“No need to tidy up for us,” says one girl, who I recall being named Felicity, as she wanders over to the other side of the room and pokes around a few of Clover’s cosmetics.
“Hey, could you leave that stuff alone?” I ask her, feeling suddenly protective over Clover’s things.
“Touchy, touchy,” she whispers as she unceremoniously drops some sort of small metal spray bottle.
The look on my face must be enough to silence the other three, because they all cluster and cower at the end of the bed.
“Uh, sorry,” I say in an attempt to be less of an asshole. “We don’t really have enough room for a large group like this. We should go to the common—”
Julian flings himself across the bed. “Orwe could have a cuddle puddle!”
Felicity stretches along the head of the bed in what I think is supposed to be a seductive pose.
“Wearealready here,” Tex says, eyeing his Cortana look-alike.
I sit on the foot of the bed with one leg hiked up while Julian uses Felicity as his own personal pillow. Tex sits on Clover’s side of the bed opposite me. The Cortana look-alike, who I learn is namedGabby, sits between us while the other two girls lie across the middle. Reagan is on my side while Zara is over by Tex.
There are so many of us on the one bed that it’s impossible not to touch.
Reagan glances over to me with a charming little smile. “Do you mind?” she asks as she slings her legs over my thigh.
And normally I wouldn’t. In fact, I don’t. She’s cute, but whatever speck of morals I have says this doesn’t feel right.
“Of course he doesn’t,” Julian says.
Like always, he manages to ignore the violent glare I point in his direction.
Tex, who spent a few summers in the German countryside with his uncle when he was a kid, manages to lead some semblance of a review, but with the way Felicity and Julian are eye fucking and the others are giggling, I barely string together how to introduce myself and ask a few basic questions.
After forty-five minutes or so, Zara is using my lap as a pillow while Gabby plays with her hair and Reagan is still using me as a footrest.
It is the exact worst moment for Clover to walk in, wearing a beat-up flannel shirt speckled with wet clay, cutoff jean shorts, tights, Wellies, and one earbud in her ear.
“Wifey is home!” sings Julian.
“Oh shit,” mutters Tex.
Felicity picks her head up. “Did you saywifey?”
Clover, at first, looks deeply embarrassed and hurt. Her pillows have been tossed to the ground. The books and makeup on her desk have obviously been moved, and it’s then that I notice Felicity is wearing a bubblegum–pink beanie that I recognize as a Christmas present from my mom a few years ago.
Seeing Clover like this takes me back to one of the most reprehensible days of my life. The memory is clear. I can see Clover earnest and hopeful as she waited for a person who didn’t exist.
I hate it. I hate seeing her like this. I would literally do anything for her not to look like this again.
But then her expression quickly turns to outrage. Those full lips purse as she throws her tote bag to the ground and crosses her arms, nostrils flaring. And the guilt I was drowning in just moments ago begins to recede. Her embarrassment and hurt feelings? Those, I cannot handle. But her anger? I could feast on it.
“Should I go ahead and add no unauthorized visitors to our rules?” she asks.
“Hubby’s in trouble,” Julian points out rather unhelpfully.
I stand up and Gabby’s head hits the mattress as Zara fumbles a little.
“You’remarried?” one of them asks.
“Oh my god,” says another. “I was wondering why this bed was so huge.”
“So fucking weird,” one of them—I think Felicity—mumbles.
