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‘Yes.’

There was a mug, steaming on the counter.

‘Is that for me?’

‘It’s not mine. Stuff goes straight through me.’ He cringes at his own comedic attempt.

‘That was diabolical.’

I don’t feel like leaving yet. I don’t feel like leaving at all.

‘You’re not exactly quiet,’ she snipes, throwing her long locks over a wooded shoulder. ‘And that’s not exactly discreet.’ She points towards the window in the attic.

We both look up and Walker jolts like he’s been caught doing something naughty. He looks left, right, left again, back down to us and disappears in a panic.

Our eyes flick to each other knowingly. A smile lives and dies on Lavender’s pretty face. She looks at me with ill-concealed consternation.

‘You should be…’ she trails, frown deepening. ‘Just be careful.’

I take a step closer. ‘Is there something I should know?’

Lavender looks at me like she’s pleading. For what, I have no idea. ‘If there’s something you need to tell me, Lav, you know you can, right? I know some girls get mean when they hear something they don’t want to hear, but⁠—’

She shakes her head, paints on a grin that’s missing its finishing touches and says, ‘No. Forget me. I’m just…’ She waves a branch. ‘Projecting!’ she laughs. ‘Anyway.’ She brushes a vine over her shoulder. ‘How was it?’ Lavender bites her lip and waggles her brows. Ah. Back to normalcy. This is the flirty deviant I know and love.

‘It was…’ Stars, how to describe the best not-sex of my life.

Walker’s hands slid down the outline of my body, the cool pressure sending shivers up my spine.

‘It was…’

His fingers snaked around the edge of my underwear and slid to between my thighs. Teasing me before they came to my entrance, pushing into me and⁠—

‘Did you just—’ Walker’s lips are pressed against my ear.

‘No!’ I whisper-scream before I can rein in my hideous embarrassment.

‘Because if you did, you know it’s totally normal and nothing to be embarrassed about.’

‘I know that. But I didn’t.’

‘It was great. Amazing even. Incredible until he started fingering me and a wayward air pocket appeared. Next thing I know, my fanny flute was sounding off notes for the entire forest to hear,’ I admit to Lavender.

‘I didn’t hear any music… wait, fanny what? What are we talking about here?’

‘I queefed. I let a toot slip through the front shoot. The bagpipes of my loins played nonconsensually.’

Lavender is still for all of three seconds before laughter that almost looks like sobs wracks her body.

‘Ah, Stars. That’s good stuff.’ She wipes a tear from beneath her eye as the remaining giggles make her body jump every time her eyes go glazed and she thinks of it again.

‘Wonderful to know my mortification amuses you.’

‘Well, I didn’t hear any queefs, but I did hear someone laughing, and unless Walker sounds like a teen girl when he’s cracked, that someone would have to be you. So, it mustn’t have been all that mortifying.’

‘It was either a queef or an air biscuit, I know which one I’d rather it be.’

‘An air biscuit?’ I descend into a fit of giggles. Walker throws up his hands, but I can see the corner of his lips dying to lift into a grin.