Page 60 of Sizzle

It’s Diana.

“How’s the ex-ball and chain?” says Elliot. I didn’t hear him come in, but he’s right beside me. There’s no way he missed seeing that text. I can’t quite decipher the tone in his voice, but it puts me on edge.

“I don’t know. We haven’t exactly kept in touch.”

“Doesn’t look that way to me,” he says, tone overwhelmingly snide now. I know he doesn’t like her, but Elliot usually goes to the trouble of at least pretending to hide his animosity about my ex-fiancée.

“So what did we decide on?” Joelle asks, coming into the kitchen, her shoes in hand.

“It’s up to you two,” says Elliot. “I’m heading out.”

“What?” Joelle goes pale.

“Oh, come on,” I say.

“No, really,” he says, kissing Joelle’s cheek. “There’s a lot to do before I open tomorrow. You’re on at ten, right?” Elliot says to Joelle, not looking at me at all.

“You know it,” she says, taking the kiss and frowning, paler still, clearly confused and on the verge of freaking out.

Fucking idiot. Can’t he see he’s fucking this up?

“Elliot,” I say. It comes out as a growl. He just glares at me and heads up the stairs to his own apartment.

Joelle pulls her shoes on.

“I’m gonna head home, too,” she says quietly. She gives me a weak smile and stands up, tapping at her phone.

“Don’t go. We can—”

“Thanks, Alex, but it’s late. I should—I really should get back. Dad’ll be getting worried,” she says. Her voice is shaking and it’s killing me, but I don’t try to stop her again. It wouldn’t be fair to Elliot, spending time with Joelle when she’s clearly meant for him. Whatever bug crawled up his ass in the last five minutes, they’d have to sort it out themselves.

The three-minute wait for her Uber is the longest three minutes of my life. I want to beg her to stay, to apologize for whatever the fuck just happened. And to top it all off, I’m still half hard, visions of the last hour firing off when I should be making her feel better, or at least apologizing for Elliot’s asshole exit.

“Joelle,” I start. She’s got the door open before I can get to the car. She takes her seat, pulling the door shut behind her. She gives me another shaky smile and mouths “bye Alex” at me through the window. As the car speeds off, I catch a glimpse of tears on her cheeks.

What the fuck just happened here?

18

Joelle

There’s noise coming from somewhere outside my head but the dream is too good to give up, so I bury my head under my pillow and let it claim me again.

It’s Elliot and Alex, and we’re gearing up for round two. Or maybe three or four. I can’t remember at this point. All I know is I’m not done with them yet and it’s so damn hot in here I need to kick the covers off but it’s cold out there and I’m not ready to face that stupid alarm.

Alarm.

That’s not an alarm; that’s a phone call.

I shove the pillow off my face and scoot to the end table, snagging my phone off the shelf just as the call goes to voicemail.

I groan, scrubbing my face with my hands. Figures. I think long and hard about crawling back under the covers and trying to get back to that glorious dream. But that never works and anyway, I don’t need dreams anymore.

I’ve got memories.

But then the memory of how last night ended—with Elliot glaring daggers at Alex for some reason and then both of them beating a hasty retreat on me—hits and the lingering arousal I’d woken with begins to fade. Okay, so technically, Alex didn’t run off. I left his place. But he didn’t exactly try to stop me, did he?

And just like that, I’m back on the looping train of thought that kept me up the second half of the night.

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