“It’s a good way to forget.”
She twists her lips to one side and shrugs. “Can’t deny that.”
“You’d watch me fuck Gloria?”
“I wouldn’t enjoy it,” she says. “But if you wanted me to join…”
“You’d have a threesome with me and Lo?”
“Dude, Lo is cool as shit and obviously hot,” she says. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Have you done that before?”
She shrugs again. “Haven’t you?”
My hands tighten on her little waist, so small my fingers almost wrap around her entire body. Now there’s a few more necks I’d like to snap. “Who’d you have a threesome with?”
“Do we need to have another talk about double standards?”
“Who?” I press, squeezing her harder.
Her eyelids flinch, and I know I’m hurting her, but she doesn’t let on. She sighs like it’s a burden to revisit what was probably the best fucking night of her life. “I told you I had a girlfriend who was more interested in guys thinking she was hot than actually being with a girl.”
“And the other body I need to dispose of next time the river floods?”
She levels me with a glare. “You know all three people I’ve had sex with.”
Fucking Maverick.
My blood is made of pure, incinerating rage.
“Royal,” she says, her soft hand resting on my cheek the way she does when we’re fucking, bringing my face toward her, drawing my gaze to hers. “That’s not something I’m looking for, okay? I wasn’t really ever looking for it. We were bored and young and didn’t care about each other or anyone else, so why not? I wouldn’t expect you to want that, and I wouldn’t want it. Trust me, you’re more than enough.”
“Why wouldn’t you want it?” I ask. “You’re into chicks.”
“I’m also into dick,” she says, standing on tiptoes and leaning into me, pressing her tight little body to mine. “One, in particular.”
I kiss her long and slow for a minute, holding her against me like her little sin of a body could anchor me to anything at all. When I pull back, I smile down at her. “So, you care about me.”
“I didn’t say that.” She tries to pull away, but I hold her tighter, not letting her squirm away and put up her walls the way she does.
“I think you did,” I counter.
“Maybe.” There’s a challenge in her voice, in the way her eyes flash when she’s acting tough. “Are you man enough to admit it, too?”
“Man enough to admit it,” I say. “But not fool enough to care.”
Suddenly, the music stops, and everyone is counting around us. The past hour slipped by like a moment, the second when you wake and haven’t remembered who you are, what you’ve done to become that person, what you’d give to change it all.
I grind my hips against Harper’s so she can feel what I care about, what I’ll admit to. “There will be no threesomes when you’re with me,” I growl into her ear. “No one touches you but me. Got it?”
She submits to my hold, letting me lean her back, cradling her lower back in my hands again. “Got it,” she says, smiling up at me. “Happy New Year.”
We kiss, and everyone kisses, and for one more moment, I don’t have to remember that two years ago on this night, I killed my sister.