Page 2 of Windlass

Friend. Roommate. Friend. Roommate.As usual, the mantra didn’t help.

Cold water landed on the tip of her nose. She yelped as more splashed onto her shirt and whipped her head around in time to see Angie lower her empty glass.

“You looked hot,” she said, shrugging.

Stevie gave the best scowl she could muster, trying not to read into the words. Angie booped her nose with a forefinger, smirking.

“Whatever,” said Stevie.

“Pizza time,” said Morgan. “Usual toppings?”

“Lil’s not here, so we can havemeat.” Stevie used her monster voice for the last word. Everyone needed a monster voice.

“I like the veggies though. Stick with the usual half-and-half?” Angie swung one leg up beneath the other and settled more comfortably against the chair. Her skin smelled like her sweat and preferred scented lotion, and her clothes gave off a whiff of laundry detergent.

Stevie tried to think of something—anything—else. If Lilian and her girlfriend Ivy were here . . . but they weren’t, and even if they hadn’t had to work, she wasn’t sure what they could have done to save her aside from offer additional distraction. Watching Ivy push Lil’s buttons was Stevie’s favorite sporting event, but they’d need to add mud wrestling to counteract the Angie AffectTM.

Because the universe was a cruel, cold, unfeeling place, Angie decided this was the perfect time to idly toy with Stevie’s ponytail.Notthe kind of distraction she needed. Her body purred, and if it really had been a cat, she would have squirted it with a spray bottle. She endured the exquisite torture of Angie’s touch while her friends debated pizza toppings, slipping into a heated, half-drowsy stupor that she would’ve called bliss if it were anyone but Angie. Not that itwouldfeel like bliss if it were anyone but Angie.

Which was entirely the point.

Friend. Roommate. Friend. Roommate.

Emilia finally came to her rescue by returning home.

“You were supposed to wait for me to help you,” she scolded Morgan as she pushed open the screen door of the log house she’d inherited from her father.

“Surprise,” said Morgan, grinning like the idiot she absolutely was.

Emilia looked around at the boxes with a frown. “You’re letting me carry them upstairs.”

“Start with that box,” said Stevie, pointing at the bin of kettlebells with her foot.

“Do not.” Morgan shot Stevie a genuine glare. “You hurt your back. Of course, I wasn’t going to let you help move.”

“Such a gentleman,” said Stormy.

“It’s the decent thing to do.”

“Unlike the indecent things you get up to the rest of the time.” Stormy wiggled her eyebrows. She still hadn’t let Morgan live down the time she’d overheard Morgan and Emilia doing some of those very same indecent activities on Morgan’s boat. As Stormy was now fond of saying, sound carried over water.

“Oh my god. My back is fine. I just tweaked it.”

“How?” Stormy asked, feigning innocence.

Emilia reached for a bag of clothes, her cheeks reddening, and stalked upstairs. Stormy cackled. Angie slid off the arm of Stevie’s chair and followed, hefting the bin of kettlebells easily. The muscles in her ass, arms, and back flexed with the effort, accentuating the hollow at the base of her spine. Stevie had devoted an unhealthy amount of time to deliberatelynotthinking about how that particular dip of skin might taste.

One hour and several slices of pizza later, Stevie climbed into the passenger seat of Angie’s beat-up Range Rover and leaned her head back against the fraying headrest with an exaggerated sigh.

“Please tell me you have no plans to move anytime soon.”

Angie laughed. “Frankly, I am surprised it took Morgan this long to leave. I thought Lilian would be the last holdout.”

“Well, she still has most of her plants here, and the tortoise, so can we really say she moved out?”

“She doesn’t sleep here. Ergo, she moved out.”

“So you’re essentially saying that a toothbrush gives a person squatter’s rights?”

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