Page 24 of Bound By Brielle (Crave & Cure Productions)

She’s single, as far as I’m aware. And so are they.

There should be no problems.

But still, my nostrils flare and at my side, my fist clenches. I put the bottle of Stella to the test, gripping it with anger and I bring it to my lips, taking a long, cooling drink. Only it doesn’t cool me. I watch them touch and ogle her and find the back of my neck slick with sweat.

Lance steps to my side. Sore from being rebuffed, I only give him a quick sideways glance before refocusing my energy on watching Brielle. From the corner of my eye I see him lift his drink to his lips, and I try to ignore the bumps scattering up my arms beneath my blazer at the sound of him swallowing next to me.

A moment of dense silence passes before he says, “Imagining her collared at your feet?”

Despite the fact that I was imagining her atourfeet, I deny it, because admitting it after a year of trying to win him back feels like a transgression against my cause. “No,” I snort, finishing the last bit of my beer. But electricity wraps my spine, tingling up the back of my neck, making me turn my head slowly, facing Lance’s chiseled profile.

I watch him watch her, the same way I was, and something about the way his lips just barely part, how his eyes narrow just slightly, how he doesn’t move as he stares—something tells mehe’simagining her collared at our feet, too.

eleven

Eeny, meeny, miny, mo…

brielle

I shake my head,still anxiously wrapping a lock of hair around my finger over and over. At my feet, Winnie peers up at me, bottle of nail polish in one hand, brush in the other. “With zero new information, it’s really hard to keep talking about this,” she says, blowing on the wet blue paint on my toenails. She dips the brush in the color, and begins the second coat.

“Okay, but then at their monthly mixer thing, I caught thembothstaring at me. And not in the usualI despise you for not viewing adult films as arttype I usually get.”

Winnie stops the brush mid-stroke on my big toenail. “That’s averyspecific type of look,” she says, smirking.

“Well, that’s their look. I’m telling you,” I sigh, my head falling back onto the pillows as my eyes return to their favorite spot glued to the ceiling above. “But at the party, they looked like they wantedmeas much as they wanted each other in that video I saw.”

She works her way down my toes, ending on the pinky as she finally says, “So what you really want to do is find out if you’re right? Confirm that they’veactuallybeen checking you out?” She recaps the color and reaches for her Coke.

“Iknowthey were. I want to know… I don’t know.” I chew the inside of my cheek as I continue to play with my hair to self-soothe, knowing what I want but feeling too foolish to say it aloud. Even with my best friend.

“You want to see if they’re still together to help you figure out if you have a chance with either?” she floats, putting it all out there, sans sugar coating. It’s what I love about Winnie,her honesty.

“I applied to this program to break up the monotonous boring existence ofBrielle Parker. And what’s more exciting than sexy times with your mentor?” I sit up and clutch a little heart pillow to my chest, running my fingers along the stitching over and over. “Either of them.” I bite my bottom lip. “Do you think I’m a total whore?”

I can’t miss the red that flashes on Winnie’s cheeks before she shrugs, taking a drink from her Coke. “No, I don’t. And if you’re looking to me to be your voice of reason,” she says, finishing her soft drink. “I can’t. You were right to apply for this program and quite frankly, being assigned to Crave & Cure seems like it’s been good for your…uptightness.”

“Hey!” I chide, though she isn’t wrong. I can blame my father for raising me as an uptight snob, but I haven’t been under his roof in years. Everything thus far has been my choice. I’ve been a bit… pretentious and maybe a tad snotty but… I’ve chosen to be those things. I own that. And maybe Winnie’s right—maybe Crave and Lance or Aug areexactlywhat I need right now.

So we start something and it gets messy. Okay. The program ends in just a few months, along with graduate school. We’re adults. We can get through it. I don’t want weeks or months of discomfort and awkwardness for a few weeks of hot as hell sex, I want it all. But it doesn’t always work that way, and I’m prepared for that.

Sex with either of them would be hot as hell, I can tell.

“So what’s my play?” I ask Winnie because despite the fact she’s also single, that's 100% by choice. She’s got men of all varieties sniffing around her literally all the time. I trust her judgment more than I trust my own here. And I know she’s got another hot guy poking around. She’s been smiling at her phone a ton when she thinks I’m not looking.

“Ask one of them out in front of the other and gauge their reactions,” she says, sorting through the other bottles of polish from the foot of the bed. She wrinkles her nose, lowering the shoe box to the floor. “You need new nail polish.”

“And if one seems shocked or has a reaction at all, it means they’re still together,” I supply, thinking it through aloud. “And even if he says no, I’ll still get a better handle on their situation, and better know my chances.”

Winnie nods. “Exactly. And it’s pretty likely, unless they’reactivelydating, that whoever you ask will say yes. So prepare for that.”

I chew the inside of my cheek again, wearing it raw. “That plan… that’s not a bad idea,” I muse aloud.

Winnie reaches across the bed and slaps my knee. “It’s a good idea. You get information and maybe even a date.”

I wiggle my brows. “I’m gonna do it. Fuck it.”

Winnie lifts her palm into the air, grinning, and I match her high-five.

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