2
“Can you believe it’s been a year since we started living together?” Andi asked Simon, Reed, and Cooper as they sat around their dining room table eating brunch together the next morning. It was rare—even on a Saturday—that they were all home and available at the same time given their dedication to their budding careers, continuing education, and trying to align four busy schedules.
“Andi, you’re way better at math than me,” Simon teased, making his other roommates snort at that gross understatement. Andi might have been his super-cute girlfriend, but she was also a brilliant chemist. “So you should know we moved in together five years ago.”
She laughed, then flung a chunk of waffle at him. He leaned in and snapped it out of midair, making her crack up even more. Sure, he was the most playful of her roommates-turned-lovers, but he knew she took him seriously when it counted.
Andi continued her train of thought aloud. “Yeah, but that was before we used to sleep together. It hardly counts.”
“True. You’ve never really lived until you’ve had a ménage.” Of course Cooper had caught her meaning right away. They had some special psychic mind-meld that Simon was sometimes jealous of. For like a split second, before he got over it. He and Andi had an emotional bond. She and Cooper had a mental one. Her and Reed…well, that was over-the-top physical.
Simon should know. As a sports medicine professional, he’d given her plenty of massages, helping to loosen her lean muscles after Reed had worn her out.
Andi beamed. She came alive when all of them were together.
Her mood and their attention guaranteed they were about to have an insanely good weekend. That is, if Reed and his big ideas didn’t fuck things up.
Simon wasn’t sure their plan would work. At all. But he trusted Reed and Cooper’s judgment when it came to important matters. They both had voted that Andi would love their surprise. He prayed they were right. It had been a while since she’d had one of her nightmares, though she still got spooked sometimes if he came up behind her without making a racket and she would always turn her cell phone flashlight on if she had to get up during the night.
It hurt him to see even those minor changes in her. She’d never been afraid before the disaster last year. Which was why revisiting that turbulent time in their past seemed dangerous to him. Maybe he just hated to think about it himself. They had almost ended up torn apart.
What would his life be like without Andi? Or his other roommates?
Incomplete. That’s what it would be. Their arrangement might not be conventional, but it suited them—each of them individually, and all of them as a whole—perfectly.
Hopefully, after tonight, they’d grow closer yet.
“It’s going to be fine,” Reed whispered to Simon while Andi was distracted by Cooper. “But if you’re not sure, then we can change the plan.”
“No.” He gritted his teeth and shook his head. “I trust you.”
Reed knocked his knee into Simon’s. “Thank you.”
“What are you two up to over there?” Andi asked, apparently not as enthralled as Simon had thought. Or maybe she was just an excellent multitasker. He could attest to her skill since he’d watched her in bed with the three of them on as many occasions as they could arrange in the past year.
“Can we tell her now?” Cooper asked, guaranteeing they’d have to. Andi wasn’t the type of woman to let things slide. “She’s going to love this.”
Simon nodded when Reed and Cooper looked to him for one final reassurance that he was onboard. Cooper scooted his chair around so that the three of them sat shoulder to shoulder to shoulder directly across from Andi.
She beamed. “Well, that’s a hell of a view, right there.”
“We wanted to talk to you for a second.” As usual, Reed acted as the spokesman for the guys. He was best at it.
Andi’s smile dimmed some, making Simon wonder if he’d been right all along. He set down his fork on his empty plate and wrung his hands. When she glanced at his nervous gesture, she began to frown. Ah, shit. He was screwing things up already.
“It’s nothing bad,” Cooper promised her. “In fact, we wanted to surprise you.”
“It’s not my birthday.” She tipped her head as she studied them. “Or a holiday. What’s going on?”
“Technically, it kind of is.” Reed smiled. “It’s the anniversary of our graduation. And since we never got to celebrate properly, we were hoping you’d let us take you out. To Coeur.”
There it was.
Simon tried not to wince. Coeur was the fancy-as-fuck French restaurant back in their college town where they’d planned to woo Andi originally, before they’d driven her to experiment at a random sex club, which had ended in disaster. Every time he so much as thought about her alone with that creeper, being drugged then assaulted…
He shuddered.
But Andi didn’t.