Page 53 of True Blue

“We should go get dinner after we’re done,” Janette says when we step into the lobby after a tension filled ride down.

“You sure you want people to see all of us together?” Axel and I have been cautious around her the last few weeks, holding off on suggesting we go out of the suite to hang out and usually bringing food back with us or ordering out when we knew she would be over. Her initial panic still clawed at us a little and we didn’t want to spook her if she wasn’t ready to be out yet. We both knew what it was like to be judged for who we were with.We’d talked about it, and both decided to take things at her speed.

She shrugs. “We might have to be careful about too much touching, but I don’t think anyone will see us eating together and automatically put together that we’re a thing. We already sit together in class and at the library. This will be the same thing, just with food,” she reasons.

I nod, tamping down the warmth in my chest at the idea of the three of us going out to do something nonacademic. It’s a baby step, but the first one at that. “Food sounds good.”

Axel rolls his eyes at me over Janette’s head and mouths my words back at me with a disbelieving look.

I shrug, mouthingWhat?back.

That sounded stupid,he mouths.

“You both know I'm right here, right? I can feel you talking over me,” Janette says, side eyeing each of us with pursed lips. “I know it’s a lame first step, but I do want to leave your suite sometimes and do normal couple things.” Her forehead wrinkles. “Or throuple things, I guess?”

Axel flexes his hands around the straps of his backpack, holding himself back from touching her. “I was telling Bentley his response was stupid. Nothing about you, Blue. We’d both love to go get food with you.” She smiles up at him before turning the same look over to me. We keep walking down the sidewalk together, Axel joking about calling us The Triple Threats.

“Oh! Or how about Three of a Kind?” He looks at both of us with so much excitement.

“We’re not a superhero group,” I say, pulling open the heavy wooden door and holding it for both of them to enter first. “We don’t need a group name.”

Axel pouts and Janette laughs. “I like Triple Threat. Sounds intimidating.”

“Don’t encourage him.” We walk over to our usual table, still vacant though the crowd around here has grown nearly every week as the semester passes.

“But it’s so much fun to gang up on you.” Axel snorts at her words and I stare at her as we sit down, waiting for the double meaning to sink in. Her eyes widen when she realizes, and she grins at me, licking her lips on purpose. I grunt across the table from her in response.

“Let’s get working so that we can leave soon,” Axel huffs, already setting up his computer and starting to focus on the screen.

We start working, each of us mostly silent aside from the random questions or comments about the project as we work. My eyes start to tire at the forty-five-minute mark, and I look away, taking off my glasses and rubbing my face. They aren’t blue light lenses since I don’t wear them often and I instantly feel relief closing my eyes for a moment.

Opening my eyes, I find Janette watching me over the top of her laptop. Her face is blurry without the glasses, and I put them back on and watch her swallow slowly. I raise an eyebrow, but she shakes her head, going back to her work with heat in her cheeks.

I glance over at Axel, but his focus is studiously on the words he types at a rapid pace. When he gets in the zone, the world around him tends to fall away, so I know he’s not paying attention. I look down at my own work, the words blurring on the screen as I slowly extend my leg underneath the table.

Janette jumps a little when my foot slides down her calf, eyes flying back up to me. I bite back my laugh, not looking up and pretending to be working hard. She looks around, realizing what I just did and that no one is paying attention to us and shakes her head. I slide my foot along her leg again and she shakes it out, trying to shake me off. I chuckle lightly, looking up undermy lashes, to see her nose wrinkle up and lips purse. She looks adorable.

Still, I back off, not wanting to push her too far. Trying to refocus on my part of the paper, I shake my head a little, rereading the last page I wrote. My hand comes up, playing with my bottom lip as I go over the words.

“Bentley, can you help me find this book?” Janette asks, writing down some info from her computer on a scrap piece of paper. I nod, closing my laptop and standing. I stretch my arms above my head and lengthen my spine. Axel continues typing away, not paying us any attention. Janette jumps up, heading off toward the stacks without looking over at me. I follow after her, grinning.

Janette Iris Davidson has never needed anyone’s help finding a book in a library in her life, I’m sure of it.

She rushes down one aisle, turning the corner ahead of me and disappearing again. I rush to catch up, following her further into the shadows of the giant open room that makes up the ground floor. She doesn’t look back or check that I'm behind her, knowing I'll catch up as she rushes to whatever destination she has planned. She doesn’t even look at the paper in her hands, or glance at the labels on the sides of the stacks saying what letters and DDC numbers are shelved in each row.

We end up in the last row, against the farthest wall where all of the breakout study rooms are located. Their doors have little whiteboards on them with schedules meant for people to sign up and check them out for segmented hours when they want to work in their own area. I try to picture what they could have been when this was an active church. Not confessionals certainly.

Janette checks each of the boards we walk past, stopping outside the fourth one and picking up the dry erase marker tied to a string on the side of the board. She scribbles hastily acrossthe current hour slot before recapping the marker and opening the door. I walk in after her, leaning back against the table inside as she closes the door behind us.

“Did you just check out a room to have sex in?” I ask, crossing my arms over myself and trying not to outright grin. She glances around the room quick, probably looking for cameras before looking me dead in the eye.

“Yes.” She comes toward me, grabbing the hem of my sweater and starting to pull it up. “Take off your clothes.” I rip the sweater the rest of the way off, complying with her demand. “Leave these on,” she says breathily, pointing to the bridge of my nose.

She starts to take off her sweater and I stare, a sly smile sliding across my face. “Do you like me in glasses, sunshine?”

“Yes,” she says again, unbuttoning her pants. “You look hot as hell in them, and it’s been distracting me this whole time.”

I snort, standing up to pull her in against me once she’s gotten rid of her pants. “I’ll wear them more often then.” She’s completely bare other than her bra, having started to forgo underwear around Axel and me. We ruined a few pairs in frenzied need for access to her and she got tired of chastising us.

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