She swallowed. “I … um … I need to apologize.”
“For?”
“For crashin’ your party.”
His expression didn’t change. It still held a wealth of confusion.
“I showed up after I told you to spend time alone with him. It was … selfish.”
Nico’s eyebrows hopped, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Selfish?”
She nodded. “I told you to spend time with him, and I … interrupted.”
More crinkling, but not quite a smile. “In case you don’t recall, neither one of us complained.”
“No, but that doesn’t make it okay. Y’all deserve some alone time.”
Nico shifted back, giving her more room. “Alone time?”
“Yeah. You know. The two of you doin’ … whatever y’all do together.”
He huffed a laugh. “I can’t speak for Stone, but I can tell you, I prefer havin’ you both there.”
Stevie frowned, surprised. “You do?”
“Yeah.”
“So you don’t want to…” God, she felt her face heating. “You … um…”
“Spit it out, Stevie.”
“You don’t want to be with just him.”
“If you’re askin’ whether I wanna hang out with him, then yeah. I’d like to. But when you saybe with, I assume you’re talkin’ about sex?”
She nodded even as her ears heated to a million degrees.
“Is that what you prefer? Alone time?”
The question caught her off guard, but she answered honestly. “Not really, no. But … it’s nice sometimes.”
“One on one?”
She nodded again.
“Why?”
Stevie shrugged. “I don’t know. It feels more … intimate?”
Nico smiled, and his blue eyes lit up. “Intimate.”
She wasn’t sure he was understanding her. Especially since he seemed amused by her.
“You think the three of us together isn’t intimate?”
“Sex isn’t always intimate,” she declared, realizing how stupid that sounded. “You know what I mean.”
“Actually, I don’t.”
