Page 32 of Triple Play
Jordie
I’m losing my mind.
That’s the only explanation for why I’m standing outside Elise’s door at ten PM, holding a bag of gummy bears like some kind of peace offering.
Except it’s not peace I’m offering.
It’s… I don’t even know what it is.
All I know is that she’s been in this house for five days, and I can’t stop thinking about her. I can’t stop replaying the way those sleep shorts rode up earlier, the cotton clinging to her perfect pussy lips that I wanted to trace with my tongue. The way she looked at all three of us like she knew exactly what she was doing.
She did know.
And it’s working.
I knock. Two quick raps before I can talk myself out of this.
“Yeah?”
Her voice is muffled and distracted.
I open the door.
She’s sitting on her bed, one leg pulled up, painting her toenails a dark red—the color of wine, blood, or bad decisions.
She looks up and raises an eyebrow. “You know knocking usually means you wait for permission before entering, right?”
“You said yeah.”
“I said yeah as in ‘who is it?’ not ‘come on in.’”
“Semantics.” I lean against her doorframe and hold up the gummy bears. “Brought you contraband.”
She eyes the bag. “What are those?”
“Gummy bears. The good kind. Not the cheap ones that taste like plastic.”
“And you’re bringing them to me because…”
“Because you looked like you could use them.” I step fully into her room—uninvited but not unwelcome. There’s a difference. “Also because I’m trying to bribe my way into your good graces.”
“Bold of you to assume I have good graces.”
“Don’t you?”
She considers this, then goes back to painting her pinky toe with careful precision. “Jury’s still out.”
Her room is neat but lived-in. Textbooks are stacked on her desk, and a photo on her nightstand shows an older woman with kind eyes—maybe her grandmother. Her laptop is open, displaying some organic chemistry thing on the screen that makes my brain hurt just looking at it.
She’s wearing an oversized t-shirt and those same sleep shorts from earlier. Her hair is piled on top of her head in a messy knot, and she has no makeup on. She looks younger like this. Softer.
Still hot as hell.
I’m so screwed.
“You need help with that?” I nod at the nail polish.
She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “With painting my toenails?”
