Page 72 of Right Side of Paradise
I wanted this. Wanted them. I already belonged to them. I’d known they were my platonic soulmates for a long time now. But could it be more?
From the way my body was reacting, it felt like I needed to find out.
“Okay, we’re done,” Soul announced, dropping my arm back on the table. Then he rubbed my forearm and my dick twitched.
Soul always touched me. It was his love language. His job. Him.
But that touch felt like more and I knew that was delusion speaking.
He’d just perfectly laid out what we would be.
Pushing up from the table while he was busy rearranging his essential oils, I stood and adjusted my dick in my boxers before rushing to pull my shorts and shirt back on.
“I’m going to get something to drink,” I told him, walking away before he could respond.
I exited the massage room Rico had set up across from his office on the first floor and walked to the kitchen.
Water bottle in hand, I stared at the picture from our first date on the fridge.
We were on the boardwalk at the nature preserve. The sun was setting. And we were all smiling.
Harlow stood on my right, head resting on my bicep. Rico was behind her, his arm wrapped around her waist. Soul was on my left, angled toward me but smiling at the tour guide we asked for a picture.
They were all leaning in my direction. And they all fucking looked like mine.
My dick grew harder instead of going down and I almost jumped when I heard Soul come in the kitchen behind me.
“Hey, wanna smoke?” He held up a beautifully rolled blunt between us. That was exactly what I needed. To smoke and calm my ass down. But instead of nodding and following him to the patio, I backed up.
Until my back hit the edge of the island and I winced.
“I—uh—need to go check on something at the bar.”
Soul cocked his head, confusion sliding over his relaxed expression. “I thought you were finally off tonight.”
“Something came up.”
I walked to the back door and only stopped when he called my name.
“Yeah?”
“You don’t have any shoes on.”
Oh, shit.
The other man looked me up and down, rolling the blunt between his fingers before he lifted it to his lips and pulled a lighter out of the drawer in front of him.
He didn’t stop me when I turned around to head to the shoe rack at the front door, but he did say, “I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk about it.”
Dinner with the Parents
Ms. Yvette grinned across the table at me and Harlow while my dad tapped out a message on his screen.
We were out to dinner, catching up as a “family,” even though they’d been divorced for five years and we weren’t the angsty teenagers they used to bribe anymore. They still invited us to these dinners from time to time. And I had a feeling now that Harlow was home for the summer, we’d be getting a lot more of these invites.
Harlow was on my left, spreading butter over the slice of pumpernickel bread on her plate.
My hand was wedged between her crossed legs, and I smirked every time she reached under the table to rest her hand on top of mine.
