Page 4 of It's Complicated

I had no problem with meeting new people but having strangers in my apartment was a different story. Andy knew this, but he’d been drunk and thinking with his dick, and by the time we realized what was going on, it was too late to stop things without looking like buzzkills.

Instead of kicking everyone out, I stopped drinking and spent the entire time keeping watch and making sure no did anything stupid. I’d learned the hard way not to trust peoplewith my things and had zero trust that a bunch of strangers wouldn’t mess with our things.

Then April showed up with a group of her and Jamie’s mutual friends, and the night had gone to hell in a handbasket.

Things between April, Jamie, and me were complicated.

April and Jamie had a friends-with-benefits arrangement back in high school and used to hook up when he came home on break from college. It hadn’t been anything serious, but they had history.

I hadn’t known that when I moved to town while Jamie was still in college, and April and I hooked up a few times.

We’d already ended things and barely spoke to each other when Jamie and I became roommates, and I found out about their past when I came home early one day to find them boning on our couch.

We all had a good laugh once the shock of seeing my new bestie and my old hookup going at it on my sofa wore off. It became a running joke between Jamie and me and was one more crazy story to add to our ever-growing list of crazy stories.

A few months later, April moved to Seattle, and we’d only seen her a few times in the years since, and only in passing.

Until she’d shown up on our doorstep last night in a sexy black dress and red heels, and my mood had gone from bad to worse, especially when she zeroed in on Jamie and glued herself to his side.

I couldn’t even pinpoint why seeing her and Jamie catching up pissed me off. I told myself it was because I was being the responsible one and making sure no one trashed our place while he was busy getting his flirt on, but that didn’t even make sense.

Jamie and I rarely went for the same type of girl; April was the only exception that I knew of, and we’d made a sport out of being each other’s wingman.

Any other time, and with any other girl, I’d be keeping an eye on them and silently cheering Jamie on. I’d never once felt anything negative toward any of the women he flirted with in all the years I’d known him but seeing April fawning over him on the same damn couch I’d caught them on all those years ago pissed me off.

That anger was the catalyst for the threesome that never should have happened, and I was still kicking myself for letting my impulsive nature get the better of me and not shutting things down before they got out of hand.

I would have if I’d been in a better headspace, but after a few hours of playing mother hen and rushing around trying to keep our unwanted party guests in line, I’d had enough and kicked everyone out.

April was the only one who didn’t leave. And Jamie didn’t do or say anything to back me up when she just kept yapping.

That pissed me off even more. At the time, I’d chalked it up to my bad mood and being annoyed at everything and everyone, but now I wasn’t so sure.

For almost forty minutes, Jamie and April flirted like they were being graded on their skills, and I sat there counting down the seconds until I could tell her to get the hell out of our apartment and go to bed.

Then she said the three words that started this whole situation.

“We should fuck.”

I thought she was talking to Jamie, and the ugly sensation in my gut had intensified to the point I felt physically sick for a few seconds.

Jamie and I had never put down any rules or really even talked about the thing with April. We’d laughed and made plenty of jokes about the eyeful of Jamie’s ass I’d gotten and how small the world could be, but that was it.

I thought we had an unspoken agreement that we were both done with her, and the hurt that tightened my chest at the thought of them hooking up again had been visceral enough to chase all rational thought from my mind.

Jamie’s hesitation and the way he immediately looked to me to gauge my reaction calmed my anger but still left me in a weird headspace, which was the only reason I’d gone along with her plan when she clarified that she meant thethreeof us should fuck.

Jamie and I were probably the least vanilla people you’d ever meet. We lived by the rule of trying everything once, but group play had never been on the table before, and my immediate reaction ofhellnoshould have been enough to put an immediate stop to things.

It wasn’t the threesome itself I was against, and if it had been anyone other than April suggesting it, I probably would have jumped at the chance to have one, but I’d instinctively known that having one with her would be a mistake.

I tried to think of a polite way to say no, one that wouldn’t hurt her feelings. April was a great person, and I admired how she was fearless when it came to getting what she wanted, but things between the three of us were complicated, and two in the morning after a night of partying wasn’t the time to try and uncomplicate things.

We must have been silent for too long because April started teasing us and making cracks about how she’d always wanted to compare our skills in real time. I knew she was trying to be flirty and coy, but hearing her breaking down all the ways Jamie and I were similar in bed set my nerves on edge—and not in a good way.

I’d been on the brink of losing it when Jamie caught my eye, his expression seeking, and all my anger melted away andwas replaced by the overwhelming desire to give Jamie what he wanted.

We had one of our silent conversations, the ones where we could just look at each other and hash shit out without words, and I relented.

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