Lily shakes her head and cringes. “Sorry. It slipped.” Funny thing is, I think if Rose were really a witch, Lily would love her even more.
Rose still has her hands out like she’s trying not to infect her clothes.
“Here, darling…” Connor swivels in his chair and squirts some hand sanitizer on her palms.
“That only kills 99.99% of the germs, Richard. What about the .01%?”
“It’s called an immune system, Rose.”
Her eyes flash angrily, and his grin overpowers all of his other features. They start talking in French, the moment Lily plops onto my lap.
I groan from the impact of her bottom, and she gasps. “I didn’t hurt it, did I?” she whispers with fear flickering in her eyes.
God, I love her.
“My dick is fine,” I say and scoot her over just a little so that the bony part of her bottom isn’t digging into my cock. “How’s your ass?”
She squints at me and then looks around, checking to see if anyone pays attention to us. They’re all busy fixing their laces. Rose removes the lid off a box, neatly folding the tissue paper after she picks out the brand new pair of shoes.
When Lily realizes we’re in our own world, she rotates back and cups her hands around my ear. “Are you making sexual innuendos for later?”
I rest my hand on her lower back, my thumb dipping below the band of her jeans. She inhales sharply, but she leans away to examine my expression, truly curious about my motives.
I motion for her with two fingers to come closer. Her lips immediately part, dead-locked on those fingers. Yes, Lily, I’m teasing you for later.
Sometimes I think I have to spell it out for her. I probably should have when we were pretending to be in a relationship…that time feels like ages ago.
She finally scoots closer, and my lips brush the soft skin of her earlobe. Her breath hitches. “I’m going to slide deep into your ass tonight, love.” Subtly, my other hand slips between her legs, her jeans of course still there.
She almost trembles.
I would have never done this right when I returned from rehab, too afraid she couldn’t handle it. Now I trust her a thousand times more.
“Lo…” she whispers. “Maybe…”
I wait for her to collect her thoughts.
“Maybe…we should do it both ways tonight,” she says, watching my lips. She kisses me suddenly. I hold the back of her head, deepening it before we pull apart.
“You’re that wet?” I whisper, forcing myself not to harden at the thought.
She nods quickly. “Yes.” She squirms. “Or do you think it’s too much to do both?”
“We’ll see.” I kiss her again, and then Ryke returns to our lane, handing me a bottle of water. Daisy is about to stand up, offering him the seat back, but Ryke waves her to stay there.
“Can we start this f**king game?” he asks.
Lily frowns, eyeing the alley. “Where are the bumpers?”
“We’re not playing with bumpers,” Rose tells her, squirting more sanitizer on her palms, even though she just touched brand new bowling shoes.
“Bumpers are the best,” Daisy concurs. “You can throw the ball really hard and try to ziz-zag it into the pins.”
“Yeah,” Lily agrees.
“Then you two go play on that lane.” Rose points to the empty one beside us.
Lily springs to her feet. “Fine. We’ll be having more fun anyway.”
Daisy hesitates for a second before rising, and then she nudges her douchebag boyfriend’s leg, who’s texting. “Do you want to come?”
“What?”
“Bumpers or no bumpers,” she briefly explains.
“I’m not playing with the kid bumpers. They’re dumb.”
“Hey, they’re grownup bumpers,” Lily says, “for grownups who don’t like gutter balls.”
Julian looks at Lily like she’s a complete idiot.
“Julius…” I start with what should be his rightful name, but I stop myself, remembering our promise to Rose. Be civil. Whatever. My lips close, but I grind my teeth harder than I like.
“It’s Julian,” he says for the thousandth time to me.
“How about we team up against Rose and Connor?” I flash Rose a look like is that civil enough for you?
She nods in approval while Julian shrugs, seeming a bit skeptical about the olive branch I’ve extended. It’s not a trick. Then he says, “Sure, man.”
“Great.”
Lily kisses me quickly on the lips, and I pat her on the bottom. When she leaves to her lane, her entire face is bright red, and she tries hard to avoid the cameras.
Ryke watches my girlfriend depart with her sister, and I can see his choice even before he takes a step in that direction. Julian being the same age as Daisy is ten times worse than Ryke. I can’t even trust Julian for a second. I have no reason to.
“I’ll be—” he starts.
“Whatever, go play on your bumpers, bro.” I can’t help but give him a hard time. It’s like a busted function in my brain.
He rolls his eyes, wavers for a moment, and then follows Daisy to the other lane.
Connor deletes some of the names, leaving just four. I laugh when I notice he took my tip to heart. He’s nicknamed all of us after Greek gods.
I scan the remaining list:
Zeus/Athena
Hades/Dionysus
Julian picks up a light blue ball from the carousel. “Who am I?” he asks. “Zeus?” He’s not the brightest anything.
“You would be Hades. God of the underworld,” Connor says.
“All around fantastic guy,” I add dryly.
“Sweet.”
Jesus.
Ryke notices the screen from afar and glares at Connor. “You’re a real douche, you know that?”
I don’t get it.
Rose puts her hand on Connor’s shoulder. “Oh please, Loren would be Dionysus regardless if he drank or not.”
Ryke just keeps shaking his head until Daisy distracts him, holding up two giant green bowling balls to her boobs.
I internally grimace. Do not think about that part of her anatomy. “Who is Dionysus?” I ask.
Rose clarifies, “the god of wine, parties, and basically hedonism.”
“He’s a man of chaos and pleasure,” Connor adds.
“Sounds about right,” I reply. “Thanks, love.”
He winks and motions for Julian to start us off.
Daisy’s boyfriend steps up to the alley with his ball in hand, and my stomach constricts the longer I have to watch him. How do you withstand a guy you just don’t like? He knocks down all the pins but two and then pumps his arm.
“That’s what I’m talking about.”
We continue to play a few rounds, with Connor and Rose clearly in the lead. Connor forgot to mention that his boarding school had a bowling alley, and they’d bet on games with money and favors. So basically, he hustled us.
I don’t mind at all. The more we lose, the more Julian’s competitive nature rises—glaring, huffing, a poor sport all around. Whenever I look to the other lane, Lily and Daisy are in fits of giggles, sitting on their knees and trying to spin the bowling ball before rolling it down the alley.
Daisy even covers Ryke’s eyes so he has to bowl blind. He’s actually grinning. My gaze shifts to Lily. She practices her bowling stance by the swivel chairs and every time she goes to mock throw, the weight of the ball causes her to careen unsteadily on her feet. Her brown hair hangs in her eyes and she brushes it away before trying again.