Page 29 of The Wild Card

“You do now.” She crosses her arms, completely unfazed by my reaction. “If I have to hold your hand in public and pretend to be in love with you, you can snuggle with me once a week.”

“I don’t—” I stop, searching for words. “I’m not a… snuggling person.”

I don’t think I’ve ever even said the word snuggle before. Not once in my thirty years on this planet.

“Then we don’t have a deal.”

I wait while the silence around us builds.

She’s not backing down. I can see it in the set of her jaw, the steadiness of her gaze. Emmie Marshall, five-foot-four of chaos and cookie dough, is drawing a line in the sand over cuddling.

“Why?” I finally ask. “Why is this so important to you?”

She leans back in her chair, considering. “Do you know how hard it is to get guys to just cuddle?”

“Uh, no.”

“Impossible.” She gestures emphatically. “There’s a severe cuddling deficiency happening in the world right now—an epidemic, really. My friends complain about it all the time. They’re all dating guys who want to have sex but won’t just hold them on the couch for ten minutes. And you can’t ask for more cuddle time without seeming needy or clingy or whatever.”

I try to wrap my head around this. “So… women want to cuddle, but they can’t ask for it?”

“Exactly. It’s a whole thing.”

“That seems counterproductive.”

“Welcome to heterosexual dating.” She throws up her hands. “But with this arrangement, it’s all fake anyway. No feelings, no weirdness, just… contractual. I might as well get something out of it.”

I’m still stuck several steps back. “But why do you even want to? What’s the appeal?”

She looks at me like I’ve asked why people enjoy breathing. “Are you serious?”

“I’m trying to understand.”

“It’s…” She pauses, searching for words. “Okay, have you ever been really cold? Like, bone-deep cold, and then you get under a warm blanket and everything just… settles?”

“I guess so.”

“It’s like that, but better. Human touch is calming. There’s actual science behind it—oxytocin release, lowered cortisol, all that stuff.” She tilts her head. “Think of it like… human Xanax.”

Human Xanax?

I reflect on what cuddling has meant in my limited experience with it—a face full of hair, not knowing where to put my hands, the inevitable awkward boner when my body reacts uncontrollably. And the suffocating feeling of someone else’s expectations pressed against me.

“I don’t get it,” I admit, shaking my head.

“Crew.” Emmie stands up and approaches me, stopping just out of arm’s reach. “When’s the last time someone hugged you? Like, really hugged you?”

I remain silent, brain buffering as I come up blank.

“Okay, when’s the last time someone touched you at all? Not a handshake, not an accident—actual, intentional contact.”

“I spar with Foster sometimes. Training exercises—”

“No.” She shakes her head. “Not that. I mean someone touching you just to be… nice. Gentle. No agenda, no combat training, no—” She waves her hand vaguely. “Just human contact. Because they wanted to. Because it felt good.”

My mind flickers to a woman from about eight months back. Blonde. Amanda? Andrea? She’d gone down on me in my living room after a forgettable first date, and I’d called her an Uber fifteen minutes later. Does that count?

Probably not what Emmie means.