Rei
Idon’t know what’s gotten into me, but looking at the way Trine’s chewing on her straw, her brown eyes narrow, there’s no part of me that doesn’t want to take her back to my hotel. I think she’s on the same wavelength as I am. I can see it in her eyes.
Still, I don’t make unilateral decisions like this. I better ask. “So do you actually want to go back to the hotel?”
“What makes you think I wanted to do that?”
“I didn’t. That’s why I’m asking you.”
She smiles, her eyes narrowing. “So that’s what you meant by something to make me forget. I hope you have some tricks up your sleeve.”
“You didn’t enjoy it last time?”
She bites down on her lower lip. She’s eating a chocolate mousse dessert, doing it slowly, savoring each one of her bites. “Do you want to try this?” she asks.
I ordered some sort of banana pudding which I’ve been picking at since I got it, and it’s delicious, but if she’s going to offer to feed me, I’m not going to say no. She scoops some dessert into her spoon and feeds me a bit.
“What do you think?” she says, sticking the spoon back in the mousse.
“Nice. Airy,” I tell her. “Do you wanna try mine?”
“Sure,” she says. She inches her face closer to me, and I put the spoon in her mouth, watching her close her eyes as she tastes the warm dessert. She licks her lips, opens her eyes to look up at me, and giggles. She knows exactly what she’s doing. “That’s delicious.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” I say.
She smiles, then furrows her brow. “Are you sure it’s okay?” she says as she sits back. “Won’t Misha be mad?”
I consider that for a second. There’s every chance Misha might be angry, but I don’t particularly care. It’s not like the two of them are together. I can’t exactly stop living my life just because he’s jealous.
But she did want something different, and as soon as this is over, we’ll be gone. “You said you wanted me to watch you fuck him, right?”
She practically chokes on her food, her cheeks reddening. I hold back the urge to laugh. “You thought I was serious?”
“I do now,” I reply. “How would you feel if I texted him and told him we’re going back to the hotel?”
“Like, to rub it in his face?”
“No,” I say. “To ask him to join.”
“You would do that?”
I nod. “Sure. I mean, if he doesn’t want to, he can always say no, right?”
She nods, too, her eyes widening. Her mouth drops open a little, and I cock my head.
“I don’t have to do this,” I say as I grab my phone from the table. “If you want to…I don’t know, if you don’t want to do this, or if you don’t want me to call him, I don’t have to.”
She cocks her head, her eyes narrowing. “Yeah, but like, you only live once, right?” she says. “And we don’t want to make him jealous. Do we?”
“Of course not. We don’t want to be cruel.”
“Right,” I say.
I’m not sure how to tell Misha that we’re coming back and that she’s probably expecting him to wait for her, so I beckon her toward me, and she sits next to me. “What are you doing?” she asks.
“Taking a picture,” I reply. “I want him to know I’m not fucking with him when I tell him I’m taking you back to the hotel.”
She smiles, leaning her head on my shoulder, and my heart skips a beat in my chest. I take a photo of us, then another one as she presses a kiss to my cheek. She grabs my face with her hands and pulls me close to her, then sticks her tongue in my mouth.