Grady chokes on his coffee, full-on sputtering, and the dark liquid drips out of his mouth and into his dark auburn beard. I grab a napkin off the counter and hand it to him, but in my rush, I almost knock over the blender. Angela watches the chaos with a fascinated half-smile. Grady takes the napkin from me, wipes his face, and wins the battle to breathe without coughing. “Never had a three-way with a teammate. Sorry. I’m gonna go get ready. Meet you at the car in ten?”
He doesn’t wait for me to answer; he just darts out of the kitchen, and I can hear the stairs creaking under his weight as he heads back to his room. I stare at Angela. “What the hell is going on with you?”
She blinks. “What? He’s our roommate for now. I’m not going to hide in front of him. I figured he should be like a sibling or something.”
“You talk to your siblings about three ways?” I ask and before she can answer, I continue. “Because I don’t tell Callan about your fantasies, so please don’t tell my teammate about mine.”
Angela’s eyebrows dart up toward her hairline. “So you admit it’s a fantasy, not just a curiosity? You’d hook up with another guy?”
“What the fuck, Angie!” I hiss and glare at her.
“What? I’ve hooked up with another girl. You were there, remember?”
Yeah, that’s not something I will ever forget, our one and only attempt at opening our relationship. It was fun. We enjoyed it, but we agreed it was a one-and-done situation. It happened years ago, when we were both desperate to stay together but experiment. Why is she bringing up three ways again now?
“Look, I get this move isn’t what you wanted, and it sucks for you. I love you. I wish I could change it, but I can’t. And I also can’t live with much more of whatever the hell this uncensored stuff is, Angie.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“Why are you doing this right now?”
She shrugs. “Why not? Grady is cute. I love you too, by the way, but maybe the way we get through this new change is to embrace adventure… in all aspects of our lives. That other little experiment we had did more good than harm.”
I stare at her like she’s lost her mind because I think maybe she has. She stares back like I’m being dense. She sighs and moves past me to the blender, reaching into the cupboard above it for a travel mug. She grabs the biggest one and puts it down on the counter, and continues talking as she fills it with my smoothie. “When was the last time we had sex?”
“I don’t know… a couple weeks ago?”
“Two and a half months ago,” she corrects as she finishes pouring and puts the blender in the sink. “What position?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Missionary,” Angie replies and pushes down the lid on the travel mug before handing it to me. “And it was fine. I came. You came. But it was… fine.”
Her arm is extended, the mug in her hand, but I don’t reach for it. I’m frozen, my body flooding with a mixture of embarrassment and humiliation. “I… don’t… do it for you anymore? You’re bored with us?”
She steps into me, taking my hand with her free one and pushing the mug into it before kissing me softly but deeply on the mouth. She tastes like black coffee, which I’m not a fan of, but I kiss her back because I’m suddenly needy. “I’m not bored, but we’re not connecting. There’s this void or something. I’m scared this move will make it worse, not better. So I’m just saying… think about a fantasy you’ve had a while. Any fantasy. I’m up for it. Or at least willing to talk about it.”
I try and absorb what she’s saying, but this whole conversation is overwhelming and odd. She’s right, there is a void, but I don’t think filling it with sexual fantasies is the answer. It’ll be fun, but would it fix anything? Probably not.
“Have a great first day,” she tells me, and I grab her around the waist and kiss her again. This time with tongue and intensity, and I don’t stop until I feel her nipples get hard against my chest.
“Do me a favor and be home when I get back,” I growl into her ear. “I want to break our dry spell, and you can pick the position.”
I nip the side of her neck, and she giggles. Then I kiss her again, quickly, and head out into the living room. I grab my bag with my workout gear and pull the keys to the communal family truck that sits here year-round off the hook by the door of the screened-in porch. Outside, Grady is leaning against the old pickup with his gym bag slung over his shoulder and shades covering his eyes. Vintage Wayfarer Ray-Bans. I learned last year, as I got to know him, that Grady’s hobby is collecting vintage sunglasses.
He’s got about forty pairs that he says he keeps on a special rack so they’re all on display, like art in his house. “You bring all your sunglasses in your carry-on?”
He nods as I unlock the truck, which is so old you actually have to do it with a key, not a fob. “Not leaving my babies behind or trusting them to the movers. I did that once, and my nineteen-fifties classic silver aviators got crushed beyond repair.”
We get into the truck, and after we’re both buckled in, I reverse from the driveway and head out of the small, sleepy community of Ocean Pines toward Route One. The practice facility for the Riptide is only fifteen minutes from here in Old Orchard Beach near Pine Point. The arena where we play games is in downtown Portland, which is between thirty and forty minutes away, depending on traffic. I would much rather live out this way, but I’m not sure how Angie feels about it.
“I thought I knew Angie, from all the times she’s been at team stuff with the Quake, but clearly I was wrong,” Grady says after almost a full five minutes of silence. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not offended or anything, but she’s… got no filter. I find it both refreshing and slightly amusing.”
“She had a filter,” I argue softly and then steal a glance at him. He definitely doesn’t look like he’s lying or judging, which is good. To be honest, I think I would be judging at this point. “She seems to have misplaced it, though.”
Grady chuckles. “Again, I’m cool with it.”
“I’ll make sure she puts on a robe or something tomorrow morning,” I promise and try not the let the heat I feel in my chest climb up my neck and face. I’m not normally a blusher.
