Page 35 of Better When Shared
“Just toast for me,” I said. “I’m meeting Lila for coffee at ten. She’s going to dish on whatever happened during her beach vacation.”
“The one with the hubby and some friend? Did you ever get the details on what they were up to after she called you?”
My best friend had called from her vacation, asking me what to do about her wild threesome situation, but I hadn’t heard from her since. “I’ll get the details,” I said, smiling. “But I’m pretty sure it involved a spit roasting… and not the barbecue kind.”
Julian’s eyes lit up perhaps a little too much, and I wondered if he was imagining me in the same position. “I hope they all enjoyed it.”
He moved to the kitchen, dropping bread in the toaster before cracking eggs into a bowl. I watched his hands—the same hands that had mapped every inch of my body last night while I told him about another man’s touch. The hands that had gripped my hips hard enough to bruise as I described how I’d kissed someone else.
And now I was wondering if Caleb would be up for a threesome, and if Julian would be into that, too. Why hadn’t I gotten Caleb’s number? Was I the reason he’d disappeared from class?
“You’re quiet this morning,” Julian observed, glancing at me over his shoulder.
“Yeah.” I wrapped my hands around my mug, drawing courage from its warmth. “About that... are you okay with what happened? With me kissing the guy at yoga class?”
He blinked, an eyebrow quirking up. “That’s what you’re sitting there spinning out about?” Julian knew me too well.
“It just keeps popping back into my head. What if I fucked everything up? What if you’re lying to me and you’re upset with me?”
Julian stepped in close. “Does it feel fucked up? Because I think it’s made us closer than ever. And I’m more than okay,” Julian said without hesitation. “It was hot as hell hearing about it. And you came home to me after, just like we agreed. Hell, you did less than we agreed to.”
“And you don’t feel—I don’t know—weird that you haven’t used your hall pass yet?”
Julian shrugged, plating his eggs. “It’ll happen when it happens. I’m not in a rush.”
My throat went tight as I tried to picture him kissing another woman. It did not compute. That was not what I wanted at all. But I couldn’t very well tell him that now that I’d done what I’d done, could I?
He joined me at the table, sliding a plate of toast my way. His knee brushed mine under the table, casual and intimate at once. I realized I’d been holding tension in my shoulders and forced them to relax.
“I made dinner plans for us on Friday.” He was cheerful and seemed oblivious to my internal panic. “An old friend from college is in town. I figured we could meet him at that new place on 23rd. The one inside the Bindery Hotel.”
I blinked, relief washing through me. “Oh? You never talk about college friends.”
Julian’s cheeks colored. He looked down at his hands, fiddling with his napkin. “I lost touch with a lot of friends after graduation.” He took a sip of coffee, not quite meeting my eyes. “He’s in town for work, reached out yesterday.”
“Too bad you lost touch,” I said, studying his face. There was something he wasn’t saying.
“Ended up in different cities. You know how it goes after college. But he was my roommate for three out of four years,” Julian said. “We, uh, had some wild times together.”
I raised an eyebrow, intrigued by his evasiveness. “Wild how?”
Julian’s flush deepened. “Let’s just say we shared more than an apartment.”
I tilted my head, frowning. “What, like your car?”
Julian burst out laughing. “No. Like… sexual partners.”
Understanding dawned, and I felt like an idiot. “Women? You had threesomes with him?”
“Quite a few times,” Julian admitted. “Then… he was... we were... complicated.”
My mouth went dry. In three years of marriage, Julian had never mentioned having threesomes in college, let alone with a male roommate he’d been close to. The implications swirled in my mind.
“Were you and he ever intimate?” Now that kind of hall pass I might be able to get behind. Even thinking of it sent a rush of heat to my core.
Julian shook his head. “No. We just—sometimes we’d tag-team. Take turns.” His voice had dropped lower, rougher. “It was intense, and fun. And the women never expected more, so it worked. We were their wild adventure, not their happily ever after.”
“You weren’t looking for love?”
