Page 89 of Keep Me

“My cake?”

She jumps up from the table and scurries off into the kitchen. I can feel Claire staring at me, but I don’t look in her direction.

“She’s really amazing,” Greg’s wife, Emma, says with a warm smile.

“Yeah,” I mutter to myself. “She is.”

Just then the lights go out in the dining room, and a warm glow emits from the kitchen. Before I know it, I hear Sylvie crooning off-tune.

“Haaaaappy…” she starts while waiting for the rest to join in. “Birthday to you,” she sings when they do.

Throughout the entire song, she’s grinning at me over the candles on the giant chocolate cake, and I can’t help but smile in return. By the time she sets it down in front of me, the song is over, and she’s gaping at me expectantly.

Closing my eyes, I make a quick wish, and I blow the candles out. Everyone cheers, and I swallow my embarrassment.

While Sylvie cuts the cake and passes out each piece, I find myself watching her with wonder. This is somehow the same woman who threw hot coffee on her ex-boyfriend and broke into a stranger’s house. She’s the same woman who kissed my beesting and mended my hand when it was bleeding. Every moment I thought I had her figured out, she surprised me with more layers and beauty than I ever expected.

“We should play a game!” Sylvie exclaims, with a glass of wine in her hand.

“Not another drinking game,” I mutter.

“No…” She snatches the empty wine bottle off the table and smiles at me. “You’ve played spin the bottle, right?”

My heated gaze turns in her direction. “Sylvie…”

The party reacts with excitement.

“I knew your wife would know how to get the party started,” someone says with a giggle.

Immediately, everyone is on board, practically running from the dining room table and into the parlor. They clear a spot in the middle of the large room. Sitting right in front of the fireplace, they form a circle on the floor, and Sylvie reaches for me, gesturing for me to sit next to her.

Liam grabs another bottle of wine, and I realize how painfully sober I am.

This is a bad idea. I can feel it.

My friends and I have been kinky together in the past. These parties always lead to sex in some way or another, and I’ve always been open to playing along, although there is only one other person in this room I’ve actually fucked, andthatwasn’t part of the party.

No,thatwas something very different entirely.

But these couples have no problem with sharing all the time. It’s almost as if my house is the safe space where they can fuck each other, and it doesn’t mean anything.

But now that I’m married, I realize that it means a hell of a lot to me. For a guy who hangs out with a bunch of swingers, suddenly, I don’t feel as if I belong here.

“Okay, so the rules are simple. If the bottle lands on you, you can choose to kiss or drink,” Sylvie explains.

“Or more…” Liam adds, making everyone laugh.

When Sylvie moves to spin the bottle, I immediately grab it from the floor and pass it along to Liam, who is sitting on the other side of her. Sylvie gives me a grumpy look as if she’s disappointed in me, but I don’t care. I sit in frustrated silence while Liam spins.

The bottle lands on Emma. Everyone claps and cheers. Her cheeks redden immediately. Then she crooks a finger at Liam, basically implying that she’d rather have a kiss than a drink. He crawls across the floor toward her, and she grabs his face, planting a long wet kiss on his mouth. Everyone reacts with excitement, even Greg, who’s laughing next to her.

When the kiss is done, Liam sits back down, and Nick is next. His bottle lands on Claire, who opts for drinking instead of kissing. After Nick, Theresa goes. The bottle spins until it lands on Angus.

“Get over here,” he says to Theresa. I notice the way Claire’s mouth sets in a thin angry line.

Theresa laughs as she crawls over to Angus, but instead of kissing him on his mouth, she dives down and latches her lips onto his neck, sucking on his flesh and making his eyes roll into the back of his head.

“Holy shite,” he mutters after she releases him. As he touches the now red circle she left behind, he mutters a low “I’m fuckin’ hard as hell after that.”

---