“Ball,” Eames finished.
I rolled my lips. Sheepish. I felt like Joey after he ate his date’s cake.
I’m not even sorry.
Lithie, Eames, and Olly sat on the couch across from me, arms folded. Calder sat on our small, polar bear novelty ottoman that really wasn’t designed for a person, let alone someone who was six-four, but he’d insisted I take the only chair. Someone, probably Lithie, had moved our standing lamp so it shone directly on us, blinding like something out of an old film noir.
“Do you do this often?” Olly asked, turning her attention to Calder.
Calder shook his head. “No.”
“Have you ever?” Eames pressed, leaning forward.
Calder shook his head again.
“Can we at least turn down the light?” I said. “I’m baking.”
“Last name?” Eames asked, ignoring me.
“Throe.”
“Blood type?” Olly continued.
“A.”
“Job?”
He paused. “Accountant.”
I started. “Guys?—”
“So you get off on being a predator?” Lithie interrupted me.
I coughed, choking on my spit. “Lithie!”
“Oh, Iwillkink shame,” she said. “I can understand why my sister wants this. When you’re raised in a world that hates women and assaults them and then demands they give grace and empathy to the assaulter, sometimes romanticizing it is the only way to survive. But why areyouinto it?”
All three of them leaned off the couch, glares fixed on Calder. I turned my gaze to him. He didn’t look upset or offended by my sister’s question. His brow furrowed, pensive.
I hadn’t actually considered why Calder would be into this, or the implications of that. Now I was curious. Whatdidhe like about it?
“Because she’s into it,” he said at last.
Their eyes narrowed in unison.
“But it turns you on,” Eames probed. “The idea of overpowering a woman?”
Calder rubbed his neck, still a little wet from the shower, the ends of his curling hair dripping onto his back.
“No, not that,” he said.
“So you just don’t like a woman who says yes,” Olly said.
“Oh my god,” I said. “Stop it.”
“The idea that someone as strong as Shay would trust me enough to allow complete surrender,” he said.
Oh.
