Page 40 of Beautifully Devoted

“Fine,” Jagger huffs. “Someone doesn’t do dishes, someone doesn’t take out the trash, those two fuck too loud.” He points at Cruz and Liam.

“Hey, we’re better about that,” Liam objects.

“Alright, you break furniture then. Who cares, I’m just making shit up since Bennet needs a reason to pillow fight.”

“Are we gonna have prizes for the winner?” Cruz asks.

“You’re gonna make money from your sponsor,” Jagger says.

“Not everyone has sponsors. There should be a prize, like you don’t have to take a turn cleaning the kitchen or something.” Cruz insists.

“Okay, winner doesn’t have to clean the kitchen for a week,” Jagger suggests.

“Ooh, I got it. Winner gets to choose what we watch on TV.” Liam’s eyes light up. Fucker keeps wanting to watch anything but sports news since he says that’s all we talk about. He might have a point, but still.

“No kitchen duty and you drive the TV. Fair enough,” Bennet says.

“Still think this sounds like a bad porno,” I mutter.

“As long as no one sports a woody it’ll be fine.” Jagger claps his hands together like some sort of evil villain plotting his master plan. “Talk to your people, Cruz. Let’s have a pillow war.”

Well, fuck. This has bad idea written all over it.

Jagger

“Do we have teams for this thing, or do we just swing our pillows at random?” Bennet asks as he smacks a fist into one of the official combat pillows I bought us all off the website, which are beefier than you’d expect.

I’m not saying they’ll do real damage or anything, but they’re not your basic slumber material.

“How can we have teams when there are five of us?” I point out.

“I’m still good to just film,” Cam says from where he’s setting his phone on its little tripod thingy.

“The way those shorts look on you?” I put him in a pair of shorts I got from my most recent shipment, and since his torso is a little thicker than mine, they ride slightly higher on the waist but fall perfectly over his round ass. Not that I’m looking. “Hell, no. You gotta be in front of the camera so we can get you an NIL deal of your own.”

“Get Bennet a deal. He’s more interested in going pro than I am.”

“I don’t need an NIL deal to do that,” Bennet says. “Besides, if I got one, I’d want it to be for shoes.”

“Bet,” I hold out my fist and bump Bennet’s knuckles, since we all know what a sneakerhead he is. Seriously, the guy must have over twenty pairs in every color imaginable.

“For real, though. How does this work?” Bennet asks again.

“I figure we draw numbers and fight the person who has your same number,” I answer.

“That doesn’t solve the five-person problem, so I’ll just film. Or ref,” Cam says, which deflates my mood a little.

Cam has a habit of shrinking into the background, and while he likes to pretend that isn’t my fault, we both know it is. The fucked-up thing is, that’s the last place I want him to be, but since people seem to gravitate toward me before him, he plays into the whole wallflower thing.

It’s total bullshit. Yes, I’m a little louder and more obnoxious—he’s the conscience to my rebel, and rebels tend to draw more attention since we’re slightly bat shit—but other than that there’s really no difference between us. Unless you count the physical stuff. But Cam’s fucking gorgeous. I’ve always thought so, even before the whole hand job thing.

Maybe I think that because he’s the exact opposite of me. He has light hair while mine’s dark. He has brown eyes and mine are green. But I resemble my father like a mirror, so it would make sense that I’m attracted to everything my father isn’t, seeing as I wish the fucker would take a dirt nap.

The point is, other people would see Cam’s appeal too, if he stepped out of my shadow, but for some reason he likes it there. Always has. And no matter what I suggest to bring him out of it, he rarely budges.

“We could make you the guy to beat. Winner of our round robin has to face you.” I bite my lip and give him a mischievous smile, taunting Cam to do what I want. As usual, it works, since he can’t seem to say no when I turn on the charm.

“Fine, I’ll face off against the winner,” he mutters, as if I’ve twisted his arm. He goes back to fiddling with the phone so it’s ready to film, though we both get distracted by our roommates bickering as they join us.

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