Page 64 of Plays Well With Others

Brooking no argument, Elodie shakes her head. “Text does not count.”

“We need the full story, and we need it now,” my sister puts in, then grabs the stool and shoves it at me. Bossy thing. “Sit. Spill. Share.”

With a satisfied smile that I haven’t been able to wipe off my face for sixty hours—that’s how long it’s been since my last O with Carter—I pop up on the stool, tapping my chin. “Where to start…?”

Elodie stares sharply at me. “How about with the scarf you’re wearing?”

Way to read a bestie.

But despite the ticking clock, I’m going to have fun with them. Fun—that thing I haven’t had a lot of till recently. I finger the soft, light blue chiffon number wrapped artfully around my neck. “Oh, this?”

Juliet rolls her eyes. “Don’t act innocent. You’re the one who taught me about scarves and turtlenecks.”

Elodie groans, as if deeply aggrieved. “Mon cheri, please tell me you never taught your little sister about turtlenecks. I’m still hoping Amanda goes through life without learning those fetid things exist,” she says with a shudder.

“Ihadto teach Juliet about turtlenecks,” I say, pointing at the brunette troublemaker with my last name. “In eighth grade after the Spring Fling, she came home with a hickey the size of Texas. She spun this elaborate story about how she was drinking fruit punch at a dance, and then the red Solo plastic cup broke and it scraped against her neck.”

Juliet cringes. “Uh. Shut up. I’ve tried to block that from my memory.”

“The hickey or your terrible lying skills?” I ask.

“I wonder where I got those from,” Juliet fires back.

With a sympathetic tone, Elodie turns to Juliet. “You need to learn the art of the coverup from someone more skilled. Moi.”

“Yes, of course. Your years at a French boarding school taught you skills,” I tease.

“Chocolate skills and life skills,” Elodie says, then tugs on my scarf, like she’s disarming me at a Clue-themed dinner party.

It was Carter, with the wicked mouth, on the couch.

Juliet points to the offending hickey. “Well, that answers everything about what happened,” she declares.

I clasp the bruise. “It got a little bigger,” I say defensively, maybe a little protectively.

Elodie hums in obvious approval. “I’ve been waiting for the dirty details,” she says, clearly pleased with my mark. “And this is a good start.”

While I still don’t want to tell them about my discovery of his solo shower session earlier in the week—that’s private—they both know I had planned to ask him for girlfriend lessons. They’d encouraged me when we watched the game last Sunday. They know, too, that he said yes.

But this is the first time I’ve been able to…indulge in details. “Well, he came over on Wednesday night, as you know, and one thing led to another. And now I have this,” I say, still proud of the mark. Is it weird I’m so proud of it? I don’t know why I love it so much. I just do.

Elodie glances at the clock on the stove. “Specifics. Beyond the mark. Now.”

My stomach flutters as I remember the hottest sex of my life. I stop toying with them. “He fucked me on my kitchen counter, then on my couch, and he says the dirtiest things during sex, and before sex, and after sex. He’s voracious, and he kisses me like he wants to devour me. I shoved his face against my chest, and then he sucked on me with his teeth, and it was crazy hot. He’s not sweet in bed. He doesn’t call me a rose petal, he doesn’t tell me I’m his precious love, and he doesn’t say he loves me over and over. He just fucks me good and hard.”

Well, that was a two-man sex review, wasn’t it?

Still, I lift my chin defiantly.

Partly to hide the stupid lump in my throat that I donotwant to feel right now. The lump that reminds me how fooled I was by Edward’s style of lovemaking. The overly romantic gestures, the cooing words, the professions of sweet affection while he was inside me.

Like he thought that could fool me. Well, the asshole was right. He did fool me.

But Elodie’s clearly not latching onto the Edward part. She’s hooked on the Carter deets. “Damn. Clone him,” she says.

“He’s dirty, and passionate, andreal,” I add, then I shrug, a little sadly, still stuck in the past more than I want to be. “I kind of can’t believe how foolish I was to think Edward meant any of that.”

I guess I can’t stop thinking about the contrast between the two men. I should. But it’s too hard.

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