Page 46 of Chips & Checks
“Wow.” Violet shoves me away. “Yeah, I guess you did. Gross way to phrase it, though.”
“No.” I sit back on my heels and tug my pajamas up. “No, sorry, I mean my almonds. When you texted me, I dumped all my almonds on the floor of the room. And my dried mangos. I just remembered. I should, uh. Go clean those up.”
“Right.” Violet reaches for the box of tissues on the nightstand. “Off you go, then.”
“I could stay for a little. Get you a washcloth.” Dammit all to hell, this isnothow things are supposed to go. I’m supposed to be calm. It’s just sex, after all. This is just sex. It doesn’t mean anything. Right?
“I’m good.” Violet doesn’t look at me. “I know the rules. You don’t stay. We’re not a real couple. This is just… convenient.”
“Yup,” I say.
“You don’t do relationships, and I don’t date hockey players.”
“Uh huh.”
“We both needed to blow off steam. That’s all it was.”
“Yes!” I exclaim. “Yes, exactly. And I really did want to make sure you were okay…”
“And then I invited you to stay.” Violet finally turns to look at me. “It’s fine, Bowen. Really. I’m good. I’m just tired, so if you could just—”
I hook my thumbs toward the door. “For sure. I can—”
“Exactly. Thank you for checking on me. Goodnight.”
She finally turns to look at me—and fuck, there it is. That flicker of something in her eyes. Sadness, maybe. Hurt. Whatever it is, it guts me. I don’t think she means for me to see it, but I do. And the worst part? I can’t stop. I should reach for her. I should say something real. But I’m already committed to this pathetic little performance, stuck in this loop of defense mechanisms and half-baked rules, and the deeper I go, the harder it is to claw my way out. So I keep talking like a dumbass, because if I stop? If I admit how bad this hurts—that it hurts at all—I’m not sure I’ll be able to come back from it.
I retreat toward the door, feeling like an asshole. That was not my finest moment. I don’t know how to fix it, though.
I don’t know what to do with my feelings, either, because part of me wants to stay and wash Violet off in the shower, and then cuddle her to sleep. I want to stay.
All the more reason to book it back to my room before I do anything I’ll regret in the morning.
Chapter Eleven
Violet
“What do you think?” Knova examines her reflection in the mirror. “Is this lipstick too dark?”
“I think it looks great,” Sofia says. “It’s very… goth. In a sexy way. Very black cat energy.”
Knova purses her lips and turns her head from one side to the other so that she can see herself in profile. “It’s a little dramatic.”
“So are you,” I remind her.
Knova catches my eye in the mirror’s reflection and grins. “You’re not wrong.”
“Viktor won’t be able to take his eyes off your mouth,” Sofia says.
Knova cackles. “He’ll be imagining later, when I can’t take my mouth off his—”
Vivian groans. “If you talk about my brother’s dickone more time tonight,I’m gonna barf… The last time I saw it, it was the size of a thumb.”
I chuckle to myself as I finish curling my hair. Getting ready with the Venom wives is a lot like getting ready for a high school dance. I’m an in-between age, so our dances never overlapped—Viv was a senior when I was a freshman, and Sofia and Knova started high school the year I graduated. Still, we grew up getting ready together so that we could attend team events when our dads played, and we’ve all reconnected after ending up back where we started.
Of course, I’m not a Venomwife,but since I attend all the same team events they do, it still counts.
Knova spins toward Viv, her eyes gleaming with wicked delight. “Fine, I won’t talk about my husband’sassets. Instead, can I talk about the other night when he chapped my—”
