When I got sick of lying there with an achingly hard boner, and nothing to do with it, I’d slowly and gradually slipped my arm out from underneath Quincy, and come out to sit on the balcony. Quincy was right, it was cold in nothing but the hotel robe, but it was the farthest part of the room from the door, which led to the rest of the suite, which led to the elevator, which led to the hotel bar, which would lead to me drinking my bodyweight in vodka. It was also away from the bed, where I’d lain awake feeling like a loser, third-wheeling the world’s most perfect couple, so it was the lesser of the evils available to me at that point.
“Something on your mind?” She hugged herself tight, bracing against the slight chill in the air.
“Nah, not really.” Lie. “It’s a pretty common thing for me these days. I knew I wasn’t going to be catching any zees any time soon, so instead of risking waking the two of you with my tossing and turning, I figured I’d come out here, and be out of your hair. This way, I can sit and think about how much I want a drink and a smoke, and whatever the hell I can get my hands on without disturbing you.”
“You weren’t in our hair. And I couldn’t care less if you ‘disturbed’ me, any time of night or day you need to. Besides, I think I woke up because you weren’t there. Something felt ‘off’, even in my sleep. Then I woke up to a cold patch on the sheets where you should have been, and I knew why. I liked having you there with me.”
I looked at her long and hard, remaining silent for way longer than was polite, but I didn’t give a fuck about being polite. “Did you?”
“Did I what? Like having you there next to me?”
“Yeah, that.”
“Why would you ask? I literally just said I did.”
“Well, what you say, and what you mean, aren’t always the same thing.”
“What? What is that supposed to mean?” I stared out at the twinkling lights of the city. Eventually Quincy shifted, and came to sit in the chair next to me.
“It’s not ‘supposed’ to mean anything. It means what the fuck is going on right now?”
“With...?”
“Don’t play dumb, Quincy, you’re way fucking smarter than that. You’re with my best friend, but you’re also attracted to me. We’ve been circling this drain since the two of you got together, but nothing’s happened, so why now? Why here? Was this just a drunken fumble, because King’s out of whack, due to losing Maw Maw?”
“I don’t know. I mean. No, it’s not that.”
“Are you sure? Because, something in my gut is telling me that he’s going to wake up in a couple of hours with a sore head, and a mouth so dry, he’d drink his own pee to quench his thirst, and be dark with me for taking advantage of his grief and drunkenness, and using it as an opportunity to try to steal you away, and down on you for letting yourself be stolen.”
“But that’s not what happened.”
“Isn’t it? I mean, I guess I know it’s not, but on the other hand, I know him—I know you to an extent, also, but I know him like I know myself—you heard all the shit he was saying. He might have been a little out of it, but the booze didn’t make him think all that shit, it just made him loose enough to actually say it. Which means that deep down somewhere, or even not so deep, he fucking believes it. Plus, anyone would be forgiven for suspecting that the timing had something to do with his willingness to go there all of a sudden.”
“Well ‘anyone’ can go eat a whole bag of dicks. The people who matter know that’s not what went down. No pun intended.” In some senses, I knew what went down, too. King went down on Quincy while I worked her tits over until she came. My dick twitched in recollection. On the other hand, I also had no idea what the fuck was going on. Not really.
I shot her a sideways glance, but she continued to stare out into the city below.
“And what exactly did go down, pun very much intended? Because I don’t know what the fuck to think. One moment you’re slapping my face for kissing you—which, I want to say again, was absolutely the right thing to do, and I am sorry, it was out of line—but the next minute you’re telling us you’re attracted to both of us, and sucking me off while my best friend, and your boyfriend fucks you at the same time. Not to sound like a needy bitch here, but that’s some hella mixed signals, Q.” And of course, a needy bitch was exactly what I sounded like. I wanted to tear my own throat out to make me shut up.
She looked at me, finally, and right away I felt guilty for being a douche. I’d noticed that with her. She was the one person on the planet who made me at least want to try not to be an asshole even just for a small portion of every day. “I know, and you’re right. And I wish it was just as easy as explaining myself, I really fucking do. But the truth is, it isn’t that simple at all.”
“Right. So like I said, he could wake up and declare the whole thing a big mistake, and I’d be back on the sidelines. Except it would be worse this time, as I would have shown my whole ass in confirming King’s suspicions, so then that would be it. I’d lose my best friend, and my... you.” Bitches really didn’t get any whinier.
“Hold on a minute.” She was looking at me as though I was out of my mind, and maybe she wasn’t too far wrong. “What program have you been watching? Because in the one I was watching last night, we were three grown-ass consenting adults who agreed to do something that we obviously wanted to do, at least at the time, anyway. We all consented. Nobody forced anybody. In fact, I remember very clearly that King was the one leading the charge, so how could he—or anybody—blame you for what happened?”
“Yeah, well, maybe I should have stepped in and been his conscience for once, after all the times he’s done that for me. I was sober as a judge, so I can’t even use being wasted as an excuse.”
“What if he didn’t need saving from himself?”
“But what if he did?”
Chapter 14
King
I could have cut the atmosphere on the plane with a knife. “Jesus Christ, you two. For the love of fucking God, would you please just enlighten me as to what the hell is going on right now? Anybody would think someone died up here. I mean, someone did die, but I know you two aren’t walking around like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders because of Maw Maw. Rome, what the fuck did you do?”
I had no fucking clue what was going on. All I knew was that I’d woken up with a pounding head, and a mouth dryer than the Kalahari, in a cold and empty bed. And not just any bed, but Rome’s. Quincy was nowhere to be seen, and Rome appeared to have flaked out on the oversized couch. I’d left him there, and gone looking for Quincy. I’d found her on the bed in the room we’d shared, lying down, but not asleep. She’d been tight-lipped when questioned, insisting that nothing was wrong, but she’d woken up and wanted to “give you your space”, which made no fucking sense.
When we’d fallen asleep, a sweaty, exhausted, but satiated heap, space had been the last thing any of us had wanted—we’d been a mess of interwoven arms and legs, spent, but happy, or so I’d thought.