“Thanks, man,” I mutter, then set about cleaning up her mess.
Good thing you didn’t tell her about the blowjob.
“Seriously, why are you being so dramatic over a few droplets of beer?” Maya rips the towel from my hands. “Do you know how many bodily fluids I deal with on a daily basis?”
I shudder, which is exactly the response she wants.
“So, you finally made your move?” Silas asks, getting the conversation back on track as he returns to the couch.
I gesture broadly, beer dripping down my hand. “What do you mean,finally?”
Maya tosses the hand towel at my head, and Maverick gets in on the teasing. “Every time you get a haircut, we have to listen to you go on and on about Valentine’s just-rolled-out-of-bed sex hair, his beautifully square tattooed hands, the exact bottle of whisky—noEbecause it’s Scottish—that matches hisbottomless eyes, and then you pull up his socials and show off his latest videos, which you refuse to be in, for some reason.”
“He’s never asked,” I say, wiping my hands.
And the whisky is a 1969 Gordon McPhail, asshole.
“It’s not like he’d say no to you,” Sy says, far too reasonably.
I stop wiping my hands and send him a glare. “Why are you suddenly so chatty?”
Silas sends me the smile that causes most people to find the nearest exit, and Mav, who knows exactly what Silas is doing, clinks bottles with him.
Fucking traitors. I am definitely not telling them about the blowjob. Or the rough hand job. Or the way Valentine licked me clean.
And definitely ixnay on the piercing. Which will haunt my masturbatory dreams for the rest of my life.
“I thought y’all were supposed to have my back.”
Mav smacks my head. “We do have your back. And the price of having your back is that we get to chirp at your egotistical ass from time to time.”
“Oh, you’re one to talk, Mr. Fucks His Way Through Hollywood.”
He tosses his curls and takes another swig.
“Don’t think we’ve forgotten that you got kicked out by your hot barber,” my sister says, messing with my overgrown hair. “Why would you hit on him? Do you know how hard it is to find a great barber in this city?”
I run my hand over the back of my head, grimacing at the overgrowth. “He had seen the whole gala disaster and started making fun of me the second I walked in the door. I thought I could, I don’t know, take back control?”
My brain helpfully supplies the soundtrack of me telling him exactly how I’d take it for him:like a good boy.It felt good to do in the moment, but now my face and throat heat as I check to see if this couch can swallow me whole. No dice.
Sy sends me a super weird look. I think he’s going for supportive, but empathy isn’t his strong suit, so it’s hard to tell.
“What? Like none of you’ve ever wanted to fuck someone to feel a little better about yourself?”
Before they can answer, the elevator opens, and it’s Oakley, fresh from his swim. Cupcake whimpers and wags her butt, so Sy releases her to go say hi. Oakley, who makes the massive dog look like a puppy, bends down and gives her scritches while talking to her in a baby voice.
“Who’s a pretty princess?”
Oak’s a fucking tree like his dad, and even more handsome. While Uncle Thane lives in the gym and is as hard as a rock, Oak’s a big bear cub of a guy. He’s got heavy muscles with a beaut of a belly, a beard any man would give his eyeteeth for, and a chest full of dark fur.
For a guy just a few semesters off a PhD in something called Complex Psychopathy and Clinical Systems, he’s also shameless, wearing tight light-blue swim shorts that stretch across his massively muscled thighs and ass while dripping all over my special-order flooring.
“Before you say anything, we ran out of towels outside,” he says, his voice in the basement. “Also, why are we holding this inside? The weather’s fantastic, the Pecan Street Festival folks are setting up the concert stage on Congress, and there’s that whole outdoor kitchen area we hardly ever use.”
This is the roommate who actually remembers to put his dishes in the dishwasher, and never once have I come across his dirty underwear between the couch cushions—ahem,Mav—so I really should unclench about the floor.
“Rami’s gala was a hot mess express, and he got rejected by a boy,” Maya provides, ever-so-helpfully. “So we’re moping inside.”
