“Rora,” I said with a sigh, “we’ve had the whole middle name conversation already.”
“I’m just trying different ones on for size until I can find one that fits you.”
“I already have a middle name.”
She waved her hand in the air and scrunched her nose. “Eh. We can talk about that later.”
Deciding it was pointless to get into that particular argument with her, I moved on. “I’m not really sure you should be proud of me right now. I don’t necessarily think this news warrants excitement,” I admitted. “Other than freaking the hell out, I honestly don’t know how I feel about what we did.”
“Hmm,” she hummed thoughtfully, lifting her hand and tapping her chin like she was giving my situation some serious thought. “Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I see.”
I shifted my gaze to Lark, realizing she’d been surprisingly quiet after my confession. I’d expected some kind of reaction from her, but I was surprised to see her features awash with what looked a whole lot like worry, and maybe a bit of guilt.
“Honey, what’s wrong?”
“I—” She stopped and dragged her bottom lip between her teeth, and for a second, I thought she might actually start crying. “I did something. And I want to tell you, but I’m really scared you’ll get upset and hate me forever.”
“Oh, Lark.” Moving toward her, I wrapped her in my arms and squeezed her tight. “I could never hate you; it’s literally impossible.”
She pulled away with a sniffle, batting at the lone tear that had fallen from her eye. “You say that now, but you don’t know what I did.”
“Just tell me. Whatever it is, we can work it out.”
She pulled in a fortifying breath, her eyes dancing around the room like they were unable to keep contact with mine. “Stone showed up at my house yesterday. He was really upset and saying all this stuff. He wanted to know who had hit you. I told him it wasn’t my place, but he wouldn’t let it go. I was worried he was going to make things harder for you.”
“Oh shit,” Aurora breathed. Meanwhile, I couldn’t seem to pull enough oxygen into my lungs.
“I didn’t want to, but I ended up telling him what happened with your dad.” Another tear fell, and the sadness in her eyes tore at my chest. “I’m so sorry, but I was scared he’d find out on his own and get the wrong idea. He was really mad, Will. I didn’t want him to try and track your father down—”
I cut her off, reaching out to take both her hands in mine. “It’s okay,” I assured her. “I’m not mad.”
She blinked slowly. “You—you’re not?”
“No. I’m not. It’s not like you were gossiping. You had a really good reason for telling him the truth. I get that, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you had my back like that.”
Her whole body sagged with relief. “Oh, thank God,” she breathed. “I was so scared you were going to hate me forever.”
I smiled and squeezed her hands. “Never gonna happen.”
“Well, now that we’ve gotten the soap opera drama portion of the conversation out of the way,” Aurora broke in, “can we please get to the important shit? How in the hell did this happen? I thought we were firmly in the I Hate Stone Hendrix and Plan to Cut His Dick Off camp. Not that I mind switching camps or anything, just color me curious.”
“We were never planning to cut his dick off,” Lark admonished. “You always take things to such a violent level! We were going to junk-punch him and hate him for eternity. That’s it.”
“Whatever,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
I broke up their fight by telling them how everything happened, from my phone call with Elaina, to going to the garage to get my car, to driving to Stone’s house to confront him and demand he give it back. I told them about the kiss that was only supposed to get him to stop asking questions.
“I don’t know how it happened. It’s like we both just . . . I don’t know. I’ve heard people say things like ‘it just happened’ and ‘I don’t know how it started’ and I used to think they were full of it. But now I get it. I went there planning to yell at him, and the next thing I know, I’m sprawled out on the hood of this old muscle car, and he’s down on his knees in front of me.”
“No. Freaking. Way! You did it on the hood of a muscle car?” Aurora asked, her voice rising with each word until she was practically squealing. “That’s like my ultimate Fast and Furious fantasy! Ugh! I’m so jealous of you right now.”
I felt the heat return to my cheeks, a slow smile pulling at my lips as I thought back to it. “It was pretty hot,” I had to admit. There was really no point in lying about that. “But after we finished—”
Lark lifted her hands, palms out. “Wait, wait, wait. Something tells me you’re leaving out some crucial details.”
“Yeah,” Aurora agreed vehemently. “Like his dick size.”
“Or if it was any good,” Lark added.
“Or how many orgasms you had,” Aurora ticked off on her finger.
“Or—”
“Okay, okay! I get it.” I closed my eyes and pulled in a fortifying breath. “I don’t know the exact size; all I can really tell you is it was big. Yes, it was good. It was really freaking good. I had two”—I paused in contemplation—“or it could have been three. Or two, but the last one was just super long—”
“Oh my God, I hate you so much right now,” Aurora whined. “Seriously. I need to get laid. It should be illegal to live in a town with this many hot men and not get the D on a regular basis.”
Lark giggled but brushed her off. “Okay, so what happened afterward?”
And this is where it got messy. “Well, I freaked out.”
She nodded in understanding. “Rightfully so, given the last thing he’d said to you.”
I jabbed my index finger at Lark. “Exactly! So I freaked out, told him it was a huge mistake, and started getting dressed.”
Both women were looking at me with wide, enthralled eyes. “What did he say to that?” Aurora asked.
“He didn’t like it. He got really pissed. Said it was the best sex he’d ever had, and I’d be lying if I claimed differently, and told me I couldn’t just walk away from something like that. He did a complete one-eighty from the week before. We started fighting, and I told him I hated him.” My face got so hot, I knew my skin had to be bright red. “He got this smirk on his face and said I didn’t fuck him like I hated him. Then I basically jumped in the truck and got the hell out of there.”
Neither of them said anything for the longest time, and after a while my whole body started to tingle like there were ants skittering around beneath my skin. “Will one of you please say something?” I cried when the silence got to be too much for me. “You’re making me really anxious!”
“I—Wow,” Lark murmured.
Then Aurora added, “That was so freaking hot, I think I just came a little.”
I let out a pathetic groan. “That’s not helping.”