Page 13 of Faking the Play

She gave a little wave and then seemed to remember that she was holding my hand. She pulled away just as Logan came out of his room. He, of course, noticed right away that something was off and didn’t bother pretending not to.

“What happened?” He immediately came over and gave her a hug before leading her to the couch.

I sat on the other side of her, and Ethan just plopped right down on the coffee table so his knees brushed up against hers.

“Today sucked.” Her voice broke and something inside me cracked.

“Tell us.” Ethan patted her knee but didn’t let his hand linger. “You’ll feel better if you get it all out.”

“Will I?” she asked. “Because I thought I got it all out yesterday when it all happened and I’d be okay today because everyone was going to be focusing on their classes and once people saw that Dr. Isenberg and I were being weird with each other the gossip would change and everyone would be on my side—”

“Breathe, Lia,” I reminded her gently.

She took a gulp of air, but then started going again, just as fast as before. “But people just stared at me and talked about me and even the freshmen in the class I’m supposed to be TA for know what happened.” She sniffed and Logan handed her a tissue without a word. “And then at the end of class, these two jerks from the ethics committee came in like they were cops or something and asked all these humiliating questions like why I’d posed for the pictures and if there was anything going on with Dr. Isenberg and they definitely didn’t believe me when I said there wasn’t because no one believes me.”

“We believe you,” Ethan cut in. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

She shook her head and blew her nose, a loud honking sound that all of us used to make fun of when we were kids.

None of us were laughing now.

“The worst part is, even if the ethics committee believes Dr. Isenberg and me and I can salvage my academic reputation, my personal one is always going to be shit. I’ll be able to tell potential employers I was cleared of wrongdoing, but will anyone else give a damn?”

She took the box of tissues that Logan held out and blew her nose again. “Every guy who ever wants to ask me out is going to find out I have nudes online and there’s no way they’ll everwant to date me after that. Fuck me, sure, because those pictures mean I’m easy, right? But dating? Being the girl they can take home to meet their parents? I mean, what if their brothers or their dad saw those pictures? Could you imagine what that would be like? Christmas dinner knowing they’d all seen me naked?”

She started sucking in air in short bursts and I reached out to grab her hands, drawing her attention to me.

“You need to slow down,” I said calmly. “You’re gonna make yourself pass out.”

“Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter.” Her grip on my hands tightened, panic in her eyes. “I was already shit at choosing guys. Always have been. Until I met Jason. Then I thought it’d be different. I thought I’d finally found a good one but he was the worst of the bunch and what does that say about me that I keep picking these horrible people and no one nice ever asks me out because I’m just awkward and weird and—”

I moved without thinking, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her against my chest. The other guys moved in too, Ethan kneeling in front of her and leaning against her legs while Logan held her from the other side. It should’ve felt strange, us all being pressed together, but it didn’t.

We sat like that even after she stopped crying and her breathing slowed, only moving when the oven dinged and Ethan got up to get the food out. Amelia went to wash her face and us three didn’t say a word. We were all thinking.

What we didn’t know until later, when Amelia had fallen asleep, curled up on our couch, was that we were all thinking the same thing. Of course, Logan was the one who brought it up first.

“Guys, we need to talk about her.” His expression was serious. “I have an idea, but it’ll work best with all three of us.”

Chapter eight

Amelia

Iwas back in the soft, good-smelling cloud with no idea how I’d gotten there. Then I woke up a bit more and remembered that the cloud was actually Ethan’s bed. And he was in bed with me. Again.

This time, however, he wasn’t behind me. I was on my back, and he was facedown next to me. While that meant I had no idea if he was in the same condition he’d been in yesterday, the arm that had been around my waist before was higher now. As in, draped over my breasts with his hand actually resting on the side of one of them.

And judging by how tight my nipple was, my breast didn’t mind.

As I shifted slightly, I realized with a start that my breast wasn’t the only part of my body having a physical reaction to Ethan’s touch. I was wet. And not like I was just a little sweaty because I was overly warm. No, this was arousal so sharp that my panties were wet. And if I didn’t do something soon, they’d soak through to my shorts and then I’d feel like I peed my pants and Ethan’s bed and—

“You’re thinking way too hard for this early in the morning,” Ethan mumbled.

I turned to see him looking at me, a sleepy smile on his face. When he realized where his arm was, he gave me that damn sheepish smile that he used to give teachers all the time to get out of trouble.

And it always worked.

Apparently, it worked on me too, because I didn’t yell at him when he moved his arm slowly, letting his fingers brush over my breast as they went. Well, it might’ve been more about the shiver of pleasure that went through me than his smile, but the curve of his lips definitely played a role.

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