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I wanted to make a mess of True and from time to time, she looked at me with a heat in her eyes that told me she wanted the same thing.

Day after day, I watched her and Noah get closer. They had a cadence between them that grew stronger every day. An ease of being around each other that even a stranger could pick up on.

They were in sync.

They laughed at the same things. Preferred the same movies. The same desserts. There was a softness that existed between them that I don’t even think they noticed. They touched without thinking about it, looked at me with the same wide eyed stare whenever I cleared my throat after being silent for too long.

I couldn’t think of True without thinking of Noah. And I couldn’t think of Noah without thinking of True.

The thought of them together made heat pool in my veins and fantasies unravel faster than I could catalog them.

It was unhinged, getting off on the thought of my best friend and our neighbor. But every time the thought snuck into my head, I followed it until my dick was empty and my breathing was ragged. What the fuck was wrong with me?

One thing I knew for sure?

As much as I wanted True, I wanted Noah to have her too. I wanted to watch them. To study the way they made each other come undone. I wanted her to have us and I wanted us to have her together. I wantedeverythingwith them.

What.

The.

Fuck?

It would be easy to blame my current fascination on a full moon, a retrograde, anything but myself. But I knew it was more than a fleeting fixation. I was in too deep and now I had to figure out what to do about it.

A frown claimed my face as I looked out the floor to ceiling windows at the hills that would be covered in snow in two weeks’ time.

Tomorrow was Halloween, which marked the end of Wolfe Summit’s “slow” season.

“What you frowning at this early?” The housekeeping manager’s sweet voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

Ms. Annie beamed up at me, her smile possessing enough warmth to brighten my dark mood as I moved away from the window and back to the lobby of the resort.

“Nothing, Ms. Annie. Come have a cup of coffee with me.”

“Ain’t gotta tell me twice.”

I chuckled at her easy compliance, shortening my stride so she could keep up with me.

A few minutes later, we were seated at reception, side by side while we watched the resort slowly come to life.

It was 7:30 and the real front desk staff didn’t have to be here until 8. So, I usually filled in on the off chance somebody needed something before then. In the two years I’d been doing it, I could still count on one hand how many times someone had actually needed me.

It wasn’t by mistake. We fostered a slow pace here and the guests naturally acclimated once they set foot on the premises.

Unlike most hotels, our breakfast service didn’t start until 7:45 and ran until 11. The gift shop down the hall opened at 10. And our first excursion of the day never started before 9. If you were sleep deprived on vacation with us, it was your own fault because we did nothing in a rush here and believed sleep was just as important as every other aspect of the trip.

The walls between each of our fifteen suites were soundproofed and we had quiet hours implemented from 10PM to 8AM.

The older woman beside me broke into my thoughts again. “What you doing for Halloween?”

“Same thing I always do, Ms. Annie.”

She harrumphed, lifting her mug with a shaky hand. “Being a Grinch then?”

I laughed quietly, staring at my second cup of coffee for the day. I’d had one while I made Noah’s breakfast, even though I hadn’t had much of an appetite this morning. “I thought the Grinch didn’t like Christmas.”

“You can be a Grinch for any holiday,” Ms. Annie said, her voice matter-of-fact.