Page 76 of Triple Power Play 3
Ethan grips my knee under the table, easing some of the sharp emotions in my chest.
“Let it go,” he growls.
Aurora places a piece of bread on her plate. The Viking butters the slice for her, and I roll my eyes.
Someone kill me now.
Ethan’s hand shifts higher, and my body becomes distracted, buzzing for a whole new reason.
“Babe,” I say, as gently as I can muster. “We are not picking up any more strays. Understand me?”
“Technically,babe,” she mocks. “If you wanna go there, you and I were kinda sorta broken up.”
Reece folds his arms over his chest with an expression that reads,I told you so.
I let out a sound somewhere between a scream and a screech. “You already have one rebound!” I point to Ethan, who smirks.
“Andhe,” she drags out the word for emphasis, “wasn’t there either. He said he wasn’t capable of a relationship.”
“You don’t get a rebound from your rebound. It doesn’t work like that!” I shout.
She leans over the table. “Didn’t you just promise to stop yelling?”
“Would you rather I yell or kill someone? Because I swear to God, Aurora, I will murder anyone else and bathe you in their blood.” Damn, that feels good to get off my chest. “And if you,” I point at Reece, “ruin this, I’ll kill you too.”
He rolls his shoulders. “I’d love to see you try.”
I glare at him and snatch Aurora’s plate before he can serve her. Childish? Yes. Do I care? No. “Don’t forget you sleep under my roof.”
Ethan tightens his grip on my upper thigh. “Are you done? Can we eat now? I’m fucking starving.”
“Me too,” Aurora agrees. “Spaghetti is my favorite.”
I scoop pasta onto her dish. “No, it’s not.” It is, but I want to argue. I want her attention. “You don’t even like meat.” That’s partially true.
Reece scoffs. “I don’t think you know her as well as you think you do. Clearly, that’s not accurate.”
I pause mid-stab of a meatball, disassociating, because I know I’m not finding him funny.
When my soul returns to my body, I pass him the meatball on my fork the same as I pass a puck—a flick of my wrist, eighty miles per hour, without looking, and dead-on.
Except he moves his head at the last second, and meat and sauce explode all over the smoke-gray wall.
Aurora’s mouth falls open with a gasp. “Jackson Vaughn O’Reilly!”
Ethan doubles over, his face practically in my lap, his body shaking with laughter. It better be me he finds funny.
Aurora arches a threatening brow. “If you don’t stop, I’m not sleeping in your bed tonight.”
“Yeah, okay,wife.” I serve spaghetti as if nothing had happened. “We’ll see how well that goes over. If I’m in this house, you’re sleeping with me and Ethan, and no one else.”
“Thank fuck you’re gone half the year.” Reece grips his knife so tightly, his knuckles are bone-white.
I bet he’s itching to stab me.
“Thank fuck she’s going with me,” I snap back.
“Thankfuckthis conversation is over,” Ethan rumbles in his coach voice.
