Picking up my pace, I catch up to Ora’s side and make sure the coast is clear, then hook my hand around her arm and pull her through the open doors of the arcade.
“Wait-wait!” Stopping me on the glowing carpet, in a thick cloud of nacho cheese, she slips from my grip and throws up a timeout with her hands. “I told Xene if we ever kissed that he could watch.”
My face scrunches, wondering how she managed to get there from me gently redirecting her course. Or why she and Xene have already discussed that ever being a possibility. But… sheistripping on a party favor. So, I’m not even going to ask or over explain myself.
Huffing, I grab her hand and pull her off to the side, checking behind the curtains of the Photo Booth before stepping inside.
“Ohh, privacy. I should have known you like it in secret by your shower escapades.”
“Oraa,” I whine, taking a seat and shooting my appalment at her.
She laughs, plopping down next to me, her arm already stretched out to tap through the customization prompts on the screen. “I need to at least get some proof. His biggest fantasy is watching us scissor.”
Horror punches through me, sending my blood in a painful slam to my heart. “What? Why?”
I’ve never looked at her that way. And I definitely didn’t know about Xene having a whole mental spank bank of something that would never happen. But I will admit…
Ugh, should I? Should I admit it?
Might as well. You probably already know me better than the people I’ve lived with for two years.
I was just going to say that the images are warming my limbs and face. Like, thinking about what Xene would see, why he’d like it, how slick and velvety the friction would be, how soft her thighs would be sliding against mine, how supple and tender she’d look in the moonlight…
Oh, no.
My legs tense, rejecting the heavy ache that’s clearly trying to reroute my focus for the uncountable time today. “Okay, no.” I toss my hands up, trying my hardest to give her a stern face while I dissolve the pornography.
She lazily purses her lips, her bangs swaying with the angle she tilts her puppy eyes into. “No?”
“No, that’s insane. Besides, Razor would probably kill you if you ever admitted that to him. Or near him. He can probably smell that in the air and is already hunting us down.”
Coming in here, I did not think the truth would be that my best friend, who I sleep a few feet away from every night, talks to her situation, boyfriend, whatever Xene is to her, about something that would never even cross my mind.
The flash goes off with a shutter, capturing the exotic eye contact stiffening the box we’re hidden away in.
“Hmm…” She twists her lips, raising her vape to her mouth for a drag that narrows her eyes.
It’s a natural reaction to target her lips, zone in on the light suction that crackles right before she breaks it. I’ve just never done so while being curiously confused.
A faint cloud puffs through her smooth lips and another flash strikes over us. “Do you wanna practice for him?” she asks softly.
My tongue rests in the ocean of my nerves, forcefully swallowing and shifting to face the countdown of the next picture. “I don’t wanna talk about this anymore. You’re tripping right now.”
I don’t know what LSD does to the mind or body, or if she’s even consciously talking to me. Which makes it a great opportunity to ask her something, but now I don’t know how to.
Sitting through another silent picture with a dripping thrum and words combing through my head isn’t optimal. It’s awkward. And tense. And I feel this ungodly pressure to blurt out what I want to know all while havingthis deep-rooted urge to let my sickness win for something innocent, for something that will give us what we both want.
I’d consider myself to be a chronic overthinker. But the need for a breadcrumb, or a footprint I can follow, is overwhelming the hum I’m swimming in.
Before I can stop myself, I’m twisting and cupping her cheek.
The bug in my heart migrates to my eyes, wavering my vision dropping to her mouth, and the inferno gutting me has me leaning into the blue raspberry dancing like candy on her lips.
Her soft lips latch with mine, the heat of her jetting breath collecting on my upper lip and filtering over my damp cheeks.
She mewls, grabbing at my hips and unsealing us, just to tilt her head the opposite way and lock our lips tighter. More aggressively. While her hands are slipping around my backside for a firm grab of my butt that has my jaw shaking.
If it weren’t for the shuttering flash capturing this—I’d keep going. Just to explore. To appease the desire of wanting pleasurable distractions. But as her tongue lightly flicks over the seal of my lips, I draw back and open my eyes with burning cheeks.
