Page 8 of Icing on Top
“Nova, it’s Paul.”
I rolled my eyes. “What do you want, Paul?”
“Did I leave my good jacket at your house? I can’t find it.”
“I haven’t seen it,” I replied. And if I had, I would have tossed it into the fireplace.
“Well, can you look?” he demanded, sounding annoyed.
“Sure,” I agreed, wanting to get him off the phone as quickly as possible. “I’ll check when I get home.”
“Fine. Talk to you then,” he said as the line went dead.
I shook my head. Now that we weren’t together, I was beginning to see what everyone else seemed to notice—a privileged, selfish little weasel. I hope I find the jacket so that I can burn it.
Potential Perks
Benjamin
35 Days Until New Year’s Eve
Irubbed my eyes and then tried to refocus on the same line of code that I had been staring at for the last ten minutes. Instead of getting through my work, my mind wandered to a curvy cupcake shop owner. Something about her instantly made me want to learn everything about her. There wasn’t any detail too small.
The intercom on my phone on my desk beeped before Grant’s voice came through the speaker. “Ben, do you have a minute to come to my office?”
“Yep, I’ll be right there,” I replied, relieved for the break from pretending to work. I left my office and went to the office next to mine. Linc was already there.
“I think we need to discuss Nova and make sure we’re all on the same page before we sign the contract,” Grant said as I closed the door. “Have either of you had time to think it over?”
“I haven’t been able to think of anything else,” I admitted as I sat.
“You, too?” Linc asked, grinning at me from his perch on the window sill. Together, we looked at Grant.
“Me three,” he sighed.
“So what exactly does that mean for us? We should talk about it, lay down some ground rules or something. This could get tricky if we’re all attracted to her,” I said.
“Why not just share her?” Linc suggested.
“You mean... intimately?” Grant clarified. Images of Nova writhing between us on a bed flashed through my mind, and I shifted in my chair as my dick twitched. That interested me far more than I expected it to.
“Yeah,” Linc said, excitedly pacing the room. “Think about it. We already share every other aspect of our lives. We’re already sharing her as a date for the party. If she’s willing, why not share her in other ways?”
“While I’m not opposed to the idea,” Grant replied, “you two do remember that this is only until New Year’s, right? This is temporary. It’s back to business as usual once New Year’s Eve is over.” We both agreed, though Linc looked like he was up to something as he signed the contract and then handed me the pen to sign.
“Great,” Grant said as he signed it and slid it into a yellow envelope. “I’ll tell Joel to have a messenger pick this up and deliver it to her this afternoon.”
I returned to my office and tried to focus on my work. We had a new fitness tracker with an updated app scheduled to be released at the beginning of January. I was supposed to review the new coding to ensure everything worked seamlessly, but my mind was still drifting to Nova. I wasn’t looking for anything long-term. We were always working, and it wouldn’t be fair to subject someone to that, constantly waiting for me to spare the time for them. However, the potential perks of our arrangement with Nova were hard to ignore, especially if she was interested in a more casually intimate relationship with us.
I took out my phone and pulled her up on social media again, not expecting to find anything different from the last time I had looked. Her accounts were frozen in time, and there was no activity since her father had passed. I flipped through her photos again, searching for a clue to the puzzle that was Nova. It had been evident in our interactions with her yesterday that she was self-conscious about her weight. She was considerably thinner in these pictures, but I preferred how she looked now. While she could lose a few pounds, who couldn’t? She was still drop-dead gorgeous.
I stopped at a picture of Nova with a man who wasn’t her father. This had to be a boyfriend, but where was he now? Deciding I needed answers, I left my office and went to see Joel. I looked around to make sure that Grant and Lincoln weren’t lurking nearby and then dropped my voice so that I wouldn’t be overheard. “Do you have that envelope that is going to Nova Lane?” I asked him.
“Yeah, I do,” Joel said, holding it up. “The courier is coming to pick it up in a couple of hours. Why?”
I snatched the envelope from him, raising his eyebrows. “I have to run into town, so I may as well drop it off. It will save us a few bucks,” I explained.
“Right,” Joel said with an edge of sarcasm. He didn’t believe my explanation but wouldn’t press me for details.
