Page 39 of Queen Rose

She shrugs, and I get the idea she asked a humdinger of a question purely to take the spotlight off of her.

“Dude.” Griffin throws his head back, snickering. “That’s kinda tough because I don’t want anyone to throttle me, male or female.”

“It’ll be taken as a compliment, I’m sure.” Daphne always seems to have the logical answer to everything. She’s not wrong. Griffin’s a good-looking guy. I think most people would be flattered to have his interest. So long as you’re not a homophobe like Jack, anyway. I wonder how he dealt with being on the baseball team with Jack. That must have been awful after he came out.

Max nods. “True. Compliments are always nice. I mean, we’re all happy with our partners, right?” He nudges Griffin. “Go ahead and answer. It’s just a dumb game.”

“Fine. I guess…” His gaze wanders the entire group. “Fuck it. I’ll say Nate.”

Everyone goes quiet for a second, I’m positive they’re wondering what the new guy is going to say.

I blink, then burst out laughing. “Cool. Good to know.”

To my surprise, Max also laughs, then grabs Griffin by the back of his neck and kisses the daylights out of him. There’s some good-natured hooting and hollering, and when they finally come up for air, Max growls, “I fucking knew you’d say that.”

Griffin grins at Max, pressing their lips together again. “You were the one who flirted with him at the party. You deserved that. Besides, he’s the only one I don’t know way too much about.”

Micah groans, “True. Okay, okay, back to the game.”

Griffin snorts with laughter, nudging Micah’s arm. “Big guy, are you jealous? Did you want me to pick you? Because you’re a close second.” The lustful look he shoots Micah in jest has all of us laughing. I’m not sure if it’s because it was all that funny or if it’s the alcohol starting to talk.

“Shut it, Griff.” Micah rolls his eyes. “Now, who are you going after?”

Griffin aims his stare across the tub. “Okay, Lyla, this one’s for you.” He wriggles his brows at her, to which she rolls her eyes. “So, what’ll it be? Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” she says, sticking her pert nose in the air. “I have nothing else to hide.”

Griffin quirks a brow at her and nods. “Is that so? All right, then. Why does Beau call you Seven?”

Mouths around the circle drop open and laughter spills out. Lyla groans, meeting Beau’s eyes for a quick second, but her lips are twitching. “It’s because I was a rotten, sneaky thing when I first moved into their house. Beau kept catching me poking around in his room. He said I was like some sort of secret intelligence officer sent to take him down.”

At everyone’s blank stares, Beau huffs out a laugh. “You know. Like James Bond. Double-oh-seven.”

The entire group groans as Lyla holds up a finger. “One request, though—unless you’ve caught me snooping on you, you don’t get to call me Seven.”

Griffin laughs, “But how would we know?”

“Easy. You gotta catch me.” She smirks and tips her drink to her lips with a wink. “Okay… Scarlett. Truth or dare.”

Scarlett sinks further into the tub. “The water is so warm, I don’t wanna have to get out, so truth, I guess. Even though that look in your eyes is scaring the shit out of me.”

Smirking, Lyla sits up straighter. “What’s the weirdest sexy thing you and Xander have done that turned you right the fuck on?” She gives Scarlett a sheepish grin. “Sorry, girl.”

Scarlett’s face turns beet red. Turning to face Xander, she looks at him, her brow raised with a silent question. He shrugs. I get the feeling he couldn’t care less what she says because he owns his shit. “So—” She stops to chew on her lip for a second. “Xander was going down on me. He was under the covers when my aunt knocked on the door.”

Collective gasps greet my ears and a handful of chuckles, too. Funny.

But she doesn’t stop there. “My aunt and I had an entire conversation. Or I tried to. Because he just kept… going. Like the entire time she was talking to me, he was down there—” She makes a horrified, hysterical face. “I was terrified she was going to walk in at any second. And it made the entire experience very… intense.”

Beau snorts with laughter. “I can tell from your face that you totally came while you were talking to her.”

She raises a hand. “Not gonna lie. It happened.”

“It was fucking hot.” Xander’s voice is low and raspy.

And from the looks on everyone’s face, I’m fairly certain they all assume Xander is two seconds from pulling Scarlett out of the hot tub and doing very, very dirty things to her.

Scarlett, “Beau, since you think that’s so fucking hilarious, truth or dare?”

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