excited about that, didn’t I?” Betty asks. That always happens.

“Whatever, free cake,” Hilda says.

“Wait, it’s free?” Betty asks. “Oh, my God, I should just pretend I’m getting married and get free cake.”

“Yeah, now you’re getting too into it,” Hilda says.

“Oh.”

She meets Hilda at the bakery. It’s the same one Bobby’s parents love for cannoli, apparently, and they’re close enough with the owners that they’re giving Hilda and Bobby a huge discount. Betty had been worried Ignacio’s feelings would be hurt that Hilda didn’t want him to bake her cake, but he’d looked at her like she was nuts when she tried to broach the subject and said, “You think I want to bake a wedding cake?”

Hilda’s already inside, sitting at a table with plates of cake ready. “I love being an adult,” Betty says as she sits down. “I’m having cake for dinner.”

“You’re going to feel so sick when we’re done,” Hilda points out. “And I need you to really taste these, because I can only take one tiny bite.”

“Oh, my God, Hilda, Bobby’s not expecting to marry a skeleton,” Betty says.

“Who said anything about Bobby?” Hilda asks. “This is for my pictures!”

Betty snorts and rolls her eyes. “Do we just start right away?”

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

There are five different slices of cake on the table. They start with the double chocolate one first. “That’s good,” Betty says.

“Don’t say they’re all good,” Hilda says. “I know you.”

“Well, if they’re all good, what am I supposed to do?” Betty reasons. She takes another bite. For the analysis, of course.

“I feel like we haven’t seen you in days,” Hilda says. “Are you feeling better now?”

Betty sure as hell is feeling better than she has practically in her entire life, but she can’t figure out what Hilda means. “Better from what?”

Hilda looks at her like she’s crazy. “From that jerk who was so mean to you!”

“Oh, yeah,” Betty says. Zachary Boule again. She keeps forgetting him. “Oh, I’m fine.” She waves a hand. “I’m totally over that.”

“You’re totally over that?” Hilda echoes. “It’s been three days.”

“Well, I have someone—” She stops, but it’s too late. Hilda sniffed out exactly what she didn’t say.

“Are you dating someone?” she demands.

“No,” Betty says, and it’s not a lie. “I’m not dating anyone.”

“But?” Hilda prompts.

“But I am…” Betty shrugs. She’s starting to get kind of proud of herself for the whole no-strings thing. It’s not what anyone expects from her, but she’s doing it. “Sleeping with someone.”

Hilda gasps. “Wait, what do you mean?”

“I mean I have a friend with benefits,” Betty says.

Hilda gasps again, dropping her fork with a clatter. “Oh, my God, Betty,” she says. “Shut up. You do?”

“I do,” Betty says with a little giggle.

“Who is it?”

Betty shakes her head. “Not important.”

“But—” Hilda starts to protest.

“All that’s important is that I’m not getting ahead of myself or getting clingy or jealous at all,” Betty says. “And he is…taking care of me.”

Hilda gasps again, leaning closer. “Oh, my God,” she says, grabbing Betty’s arm and shaking her. “Betty!”

Betty laughs and lets Hilda shake her for a second. “Okay, okay.”

“But you’re really sure you can do no strings?” Hilda asks. “You’re usually…pretty stringy.”

Betty wrinkles her nose at Hilda’s word choice. “It’s going great so far,” she says. “I mean, it’s only been two days, but still. I’m not checking my phone all the time and hoping he’ll call or anything. I know I sort of tried with Matt, when we were saying we weren’t doing labels, but I think it’s different this time because we don’t have history.”

“Okay,” Hilda says.

Betty gives her a look. “Stop. I can do this!”

“You know what, you’re right,” Hilda says. “And I’m so glad. I mean, think, even a year ago you never would’ve imagined you’d do something like this.”

“Oh, you have no idea the things I’ve done that I couldn’t have imagined a year ago,” Betty mutters, taking another bite of cake.

Hilda gasps. “Oh, my God! Tell me.”

“Absolutely not,” Betty says.

“You can’t just say something like that and not give me details,” Hilda complains.

“I can and I am,” Betty says. “Now. Vanilla?”

They don’t end up actually picking a flavor, but they do narrow it down to three options. Bobby should probably get some input, Betty figures. She goes home feeling very full and a little lightheaded from all the sugar on an empty stomach. It was still worth it.

She and Daniel don’t see each other every night, but she does see him three more times before the day she’s finally getting her braces off. She stayed at her dad’s house so her family could share her excitement.

“I’ve got all this ready for when you get them off,” her dad says, showing her the array of food in the kitchen. Popcorn, corn on the cob, taffy, everything she’s been missing.

“Say goodbye braces!” Betty cries excitedly.

“Goodbye braces!” Ignacio, Hilda, and Justin chorus.

So of course she doesn’t get them off. Betty drips her way into work after the stupid fire alarm went off at the orthodontist. And then Marc messes with her new ID. Everything was supposed to go so differently today.

Betty passes Claire at the reception desk. She’s talking to Amanda and Tyler, but she stops and puts a hand on Betty’s arm.

“Oh, Betty, dear, I wanted to say—you have been positively glowing lately,” Claire says. “Are you trying something different?”

Betty clears her throat and tries to look normal. “No, I’m—um, I’ve been…sleeping…really well. At night. Lately.” She nods a few times. God, she can’t think of a more awkward conversation to be having with Daniel’s mom.

“Sleeping—” Amanda starts, but Betty elbows her. They absolutely do not need to tell Daniel’s mother what they’re doing.

“Well, it’s working so well,” Mrs. Meade says, which is especially generous given how Betty looks at the moment.

“Thanks, Mrs. Meade,” Betty says. “Is Daniel still being a baby?”

“Well…” Claire shrugs. “He needs a little more time.”

Betty sighs. “I’ll work on him,” she promises. She elbows Amanda again before she can turn that into a sex joke.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Claire says. She leaves and Amanda gives Betty a look.

“I think he’s kind of extra mad right now,” she says. “Because, uh…” She gestures at Tyler. “We’re sort of dating now or whatever.”

“What?” Betty gasps. “Amanda, you just go through whole families?” Then she winces. “Oh, sorry.”

“For what?” Amanda asks. “It’s not my first set of brothers.” She shakes her head. “The Petersons had five boys. I was so tired.”

“Um…okay,” Betty says, nose wrinkled. “I’ll go talk to him.”

“You’re dating Daniel?” Tyler asks.

“No,” Betty says, at the same time Amanda says,

“They say it’s casual, but it’s not.”

“Yes, it is,” Betty insists. “Ugh.” She waves her hands in annoyance and leaves.

Daniel’s pacing in his office, freaking out about the Million Dollar Bra shoot and the schedule. He looks up when she comes in and goes back to pacing.

“You still have your braces?” he asks, distracted.

Betty sighs. “The fire alarm went off.”

“Ugh, seriously?” he says. “That sucks. I was so excited.”

“Why?” Betty asks curiously. He seems more invested than a friend who wanted her to be happy.

“I’ve honestly been kind of scared about your braces when you…” He gestures downward. “You know. I had a very traumatizing experience my senior year of high school.”

Betty gasps. “That’s why you were excited? So you’d like it more when I…” She absolutely cannot say it, especially not here at work.

“Only if you want to do it,” he says with a shrug. Honestly, that particular part of sex has always felt like a bit of a chore she had to get done, but he’s so enthusiastic when he does it for her she feels guilty if she doesn’t return the favor.

“Well, not tonight, I guess,” she says.

“You still could,” he points out. “I’ll be really brave.”

Betty laughs a little despite herself. His eyes are glazing over and he’s biting his lip. Betty snaps her fingers in front of his face. “Hey,” she says. “Flip the switch off.”

“It doesn’t really work that way,” he says. “It’s an on switch. There’s only one way to flip it off.”

“Oh, really?” Betty asks. “Only one?”

“Only one,” he says, leaning a little closer.

“So it wouldn’t turn it off if I started talking about your mom and Cal Hartley having a baby?”

“Ah!” Daniel groans, looking betrayed. “Betty! Gross! You hate me.”

She snorts. “Yeah, obviously,” she says sarcastically. That gets him to laugh. “But speaking of that baby.”

Daniel scoffs and rolls his eyes. “I don’t want to speak about that baby. That baby having sex with Amanda.” He makes a face when his words catch up to his brain. “Oh, God, no.”

“Ew, Daniel, jeez. Look, I thought you and Amanda were just casual,” she says.

“No, we were,” he says. “We haven’t even slept together since you and I started. I’m not mad that she met someone. I’m mad that it’s my brother!”

Betty has to admit that’s kind of a big ask for him to get over. “Yeah, it’s a little weird.”

“A little!”

“Okay, let’s bring the voice down from soprano,” Betty suggests. “Aside from weirdness with Amanda, why are you really acting like this with Tyler?”

Daniel huffs and puts his hands on his hips. “What do you mean really? I’m acting like this because my mother lied to me.”

“I know,” Betty says. “But that’s not Tyler’s fault.”

“I thought you’d be Team Daniel,” he pouts.

“I’m not choosing a team,” she says. “He’s your brother. He was so excited to meet you.”

Daniel crosses his arms. “Did you know my mom took him to Paris? DJ loves him.” He huffs. “A new, cool uncle. Alexis apparently likes him, too. And my mom acts like he’s the greatest ever. And now Amanda! Everyone’s just trading me in for the younger model. Even my own mom. You’re probably going to go sleep with him next.”

Betty sighs and gives him a dirty look for that last crack. He’s so confident and arrogant during sex, but this is Daniel at his core: questioning his own worth and terrified of being replaced.

“Okay, I’m Team Daniel,” she relents, because she hates that he feels that way and she always wants to make sure he knows it won’t happen with her. “But I’m Team Daniel in the sense that I think you’re really amazing, and you should show your new brother that.”

“You think I’m really amazing?” he asks.

“Yes,” she promises. “Even when you’re being a huge needy baby.”

He laughs a little. “Yeah,” he says. “Well. Okay. I’ll think about what you’re saying.”

“That’s all I can ask you to do,” she says.

“You ask me to do so much more than that,” he points out, but he’s smiling at her.

“And you are definitely allowed to still feel like it’s weird that Amanda’s dating him,” she adds.

“God, I know,” he says. He kind of shudders. “And now this with the bra!”

“I can help you solve one of these things,” Betty says.

“Do I get to pick which one?” he asks.

“Well, no,” Betty admits, because it’s not like she can do anything about Amanda and Tyler. “I can actually only help you with the bra.”

Daniel laughs and then raises his eyebrows. “Can I help you with your bra?”

“I’m going to get a spray bottle,” she threatens, even though she’s laughing, too.

“No, you’re right,” he agrees.

She calls Eve’s assistant, Alison, and they rush to get to the Guggenheim in time to catch the bra. Betty’s had weirder days at Mode, in all honesty. But of course Marc messed with her ID, and no one believes she works at a fashion magazine, and before she even knows what’s happening she’s smacking her head on the ground.

Her dream or vision or whatever turns out to be really awful. It seemed so amazing at first. But no Justin, she and Hilda aren’t close, her dad is…whatever that is, and Daniel and Claire hate her.

Daniel leans into her space and hisses, “I can’t believe I ever slept with you” and Betty almost starts to cry. That’s one of her biggest fears with all this. They’re supposed to be casual and stay friends, but what if they can’t? She obviously ruined it in this little dream world.

“I want my old life back,” she cries, and then she hits her head again.

“Betty?” Daniel asks, holding onto her. He’s got concern etched in his face and Betty doesn’t even think before she reaches out a hand and touches his cheek.

“Daniel?”

“Hey, are you okay?”

Betty feels her teeth. “My braces!” He hands her back her glasses and she cries, “I can see!”

“Okay, let’s get you to a doctor.”

“No, we have to find the bra!” she insists. “We can do this.”

She’s right, but it takes an awful lot of humiliation on her part. First she rips open Wilhelmina’s shirt. Then her braces get stuck to the bra.

Everyone gasps and Wilhelmina says, “Betty is a breast man!” Daniel’s eyebrows go up in a way that means he’s picturing something he should not be picturing at work. Then Betty glances to the side and sees Amanda making the same face.

And suddenly there’s Dr. Frankl, taking off Betty’s braces. In front of everyone at the Guggenheim. And a bra that’s more valuable than Betty’s life.

Daniel holds onto her shoulder the whole time—and the bra, to keep it from getting damaged—and then when Dr. Frankl’s done Betty turns to look at him.

He’s smiling at her and says, “Betty, you look great” in a voice that kind of gives her butterflies.

“Yes, yes, congratulations, Betty, your smile will no longer induce seizures in children,” Wilhelmina interrupts. Oh, right. They don’t have time for butterflies.

The bra shoot goes well after that, no more interruptions or shirt-ripping or orthodontic emergencies. Daniel comes over to Betty when they’re wrapping everything up and smiles at her. “You really do look great,” he says.

“Thanks,” she says, ducking her head a little. “So my dad made a bunch of food I couldn’t have with my braces,” she says. “Want to come?”

“Yeah, sounds fun,” Daniel says.

“And then we could…go to your place?” Betty says, quieter. “It’s no Million Dollar Bra, but I did buy a little something.”

She’s a little embarrassed about it. It’s not like she’s never bought lingerie before, but she doesn’t know if that’s normal in a friends with benefits kind of thing. And she’s never bought anything quite like this. She’s usually stuck to much tamer lingerie. She’s a little worried she’ll chicken out and not actually want to show him.

But Daniel’s eyes light up and he nods frantically. “Yeah, yes, definitely. Are you wearing it right now?”

“Yeah,” she admits.

“God,” he breathes. “Wow.”

“It’s actually not that comfortable,” Betty admits. They walk out together and he puts his hand on the small of her back. “It’s green,” she says.

“Oh, I love you in green,” he says. Her stomach drops for a second. Oh, God, she thought he was saying—sheesh. That was weird. “Okay, hang on a second,” he says, spotting Amanda and Tyler. He rolls his eyes at her. “I’ll go play nice.”

She laughs a little. “Well, good thing I bought something then, huh?” That makes him laugh as he walks over to Amanda and Tyler.

Betty can’t hear them, but he’s giving off all the Daniel Meade body language signs that he’s apologizing and kind of embarrassed about it. Betty laughs fondly while she watches him. He does give embarrassed apologies an awful lot.

He comes back over to her and Betty puts her arm through his. “Good boy,” she says.

“Can you wait to do that until I won’t embarrass myself?” he asks.

“I guess,” she says, rolling her eyes like it’s an imposition. When they get to her dad’s house, she calls out, “Hello?”

“Oh, Betty, wait, don’t come in here!” Ignacio says. “We’re not ready yet.”

“Come back here!” Hilda yells. That means she’s going to rope them into cleaning soot off the stuff that’s still fire damaged. And Betty can’t say no because it was her fault.

“God, I always forget how loud your family is,” Daniel says. From anyone else, it might sound like a veiled insult, but Betty knows he actually loves it.

They walk into Hilda’s salon, Daniel’s arm around Betty’s shoulders, and Hilda stops mid-sentence to stare at them. “Oh. My. God,” she hisses. She grabs Betty’s arm and yanks her inside, pulling Daniel in, too.

“Ow, what?” Betty says.

“Daniel’s your friend with benefits?” Hilda demands.

“Whoa!” Bobby cries. “Damn.” He gives Betty a wink. “Alright, Chipmunk, get some.”

“Stop,” Hilda says.

“How did you—all we did was walk in,” Betty stammers.

“I can just tell,” Hilda says. “Oh, my God, are you two stupid?”

“What?” Daniel asks.

“You are so stupid,” Hilda says. “So stupid!”

“Why?” Betty asks.

“There is no way you two come out of this totally casual, no-strings, nobody’s feelings get hurt,” Hilda says.

“Sure we can,” Daniel says defensively. “I’ve done it before.”

“With someone you were as close with as Betty before you started this?”

“Well…no,” Daniel admits. “I’ve never…been as close to anyone as I am with Betty. Besides my wife.”

“You have a wife?” Bobby cries accusingly.

“No,” Hilda, Betty, and Daniel say together.

“Okay, jeez, I’m flying blind here,” Bobby mutters. “Don’t know anything that’s going on.”

“Hilda, you’re freaking out over nothing,” Betty insists. “We’re totally fine.”

“We’re casual,” Daniel agrees.

“Did you go to family parties with the other women you casually slept with?” Hilda asks.

Daniel scratches his forehead. Oh, no, that means he’s feeling awkward. “Uh. No.”

“Got him there, baby,” Bobby crows.

“Bobby, you are so not helping,” Betty says. “Hilda. Knock it off. You don’t get to tell us what to do or that we’re making a mistake.”

“Okay, and when this all blows up—”

“It’s not going to blow up,” Betty protests.

“—who’s going to be your shoulder to cry on when he leaves?”

“Hey,” Daniel says. “Look. I know my track record isn’t great. But I’m not just going to leave Betty and hurt her feelings, okay? I wouldn’t do that to her. We check in with each other all the time. It’s fine.”

“Ah, jeez, listen to yourself,” Bobby says. “This is supposed to be casual?”

“No, actually, they always talk to each other like that,” Hilda says.

“Man, I am really striking out tonight,” Bobby says.

Hilda sighs. “Fine,” she says shortly. “But just remember I said this.” Betty rolls her eyes. Then Hilda gives Daniel a little up-and-down look. “Well,” she says. “I know some things about you now.”

“Uh…” Daniel shoots Betty an unsure look.

“I only said good things,” Betty insists.

“That is very true,” Hilda admits, raising an eyebrow.

“Whoa,” Bobby says. “Hey.”

“Okay, we’re ready!” Ignacio yells from the kitchen.

“Oh, my God, you don’t think Papi will be able to tell, do you?” Betty asks desperately.

Hilda snorts. “Ay, please. Papi doesn’t want to know. He still pretends you’re a virgin even though he saw that pregnancy test. He won’t be able to tell.”

They all head out to the kitchen. Ignacio and Justin do a big reveal and a ta-da as they show Betty the assortment of forbidden braces food she can now eat. Betty laughs.

“Let me see!” Ignacio says, coming close and holding onto her face. “Beautiful teeth!”

“You look so good, Aunt Betty,” Justin agrees. “You can definitely make good use of the lip glosses I got you. Some guy’s going to want to whisk you away.”

“Yeah, some guy,” Hilda mutters.

“Oh, she doesn’t need any guys,” Ignacio says. “No boys for Betty, right?”

Daniel’s shoulders are hunched up almost to his ears at this point. Betty tries not to laugh at him. They stay for a few hours, eating gummy bears and corn on the cob and those suckers with gum in the middle. It’s a lot of fun. And Betty’s glad Daniel came. He needed a little recharge with feeling wanted, and her dad is so good at making people feel that way.

When they get back to Daniel’s apartment, she can tell he’s thinking about something hard. She’d tease him about it, except she knows exactly what it is.

Sure enough, he pours Betty a glass of wine and then asks, “Are we sure Hilda wasn’t right? Betty, if I ever hurt you like that, I don’t know what I’d do. It’s been bad enough the times when I’ve already let you down.”

Betty sighs and drinks her wine. “I had this dream when I hit my head,” she confesses. “And we weren’t friends. And you…” She swallows hard. “You regretted sleeping with me.”

“Hey,” he says, reaching across the kitchen island and tipping her chin up so she’ll look at him. “Look. Even if this is a bad idea, I could never regret the actual sex part.”

She laughs a little. “Well. Yeah, me too.”

“No one regrets sex with me,” he says. But then he sighs. “I don’t know. I mean, I feel like we’ve got a good thing going. I don’t want to stop. But what if you—"

“Daniel,” she cuts him off. Everyone’s so sure she’s not going to be able to keep this casual, but they’re all so sure Daniel will. It’s kind of insulting. “I know everyone thinks I’m this innocent, naïve little girl.”

“Oh, I have most definitely learned otherwise,” he says. “You are not innocent.” He kind of chuckles breathlessly and then shakes his head to clear it, making his face serious again.

“Exactly,” she says. “You and Hilda don’t need to protect me all the time, okay? I can make my own decisions. I think this is going really well. I don’t think it’s a bad idea. But if it is and I want to do something stupid, that’s my right.”

“And the something stupid is…me,” he says.

Betty rolls her eyes at him. “You know what I mean. I’m just saying, you’re both so worried about me getting hurt all the time. And thank you, I’m glad to have you looking out for me. But I’m fine. We’re sticking to the casual thing. We’re checking in with each other and talking about it. We’re having fun. Everything’s good.”

“Yeah,” he says. He has a weird look on his face, like maybe he’s not sure she’s telling the truth. But she knows a surefire way to convince him.

“Want to have more fun?” she asks.

Any uncertainty drops off his face. “You sound like you have something in mind.”

“I do,” she says, walking around the island and reaching for his belt. “You know, since I got my braces off and my mouth isn’t scary anymore.”

“Oh, I already love where this is headed,” he breathes.

“I thought we could try 69,” she says. She doesn’t really love her end of it, but it’s on her list. She’d like to at least try it once.

“Oh, my God,” he says, eyes going wide. “I am so glad you’re not innocent. I don’t know if you’re going to like it, though.”

Betty raises her eyebrows. “You’re not going to say I’ll like anything with you?”

He shrugs. “Well, I’m just saying. There’s a lot going on. That’s one where it’s kind of easy to get in your head about it.”

“Oh,” Betty says. That’s definitely been a problem for her in the past. “Well, I still want to try it.”

“I am absolutely not saying no,” he promises, dropping his hands to her waist. “But wait. Are you sure your head’s okay?”

“I’m fine,” she promises. She’s blushing as she jokes, “Don’t you want me to make sure your head’s okay?”

He looks confused. “I didn’t hit my head.”

Betty groans. “No, I was making another sex joke. Head—you know. I meant—because—"

“Ohh,” he says. “Oh, well—good job.” He’s being a little condescending. Obviously her joke wasn’t very good. She rolls her eyes and he laughs. Then he starts toying with the zipper on her dress. “Do I get to see what you bought?”

Betty makes a face. “Okay.” She takes a deep breath, fighting her embarrassment, and lets him unzip her dress and let it fall to the ground.

He inhales sharply. “Oh, God, you should buy more like this.”

“You like it?” she asks, unsure.

“Betty,” he breathes. “I’ll pay for it. Buy one for every night of the week. Buy two per day so I can rip one off you.”

“Oh,” Betty says. She can feel herself going red now, but it’s not really with embarrassment anymore. “You do like it.”

He doesn’t have an answer for her. Not in words, anyway. But he makes sure to let her know how he feels anyway.

 

Betty is loving having her braces off. She could swear people treat her better just because they’re gone. People definitely treat her like she’s her own age. Everyone thought she was so young with her braces. She’s at Daniel’s on a Sunday morning, looking at her teeth in the mirror.

She doesn’t want to become all shallow like her dream self was. But she’s still getting used to her braces-less reflection. They just got back from brunch and the waitress didn’t even give Daniel a dirty look and ask to see Betty’s ID when they got mimosas.

Daniel notices her checking out her reflection and laughs at her a little. “So pretty you can’t look away?” he teases.

“My teeth look so big without my braces,” she says.

“I think they look normal,” he says with a shrug. “So what’s our agenda today?”

Betty considers for a second. “Well, I feel like we always do what I choose,” she points out. “What about what you choose?”

“Everything you choose is very okay with me,” he promises with a laugh. “You have great ideas. And I am not messing with your schedules or lists. I know how you get.”

“I guess you don’t really have a list of things to try,” Betty muses. “You’ve already done everything.”

“Yeah, I’ve pretty much covered it all,” he says. But there’s kind of a look on his face that tells Betty he’s not being completely honest.

“What?” she asks. “You do have something you want to try?”

“No,” he says. “I mean, not try as in I’ve never done it. I just…don’t do it a lot.”

“Well, what is it?” she asks. “We can do it.”

He makes a face. “Betty, it’s really weird.”

That gives her pause. If he thinks it’s really weird, it might kill her. But he’s been so good about letting her decide what to do and choose things she wants to try. She should at least hear him out. If nothing else, it’s sure to be adventurous.

She swallows down her butterflies and says, “Tell me.”

He looks at her, lips pursed. “Are you sure?”

Betty nods, heart pounding. Nothing could’ve prepared her for his answer. She’s standing in the bathroom, looking at—

“Daniel,” she says. “A bubble bath? Why did you say this is weird?”

“This is so weird,” he says. “It’s not even sex. I’ve only done this like three times in my entire life, and two were with Molly.”

Betty covers her face with her hands and laughs. “Daniel! I was so terrified. I thought you were going to ask me to do something gross.”

“I’d be less embarrassed if it were gross,” he says.

She shakes her head and kisses him. “This is so much less embarrassing than sex.”

He makes a face like he’s going to protest, but she takes her shirt off and he stops talking. She can’t believe it’s that easy to shut him up. She could’ve been using that method for years.

It’s also incredibly funny. He’s seen literally hundreds of boobs, but it still stops him in his tracks.

It is a little awkward to sit in the bath together at first. It’s an entirely different kind of intimacy, and she knows that’s why he hasn’t done it much. But the bubbles cover up most of the parts of Betty she’s insecure about and they have wine. She turns around to sit between his legs, her back to his chest, and she can feel him relax behind her.

“Who was the other time?” she asks.

“What?”

“You said you’ve done it three times and two were Molly. Who was the other? Sofia or Renee?”

“Uh, neither, actually,” he admits. “It was someone I dated years ago. Aerin. Oh, I think you met her once. She’s a model.”

“Aerin,” Betty says. The model who kissed Henry at the Christmas party. She shakes her head. “The bane of my existence.”

Daniel laughs out loud. “Really? You got Henry in the end. She probably got an STD.”

“Daniel,” Betty gasps, but she can’t help but laugh. “Be nice. You used to be the one I’d say was giving it to her.”

“Oh, I gave it to her a lot,” he says.

Betty shakes her head. “You are ridiculous.”

“You like it,” he says, squeezing her leg.

“No comment,” she says, making him laugh again. “I was also mad because she was potentially messing things up with you and Sofia.” She huffs. “I guess it would’ve been better if she did.”

She can feel Daniel shrug behind her. “I guess it showed me I was ready to settle down. Eventually.”

“I still can’t believe you have a TV in your bathroom,” she says, looking at it. “You’re so rich.”

“The one in my house in Montauk is bigger,” he says.

“I’ve never actually been to Montauk,” she admits. “People always talk about it.”

“What?” he says, leaning down to look at her. “Okay, we’ll have to go.”

“Your mom should come,” Betty says. Mostly just because she’s so glad he’s talking to his mom again. Daniel and Claire are still a little shaky, and he’s not back to telling her everything yet, but they’re making their way.

“Oh, sure, you, me, and my mom,” Daniel says. “Definitely the sexy weekend I was imagining.” Then he says, “Well, if we’re taking my mom, we should take Justin, too. Lot of celebrities there.”

“That would be the quickest way to become his favorite person,” Betty says.

“Your whole family could come,” he says. “That’d be fun.”

“Your house is big enough for everybody?” she asks incredulously. “Jeez. I should really rob you one of these days.”

He cracks up laughing. “Well, you and I might have to share a room,” he murmurs in her ear, his hands getting decidedly less chaste. “Do you think that’d be okay?”

“I think I could make that sacrifice,” she says.

“You’re such a good person,” he says, leaning around to kiss her. They end up splashing a lot of water all over the rug. And they give up on the bathtub after Betty smacks her elbow so hard on the edge she loses feeling in her fingers for a minute and Daniel almost drowns trying to go down on her. But things still turn out alright.

They don’t have any more 5-orgasm nights like that first night they spent together. But they’ve been spending at least 3 nights together every week for the 3 or so weeks they’ve been doing this.

So when Betty lightly—but nicely!—bullies Daniel into letting her take his place at London Fashion Week for Hilda’s bridal shower, she stays at his place the night before the flight. It’s only fair to show him some appreciation, not only because he gave her the tickets but because he booked everything and got them first-class flights and a 5-star hotel.

Plus, they’re about to not see each other for 4 nights. Betty feels like she’s getting her last fix. If she could bottle up sex with Daniel, she’d be even richer than him. Her list has kind of fallen by the wayside. She’s not necessarily doing things off it anymore; they just do what they want to do. And a lot of it.

The night before she leaves for London, they don’t do anything wild or crazy; Betty, Amanda, and Hilda are flying out first thing in the morning, so Betty’s not feeling very adventurous. But when they’re finishing up, Betty notices something.

“Are you…crying?” she asks, surprised enough to point it out.

“No,” Daniel says, but he definitely is.

“Daniel,” Betty says. She knew, in the abstract, that he cries sometimes during sex because of Molly’s poem. She just assumed that was specific to Molly, though.

“It’s not—it’s nothing,” he says. He sniffles and Betty’s torn between kind of wanting to laugh at him for how hard he’s trying to pretend he’s not crying and a tender fondness for him because he is.

“It’s okay,” she says, keeping her voice light. “I mean, it happens to a lot of guys.”

“It doesn’t happen to me that much,” he insists. “I think I just got something in my eye.”

“You know what, it’s totally normal,” Betty assures him. “Men don’t usually let themselves cry very often, so it probably builds up. And sex is a release, so…” She shrugs. “And you know what else? It’s probably really good for you. To get it out, you know? I bet if more men cried after sex, we wouldn’t have war.”

Daniel’s not really crying anymore. He’s mostly laughing now. “So you think sex is the key to world peace?”

“That is not actually what I said,” Betty points out. Leave it to Daniel to take that message away, though.

“Sorry,” he says, a little awkwardly. “I just—I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” she says. She finds his hand under the blankets and squeezes it. “You won’t let me get embarrassed, so I won’t let you get embarrassed.”

“Maybe I do a better job than you do,” he mutters. “Because I feel really embarrassed.”

She laughs, offended. “Fine, if you’re going to be rude I’ll just make fun of you.”

He gasps. “No!”

They’re both laughing. He pretty much gets over his embarrassment, which is good because he was kind of right—Betty’s not really sure how to reassure him. Matt cried once or twice, but she and Matt were in a long-term relationship and Betty knew how to comfort him.

She does know how to comfort Daniel, though. She’s been doing it for years. It’s just about support and making him laugh.

“Do you want me to do a sexy librarian thing?” she asks.

“I don’t know what you mean by that, but my answer is yes,” he says. “Although—” He stops and shakes his head. “Never mind.”

“What?”

“I just don’t think you’d be the sexy porn kind of librarian,” he says. “You’d be the scary kind who shushes everyone.”

Betty blinks, unsure if she should be offended by that. “I guess that’s true.” She does shush people a lot.

“But that can be its own kind of sexy!” he scrambles to add. “Please still show me what you meant.”

She snorts, but she does. First she puts her hair up and grabs her glasses off the bedside table to put them back on. He’s nodding at her now. Then she pulls the hair tie out and shakes out her hair, pulling off her glasses with her other hand.

“Ow,” they both say at the same time. The hair tie just got tangled in her hair and the part of her hair that did come down whipped Daniel in the eye.

“You’re right,” she sighs. “I can’t be a sexy librarian.”

Daniel helps her carefully untangle the hair tie, one eye closed. “Well, you’re very sexy in other ways,” he says, trying to sound encouraging.

“Thanks a lot,” Betty says. But then he decides he needs to prove it to her. Twice. And honestly, she’s starting to believe him.

“I’m glad you could climb off Daniel to come with us,” Amanda says on the flight in the morning.

“Amanda,” Betty scolds.

“What? Not like I blame you,” Amanda says with a shrug. “I know his moves.”

“He really has moves?” Hilda asks incredulously. Betty doesn’t know why she’s so surprised. Every tabloid in the city’s been reporting that for years. It’s died down in the past year, since Molly, so maybe Hilda forgot.

“Oh, God, yeah,” Amanda says. “It’s like he puts you under a spell. A magic sex spell. You don’t even know what hit you until you’re walking home with your panties in your purse and your legs barely work.”

“Okay,” Betty groans. “Let’s not—ew.”

“Really?” Hilda asks. She sounds interested now.

“He goes all out,” Amanda confirms.

“Stop!” Betty cries.

“But he makes you walk home?” Hilda asks. She clicks her tongue. “He’s rich, why doesn’t he order you a cab?”

“I don’t know,” Amanda says. “Like I said, magic sex spell.”

“He didn’t make you walk home any of the times you guys slept together this time, right?” Betty asks. He never makes her find her own way home if she’s at his place and they’re not going into work in the morning. “Just before, when he was…less mature.”

As she’s saying it, Hilda supplies, “A jackass.”

“No, actually, this time we mostly did it at my place,” Amanda says. “So you’re right. He’s way nicer now. I guess getting married was good for him or something.”

“Uh, yeah,” Betty says.

Hilda snorts. “Or something,” she agrees.

“And now you’re getting married!” Betty cries at her.

“I’m getting married!” Hilda cheers.

“Woooo!” Amanda shrieks loud enough that other passengers jump and the flight attendant gives her a dirty look.

They make it to London without getting kicked off the plane, and then Betty finally gets to see Christina. “Christina, oh, my God!” she cries, holding her tightly.

“Oh, I missed you,” Christina says, laughing.

Betty doesn’t get to start partying right away, since she technically did come for work and she has to go to fashion shows. But that’s okay. As long as Hilda’s enjoying herself, Betty can handle it. And the fashion shows even go well. She doesn’t feel completely baffled like she usually does.

Meeting Lindsey Dunne with Christina makes her fangirl a little. And his offer to meet to talk about a columnist job puts her over the moon, even if she doesn’t really care about fashion.

“A column’s a column, right?” she asks.

“Yeah!” Hilda says. “I don’t really know the difference between a column and your articles but whatever, if you say it’s good, woohoo!”

“You’re already drunk?” Betty asks. She just got to the pub to meet up with everyone after the day’s shows.

“Mama, I started drinking the moment I woke up,” Hilda purrs. Betty makes a face. Hilda’s bringing out the kind of drunk voice that usually means she’s about to embarrass everyone. Mostly Betty.

Christina and Amanda are no help; they’re pretty much in the same boat. If Betty doesn’t get them all back on track, Amanda’s going to convince Hilda to make out with her.

“It’s up to Bobby,” Hilda keeps saying.

“Bobby’s not here,” Amanda keeps countering.

“Okay, you guys, no!” Betty says. She hates being the only sober one in the group. “A. Get me some drinks, and B. Let’s play some games!”

She should’ve known that would backfire on her. They’re playing truth or dare, she’s tipsy, and now she has to go flash someone.

“She’s not going to do it,” Amanda says.

“She can do it!” Christina says.

“I will,” Betty insists. She can do this. It’s embarrassing, but she can do it. Daniel sure always enjoys when she takes her shirt off, so some random stranger can’t be any worse.

She leaves Hilda, Amanda, and Christina screaming behind her and unzips the front of her dress a bit before tapping the guy on the shoulder. She flashes him as he turns around and then screams in his face, because he’s Gio.

“Whoa,” he says.

“Gio!” she shrieks, covering her chest.

He’s a good sport about it, which doesn’t make Betty less embarrassed, but whatever. She has no intention of going to the London Eye with him, but Hilda practically forces her.

“Maybe you’ll have a plus one to my wedding,” she says.

“I was going to ask Daniel,” Betty says.

“Oh, so casual he’s coming to my wedding?” Hilda says, raising her eyebrows. “Come on, if it’s casual you can go hang out with a cute guy who’s always been crazy about you.” Then she wiggles her raised eyebrows. “Maybe you can add another casual fling.”

Betty makes a face and shakes her head to clear that mental image. She cannot even begin to imagine sleeping with Gio.

Though she never imagined sleeping with Daniel, either, and here they are. “Whatever,” she says. She does go with Gio, more to shut Hilda up than anything else, and she immediately regrets it. He needles her about the columnist job and Mode and her blog.

“You’re comfortable,” he says. “You’re a Mobot.”

It makes her mad. What’s so bad about being comfortable? And what’s so terrible about Mode? Just because fashion isn’t her dream doesn’t mean Mode is a terrible place to be. She’s grown to love Mode. She fumes her way away from Gio and back to the pub, and the rest of the night is a blur of drinking and cheering and flashing a few more guys who are strangers. They’re as appreciative as she’d hoped.

They all stumble their way up to their rooms. Daniel got them all their own, which was a splurge that Betty wasn’t anticipating. She’s glad to not be sharing with Hilda, though. Drunk Hilda snores like a buzzsaw.

“Want to share a room, Betty?” Amanda tries.

“Goodnight, Amanda,” Betty says.

Amanda sighs. “Fine. Daniel’s paying for all this, right? I’m going to use the phone and call someone long-distance. Maybe I’ll call one of those dirty phone lines.”

Betty has to try her keycard three different times, but she finally gets her door open. She feels along the way to make her way to the bed. The ground keeps trying to move away from her. That’s so rude. She’s trying to walk on it. She gets to the bed and flops down.

Amanda’s words flit back into her head. That’s an interesting idea. She doesn’t want to call some random phone line—she doesn’t even know how you find out the number for a thing like that, and she’s certainly not going to google it—but she doesn’t need to. She calls Daniel.

“Hey,” he answers, sounding like he’s smiling. “How’s England?”

“I’m drunk,” she tells him.

Daniel laughs. “Oh, so England’s good.”

Betty sighs, getting comfortable on the pillows. “I flashed someone tonight.”

“Lucky man.”

“It was Gio.”

“Gio?” Daniel echoes. “Wait, Gio who was in love with you?”

“Gio’s engaged,” Betty says. “So I really shouldn’t have flashed him. But I still had my bra on, so it’s not as bad. But then I flashed some other guys who aren’t Gio. I still kept my bra on, though.”

“Okay, you’re definitely drunk,” Daniel laughs.

“Are you drunk?” Betty asks.

“No, but I am getting ready to go out with Tyler,” he says.

“Aw, yay!” Betty cries. “Are you going to be nice to him?”

“I’ll be so nice to him,” he promises.

“You can have a reward when I get back,” Betty promises, trying to make her voice sound sultry. She doesn’t know how to do a sultry voice. She should’ve practiced before she called.

“Oh, there are definite benefits to being nice to him.”

“Did you know phone sex is on my list?” she asks. She can’t remember if that’s relevant to what they’re talking about. It’s relevant to her.

Daniel sucks in a breath. “I see,” he says. “Okay. Give me a second.”

“I don’t really know how to have phone sex, though,” she says. “Have you done it?”

“Yeah,” he says. There’s some rustling on his end and then he puffs out a breath. “What are you wearing?”

Betty can’t remember what she’s wearing. She has to bend her head to check. “A dress.”

Daniel waits for a second, but she doesn’t say anything else. He snorts. “Um. Can you give me a little more?”

“I also have a bra on,” she offers. “Oh, and underwear. Oh, no, I don’t know what happened to my jacket. I’m not wearing a jacket.”

He’s laughing at her. She thinks she’s probably not being very sexy. “I can really tell you write for a fashion magazine,” he teases. “Do you want to take it off?”

“Which one?” she asks. She told him three things she’s wearing and he’s not even being specific.

“All of it,” he says.

“Oh, that makes sense,” she decides. “I have to take my dress off to take my bra and underwear off.”

“That’s a good order to do it in,” he agrees.

“Sometimes I take my bra off while I’m still wearing clothes,” she says. “But it’s hard in a dress.”

“Uh-huh,” he says. “But it’s really easy to get your panties off in a dress.”

“Oh, yeah,” she says. “I bet you like that kind of thing.”

“I really do,” he agrees. “Can you get off the bed for a second?”

It’s hard, but Betty does it. “I’m standing up,” she says, wondering where he’s going with this.

“Can you find a glass of water?”

“I have a bottle of water right here,” she says. She left it on the bedside table before she went out so it’d be ready when she came back. She’s so smart.

“Okay, go ahead and take a drink for me,” he says. “Maybe two drinks.”

She drinks half the bottle. She didn’t realize she was so thirsty. “Um, I took more than two,” she says. “Is that okay?” She had no idea phone sex was like this. But hydration’s important to sex, she figures.

He makes a little noise that she knows means he’s trying not to laugh. “Yeah, that’s okay. Hey, how’s taking that dress off going?”

Oh, she forgot she was doing that. She sighs and gets back on the bed. “I have to do the zipper.”

“Too bad I’m not there,” he says.

“Yeah, you could do it with your teeth,” she says. “It’s in the front.” That’s a good mental image. She likes that. That’s a good thing to think about for phone sex. They’ll have to try that when she gets back.

“Whoa,” he laughs. “Okay. Zero to sixty, huh?”

“This bed is so comfortable,” she says. She only has one eye open.

“Are you taking off your dress?” he asks.

“Yeah, totally,” she says. She forgot again, but she actually does get the zipper this time. She has to put the phone down to use both hands and then it takes some shimmying and huffing and puffing to get out of her dress. “I did it,” she says.

“Good job,” he praises. “Are you going to take off your bra now?”

“That’s easy,” she brags. “I do that every day.” He’s laughing at her. She throws her bra toward her suitcase. “Done.”

“Okay. Do you have pajamas?”

“Yep.” That’s another thing she left waiting for herself. She’s really so nice to herself. It makes her start to tear up a little. She’s so glad she was looking out for herself like that.

“You should put them on,” Daniel says. Betty doesn’t know what he’s talking about for a second. Oh, yeah. Pajamas.

“They’re really comfy pajamas,” she says. “I think you’ve seen them. The cloud ones.”

“Oh, yeah, they’re really soft.”

Betty’s dressed again when she remembers they were supposed to be having phone sex and instead he just got her to change into her pajamas. “Wait a second, you tricked me,” she says, betrayed.

“You are very drunk, Betty,” Daniel says with a laugh. “I think you probably just want to go to sleep.”

“I do want to go to sleep,” she agrees. “You don’t want to have phone sex?”

“I would love to. Some other time when you can actually carry a conversation and remember what we’re doing.”

“Okay, sounds good,” she says. “We’ll set that up later this week.”

“Yeah, I’ll call your assistant,” he says.

“Oh, no,” she says, dismayed. “Daniel, I don’t have one!”

Daniel’s cracking up laughing. “You’re very cute,” he tells her.

“Thanks,” she says. “So are you.”

“Thanks,” he echoes. “Goodnight, Betty.”

She yawns. “Goodnight,” she says. “I wish you were here.”

“I wish I was too,” he says. “Or you were here. It’s nice to have someone to share the bed with.”

“Mmhmm,” she says, eyes slipping closed. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” he says softly. “You want me to hang up?”

“No,” she says. She sighs. “Just stay here with me.”

“Okay,” he murmurs. She can hear him breathing on the phone. Maybe that should feel weird, but she likes it. She can’t stay awake for very long, and she falls asleep pretending his soft breaths are right behind her instead of an ocean away.

 

She’s so hungover she wants to die in the morning. She can’t remember anything after leaving Gio. And her phone is dead, for some reason. She has to get breakfast with Christina. Christina’s leaving and then Betty has that interview with Lindsey Dunne. Oh, God, she’s never done a job interview hungover.

“I don’t know how I’m going to go to this interview,” Betty says.

“You’ll be just fine,” Christina assures her. “Your work speaks for itself, doesn’t it?”

“I hope so,” Betty says. “I can’t even remember any of my work.”

Christina laughs at her. She doesn’t want to do a big goodbye, which is good because between Christina leaving and Betty’s hangover, she’s almost in tears. She pulls herself together as she heads to her meeting with Lindsey Dunne.

It goes well. It goes really well. He laughs when she tells jokes and likes what she has to say about the fashion shows she saw. He offers her the columnist job.

And all Betty can hear is what Gio said last night about getting comfortable and giving up her dreams. So she turns it down. She’s so confused about her own feelings. And she’s too hungover to really think about it.

All in all, she’s so glad to get home, although that means she has to make her way from the airport back to her apartment. And they had to be back early so Betty could submit all her articles about Fashion Week, so it was an overnight flight.

It’s cold as she makes her way home, so early the sun isn’t even up yet. Betty stops on the bridge and appreciates the glittering lights of the city. Then she remembers that she was supposed to call Daniel if she ever came out here again. The memory makes her smile. She loved that night.

It rings four or five times before Daniel picks up. “Huh?”

Betty laughs at him a little. “Hi,” she says. “I’m back. I’m at the Brooklyn Bridge.”

He kind of mumbles and she can picture him rubbing his face around on the pillow the way he does when he’s waking up. Then he says, “Oh. Wait, what? Oh, wait, okay. Yeah. I’ll be right there.”

He comes in a car, because of course he does, and he rubs a hand over his face when he gets out. “Hey,” he says. Then he immediately yawns.

“Sorry,” she says. “I guess I should’ve let you sleep.”

He shakes his head, coming to stand beside her. “No, I told you to call me if you were out here.”

Betty smiles up at him. “You remembered.” She wants to hug him. She doesn’t know if that’s really something you do with a friend with benefits. But they hugged before they added the benefits part. So she hugs him. He’s warm.

“Of course I remembered,” he murmurs into her hair. “That was a great night.”

“It was so fun,” Betty agrees, pulling back. She’s kind of reluctant to do it. It’s cold out here.

Daniel leans his forearms on the bridge. “How was the rest of your trip?”

Betty sighs and leans next to him. “Um, do you know who Lindsey Dunne is?”

Daniel huffs. “Do I know who my biggest European competitor is? Yeah.”

“He offered me a fashion columnist job,” she says.

“Huh,” Daniel says.

“I turned it down,” Betty says.

He turns to look at her. “Why?” he asks. “Columnist would be pretty great for you, career-wise. You get a little more leeway in the stories you choose. And your tone could be more like your blog.”

Betty nods. “All of that is true.”

“But,” Daniel prompts.

“But fashion is…”

“Not your dream,” he finishes knowingly.

“Not my dream,” she says. “I already write for one fashion magazine. I don’t need to chase after another.”

Daniel nods at her. “Well. I’m glad to keep you at Mode, even if it’s not your dream. I don’t know how I’d ever make it there without you.”

Betty huffs and bumps him with her hip. “You’re fine now.”

“I still need you,” he says softly. It makes her throat stick for a second and she swallows hard. It’s nice to be needed. And she knows Daniel’s always felt like he had so few people in his corner. She’s always been proud to be one.

“Well, you got me,” Betty says. She puts her hand over his on the bridge. “What are you going to do with me?”

“Oh, okay,” he says, smile starting across his face. “This is an early morning booty call.”

That makes her laugh. “I guess.”

“We could go do it in the car,” he murmurs, leaning closer.

“Uh, no,” Betty says, kind of scandalized. “There’s a driver!”

“So we put up the privacy thing,” he says, talking right in her ear. His breath on her ear makes her shiver. “You can sit in my lap. He won’t even know.”

“Oh, God,” Betty says, knees starting to feel a little weak. It doesn’t sound very safe, though. She knows it isn’t sexy, but she can’t help but think it.

“It gets kind of messy in the car, though,” Daniel admits. “And I know you’d be worried about the seat belt.” God, she’s so transparent. “We could get in the backseat and I could just finger you instead.”

Betty gasps and covers her mouth for a second. “I seriously don’t know how you can just say things like that.”

“Oh, it’s not half as dirty as what I’m thinking,” he promises, holding onto her waist now.

She turns her head and kisses him, unable to hold out any longer. “Maybe,” she whispers.

“Shit,” he breathes. “Okay, yeah.”

“But on the way,” she says.

“My place?” he asks between kisses. “We have time before work.”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s go,” Betty says. Daniel grabs her suitcase and they get in the car. He puts up the partition right away. Betty hesitates, because God, can she really do this? He just kisses her while they drive toward his place, not pushing anything, and Betty takes a deep breath.

She bites at his lip and he moans, so quietly, as she grabs his hand and guides it under her skirt. He braces his other hand on the seat by her hip and she rests her forehead on his shoulder while she feels his fingers slide over her.

He’s teasing her first, not slipping his fingers under her panties, and it doesn’t take long before she’s squirming and panting against his shoulder. “Daniel,” she says, teeth clenched. “Do it.”

“Do what?” he says.

“Daniel,” she repeats.

“You have to say it if you want me to do it,” he taunts.

“Oh, my God,” she breathes. “Touch me.”

“I am touching you,” he says. He runs his finger up the edge of her panties but doesn’t go under.

“Daniel,” she whines. “Finger me already.”

He breathes out harshly. “God,” he murmurs. “That was so hot.” But he doesn’t make her ask twice. She tries to keep her gasp quiet as he finally dips his hand under her panties and inside her. He moves almost torturously slow, kissing her as he does and ignoring the insistent way she rolls her hips to try to get him to move faster.

She has to close her eyes and focus on staying quiet. She’s gotten so used to making noise for him. Just as she’s almost there, the car stops. Betty squeezes Daniel’s shoulders while he pulls his fingers out. “We’re here,” he says.

“Oh, my God,” she says.

He has to adjust himself before he opens the door. Betty follows him up the steps on weak knees. As soon as they get inside, she pushes him against the door and kisses him. He starts to lead her up the stairs, kissing her the whole way, but she stops him, too impatient and eager to worry about embarrassment or awkwardness.

“Eat me out right here on the stairs.” That makes up for her being kind of lame about seat belts in the car, she thinks.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, eyes wide.

“Is that a no?”

“Are you crazy, of course it’s not a no!” he cries.

She pulls up her skirt and lies back on the stairs. He scrambles down to the stair beneath her and almost trips. “Oh, my God,” she says.

“It’s fine,” he says impatiently, dropping to his knees. He barely waits for her to get settled before he’s yanked her panties off and buried his face nose-deep. She rests her elbows on the stair and her heels on his shoulders and bucks her hips up into his mouth.

“You are seriously the best at this,” she pants, dropping her head back to rest on the stair behind her. “Oh, my God, no one is as good as you, I just want you.” He’s moaning, the praise getting to him like it always does, and it barely takes her two minutes to come after all the buildup in the car.

He sits up and unbuckles his belt with shaky hands. “Can I—”

“Against the wall,” she instructs. “You can hold me up.”

“Oh, my God,” he breathes. “You want me dead.”

“Not yet I don’t,” she says, grabbing his hands to pull herself up. She backs up against the wall and he puts his hands under her legs to lift her up. She bites at his neck and wraps her legs around his waist. “I missed you,” she says against his skin.

That’s just when he says, “Oh, shit,” and pulls out, setting her back on her feet hurriedly. And then—

Betty gasps and jumps, closing her eyes as she feels it hit her face. She did not have that on her list. “Oh, my God,” she says, so shocked she honestly doesn’t even know what to do.

“Sorry, oh, God, sorry,” he says. “Betty, I swear I didn’t mean to do that. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says gamely. She knows he didn’t do it on purpose, or she’d be a little miffed. She’s kind of miffed anyway, but she’s trying not to be. He’s freaking out right now.

“I had to pull out,” he says. “We didn’t have a condom.”

“Uh, yeah, I’m on birth control,” she tells him. Does he really think she wouldn’t have thought through all of that ahead of time? She's not having another scare like she had with Matt. On the other hand, she figures it’s good that he was thinking about it right now, because Betty sure as hell wasn’t. She was too wrapped up in the moment. They’ve never actually had a conversation about it, but this is the first time they haven’t used a condom. “Just. For future reference. And pulling out’s not even totally effective anyway, you know.”

“Oh,” he says weakly, breathing hard. She can tell he’s not really paying attention. Now is possibly not the best time for a safe sex lecture. “Okay. Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

“Daniel, it’s okay,” she promises. He pulls his shirt over his head and uses it to wipe off her face. He takes off her glasses and then cringes at the way it just kind of…smudges.

Betty starts to laugh. Now that she’s over the initial surprise, she’s not upset. She wouldn’t say she loved it and ever wants him to do it again, but she’s not mad.

“You think it’s funny?” he asks. “I thought you’d be so mad. I promise, if I was going to do that on purpose, I’d ask first. And warn you.” Betty snorts. What a gentleman.

“I know,” she says. She doesn’t really know; she’s literally never given that a second of thought. But he’s been letting her set all the boundaries here. “Honestly, you bring out the dirtiest side of me,” she says. It’s actually shocking to her how filthy she gets with him.

“Thank God for that.” He kisses her against the wall, not quite as insistent anymore. “I think I just had a heart attack.”

“Oh, my God, it would be so fitting if you died during sex,” she points out.

“It’s always been my plan,” he admits.

“But seriously, I’m, like, almost scared of how dirty I get with you,” she says. “I couldn’t even ask Henry or Matt to change positions. Forget about Walter.”

“What can I say? It’s a gift,” he says. “You don’t have to worry about whether I’ll still respect you.”

“Because you don’t respect me either way?” she teases.

He gasps, offended. “Of course I do! It’s because I’ve done way dirtier so I can’t judge.”

“Dirtier than doing it on someone’s face?” Betty asks incredulously. “What could be dirtier than that?”

He laughs a little. “Oh, Betty,” he says fondly, twirling a strand of her hair between his fingers. “Trust me when I say you don’t want to know.”

He’s probably right. Now that she’s coming down, she’s actually kind of embarrassed by it all. The stairs? This seems like a fall waiting to happen. He almost did fall. And then what, they have to go to the ER and explain that one or both of them fell down the stairs having sex? She’d rather just die.

She shimmies her skirt back down, but he threw her panties all the way down the stairs in his haste. She probably wouldn’t want to put them back on anyway. He looks over his shoulder at them and says, “We’ll get them later.” He’s still holding her glasses, so she can’t completely see the look on his face, but she knows he likes the idea of leaving her panties down there.

“I’m running out of underwear, you know,” Betty says. There must be panties in every corner of his house. And on a few lamps. And on the dining room table one time.

“Mm, I’ll buy you new ones,” he says, kissing her. “Pretty sure my housekeeper just throws them away when she finds them.”

“Oh, my God, Frieda saw my panties?” Betty asks, dismayed. “I can never talk to her again.” He’s had the same housekeeper the entire time Betty’s known him. He practically gives her hazard pay at this point.

“She doesn’t know they’re yours,” Daniel points out. “Does this mean you’re going to go to work with no panties?”

“That does not sound sanitary,” Betty says, nose wrinkled. “And then I could never go up any stairs.”

“You’re so practical,” he sighs.

Betty’s eye is starting to burn. “I think it got in my eye,” Betty says, clapping a hand over the eye in question. “Oh, my God, am I going to go blind?”

He moves her hand off her eye and tilts her face to look. “You’re not going to go blind,” he says. “We’ll go rinse it out and you’ll be fine. Might be red for a little while though. Jesus, Betty, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. But I really don’t want to have to wear an eye patch again,” she frets.

“But then we could do a sexy pirate kind of thing,” he says, raising his eyebrows.

“Oh, like my pitch for the fearless shoot that you let Bennett—”

Daniel gasps, offended. “You’re not mad at me for getting it on your face but you’re going to hold that against me?”

“No,” she relents. It’s not very nice to hold the time he got taken advantage of by a cult against him.

“But speaking of holding things against me,” he says, making her laugh, “Do you want to go again or take a shower?”

“How about both?” she asks. “We can do it in the shower.” She’s almost positive he made sure to get a big shower specifically for that reason.

“Have I ever told you that you’re the smartest person I know?” he asks. Then he picks her up and carries her into the bathroom. She could honestly get used to this.

They take a car into work, and they’re not even late. Betty’s eye is only the barest hint of red, so she could chalk it up to the long flight or getting shampoo in it or something. There’s no way in hell she’s telling anyone what really happened.

“I’m going to have to update my blog,” she says. “About my trip, I mean. Not…”

Daniel snorts. “Yeah, you’ll have to tell everyone you flashed Gio.”

“God, it was awkward,” she says. Then she stops and looks at him. “Wait, how’d you know that?”

“You called and told me,” he says. “You don’t remember?”

“I don’t remember,” she confirms, shaking her head. “God.” She taps her thumb against his hand. She didn’t really notice they were holding hands. She doesn’t know if she did that or he did.

“So I guess you don’t remember trying to have phone sex?” he asks.

Betty feels her eyes widen. “What?”

He laughs at her. “Oh, man, you were really drunk.”

“We had phone sex?” she asks.

“No, we didn’t,” he laughs. “You were really having trouble keeping up your end of the conversation.”

“God, sorry,” she says. “We all got so drunk.”

“It’s okay,” he promises. “You were so excited to get in your pajamas.”

“Oh, that’s like the opposite of phone sex,” she points out. Some of it’s starting to filter back into her brain. “Wait, you tricked me into putting on my pajamas,” she remembers.

“You didn’t exactly make it hard,” he says.

“Did you make me get up and get a glass of water, too?”

“Yeah, you needed it.”

“Aw,” she says. “That’s so sweet.” Then she cringes. “Oh, God, and I tried to dirty talk you in that awful British accent.”

He blinks. “Um, no, you didn’t.”

“Oh, no,” she says, grabbing his arm with the hand not holding his. “Oh, God, who was I talking to, then?”

He’s laughing so hard he can’t even talk. “I hope we find out someday,” he says. When they pull up to the Meade building, they both lean in for a kiss before they get out. “Do you have pitches ready for the attitude thing?” he asks while he gives her his hand to help her out of the car. “We’ve got that meeting this afternoon.”

“Oh, I’m so ready,” she promises. That makes him laugh. He gives her hand a little squeeze before he lets go and they walk inside.

They’re barely inside Mode when they run into Wilhelmina. She looks Betty up and down and kind of sighs at Betty’s outfit. But before Betty can do more than look down at herself, Wilhelmina says, “Betty, I actually liked that sample you sent over of your critique of the Fulton show. Are you going to have that ready to submit today?”

“Yeah,” Betty says, surprised. “Um, yeah, I just need to do some final touches and it’ll be ready to go.”

“I’m as surprised as you are,” Wilhelmina says. She starts to turn away and then pauses, narrowing her eyes at Daniel. “Is that a hickey?” she asks disdainfully.

“No,” Daniel says quickly. Betty tries to keep her face normal. She did not mean to leave a hickey anywhere people would be able to see.

Wilhelmina raises her eyebrows. “What is it, then?”

“It’s…a burn. From…a curling iron,” Daniel says lamely. Betty tries not to make a noise, but come on. That wasn’t even a good lie when Hilda tried it in high school, let alone for Daniel to try.

Wilhelmina looks at him like he’s crazy and then rolls her eyes. “Whatever or whoever you’re doing, just keep it away from me,” she says as she walks off.

Daniel blows out a breath. “Do you think she bought that?”

Betty cracks up laughing. “Of course she didn’t!” She turns his head so she can see the hickey and cringes. “Sorry. I didn’t realize I did that.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, well, not as bad as what I accidentally did this morning.”

That makes her laugh again. “We can call it even,” she decides.

“Wow, those do not seem equal, but thank you,” he says. Then he sighs. “I actually do have to go tell Wilhelmina something. In private.”

Betty raises her eyebrows. “What?”

He sighs again and lowers his voice. “So, remember how she said Connor got himself transferred somewhere so she could move on? The FBI agent called me yesterday to talk about money stuff and…Connor never left. He’s been in Jersey this whole time.”

Betty gasps. “Oh, my God.”

“Yeah.”

“But maybe that means they can get back together!” Betty says excitedly.

Daniel looks skeptical. “He lied to her.”

“But he thought he was doing it for her,” Betty points out. “It’s not great, but at least he wasn’t lying for a bad reason.”

Daniel shrugs. “I guess.”

“Would you be mad if they got back together?” Betty checks. He and Connor aren’t exactly friends anymore.

He thinks that over, then shrugs again. “No.”

“Really?” Betty asks, surprised.

“Wilhelmina and I kind of…have an understanding,” he says. “And love, well. It’s hard to find. And sometimes you don’t get to have it as long as you want. So if she can have that, even if it’s with Connor…” He tips his head. “I guess the devil and the she-devil go well together anyway.”

“That’s very sweet,” Betty says, unable to look at him for a second after his little speech about love. She doesn’t know why that made her feel tongue-tied. “Well, except the devil stuff.”

He laughs, but they’re interrupted by Amanda climbing on top of the reception desk and yelling, “I’m out of here, bitches! I’m starting my stylist business and I am out!”

“What?” Daniel asks.

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Amanda says, looking at him. “But I quit.”

“Wha…okay,” Daniel says. “I guess I don’t have an assistant.”

“Ooh, I’ll do it!” Betty offers, clapping her hands together. “I mean, for today, at least.”

“You want to?” he asks.

“Yeah, and then you’ll owe me a favor that I’ll cash in to get you to come to Hilda’s wedding with me,” she explains.

He laughs at her. “Oh, okay. But just so you know, I’d go without you bribing me.”

“Unless you used sexual bribes,” Amanda cuts in. Betty kind of forgot she was still there. She gives Amanda a dirty look, but she doesn’t protest. Amanda’s not wrong.

“I don’t need that either,” Daniel says haughtily. Then he looks at Betty. “I mean, unless—”

“Too late,” she chirps.

“Damnit,” he mutters.

“But I’ll still help out at your desk,” she says. “Now go talk to Wilhelmina.”

She has to get stuff out of her desk first, so she heads into her office. Marc’s already there, and he looks up when she comes in. “Oh, you,” he says. “I forgot why it was so quiet around here.”

“I missed you, too,” she tells him, making his face pinch up. She laughs at him. “Well, you’ll still get the office to yourself today. I’m taking over Amanda’s desk since she quit.”

Marc snorts. “Oh, great, now you and Daniel and can play some kinky secretary game.”

Betty makes a face. “We will not. He really shouldn’t have been taking advantage of his assistants like that.”

“Oh, my God, you even make kinky sex lame,” Marc says.

“Are you just mad that Daniel never had kinky sex with you as his assistant?” she asks. That makes Marc sputter. Daniel himself comes in just then.

“Hey, uh, Wilhelmina just found out where Connor is,” he tells Marc.

Marc springs up out of his chair. “Oh, God, I don’t know if I need to dust off my ordination or my shovel.”

He runs out just as they hear Wilhelmina yell, “Marc!”

“I guess I should’ve given him a head’s up before I told her,” Daniel says. He helps Betty carry her stuff over to her old desk. “Are you sure about this?” he asks. “I can get a temp.”

“It’s kind of fun to be back at my old desk,” she says, patting the desk.

She didn’t always realize it at the time—especially when he was calling in the middle of the night with ridiculous requests—but Betty loved her time as his assistant. She loves being an editor, of course, but there was a simplicity to being an assistant, even with all the kidnappings, plotting, and stealing that went on.

He’s in and out of meetings all day. Betty mostly finishes up her Fashion Week pieces, though she’s not sure Wilhelmina cares anymore. Daniel smiles at her while he walks back to his office after an ad meeting.

“I missed being able to see you right outside my door,” he says. “So what time is Hilda’s wedding on Saturday?”

“Two,” she tells him. Betty opens the desk drawer and freezes. “Why does Amanda have a picture of me sleeping in here?” She shows Daniel and he laughs. “That’s not weird, right? We were roommates for a year.”

“You don’t have braces,” Daniel points out.

“Oh, God,” Betty says, just as Amanda walks up and snatches the picture from her.

All in all, it’s a weird day, made weirder when she checks her messages and hears, “Hey, Betty.”

“Henry?” she says out loud.

“I’m just calling to let you know I’m coming to New York. I didn’t give you a head’s up last time, and that wasn’t cool. So…I’ll be in New York! Not sure what you’re up to, but if you want, I’d love to see you. I’ll give you a call when I land! Bye.”

“Wow,” Betty breathes. “God.”

“What?” Daniel asks, walking by again. Betty yelps.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” she scolds.

“There’s…no other way to get to my office,” he says defensively.

“I just—Henry left me a message. He’s coming to New York today.”

“Henry?” Daniel echoes. “Like…Henry?”

“Henry,” she confirms.

“Wow,” he says. He shifts his weight to his other foot and nods a bunch of times in a row. “Okay. Wow. Okay. Wow.”

“Are you having a stroke?” she asks. “Oh, my God, did you hit your head this morning?” He didn’t actually fall down the stairs, but Betty can’t be sure he didn’t hit his head. It was all kind of a lust-filled blur.

“No, I’m fine,” he says. “I’m just surprised. About your news. And Henry.”

“Tell me about it,” she says.

“So are you going to see him?” Daniel asks, leaning against the wall. He looks like he’s trying to be casual, but he’s not doing a very good job.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I guess I will. But I don’t think…”

“You don’t think?” he asks.

“I’m not sure what he’s doing in New York,” Betty says. “And this is a busy weekend. So. Yeah. I might just meet him for lunch or something.”

“Yeah, you’ll be busy this weekend,” Daniel agrees.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Betty checks. “You’re acting weird.”

“No, I’m so normal,” he says. He huffs. “You’re acting weird.”

“Okay,” Betty says. “Are you going in your office to take a nap? Because it sounds like you need one.”

“No, you—” He stops himself. Then he makes a face and walks into his office. Betty shakes her head. Sometimes she thinks she’ll never understand him.

Running—literally—into Lindsey Dunne stops Betty in her tracks. And then he offers her a job. The job. The job of her dreams.

“I want you to help me run it,” he says. “In London.”

He tells Betty not to give him an answer until Sunday. But it’s ridiculous. The whole situation is ridiculous. His offer is ridiculous. She can’t take that job. Sure, it’s her absolute dream job and there’s a good chance she’ll never get an opportunity like that again. But…

Well, it’s London.

She tells Hilda she’s not taking the job when she sees her, but she makes the mistake of telling Hilda that Henry’s coming into town.

“Henry?” she shriek-gasps. “Oh, my God. Did you tell Daniel?”

“Yeah, he got super weird,” Betty says.

“Yeah, stupid, because he’s jealous,” Hilda says.

“He is not jealous,” Betty says, rolling her eyes. “He and Amanda were casual and she started dating someone else and he’s fine. And she’s dating his brother.”

“So you’re going to start dating Henry?” Hilda asks.

“I didn’t say that!” Betty insists. “Stop.”

“I’m just saying,” Hilda says. “Henry’s in town, you got a new job offer, you’re having quite a day.” She leans closer and points at Betty. “I am getting married in three days. I swear to God, if you upstage me I will stab you in the heart!”

“Hilda!” Betty cries. All this wedding hoopla does not seem worth it from her side of things.

Henry calls her around four. Betty gets butterflies when she sees his name on her phone display. She bites her lip for a second before she answers. “Hi,” she says.

“Hi, Betty,” he says. “I’m in New York.”

“Yeah, I got your message,” she says. “Um…you’re here already?”

“I am, yeah,” he says.

“Do you want to…do you want to maybe grab dinner?” she offers.

“That sounds great,” he says, and the butterflies intensify. “I have Nate, though,” he adds. “Is that okay?”

“Oh,” Betty says, taken aback. “Yeah, sure, of course.”

They make plans to have dinner tomorrow night, and Betty’s got butterflies about it. Her day finally calms down and she can focus on work. She goes home with Daniel because she left her suitcase at his place, and she broaches the Henry subject when she’s getting ready to leave.

“So,” she says. “Um. I’m going to—I just wanted to tell you. I’m having dinner with Henry tomorrow.”

He nods. “Okay.”

“And his son,” she adds. “Nate’s going to be there.”

“Sounds fun.”

“I don’t know if that…if that bothers you.” She says it questioningly.

He shrugs. “We’re casual,” he reminds her. “You can have dinner with whoever you want.”

“Oh, yeah,” she says. Now she feels kind of stupid. Hilda didn’t know what she was talking about. Daniel doesn’t even care. “Right. Okay. Well. Good.”

“Yeah, great,” he says. His voice is kind of funny. He’s probably weirded out that she thought she had to run it by him.

“Then I guess…I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says.

“Bye,” he says.

Betty waits for a second, she’s not entirely sure what for, but he doesn’t say anything else or look up. So she says, “Bye” and heads out to the cab he called for her. He doesn’t walk her out or give her a kiss goodbye.

She’s not sure why she feels sort of let down right now. Maybe she expected Daniel to give her advice about Henry. Wouldn’t he normally do that? But there’s not much advice to give; she doesn’t even know what’s going on with Henry.

She shakes all these thoughts out of her head. Daniel seems normal at work the next day, and he tells her good luck when she’s leaving for dinner. Betty didn’t have time to go home and change, but that doesn’t matter. Does it? She has no idea.

She gets to the restaurant and her heart does a little stutter when she sees Henry. “Hi,” she says.

“Betty,” he says, a big smile on his face. “Hi.” He gives her a hug and she bumps into his shoulder. He’s a little bit taller than Daniel, and she’s gotten used to Daniel’s height.

“Uh, sorry,” she says awkwardly. Then she looks at Nate and waves. “Hi!”

He waves back with the spoon he’s holding. “Hello,” he says, really solemnly.

If Betty thought she and Henry were going to have an intimate reunion dinner, she was wrong. Nate spends most of dinner banging that spoon against the table, no matter how many times Henry asks him to stop. He takes a bite out of every piece of bread in the basket and then spills Betty’s water.

“Sorry,” Henry keeps saying.

“No problem,” Betty says. She likes kids, honestly, but she kind of forgets every time she’s not around them how loud they are.

When Nate’s finally focused on his mac and cheese, Henry says, “So, I’m actually here because I have a job offer with an accounting firm. They basically told me the job’s mine.”

Betty doesn’t really know how to react to that. She knows she should be excited. She should be…making plans? Even six months ago, she probably would’ve been. But now it just feels strange.

“Wow,” she says, unsure of what else to say.

Henry’s grinning, apparently not even picking up that she’s unsure, and Betty’s heart starts to sink. All of this is wrong. She doesn’t want this.

“You’re not hungry?” Henry asks, nodding at the way Betty’s just been picking at her food.

“I actually don’t like salmon,” she says. Henry had ordered before she got there.

“Oh,” he says. “I thought you did.” She never did, but she’d never told him she didn’t because she never wanted to hurt his feelings. “You’re kind of different, Betty,” he says. “You’re really…” He searches for a word. “Assertive.”

Betty doesn’t know how to respond to that. “I guess so,” she says. “I’m, um, I’m more confident now.”

“Yeah, you are,” he agrees, but the way he says it doesn’t sound like he likes it.

The rest of dinner is awkward, and Betty rushes home. Part of her kind of wants to cry. In the back of her mind, she always thought Henry was her big love, the biggest love of her life. There was some part of her that always assumed they’d find each other again someday, that the stars would align and they’d finally work out.

But the stars are aligning. And she doesn’t want it.

Betty sighs and changes into comfortable clothes. Then she grabs her phone and texts Daniel. Want to come over?

He answers almost right away. 20 minutes.

She laughs a little at how eager he is and grabs some wine glasses. She opens the door when he knocks and gives him a kiss hello. “That was fast,” she says.

“I told you twenty minutes,” he reminds her. He closes the door behind him and raises his eyebrows at the wine on the coffee table. “Wow, a bottle instead of a box?”

“It was in one of my gift bags from Fashion Week,” Betty reveals. “I had to hide it from Hilda.”

He laughs and sits down. “Did you know I didn’t even know wine came in a box until I met you?”

“Yes,” Betty says, rolling her eyes. “You tell me that all the time. And you didn’t know wine could cost $4. You’re a snob.” She thinks she should tell him about Mr. Dunne’s offer from yesterday. She forgot to tell him in all the Henry whirlwind.

He shrugs, completely unapologetic at being a snob. “Was this for you and Henry?”

“No,” Betty says, a little surprised at the question. “It’s for you.”

“Oh, you’re sharing your fancy wine with me,” he laughs. “I’m honored.” He takes a sip and then says, “So…how was that. Seeing Henry?”

“It was…weird,” Betty says, sitting down next to him and settling in close to his side.

“Bad weird or good weird?” He’s looking down into his wine.

“I don’t know,” Betty admits. “I guess closer to bad weird? Just…he’s here because he’s taking a job here. And I kind of got the feeling he thought we’d pick up where we left off. I think… I think every time he comes back, that’s what he thinks. That I’ll just be waiting for him.” She looks at Daniel. “But I’m not. I can’t. I’m not the same person I was then.”

“You have to move on with your life,” he agrees softly, raising his arm so she can snuggle under it. “You don’t want to go backward.”

She sighs and rests her head on his shoulder. “I feel like I was so naïve when I was with him. And so…I don’t know, sweet.”

“You’re still sweet,” he tells her with a smile.

Betty shrugs. “I don’t know. He even said I seem different. He called me assertive.” She rolls her eyes.

“What’s wrong with that?” Daniel asks. “You are assertive. You’re way more confident than you used to be and you speak up for yourself now.”

“It’s just a nice way of calling me the B word,” Betty explains.

Daniel’s jaw drops. “He was calling you a bitch?”

“No!” Betty says. “Bossy.”

Daniel snorts. “Since when is bossy the B word? And why is it bad to call you bossy? You are bossy.”

“Well, people don’t like bossy,” Betty says.

Daniel raises his eyebrows and leans in close to kiss her neck. “I’m not complaining.”

“You do complain,” she points out, moving her hair out of the way for him. “All the time.”

“Not like this, though,” he says.

“Yeah, you like being told what to do,” she says. She pushes him back against the couch and climbs into his lap. He makes a pleased sound and goes back to kissing her neck and her jaw and the hollow under her ear. “And honestly, Henry would be terrified by what I like now.”

Daniel huffs. “You’re not even going to let him have a chance?”

Betty shakes her head. “He never really liked trying new things. So I didn’t try new things with him very much, either. But now I’m…” She shrugs.

“Now you’re fearless Betty,” Daniel says, smiling and pulling her shirt over her head. “No bangs, no braces, no strings. You could be in an episode of Sex and the City.”

That makes her laugh. “So you’re Mr. Big?”

He’s kissing her chest now. “I’ve never actually seen that show. So I’m choosing to think that’s a compliment since you said big.”

Betty shakes her head and pulls at his shirt until he backs up enough for her to pull it over his head. “Honestly, that’s none of my business. It goes where it goes and then you put it away and that’s that.”

They’re both cracking up now. He knows she doesn’t want to have sex on her couch—“It’s brand new,” she’d said defensively the first time he tried—so they go into her bedroom. She definitely gets bossy. And he definitely likes it.

They’re lying in her bed and Daniel’s telling Betty about his night out with Tyler when her phone rings. “Oh, it’s my dad,” she says. “Hi, Papi,” she answers.

“Hi, mija,” he says. “I’m over here dealing with the caterers and I feel like I haven’t seen you in a few days. Are you home?”

Betty gives Daniel a frantic look. “Yeah,” she says, hoping her voice sounds breezy. “I—yeah. So where—how long do you think until you get here?”

“Oh, my God,” Daniel mouths, jumping off her bed.

“I don’t know, I’m still at the caterer’s,” he says. “Probably not more than half an hour.”

“Okay!” she says shrilly. “See you soon! Great! Love you!” She hangs up before he can say anything else. “We have to get dressed.”

“Oh, my God, what do I do?” Daniel asks, panicked. “Should I hide in the closet? I’ll hide in the closet.”

That kind of calms Betty down, actually, because it’s so silly. “Why would you hide in the closet?”

“Your dad can’t know we’re sleeping together!” Daniel cries.

“He won’t,” Betty says. “He’s not even going to think it’s weird that you’re here. We’re friends.”

“Oh, yeah,” Daniel says, like he forgot that part. That makes Betty laugh at him. “Okay, but, oh, God, Betty, it’s kind of obvious.”

That’s not a bad point. Betty knows her hair must be a wreck. Their clothes are scattered around the living room and they have to go around picking them up and putting them back on. And it smells like sex. It’s not a big apartment.

“Okay, we have to open the window,” she says. They do, and then they try waving their hands to waft the smell out. It’s not working very well.

“Don’t you have any candles or something?” Daniel asks, panicked.

“Not after your girlfriend almost burned me alive!” she shrieks.

“Oh, God, like it’s my fault,” he complains. Then he stops. “Sorry. I still feel bad about that.”

“I know,” she says. “You can apologize again later. I’m going to pop some popcorn.”

“Betty, you are so smart,” he says fervently. “Wow. I’ll turn on the TV.”

Things look—and smell—fine pretty soon. “Should I leave the wine out?” Betty wonders. “Do friends drink wine?” She’s suddenly forgetting all normal friend interactions right now.

“I think it’s fine,” Daniel says, which is good because that’s when Ignacio knocks on the door. They take a second to smooth each other’s hair down and then Daniel sits on the couch and tries to look normal. It makes him look like some kind of wax figure. Betty opens the door for her dad.

“Hi, Papi,” she says. He gives her a hug and Betty leads him to the couch. He sits down beside Daniel and leaves Betty the other side of the couch. He pats Daniel’s knee.

“Oh, hi, Daniel,” he says. “Good to see you. You’re coming to the wedding on Saturday?”

“Hey, Mr. Suarez,” Daniel says, doing his oh-so-casual voice that always sounds weird. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Great,” Ignacio says. He blinks at the TV. Betty and Daniel both look to see what’s even on—Daniel just picked a channel at random. It’s some kind of nature documentary. And nature is…happening.

“Oh, God,” Betty says.

“The male is mounting the female for mating,” the narrator’s saying.

“We can see that,” Daniel mutters as the camera shows two lions.

“This is what you’re watching?” Ignacio asks.

“Um, my friend Becks actually shot some of this,” Daniel says. Betty looks at him, wondering if that’s true. He nods. Betty looks back at the screen. God, she can only imagine what Becks had to say about filming the lions mating.

“Why is your window open?” Ignacio asks. “You’re going to catch a cold, Betty!”

“Oh, I—I burned some popcorn,” she says.

“I’ll close it,” Daniel says, popping up to do it.

“So, Dad, what’s up with the caterers?” Betty asks, because she knows that’ll keep her dad distracted so he won’t look at them too hard.

Ignacio harumphs. “They asked me if they could use bell peppers for the chile rellenos. Bell peppers!”

That sets him off. Daniel comes back to the couch and keeps nodding like he’s listening, but Betty knows he has no idea what Ignacio’s talking about. It makes her almost laugh. And then she sees something pink just behind Daniel’s arm.

Betty’s heart stops. Her panties are on the back of the couch. Daniel’s habit of throwing them with abandon has always seemed so sexy until this very moment. She widens her eyes at him and tries to tip her head subtly.

He gives her a questioning look, shrugging. Ignacio’s still talking about Hilda’s caterer situation, blithely unaware of the horrific glimpse into his daughter’s sex life he’s in danger of receiving. Betty tips her head a little more. Daniel turns his head to see what she’s looking at and she sees his whole body freeze.

Daniel ever so casually puts his arm on the couch and grabs them, balling them up and hiding them in his hand. Then he stuffs them into his jacket pocket that’s laying over the arm of the couch. Ignacio looks at him and Daniel just smiles at him. It’s a terrible smile that in no way looks natural, but whatever.

“Mozzarella,” Daniel says. “That’s the wrong cheese?”

“Mozzarella!” Ignacio says. “You can use mozzarella if you have to, but with how much we’re paying, you can’t get the Oaxaca cheese? I should’ve just made it myself and not bothered.”

“Dad, you don’t want to be stressed worrying about the food during the wedding,” Betty reminds him.

“Now I’m stressed anyway,” he says.

“When’s Elena getting in?” she asks.

He immediately calms down a little. It’s actually pretty adorable. “Tomorrow night,” he says. He even sighs. “It will be so nice to see her.”

Then he talks about Elena for a little while. Finally, he checks his watch and says, “I should go. Justin keeps trying to bedazzle Hilda’s veil if I don’t hide it from him.”

Betty laughs out loud. “Oh, God. You can bring some stuff here,” she reminds him. “I’ll make room.”

“Thank you, mija,” he says, kissing the top of her head. He claps a hand on Daniel’s shoulder and leaves.

Betty waits for a minute, making sure he doesn’t come back, before she turns to Daniel. “Oh, my God.”

“Oh, my God,” he agrees.

“That was—”

“So close,” he finishes. He drops his head to thunk against her shoulder. “If he’d seen that, I think I would’ve just jumped out the window.”

Betty laughs. “I think I would’ve gone first.” On the TV, the lions have moved on from mating to killing a zebra. Betty gasps. “Aw, poor zebra. Becks really shot this?”

“Some of it, yeah,” Daniel says. “I remember him talking about the lions.”

“I don’t want to hear what he said,” she says, holding up a hand.

“No, you don’t,” he agrees.

They leave the nature documentary on, because Betty actually gets kind of invested in the little cubs, and they both fall asleep on the couch. She wakes up at one point with her glasses digging into her face. She’s wedged between Daniel and the back of the couch, half on top of him and drooling on his shoulder. Oops.

“Hey,” she says, rubbing his chest and giving him a kiss. “Let’s go to bed.”

“What happened to the cubs?” he asks through a yawn.

“No idea,” she admits sleepily while they get in bed. “We’ll have to ask Becks.”

“Hmm,” Daniel agrees, pulling her in close to his chest. Betty rests her hand on top of his on her waist and falls right back to sleep, vaguely feeling like there was something she meant to tell him.

 

Betty doesn’t see Henry again. He must’ve felt that door closing just like he did. She spends the rest of the week on the final touches for Hilda’s wedding. She barely even sees Daniel, too busy with last minute seating chart adjustments and keeping Hilda and Ignacio from telling Justin they know about Austin.

She’s in the car with Hilda on the way to Hilda’s wedding. It’s crazy to think about. It makes Betty tear up, thinking about the wedding dress Hilda never got to wear with Santos. She grabs Hilda’s hand.

“Hilda,” she chokes out.

“Don’t!” Hilda insists. “Do not make me cry.”

“Mom, you’re gonna be crying all day anyway,” Justin points out.

“But not until we get there and get started,” Hilda says.

“Okay,” Betty relents. “I’ll wait to tell you how happy I am for you.”

“Betty, I swear to God,” Hilda warns.

Betty laughs a little. “Okay!” she says. “I’ll stop.”

“We’ll all just sit here in silence and not look at each other,” Justin says, rolling his eyes.

When they get to the hall, Betty helps Hilda get out of the car without messing up her dress. Justin goes in ahead to find Bobby. Ignacio and Elena walk in with Hilda, and then Betty sees Daniel. She smiles as soon as she sees him.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi,” he says. He shakes his head a little, looking her up and down. “You look great.”

“Thanks,” she says. “You like the green?”

“I love the green,” he murmurs. She puts her arm through his while they walk inside. She knows she really needs to tell him about the job offer today. But she’s not going to take it, so it doesn’t really matter. Except she always talks to him about this kind of stuff. He’s always been supportive of her career, even when it looked like she was going to leave Mode.

This is a different continent, though, and he hates when people leave. Betty puts it out of her mind for now. This isn’t really the time or place for that conversation.

The wedding is beautiful. Betty knows she’s biased, but still. Hilda’s so radiant, smiling at Bobby, and it makes Betty’s chest ache. She wonders if she’s ever going to get that kind of love. It obviously wasn’t Henry. It wasn’t Matt. She knows she’s still young, but it feels like every year it gets more out of reach.

She brushes at a tear that’s slipping down her cheek. She should not be pitying herself at Hilda’s wedding. This is happy. She’s happy. She can feel sorry for herself later.

“Are you okay?” Daniel asks, squeezing her arm.

“Just emotional,” she says.

“You sure?” he asks. “That doesn’t look like your happy cry.”

Betty sniffles and laughs a little. “I didn’t realize my different kinds of crying look different.”

“They do,” he says.

“And you know the difference,” she says.

“I know the difference,” he says confidently. She doesn’t know why that’s making her want to cry some more. But she doesn’t want to cry more. And apparently he’ll know if her crying isn’t happy. So instead she just takes a big breath and lets it out slowly. Then she smiles at him when he asks her to dance.

They dance closer than they probably should, but it’s hard not to. She’s used to fitting herself into his arms now, used to being close to him and resting her head on his chest. She doubts anyone will notice, anyway. It’s a wedding; surely most people will be focused on Hilda and Bobby.

And then Justin, when he and Austin take to the dance floor. That makes her cry a little, but Daniel doesn’t say anything about her cry not being happy. He couldn’t, because she’s definitely happy crying this time.

Betty feels like she hasn’t been around for her family as much lately, busy being an editor and running around different fashion weeks and spending time with Daniel. But they’re okay without her, obviously. They’re all so happy.

“Sometimes I feel like I have to take care of everyone,” she murmurs, face pressed close to Daniel’s shoulder. “But look at them.”

He looks around at her family, smiling, and then he squeezes her a little tighter. “It’s a great feeling, isn’t it?” he asks softly. “Everything is right in the world.”

It is. And yet…Betty can’t stop thinking about the job. She kept telling herself it was crazy to even think about it, because she can’t possibly move to London. But her family is okay. They’re making their own lives, now.

Betty wants that job. God, she wants it so bad it almost hurts. She’s waited so long for an opportunity like this. It feels like it’s making up for Jody taking her job at the New York Review. The only problem is the geography.

But is she really going to let geography get in her way? She thinks of what Daniel said—fearless Betty, no bangs, no braces, no strings.

No strings.

There really is no reason she shouldn’t take the job. Her heart’s pounding, but her mind’s made up. She excuses herself for a second and calls Mr. Dunne. She gets his voicemail, but that’s even better. She tells him she wants the job, and she feels something click into place in her chest. This is what she wants.

She goes back inside and smiles when she sees Daniel dancing with Hilda. Bobby notices her coming and walks over. “Hey, sorry, Hilda stole your dance partner,” he says. “Want to dance with me instead?”

“Of course,” Betty says. Hilda grins at them and waves and Betty waves back. “I’m so glad you’re my brother-in-law, Bobby.”

“Aw, Chipmunk, jeez,” Bobby says. He’s all choked up. “Don’t make me cry in front of all my cousins, huh?”

Betty laughs. “Okay,” she says. “Because I’m nice.”

“You are nice,” he tells her. “Hey, listen to me, alright? You’re a great girl. You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re nice, you’re pretty. Look at you in this dress, right? Knockout. I don’t want you ever thinking you gotta settle or sell yourself short, hear me?”

Betty ducks her head. “I hear you,” she says.

“Okay, good,” he says. “So you don’t need to be jealous about Hilda dancing with Daniel.”

She snorts. “I wasn’t, but thanks.” After a second, she bites down on a wicked smile and says, “It’s great that you’re not jealous. Since they did kiss that one time.”

Bobby steps back from her. “They what?”

Well, Betty gets her dance partner back after all. Daniel comes home with her, and Betty feels absurdly shy about it. She can’t imagine what she has left to feel shy about. In the past month, she’s had sex with him more times than she could possibly count.

But this just feels so different. She still puts her hands in his hair, but she doesn’t pull. She just runs her fingers through it. He kisses her so softly, the press of his lips barely there. They’re going so slow they’re almost not even moving.

It feels so much more intimate tonight. Betty thought they’d gotten pretty intimate over the last month, but this doesn’t feel the same as what they’ve been doing. They’re sharing the same air, looking into each other’s eyes the whole time. It’s almost too much, but Betty can’t look away.

Daniel’s got tears in his eyes when they finish and he presses his face into her neck. She runs her hands up and down his back lightly. She thinks the wedding has them both feeling emotional. That’s a normal thing, she thinks. Getting emotional at weddings. He moves over to lie beside her and turns to face her, wrapping his arm around her waist.

She kisses him, pressing close, and just when she’s gearing up to open her mouth and tell him about the London job, he says softly, “Betty, I need to tell you something.”

“Wait, I need to tell you something first,” she says, because she’s going to lose her nerve if she doesn’t say it now and she has to tell him. “Lindsey Dunne offered me a different job. Starting up a new magazine and running it. He called it a younger person’s New Yorker.”

Daniel looks at her, his hand sweeping up and down her side. “That sounds…” He licks his lips. “Perfect. You’re perfect for that. That’s your dream job.”

“Daniel,” she says, voice shaking. “It’s in London.”

He inhales sharply, rolling over to lie on his back and look at the ceiling. “Oh.” Then he looks at her again and checks, “England?”

“England,” she confirms gently.

He searches her face for a minute. His voice breaks a little as he says, “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

Betty’s crying now. She feels like she’s betraying him when she nods. Daniel closes his eyes for a second. He presses his forehead against hers and she kisses him. Her heart is breaking. She can actually feel it. “What did you want to tell me?” she chokes out.

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. Never mind.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“Don’t be sorry,” he says.

He kisses her, more insistent this time. He rolls back over her and presses inside her again. She wraps her legs around his waist, taking him in deeper. He stays slow, but it doesn’t have the same tenderness and intimacy as just a few minutes earlier. This is a goodbye, and they both know it.

They’re both crying this time. His breath is hot on her neck while he rolls his hips against hers and that should make her shiver, it should drive her wild. Instead it just makes her cry some more. She’s leaving him. She really is. This wasn’t supposed to be the kind of thing where they cry when she leaves.

But it is. And Betty just realized something that makes her cry even more. He’s upset that she’s leaving the way he’s always been upset at the thought of her leaving—as a friend.

They’ve been doing this friends with benefits thing, sure, but that’s still all she is to him. If that weren’t true, he would’ve told her after she told him about the job. He wouldn’t want her to leave if he had feelings for her.

But Betty’s upset because she’s in love with him. Everyone was right. She couldn’t keep her feelings out of it. And now she’s going to leave, and he’s going to move on, and she’ll watch from afar while he does it.

He wraps her up in his arms when they’re done and they lie there together. She tries to get herself to stop crying. He doesn’t mention that her tears aren’t happy. Neither of them sleep much, but they don’t have sex again. Every time she wakes up, he’s awake, too, and they kiss but don’t speak.

In the morning, Daniel gets up and gets dressed. Every other Sunday morning they’ve been together since they started doing this, they’ve gotten brunch together and spent the day together. But he puts his clothes on and says,

“I have to go.”

Betty doesn’t try to stop him. She decided to leave him. She can’t get mad if he starts to pull back. She knew that would happen. Or she should’ve known, at least. For some reason she thought maybe she’d be the special one. Like he wouldn’t feel hurt and betrayed about her leaving.

He doesn’t kiss her goodbye. She thinks of the first morning she woke up with him, right here in her bed, and he’d told her we just go on with our day. That stopped happening a long time ago. But now she’s supposed to just go on with her life without him, and she has no one to blame but herself.

She’s the one taking the job and leaving. But more than that, she’s the one who developed feelings when she wasn’t supposed to. She’s the one who turned this into more than it ever was. And now she’s the one left alone in her bed, smelling him on her pillows and crying.

 

“Betty?” Hilda calls. She obviously let herself into Betty’s apartment.

“Bathroom,” Betty manages to say loud enough for Hilda to hear. She really didn’t expect any surprise visitors. Especially not Hilda—she got married yesterday; what is she doing here? She flushes the toilet and winces at her reflection in the mirror as she washes her hands.

“I’m not here long, me and Bobby are busy, but Papi mixed up some of the bags from the wedding and some of my honeymoon stuff is here.”

Betty opens the bathroom door. “All the stuff Papi brought is in that corner behind the couch,” she says.

“What’s going on?” Hilda demands immediately. “Betty, what’s wrong?”

Betty starts to cry. Or keeps crying, anyway, because she’s pretty sure she already was crying. “Well, you were right,” she tells Hilda thickly. “I’m not walking away no-strings.” She sniffles and bites back a sob. “Will you still be my shoulder to cry on?”

“Oh, God, Betty,” Hilda breathes. “Come here.” She pulls Betty in and rubs her back. “I didn’t want to be right.”

Betty laughs a little through her tears. “Yes, you did. You love being right.”

Hilda laughs, too, but she’s a little choked up. “Not when it means you get your heart broken.” Betty cries desperately into Hilda’s neck and Hilda murmurs soothing nonsense at her. “What happened?” Hilda asks when Betty’s starting to get herself more under control.

“I’m taking the job in London,” Betty says.

Hilda pushes her back to look at her. “What?”

Betty nods. “I have to. It’s my dream, Hilda. It’s what I’ve wanted since I was a little kid.”

“I know,” Hilda says. “But London?”

“I have to be brave,” Betty says. She’s still crying. “But I—I fell for him, Hilda.”

“Betty,” Hilda says. “God. He doesn’t feel anything? Are you sure?”

Betty shakes her head. “I told him about the job. And he didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask me to stay. If he wanted more, he’d tell me.”

“I’m sorry,” Hilda says. “Oh, Betty, I’m sorry.”

“I should never have tried to do no strings,” Betty says.

“Listen, I know you regret it,” Hilda starts.

“No,” Betty says. “I can’t regret it. I mean, it hurts, but—but at least I got some of him, right? Even just for a little while.”

“I guess,” Hilda says.

“He’d still be hurt I was leaving even if we hadn’t done this,” Betty says. She knows it’s true. She did a lot of sympathetic shoulder rubbing after Alexis left. And Daniel was hardly even speaking to his sister at that point.

“Okay, you need to get out of here,” Hilda says. “You can’t sit in your room crying all day.”

“Don’t I get one day?” Betty asks. “I—Hilda, it wasn’t just from us trying the friends with benefits thing. I think I’ve had feelings for him for a while and just didn’t realize it.”

“Yeah,” Hilda says quietly. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

Betty cries into her hands some more. Now she feels stupid, too, because apparently it was obvious. Pathetic little Betty, falling in love with a guy so out of her league it’s laughable that they’re ever even in the same room.

Hilda does convince her to go back to Queens, and she must warn Ignacio and Justin that something’s up because they’re both waiting when she walks up the front steps.

“Hey, AB,” Justin says, subdued. He gives her a hug and Betty closes her eyes. He’s so tall now, already almost taller than she is. She’s going to leave a teenager and come back to an adult.

Well, no. She’s not going to be gone that long. She’ll come home to visit.

Betty pulls back from Justin and takes a hug from her dad. Then she takes a deep breath and tells them both, “I’m taking that job I got offered. In London.”

Justin gasps. “London! Oh, my God!”

Betty looks at her dad. She knows he won’t want her to go. He never wants her to go anywhere. He has tears in his eyes. “That’s far away,” he says.

“I know, Papi,” she chokes out. “I’m sorry.”

Ignacio sighs. “Betty.”

“It’s my dream job,” she says.

“I know,” he says.

“But it’s so far away.”

“I know,” he says again. He holds onto her face. “Maybe if it hurts this badly, you shouldn’t go.”

“No, Grandpa,” Justin says firmly. “You always tell me to follow my dreams and you’ll support me. Now I find out there’s conditions on that?”

“There’s not conditions,” Ignacio tries.

“Seems like it!” Justin says, gesturing at Betty.

Ignacio blinks. “I…”

“It’s okay,” Betty promises. “I know it’s far. I know it’s scary. I just—I just really need a hug, Daddy.”

“Oh, Betty,” he sighs. “Of course.” He pulls her in and holds her tightly. “Is this about leaving Daniel?”

“Wha—what do you mean?” Betty asks.

“Haven’t you two been dating for a little while?” he asks.

Betty’s jaw drops. “What are you talking about?”

He gives her a look. “Betty, please. Half a bottle of wine on your coffee table and I’m supposed to believe you were watching a nature documentary?”

“Oh, my God,” Betty breathes. “Wow. Okay.”

“Whoa,” Justin says. “Okay, I did not expect that development.”

“We weren’t dating,” Betty says. “I mean, we were—kind of. We were—” There’s really no way she can explain this to her dad and her nephew.

“Oh,” Justin says, eyes wide. “Wow, Aunt Betty.”

“Betty,” Ignacio says uncomfortably.

“Sorry,” she says. “But…” She’s trying not to just keep crying all day long, but it’s hard. She realized she was in love with him and she was losing him in the same day. That’s a lot to take. “I have feelings for him. But I’m leaving. And he doesn’t have feelings for me.”

“Are you sure?” Justin asks skeptically. “Because he sure does a lot of gazing at you to not have feelings for you.”

Under normal circumstances, Justin saying that kind of thing would make her laugh. Now it just makes her cry. “I’m sure,” she says softly.

“I hate seeing you this way,” Ignacio says, rubbing her back. “I’m going to make you something to eat.”

“No, Papi, I’m not—”

It’s no use. He’s already gone into the kitchen. Justin takes his place hugging Betty. Between the two of them, they get Betty to eat. And she even stops crying eventually.

She doesn’t know how she’s going to handle going into work tomorrow. What if she just bursts into tears the second she sees him? There’s a way to leave a lasting impression.

But she has to go to work on Monday. She needs Daniel to sign her contract release and she’s not going to leave Mode high and dry before she leaves. She needs to close out her articles and make sure everything’s in place for whoever replaces her.

She does not, in fact, burst into tears the second she sees him. But she does tear up. She blinks back those tears and takes a deep breath.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hey,” he says.

“I, um…” She clears her throat. “Can we talk?”

He searches her face for a second. “Yeah,” he says, leading her into his office. They sit down on the couches, too far apart to touch.

“I have this contract release,” Betty says quietly, pulling it out of her bag.

Daniel looks at the paper she hands him and nods. “Oh. So you’re—you wanted to talk about, um, leaving.”

“Daniel, working with you has been so special,” she says, choked up. “And being your friend has been more important to me than I ever anticipated. You’ve always supported my dreams and believed in me and—"

“Okay,” he cuts her off. “I don’t need a whole speech. It’s fine. I’ll sign it.”

Betty sniffles. “Thanks.”

“Can you just do one thing for me before you leave?” he asks. “Sorry. I know you’ve already done so much for me.”

“Daniel, of course, I’ll do anything,” she says, starting to reach for him before she stops herself. She can’t reach him. God, she wants to pull him into a hug. She wants to kiss him.

He swallows hard. “Um, for the 100th anniversary issue, we’re doing profiles of all the editors-in-chief Mode’s ever had.” He clears his throat. “Will you write mine?”

Betty has to blink hard against the hot tears filling her eyes. “You want me to write it?” she asks, voice choked. She can’t believe he still wants her to when she’s leaving him.

“I can’t think of anyone else I’d want to do it,” he murmurs.

Betty takes a shaky breath and nods. “Yeah, of course,” she says. “Of course I will.”

“Thanks,” he says.

“Daniel,” she starts, unsure of what she’s even going to say.

“I, uh, I’m supposed to be in a meeting,” he says, voice breaking a little. “Right now. So. We’ll talk later.”

He walks out without looking back at her.

The next two weeks are a whirlwind. Mr. Dunne handles all the logistics of Betty’s paperwork and visa and everything, so all she has to do is go get fingerprinted and take a picture for her visa. The picture actually turns out really well.

“This reference from your boss is quite long,” Mr. Dunne says.

“Reference?” Betty asks.

“Well, you know, we did have to call to get a reference, just a due diligence check. And he sent back several pages.”

Betty thinks of the letter of recommendation he wrote for her YETI application. She huffs. “Um, yeah, I think he already had one on file.”

“I don’t think so,” Mr. Dunne says. “It’s mostly about your work and growth as an editor and even talks about your work at London Fashion Week.”

Betty bites her lip and digs her fingernails into her palms. God, why does she have to be in love with Daniel? She can’t even go thank him for this because she’ll cry too hard. She channels it into her profile of him for the 100th anniversary issue. But she would’ve written this effusively anyway. She hasn’t been objective about Daniel in a long, long time.

Finding Halston in her freezer is one of the only things that doesn’t make her cry. She does scream a lot, though. She really can’t believe Amanda sometimes.

“We’re going to have a going away party at Mode,” Amanda says.

“Aw,” Betty says, and now she’s getting teary eyed. “Really?”

Amanda blinks. “Oh, for you. Sure. Okay.”

“What?” Betty asks.

“Well, it’s really for Halston, but you guys can share.”

“Of course,” Betty says, rolling her eyes. “So…Daniel doesn’t know.”

“I don’t know,” Amanda says. She narrows her eyes and grabs Betty’s arm. “Oh, no, Betty. You fell in love with him.”

“I fell in love with him,” Betty admits. She can’t bring herself to deny it.

“I have been there,” Amanda reminds her. “And it takes a long time to resolve those feelings. My advice? Date his brother.”

“You’re dating his brother,” Betty points out.

“Right,” Amanda says. “Okay. Do you go girl? He does have that sister.”

“Okay, thank you, Amanda,” Betty says. “Goodbye.”

But her going away party turns out to be pretty nice. A lot of people showed up, likely more for the booze than for Betty, but that doesn’t bother her. She’s made her peace with the people of Mode. Even Wilhelmina comes to say goodbye. And she’s being…nice.

“You’ve got big balls, Betty Suarez,” she says, and she raises her glass at Betty.

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Betty points out. She wonders if it’s more because of Connor than anything Wilhelmina feels for her, but honestly, she and Wilhelmina have always had kind of a confusing relationship.

When Daniel shows up, Betty’s heart leaps. Amanda gasps a little and Marc shoves Betty toward Daniel. He’s making his way through the crowd to her and Betty’s chest aches.

“So…I wanted to say goodbye,” he says.

“Oh,” she says. She’s wishing he wasn’t saying goodbye. She’s wishing he’d ask her to stay. But she’s not going to stay, is she? Even if he asked. So this is better.

He gives her a hug and Betty can’t help the way her eyes close. He smells so good, so familiar, and she just wants to stay like this. She doesn’t think she took advantage of hugging him enough, of just being in his arms.

“Good luck,” he murmurs, not meeting her eyes.

“Thanks,” she manages to say around the lump in her throat.

“Goodbye, Betty.”

“Goodbye, Daniel.” She keeps her voice from breaking. Then he leaves. He doesn’t even stay at the party. Betty blows out a breath and blinks hard.

“Betty,” Claire says.

“Mrs. Meade,” Betty says. She swipes her eyes and then hugs Claire. “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too, dear,” Claire says. “But I am so proud of you.”

“Thank you,” Betty says. “Thank you so much, for everything. You’ve done so much for me over the years.”

“It has been so wonderful seeing you grow, Betty,” Claire says. She has tears in her eyes and Betty can’t fight her own. “I can’t wait to see you take on the world.”

“Thanks,” Betty says. “I wish Daniel—” She stops herself. She doesn’t need to go there.

“I know,” Claire says. “He’s having a very hard time saying goodbye to you.”

“He always feels so abandoned when people leave,” Betty says.

“That’s not why, dear,” Claire says gently.

“Why?” Betty asks.

“I have a theory,” Claire says, eyes twinkling.

Betty closes her eyes for a second, heart sinking. She wishes this were a happy theory from his mom, but Betty already knows the truth. “Mrs. Meade.”

“I know him, Betty,” Claire says. “I know—”

“If he had feelings for me, he’s had a lot of chances to tell me that,” Betty says. “A lot.” She’s not going to go into detail with Claire, but that’s the harsh reality.

“Oh, Betty,” Claire says, pulling her in for another hug. “He’ll get there.”

Betty sniffles. There’s no real point in Daniel “getting there”, even if that were ever going to happen. Betty’s moving across an ocean. She couldn’t even handle long distance when Henry moved to Tucson.

Okay, they never actually tried. But still.

She dances with Marc and Amanda and tries to enjoy this party. “I’m going to miss you,” she tells Marc.

“I know,” he says, haughty as ever.

“And you’re going to miss me, too,” she says, throat getting tight. He makes a face, but he’s letting her hug him, so she knows she’s right. “Take care of everything here,” she says.

“I will,” he promises.

And then it’s time. She can’t believe she’s doing this. She’s leaving her family, she’s leaving everything she’s ever known, and she’s moving to an entirely different continent. Her dad won’t be a train ride away any time she needs a hug or his cupcakes or encouragement.

She hugs Justin and Hilda and Bobby and even Austin. She likes Austin, most of all because he’s making Justin so happy. And then she takes the lunch her dad packed her with a tearful laugh.

“I’m so proud of you, mi amor,” Ignacio says, giving her a hug. “Te quiero.”

“I love you, Dad,” she says.

She waves goodbye to her family and gets in the car. She waves goodbye to the house she grew up in, the street where she played hopscotch and learned to ride a bike, the city that raised her and let her dreams bloom. And she gets on the plane, and she takes her next leap.

 

“Is this what you had in mind?” Rebecca, the managing editor asks.

Betty looks down at the mockup Rebecca’s showing her and tips her head. “Hmm…mostly,” she says. “I’m a little worried about the contrast on those colors with the gloss when it goes to print, though. Can we check on that?”

“Of course,” Rebecca says.

Betty’s been in London for two weeks now. It’s absolutely surreal. She lives in a flat and stands in queues and takes a lift up to her office. Her office that she runs. She’s hiring people, she’s researching articles, she’s meeting with advertisers—this is her life. Everything she ever dreamed of. Workwise, anyway.

“Betty, are you meeting with the MP tomorrow?” one of her editors, Kylie, calls out. “He’s the one what keeps talking about corruption with his million-pound house.”

“No, Thursday,” Betty says.

“That’s tomorrow,” Kylie says with a laugh.

“What?” Betty asks. “Today’s Wednesday?”

“You really do need that assistant,” Kylie says.

“And get some sleep, for God’s sake!” Rebecca says.

“God, I know,” Betty says. She’s hardly been sleeping at all, too wrapped up in work. She’s got CVs to weed through and so much work left. They’re launching in four weeks. She has no idea how she’s going to get it all done. Christina came to visit over the weekend and practically sat on her until she took a nap.

She’s also not sleeping because…well, just because. She doesn’t want to think about why. She lies alone in a bed that feels too big and stares at the ceiling for hours on end, stressing about how stressed she is and how she needs to go to sleep.

It doesn’t exactly help.

She’s walking home that night when she sees a sign for karaoke. It makes her laugh, even though it makes her stomach hurt a little. Only a little. It’s not like she only ever did karaoke with Daniel. They only did it the one time.

She bites her lip, debating. They haven’t talked once since she left. She hasn’t tried reaching out, too afraid he won’t answer, and he hasn’t, either. But she misses him. God, she misses him so badly it hurts. Even if she wasn’t in love with him, she’d miss him.

So she takes a picture of the sign and she texts it to him. They’re friends, aren’t they? Didn’t he promise they’d stay friends? She knows she messed that up a little by leaving, but still.

He doesn’t answer for a while; she’s already at home and eating dinner when he does. She hates the way her heart leaps when she sees his name on her phone. That never happened when they were friends.

You’ll have to sing both parts, he says.

Betty laughs a little. I can barely sing one part.

You did fine, he says.

Just fine? she asks.

But it doesn’t set off a flurry of texting. He doesn’t call. That’s it. Betty can’t pretend she isn’t disappointed. She thought it was an opening, maybe. A way to get him back in her life. But she chose to leave him behind in her old life. She’s going to have to live with it.

It’s two days later when she gets a Google alert ping. She opens the alert and blushes when she realizes it’s the alert she set for Daniel. It’s probably pretty pathetic—and maybe borderline stalkerish—to set a Google alert for him. But she can’t help it.

She clicks on the Fashion Buzz video and laughs a little when Suzuki comes on the screen. God, she even misses Suzuki.

“Big waves in the fashion world, and we’re not talking about hair,” Suzuki says. “Daniel Meade, erstwhile playboy nepo baby turned loving husband and responsible-ish editor-in-chief turned mourning widower is officially leaving Mode!”

Betty gasps and actually says, “What?” out loud. Rebecca looks over and Betty laughs apologetically. Suzuki doesn’t say anything else of value, and Betty Googles but can’t find a reason anywhere. Her stomach hurts.

She goes into the hallway and calls him, but it goes straight to voicemail like his phone’s turned off. He must be getting more comment requests than he knows what to do with. And he still didn’t have an assistant when he left. She was going to help him with that. But then she left.

“Hey,” she says into his voicemail. “Um, I just saw that you’re apparently leaving Mode. But I don’t…I don’t know what’s going on. Are you okay? I’m—” She takes a deep breath. “You can call me,” she says softly. “If you ever need to talk. Or just want to. I know I’m gone but we’re still friends, Daniel.” Her voice breaks and she squeezes her eyes shut. I love you, she doesn’t let herself say. “I hope you’re okay. Bye.”

She keeps her phone with her for the rest of the afternoon, but he doesn’t call. She keeps refreshing Google and Fashion Buzz, but no one has any more details. Betty has no idea what’s going on. It’s driving her crazy.

She calls Hilda while she’s walking home from work. “Hey, this might be kind of a long shot, but have you or Justin been around Mode lately?” she asks. “Have you seen Daniel? I just saw something about him leaving Mode.”

Hilda gasps. “What? He left Mode?”

Betty rolls her eyes. “That was fake,” she says. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Hilda says.

“Hilda!”

“I saw it on TV, too,” Hilda says. “You think you’re the only one who watches TV?”

“No,” Betty says, kind of confused.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Betty. The rest of us are allowed to see things on the news, too.”

“I never said…” Betty pulls her phone away from her ear for a second to give it a confused look, even if Hilda can’t see it through the phone.

“Look, Betty, I have to go,” Hilda says. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Betty says. Hilda hangs up before she can say anything else and Betty huffs. Jeez. Now she’s worried about what’s going on with Daniel and something going on with Hilda. She walks right into someone and gasps. “Sorry,” she says.

“Betty.”

It’s Daniel. Betty freezes. She blinks a few times, wondering if she’s imagining him. “Daniel,” she says faintly. He’s holding onto her arms and her heart is somewhere up in her throat.

“Betty,” he repeats. He leans in and stops a hairsbreadth from her lips. She goes onto her tiptoes to close the distance and kisses him. Oh, God, kissing him is so good. It feels so right.

“What are you doing here?” she asks shakily.

“I don’t want casual, no strings,” he murmurs, making her stomach flip. “I want serious. All the strings. Tie me up.”

“What?” she squeaks. She was with him until that last part.

“Sorry, I meant it as a metaphor,” he says, kissing her again. “Well, but literally, too, if you want to try it.”

“What?” she asks again. She didn’t have that on her list.

He pulls back a little, brow furrowed worriedly. “This is not how I meant this conversation to go.”

“I want serious, too,” she tells him, pulling him back in and getting them back on track. “I want serious with you.”

He breathes out shakily, smile taking over his face. “Yeah?”

“Yes, oh, God, Daniel,” she says, squeezing him. “Oh, my God, I missed you so much.”

“I missed you,” he breathes, kissing her again and again. “Every minute of every day.”

She’s crying a little, clinging to him. “I don’t think we were ever as casual as we thought we were.”

He laughs softly. “No,” he agrees. “Maybe half the reason I even offered to start this was because some part of me already knew I was in love with you.”

“Are you?” she asks breathlessly.

“Betty, I’m so in love with you,” he confirms, taking her face in his hands and kissing her. “I can’t live without you.”

“I’m in love with you, too,” she says. He laughs, his whole face lit up, and then he picks her up and spins her around. “Daniel!” she shrieks, laughing. People are looking at them and she doesn’t even care. “Wait, Daniel, wait—why did I see on the news that you left Mode?”

He puts her back down and kisses her. “Because of this,” he says. “Because I’m moving here.”

Her heart leaps. “You’re what?”

He kisses her again. “I got some advice from a friend once,” he says softly. “Advice that she got from her mom. When you find someone who loves you, hang onto them. So I’m hanging onto you.”

Betty’s crying in earnest. He had to know mentioning her mom would do that. “You’re just dropping everything?”

“No, I’m catching everything,” he says. He makes a face. “That didn’t really make sense. I’m trying to be smooth and say you’re everything.” He kisses her again, brushing a tear off her cheek. “Betty, I’ve never worked for anything in my life. It’s about time I start. I’m going to find my own path. Here. With you.”

“Oh, my God,” she sobs, throwing her arms around his neck. “I can’t believe this. This is like the best dream I’ve ever had.”

He kisses her, smiling. “It’s real.”

“You’re real,” she whispers. “You’re really here.”

He kisses her again and then just hugs her. She thinks of how she felt at her going away party, that she didn’t hug him enough, and she relishes being in his arms. “I couldn’t leave you to sing Sonny and Cher alone,” he says.

She’s laughing and crying at the same time. “You realize that means I’m going to make you do karaoke again.”

“Worth it,” he decides.

She reaches up and kisses him. “Where are you staying?” she asks.

He juts his thumb behind him. “Hotel over there.”

“Let’s go,” she says.

“Do you want to get dinner?” he asks.

“I want you first,” she tells him. “I don’t like having sex on a full stomach.”

Daniel laughs a little and leans down to kiss her. “Yeah,” he says. “God, I missed you.”

They hold hands as they walk back to his hotel and Betty keeps laughing. She’s so giddy. She can’t believe he’s here. Some of her giddiness gives way to disbelief when they get up to his room.

“Oh, my God,” she says. “Daniel! This is bigger than the flat I live in.”

He shrugs. “I’m a snob, remember?”

She laughs at that. Then she drops her bag and her coat and kicks off her shoes and jumps into his arms. She didn’t give him any warning, but he catches her easily and immediately starts kissing her, squeezing her thighs and walking over to the bed.

He sets her down on the bed and unzips her dress. And Betty doesn’t know why, but she’s suddenly terrified. They’ve done this so many times, in so many ways, but now things are different. Now they have feelings. Or admitted their feelings, anyway. That changes things.

“What’s wrong?” Daniel asks softly, stopping in his quest to undress her. “What’s going on?”

“Just…” Betty sighs. “What if now that it’s not casual I do what I always did? I don’t want to get all stressed out and worried and make it not good anymore because I’m too—”

He kisses her, gently pressing her back into the bed. “It’s not going to happen,” he murmurs. “Your body knows my body. And we were never actually casual, were we?”

Betty thinks about lying in bed with him, laughing, and holding hands in the car and the way he took care of when she was drunk from an ocean away. She thinks about kissing him and missing him and how he wanted so badly to make her feel good.

“You’re right,” she whispers.

“Yeah, I’m right,” he agrees, kissing her again.

He kisses down her neck while he pulls her dress off. They go to bed and it’s like they didn’t miss a day. Their bodies still fit together perfectly, still know how to move together. She tugs at his hair the way he likes and he sucks a bruise into the skin above her hip and everything is perfect.

But this time, for the first time, she says, “Oh, God, I love you,” as she comes, and then he echoes it back to her when he does. If someone had told her a month ago their sex could get any better, she wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but here they are.

Then they lie there together, soaking in each other’s presence. She missed lying in bed with him so badly it felt like a sickness. But the fever’s broken now. He strokes a hand over her cheek and she kisses his knuckles.

“I can’t believe I get you for real,” she whispers. “I swear I’m dreaming.”

He smiles at her and runs his fingers through her hair. “You’re not,” he says. “Or we both are.”

“If it’s a dream, I hope I don’t wake up,” she says. “I mean—for the dream. I don’t mean that in a weird way.”

He laughs a little. “I know.” He leans in and kisses her. “I was going to tell you,” he says quietly. “After Hilda’s wedding. I was going to tell you it wasn’t casual for me.”

“But I told you about the job first,” she remembers. “Oh, my God, Daniel, why didn’t you say anything?”

He must’ve felt extra abandoned. She thought he was upset about her leaving as a friend, but all along they were both heartbroken. She was so sure he didn’t have feelings because he didn’t say anything in that moment.

He sighs. “What could I say?” he reasons. “It was your dream. I had to let you go.” That makes her cry a little again. He pulls her close and kisses her hair. “Doesn’t mean I couldn’t follow you.”

She laughs, choked up. “I’m so glad you did.” She sniffles.

“You remember when I said I only offered to start this because I was drunk and I didn’t think you’d say yes?” he asks. “I think the reason I couldn’t offer unless I was drunk was because I knew…some part of me knew, even if I didn’t completely realize it or acknowledge it. I knew I couldn’t be casual with you. And I was so scared I was going to ruin everything.”

“And then I took the job and left,” Betty realizes. “And you thought you were right.”

He nods. “But,” he says, smiling at her. “I couldn’t just not try. I couldn’t give up.” He kisses her. “Not on you.”

“But what would you have done if I didn’t have feelings for you?” she asks. “You left Mode first.”

“I needed to do that anyway,” he says. “I need to work hard for something. And Wilhelmina’s deserved it for years.”

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispers, putting her hands on his face. “Seriously. You’re so amazing.”

He gets kind of bashfully pleased about that. “Thanks.” He’s so adorable this way, proud of himself but a little shy, and her heart swells because she just loves him so much.

Betty kisses him, throat tight. “When did you realize it wasn’t casual? At Hilda’s wedding?”

He shakes his head. “When you called me from England,” he says softly. He smiles at her. “You wanted to have phone sex. But you were so drunk and all I could think about was making sure you were okay. And then you said you missed me and…that’s when I figured it out.”

“I did miss you,” she says. “And I didn’t even just miss you for sex. I wanted to be falling asleep with you.”

Daniel laughs a little. “I can’t believe we didn’t realize what we were doing.”

“Daniel, we took a bubble bath and planned a joint family vacation,” she reminds him. “We are the stupidest people ever.”

“Honestly, I think we would’ve planned a joint family vacation anyway, even when we were friends,” he says. He snorts. “Maybe we should’ve taken that as a sign.”

They’re cracking up at themselves now. She kisses him again. “Well, we got here,” she says.

“We got here,” he echoes. Neither of them can stop smiling. But then Betty’s stomach grumbles loudly. Daniel laughs at her. “See, this is why I said we should eat first.”

“I could not wait another second for you,” she says.

He smirks and kisses her. “I’m not complaining about that.” He starts to sit up and then flops back down. “Do you want to just order room service?”

“Really?” she asks excitedly. “I’ve never ordered room service. It’s so expensive.” The one time she was going to was when she was doing that hotel review, all the way back at the beginning of her time at Mode, but she'd left early because of Walter.

“Oh, God, you’re just after me for my money,” he says.

“You finally caught me,” she says. They’re still laughing. But she nudges him with her foot. “You still have to get up to order room service.”

“You don’t want to experience that for yourself?” he tries.

“I would love to experience watching you do that for me.”

Daniel groans, laughing. “How can I say no?” He drags himself out of the bed and brings her the menu.

“I don’t care,” she says, giving it back to him. “Whatever.”

“You don’t care about food?” he asks. “Who are you and what have you done to Betty?”

Betty shoves at his arm. “Daniel! That sounded like a mean Amanda comment.”

“I’m just saying, you’re particular about what you like.”

She enjoys nestling back against the fancy sheets. “You know me,” she says. “You know what I like.”

That makes him smile. He leans down and kisses her. “I know you,” he agrees. Then he pats her leg and goes over to the phone to order. He orders her a grilled cheese and fries and a chocolate milkshake.

When he comes back to the bed, she kisses him. “Good job,” she says.

“I ordered right?” he asks.

“You did perfect,” she promises.

“Are you going to let us eat in bed?” Daniel asks.

“Are we sleeping here?”

“Unless you want to leave,” he says.

“I don’t. So no.” She doesn’t want crumbs in her bed. She doesn’t think that makes her crazy.

He sighs. “Yeah, I thought so.”

They move to the table to eat, sharing fries and playing footsie. It’s kind of ridiculous, but Betty doesn’t care. She doesn’t even care that she’s naked for all of this. He’s beyond used to seeing her naked, for one thing, and for another she’s too happy to possibly be self-conscious.

“Oh, man, I almost forgot,” Daniel says when they’re done eating. He opens the mini-fridge and pulls out a Tupperware container. Betty opens it and gasps.

“My dad’s cupcakes?”

“He baked them last night,” he says. “Or, wait, what day is it? Whatever, the night before I left.”

“Oh, my God,” Betty says, choked up. “You saw my dad before you left?”

Daniel nods. “I told him I was coming. He said it was a good idea. And Justin told me not to come back unless I was bringing theater tickets.”

Betty climbs into his lap so she can cling to him, laughing and crying at the same time. “I miss them,” she murmurs.

“They miss you, too,” he says. He kisses her and then pulls back and smiles. “They’re so proud of you, though.”

“I bet my dad said he’s proud of you, too,” she guesses.

He ducks his head. “Yeah,” he says softly, a little smile on his face. “He did.” He huffs. “Then Hilda told me it was about time I got my head out of my ass, and Bobby threatened to dismember me if I ever hurt you.”

Betty laughs and kisses him again. “Well, I’m not worried,” she promises.

The smile he gives her in return is so happy she could start crying again. “I’m not either,” he says.

“Your mom would get to you before Bobby ever needed to,” she points out.

He laughs and wraps his arms around her waist. “Yeah, you’re right about that.”

“Oh, my God, that’s why Hilda was being so weird,” Betty realizes. “I called to ask her why you left Mode and she practically hung up on me.”

Daniel laughs. “She was really happy to say I told you so when I showed up and told them my plan.”

“Oh, my God, we’re not getting her a birthday present,” Betty complains.

“Yeah, we are,” Daniel counters.

“Well, obviously,” she relents, rolling her eyes while he laughs at her some more.

They split a cupcake even though they’re both full from the milkshake. Betty thinks about what he said at Hilda’s wedding. Everything is right in the world. Sitting here, eating her dad’s cupcakes, laughing and leaning over to kiss Daniel whenever she feels like it before she goes to her dream job in the morning, Betty nods to herself. He was right. Everything is right in the world.

And as she smiles at the way he’s animatedly telling her about his dramatic exit from Mode, she knows that rightness isn’t going to change any time soon.

Notes:

Honestly, I think Betty would be more willing to do a friends with benefits situation with Daniel than Daniel would be with Betty, because I think some part of Daniel has ALWAYS realized he has strong feelings for Betty that he doesn't treat casually and he's sort of held her in a whole different arena than any other woman in his life. But hey, he was drunk and it was fun to write lol.