Callum took a slow sip of his juice like it was champagne. “Consider this a performance review from a four-time world champion,” he said mildly. “We have standards in this household.”
“I, for one, have never been more satisfied in my life,” I added sweetly, leaning into him again. “So many orgasms I’m practically in a religious ecstasy.”
Lucy stared at us like we’d grown extra heads. “This is so much more intense than my church camp,” she whispered.
Marco’s tan cheeks flushed pink, but he looked weirdly proud. “What can I say?” he rasped. “Sometimes the spirit moves you.”
Kimi didn’t even look up from spooning eggs onto his plate. “Spirit is not what you were moving.”
Ivy yanked her T-shirt higher on principle, but the blush creeping down her throat gave her away. “If any of you say the words ‘third time’s the charm,’ I will walk into the sea,” she warned. “Head first.”
“I’m just saying,” I sing-songed, “this is a very productive sexcation so far.”
“Speak for yourselves,” Lucy muttered into her juice. “I’m still on the virginal popstar package. No upgrades.”
Kimi’s gaze flicked to her, slow and considering, like he was already running calculations for how to fix that someday. My lips twitched.
There was everything on that table—eggs three different ways, bacon and sausages, roasted tomatoes and potatoes, a fruit platter arranged so beautifully it felt like a crime to touch it, a mountain of pastries that smelled like butter and sin, tiny jarsof yogurt, honey and jam, and a carafe of orange juice sweating onto the linen.
A hangover feast. A sexcation debrief. My ridiculous, perfect little bubble.
Marco pointed his fork around the table, betrayed. “I hate all of you,” he said. “Deeply. Passionately. Biblically.”
“Add it to the list,” Ivy muttered. “Right under ‘public party boy’ and ‘walking HR complaint.’ Now pass the bacon, sinner.”
“Sure thing, hellcat,” he grumbled, but he still reached for the platter and piled a frankly obscene amount of bacon onto her plate before his own, jaw ticking, ears a little pink.
If you didn’t know them, you’d think nothing was different. Same bickering, same insults, same theatrics. But if you looked closer, there were gaps where there usually weren’t—fingers that carefully didn’t brush when they passed plates back and forth, eyes that skimmed past each other instead of catching and holding, jokes that bounced around the table without ever landing between just the two of them. Something had shifted in the night, and I was dying to know what.
I wrapped my fingers tighter around my water glass and focused on the condensation beading down the side. The ring on my hand flashed in the sunlight.
“Eat,” Callum murmured next to me, voice pitched low for only my ears. His knee knocked gently against mine under the table. “Something other than two bites of a croissant, at least.”
“Iameating,” I said. “I’m drinking the water. The water is very… crunchy.”
He huffed a breath that might have been a laugh if the morning weren’t sitting heavy on all of us. “You’re not living on water and espresso today, baby.”
“Correction,” I muttered. “I’m living on nerves and vibes.”
“What happened to vicodin and vibes?” Ivy chimed in.
“That turned into orgasmic bliss.”
On my other side, Lucy made a wounded noise as Ivy slid a croissant onto her plate and then two strawberries for good measure. “This is so kind of you,” she said weakly. “And also a hate crime. I don’t think my organs are awake yet.”
“They will be,” Ivy said, in the same tone she used to say things likewe’re going to fix this,orI've already drafted a statement. “Food, coffee, and a plan. That is how we survive the day.”
Opposite us, Marco sat hunched over his plate. His hair was still damp from the quick shower he’d taken before the food arrived. Kimi, of course, looked the least dead of all of us. Which meant only mostly dead. He was methodically working his way through scrambled eggs and avocado toast, coffee mug within easy reach.
I broke off the corner of a piece of toast and forced myself to chew it. It turned to paste in my mouth, but I swallowed anyway.
We decided we were not going to hide from this. The Luminis official and doctor were coming either way. I would give them the minimum they needed to do their jobs and not one drop more. They would not get to “discover” anything. They would not get to spin their own story. They would get confirmation of no pregnancy and nothing more.
I had decided I was not going to let Luminis turn my body into a PR exercise again. I’d spent enough of this year doing just that because I had to prove myself here on the grid. But not anymore. I didn’t owe them anything.
That part was the hardest to believe.
“Okay.” Ivy planted her elbows on the table and surveyed us all from the head of it. The curtain of her hair was half-frizz, half-waves, mascara smudged in soft gray streaks under her eyes that I now knew was from sextivities. And yet, she still somehow looked like she could walk into a boardroom and make a CEOcry. “Battle briefing, part two. Let’s run this once more while we still smell like croissants instead of fear.”
