“Right? It’s huge. I’m thinking the bed goes right in the middle and then we’ll put our old couch by the windows.”
“Your couch is going in your bedroom?”
“Well, yeah,” I said, grinning. “Then you’ll have a place to sleep when you stay the night.”
Rebel’s smile was slow to emerge, but it was there.
“Unless you want to share the bed with me?” I asked.
“You’re a bed hog,” she replied seriously. “It’s like sleeping with an octopus.”
“Slept with many octopi?”
“Haha. Funny,” she replied, completely straight faced.
“It’s a cool place, right?” I said, suddenly kind of nervous.
“I like the windows,” she replied.
“Me too.”
“And there are two ovens so you can make two pizzas at the same time.”
“Good point.”
“Your bedroom is really big.”
“Way bigger than the last one. So much room for activities.”
“And it’s closer to my house.”
“It is?”
“By three minutes,” she confirmed. “I timed it.”
“Hot damn,” I said with a smile.
Kara poked her head in the room, her face red and sweaty. “You like our new house?” she asked Rebel.
“It’s three minutes closer to Reb’s house,” I said.
“Duh,” Kara said, smiling at Rebel. “Why do you think we chose it?”
“No way,” Rebel said, practically lighting up.
Kara shrugged. “Come on guys, no more screwing around. We need to finish unpacking so Rose will order the damn pizza.”
“I’m hungry,” Reb said, following her into the hallway.
“Go tell Rose,” I said as I hurried after them. “And tell her you want beer too.”
“I don’t like beer,” Rebel replied easily.
“Fine, tell her I want beer.”
Less than an hour later, the house was full of boxes and we’d all collapsed on the floor of the living room, eating pizza off of paper plates.
“What are you going to do about furniture in here?” my dad asked, taking a sip of his beer.
“Beanbags,” I replied immediately.
“Plannin’ on finding something this week,” Draco answered, ignoring me. “We need somethin’ bigger than the girls’ old couch.”
“Which is now all mine,” I said with satisfaction.
“I’m going to sleep there when I spend the night,” Rebel told her mom.
“Perfect,” Molly replied.
“I’m thinking a sectional,” Kara said. “We never have enough seats for everyone. Especially when Curtis finally gets home.”
The room grew quiet.
“A sectional is a good idea,” Kara’s dad Mack said, ignoring the implied question of when Curtis would get home. “You should try that discount place where we found our bed. They had some sectionals. What’s that place called Rosie?”
“Notice how he changed the subject?” Kara murmured to me. “Classic Jacob Mackenzie dodge.”
“It was impressive, really,” I murmured back.
“No parties,” Tommy said out of nowhere.
We laughed.
“I’m not kiddin’,” he griped. “You wanna party, come to the clubhouse. I don’t want the neighbors callin’ at all hours of the night bitchin’ at me.”
“Why are you so sure the neighbors won’t like us?” I asked innocently. “Maybe they’ll come to the parties.”
“Don’t,” Tommy ordered. “Don’t do it.”
“Can he really tell us who we can have in our house?” I asked, looking around the room. “Someone help me out here.”
“Stop being such a stick-in-the-mud, Thomas,” Rose said, laying on the carpet with her head on Mack’s legs. “It’s not like they’re going to throw a rager.”
“I don’t know about that,” Draco’s friend Bishop said as he stepped inside the open door. “Give a guy a little bit of freedom and….” His words trailed off.
“Nice of you to show when the work is over,” my dad joked.
Bishop said hello to everyone and conversations moved on, but I just stared. Why in God’s name did I find the man so attractive? I’d been with plenty of people, some that I shuddered to think about now and some that I remembered more than fondly, but there had never been anyone else that I was so overwhelmingly attracted to. Everything from his voice to his stupid feet turned me on. I hadn’t found a single thing that I didn’t like, and that pissed me off.
“Shut your mouth,” Kara whispered. “You’re drooling.”
“Fuck off,” I replied, automatically wiping at my face.
“Just bang him and be done with it,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe he sucks in bed.”
“He’s Draco’s best bud,” I hissed. “Shouldn’t you be telling me to steer clear so I don’t ruin their friendship when things go south?”
Kara snorted. “You’re friendly with all your exes. I’m not worried about that.” She hummed. “I am a little worried that all the sexual tension is going to spontaneously combust our new house, though.”
“Fine, I’ll bang him and get it over with.”
“Seriously?”
“No, not seriously, you fucking lunatic.” I reached over and pinched her leg. “I’m going to bang someone else and pretend it’s him.”
“You’re a head case.”
“I am intelligent and have a healthy sense of self-preservation,” I replied quietly as I met Bishop’s blue eyes from across the room. I was ready when the familiar feeling of falling, like the downhill slide of a roller coaster, ran through me.