Page 79 of Triple Play

“Well, both of you should maybe do that,” I command.

Blake doesn’t need to be told twice—after I’m off his lap, I watch from the bed as he undresses with a specific kind of efficiency that must come from a lifetime spent hustling out of locker rooms to meet a team bus. He folds his slacks, hangs his shirt on the back of a desk chair.

Felix moves slower, shucking his pants, stripping down his socks, peeling off his shirt. Until he’s in dark green boxers, the rise of his stomach dipping slightly over the waistband. In his clothes, he’s big. Out of them, he’s big, and I want to see exactly what that strength—both of their strengths—can do.

Fate granted us an extra day together. I was tempted to call it bad luck, but now I think it’s the opposite. If we’re going to be together—if this is the only time we’ll get together—we should be together.

“I have an IUD,” I blurt.

Felix makes a noise—surprise? Right, even if Felix knows Blake and I haven’t slept together, we probably should’ve talked about this before.

I crane my head up to look at him. “Blake’s a goddamn gentleman, okay?”

That gets Felix’s laugh and Blake’s too.

“I was waiting for the right moment to ask,” Blake says.

“Is this the right moment?” I ask.

He kisses the end of my nose, then my cheek, then finally my lips, his hands in my hair; he settles on the bed with his body slotted against mine. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had a better one.”

He’s right. This is perfect. Or would be except…

Felix is still standing, looking at us as if he’s uncertain. I circle his wrist, gently pull him down. “Come help Blake finish what he started at dinner.”

Felix sinks down next to me, mattress groaning with our combined weight. His arms wrap around me…and then he extends one further to reach Blake. Until we’re together, caught up, three bodies in inescapable orbit. I kiss Blake again, grind back against Felix, kiss Felix, wind my thigh around Blake’s.

For a second, I don’t kiss either of them, and they study each other, a breath’s distance apart. You could… That’s not my permission to grant, not really. But when Blake’s eyes find mine, I give him a fraction of a nod.

Blake’s tongue dabs his lower lip. He breathes as if he’s gathering courage. “You want to get her ready for us, sweetheart?” And his face goes hot as soon as he says it, but he makes no move to deny it—that he just called Felix that.

“What happened to sir?” Felix teases.

Blake’s laugh comes easy. “I could call you that too. And you didn’t answer the question.”

“You want me to get Shira all wet for you?”

The tips of Blake’s ears go pink. “Not just for me. If you want. And she wants.” Like he’s been dreaming about this the way I have.

I rub my thighs together where I’m already slick with anticipation. “You did a pretty good job of that before.”

At that, Felix grabs me by my waist, pulls me to the edge of the bed, kneels between my spread legs. He runs his thumbs up my inner thighs. “Hmm.”

“You don’t think I’m wet?” I tease.

“I don’t think you’re dripping.” He pushes my knees apart, presses a kiss to the muscle of my thigh, his stubble a rasp. Something I’ll feel tomorrow when we go back to being just friends.

It’s dim in here, but the bedside lamp provides enough illumination to cast us all in relief. Different from the dizzying lights of the club: how everyone looks good when you’re drunk and covered in glitter in the dark. Suddenly, I’m aware of the stretch marks lining my inner thighs.

Felix strokes a faintly silvery mark, the place where my skin unzippered slowly as my body adjusted to a different kind of dance.

“Sorry,” I say.

He frowns. “Why are you apologizing?”

For not being the fantasy girl you spent the last year dreaming of, the one who doesn’t exist when the lights turn back on. I can’t bring myself to say it.

He kisses me—at the marks lining my thigh, the soft interior of my knee. Along my ankle with its still-shining scar tissue, where a surgeon put me back together after my world fell apart. “Don’t apologize,” he says, “when every part of you is perfect.”

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