Page 93 of Degrees of Control

“Do you want to go to bed?” Jordan asked.

“No!” Sophia folded her arms across her swollen chest. “No one is going to bed until I do! I’m pregnant in case you forgot!”

“Oh, are youpregnant?” Hayley tapped her chin with her electric blue fingernails. “Here was me thinking you finally got that boob job.”

Sophia glared at her. “Ha-ha.”

“Hey guys, I’m totally fine,” Charlie lied. She took a fortifying sip of orange juice. “What were you saying, Hayley? Something about two dudes?”

“I’m fucking two dudes,” Hayley said brightly. “Marshall the carpenter and Saul the techie. They’re best friends and they both know about each other, it’s really hot.”

Charlie frowned at the redhead. “So they’re like…sharing you?”

“Kind of, it’s more of a mutual friends with benefits thing. My ultimate goal is to get them to have a three-way with me.”

“The dream,” Jordan said wistfully. She looked even more beautiful than when Charlie had seen her last. Her jet-black hair was almost at hip length and her lash extensions made her eyes look huge and velvety brown.

Hayley patted her hand. “Don’t worry JC, you’ll have your own man-pair soon.”

“I don’t want a man pair,” Jordan said. “I just want a guy who loves me and wants to take care of me once the six-month serotonin boost dies off.”

“And you’ll totally have that!” Hayley shot Charlie and Sophia a panicky look. “Right guys?”

Charlie and Sophia hastened to agree.

A lot of things had changed while Charlie had been in Melbourne—Hayley was a full-time management consultant at her company, Sophia was married and three months away from owning a baby human, but strangely, it was Jordan who’d undergone the biggest sea change. She’d always been the most glamorous and carefree of all of them but turning thirty had awoken a deep need for change in her. She’d dumped all her boytoys, quit her day job as a personal shopper and started her own fashion blog.Mimosanow had over a million subscribers and Jordan had never been so successful, but outside of work she was struggling to get what she wanted.

After years of expertly playing the field, she’d decided she wanted a long-term relationship. Unfortunately, she wasn’t as good at them as she was at predicting summer skirt trends. In the three years Charlie had been gone, Jordan had been engaged four times and all instances had ended in an explosion of pain and drama. Charlie knew her friend to be lovely and hardworking but she liked excitement and was always gravitating toward jaw-droppingly beautiful celebrity types who were pretty terrible at post-honeymoon phase commitment.

You mean like James, her brain piped up.The former model who drops jaws wherever he goes? Do you think he might have trouble with post-honeymoon commitment?

Charlie rubbed her head.Please stop, mind, just chill the fuck out please?

Hayley slapped a hand on the table. “So. Charlos. If no one else will ask, I will—what’s the deal with your old man? He seems weird. Is he hungover or something?”

She winced. If they’d all noticed, it had to be bad. “No he’s just…” She couldn’t think of an adequate end to that sentence.

“What?” Sophia asked. “Do I need to yell at him? Because I will, Iwillyell at him.”

“No!” Charlie grabbed her arm. “Please don’t yell at him. I don’t know what’s going on, he’s just been a bit strange lately.”

As one, they turned to look at James. He was no longer talking to Sophia’s colleague by the fire but a wife of one of his former employees. Andrea, Charlie was sure her name was.James was smirking at her as he made easy work of what had to be his sixth beer. Her skin gave another warning prickle.

“He still looks pretty buff,” Jordan commented. “How’s he being strange?”

“I don’t know.” Charlie turned back to the table. “It’s hard to explain but he’s just distant lately, like he’s got something on his mind, but whenever I ask about it he tells me nothing is wrong. I can’t…I don’t really understand it.”

“Is work getting him down?” Sophia asked.

“Is his dick on the fritz?” Hayley said at the same time.

“I don’t think so and no. We’re still having sex and going to the movies and doing everything normal. He’s just…strange.”

Silence resounded around the table.

“Before you guys say it, I don’t think he’s cheating on me.” Charlie made eye contact with each of them. “I’m not being naive. I really don’t think it’s that.”

“Better fuckin’ not be,” Hayley snarled. “I still never punched him in the cock for dumping you when you first started seeing each other.”

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