Page 55 of The Triple Play

Xavi looked at him like he was trying to piece a puzzle together. “Yeah. Me too.”

I plucked the pancake off the pan and poured out another one, my heart a little unsteady in my chest. “Then we ask her.”

Colton leaned back in his stool, his grin growing. “Later. Let’s not scare her off before she’s eaten and had a coffee.”

Chapter21

Xavi

How I got roped into being the one to ask her was beyond me. The guys had muttered something about me being able to get her out of work since my dad was her boss and then left me to it, taking off together to go grab lunch for all of us and leaving me alone with her.

But I was complaining about thealonepart one bit.

The moment the door shut behind Cole and Colton, everything in the room seemed to soften. The background noise of the TV faded into a quiet murmur, the sound turning to nothing more than filler. Annie was curled up on the couch beside me in nothing but her underwear and one of Cole’s shirts, her head in my lap, half asleep and nestled in like there was nowhere else she’d rather be. My hand was moving on instinct, just slow passes through her hair, catching once in a while on a little tangle and smoothing it out. But it was the little sound she kept making when my fingers hit just the right place on her scalp that made my chest tight.

I watched her, felt the heat of her breath on my boxers-covered thigh. She wasn’t asleep — at least not fully. Her lashes fluttered now and then, her breathing shifting, her hand twitching against my leg when my hand paused.

I didn’t know why I was hesitant. It wasn’t that she made menervous, but it sure felt like it, especially with us like this and without the pressure of going along with whatever three men wanted her to do. But I swallowed it down. “Annie,” I said softly.

She stirred a little more, her brow furrowing before she turned her face into my thigh like she didn’t want to leave the spot she’d created. She’d been so contentedly tired all morning, and I couldn’t blame her, not after taking all three of us last night — even a coffee and chocolate chip pancakes hadn’t helped her.

“I need a shower,” I murmured, my thumb brushing softly over the curve of her ear. “Come with me?”

Her head turned out a little, her eyes opening, sleepy and slow-blinking. “Are you asking because you need help with washing your hair?” she teased, her voice low and scratchy from exhaustion. She turned a little more, looking at me from the corner of her eye.

I huffed out a breathy laugh. “Nah. I just don’t want to go without you.”

She blinked again, slower this time, her mouth splitting into a crooked little smirk. “Sounds like an excuse to get me naked. Think you might have a crush on me, Moreau.”

I rolled my eyes, lips twitching despite myself, and leaned my upper body over her, lifting my leg a little to force her to meet me halfway. She squinted at the sudden closeness, her breathing catching adorably as I dipped my head and pressed a slow, deliberate kiss to her cheek.

“Oh no, you caught me,” I whispered, dragging out my words with fake dread. “Guess I’ll have to live with the shame.”

She grinned fully then, and god, it lit the whole room. “Not my fault that you’re terrible at hiding it.”

“Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, I don’t want to hide it at all?” My thumb brushed across her cheek and jaw as I slowly straightened back up.

She rolled onto her back, looking up at me with those stupidly devastating blue eyes, her eyelids still a little heavy from sleep. She reached up toward me, her fingers tracing softly along the curve of my lips. “Well… if you’re not hiding it, you’d better be ready for me to start using it against you. I’m a menace when someone likes me.”

A chuckle worked its way up my chest. “You’re already a menace, baby.” I worked my fingers into her hair, tucking my hand beneath her head. “Are you coming to shower with me or would you rather lay here all alone on the sofa?”

Her cheeks deepened in color just the slightest amount, but she moved just a little, and I let my hand slide down her back and helped lift her upper body. She stretched and rubbed her eyes, yawning absolutely adorably. “Isuppose.”

I stood up, offering her my hand, and she took it without a second of hesitation. We walked through the quiet house, just the soft pad of our footsteps over the hardwood, the hum of the air conditioning, the low drone of the television. I led her down the hall of our bedrooms, cracking open the first door on the right and holding it open for her, hand pressed flat to the wood.

She stepped in, her gaze sweeping the room in curiosity. I always kept it clean — not in the pristine, show-off way like Cole’s room, but in the lived-in, no-clutter, please-for-the-love-of-god-don’t-look-too-close kind of way. My walls were dark grey, and without the overhead light on, the space was mostly dark from my black-out curtains — but it was lit enough now with them half-open to actually see. It was a room made for shutting the world out when I needed to.

“Not exactly five-star,” I chuckled as I walked in behind her, shutting the door behind me. “But it’s not a wreck like Colton’s can be.”

My bed sat low to the ground across the fairly large space, my maroon sheets still a mess from when I’d gotten up yesterday, and I felt unusually self-conscious for not making my bed when I’d never done that a day in my life. Across from it, my wall-mounted TV hung, but I rarely used it. The bookshelf beside it was cluttered, packed two layers deep with books and graphic novels and a handful of vinyl, a stack of well-used notebooks sitting on the floor in front of it — ones I only let myself open in the dead of night when I couldn’t sleep.

“It’s kind of moody,” she said, her little smirk still plastered to her cheeks. “But it’s, like, sexy moody.”

I snorted. “Thanks, I think?”

I pushed her forward to the half-open door on the other side of the room, the low light of my bedroom leading into a much brighter en-suite. It was something we’d picked this house specifically for — each of our rooms had its own en-suites. We didn’t want to be at each other’s throats fighting over showers.

She stared at my walk-in shower. It was easily big enough to fit the four of us if we wanted, all tile walls and floor, with two rainfall shower heads and a couple of standard heads on either side, one long built-in bench running along the back side of it. Definitely made for at least two people, but there had only been a handful of times I’d not used it alone.

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