Page 37 of Wicked Devotion
“I know, sweetheart.”
I am living someone’s dream, and maybe that someone is called Lily.
Logan vanishes to the bathroom, and then someone screeches. Loud laughter follows, together with some curse words about ‘fucking hot water’.
I pull the bag of chips out from under my blanket, and right when the current episode of my show turns a little eerie, a knock on the door makes me toss the chips to the side.
No way I’m going to deal with a third naked man.
“Open the door, I know you fuckers are here.”
Hastily, I get up from the bed, almost tripping when the blanket wraps around my foot as I try to walk away.
To my fortune, Sam is standing in front of the door, fully dressed.
“Oh, hi. Didn’t mean you when I said fuckers,” he says, scratching his head. “Aren’t you supposed to sleep in Vaughn’s room? Actually, I don’t wanna know. Just tell the dimwits we’re having a movie night.”
“Sam? Is that you?” Max yells out of the bathroom.
“Movie night,” Sam screams back, right over my head.
There’s a commotion in the bathroom, and shortly after, a dripping wet Max comes running out, a towel wrapped dangerously low on his waist. He digs through a drawer of Logan’s dresser, which earns him a hard slap on the back of his head when Logan catches him stealing what I assume is a pair of his underwear.
“I got a movie from a friend,” Logan says, searching hisdesk for something. “The damn USB stick must be right here—“
“No,” Max and Sam say sternly.
“Save the suggestion, Sam, I’m not watching James Bond,” Logan says with a sigh when Sam opens his mouth.
Max puts on a pair of sweatpants, throwing his towel on the growing stash of stuff in the corner of the room.
“I want you guys to know that I have the knowledgeandthe necessary tools to blow this building up, just in case Rockwell picks out a movie. Because I’m not gonna watch another three-hour documentary about lavender farmers from the Provence.”
“While the culprit is sleeping soundly in his goddamn recliner,” Sam adds, shaking his head.
I had this naïve idea that staying quiet would make me invisible. It doesn’t. Max grabs my hand and pulls me out of the room after Logan and Sam, who clears his throat as we walk to the rec room.
“She should pick something,” he says, flashing me a small smile. “Since you’re our guest. And because I don’t have the nerve to start the night with a screaming match.”
Feverishly, I try to come up with a suggestion that’ll please everyone.
“The X-files?” I say, adding, “The one from 1998.”
Contemplating grumbles come from Logan and Sam. My dad used to watch the show with me whenever we had the house for ourselves. I wasn’t allowed to watch spooky stuff—or have sugar—so being on the brink of a sugar high, hiding underneath the blanket whenever an episode got too scary, was always the highlight of my month.
“Great, another alien nutcase,” Logan mumbles under his breath, albeit with a grin tugging on his lips.
“I didn’t say I believe in aliens,” I retort quietly. By now, I regret my suggestion.
“But you do.”
“Yeah,” I admit, and Max squeezes my hand.
“I love—“ he blurts out before stopping mid-breath. “The X-files. My sisters forced me to watch it, thinking it would be fun to scare me. Jokes on them, I only got the hots for Mulder. And Scully, obviously, I mean, look at her.”
“Another lovely tidbit of information about you I could have lived without.” Sam groans, and I let out a shaky breath.
We step into the rec room, which now looks more like a home cinema. Someone, probably Charlie, had moved the dinner table to the back of the room. The two small couches were pulled toward the middle of the room, a recliner standing in between them, facing a white wall.
