Page 14 of Pour Decisions (Stryker Family #3)

“It’s the essence of bewilderment. Like Picasso or something.” I show him my blob of clay. “Like mine.”

JD sighs again.

“Seriously, it’s fine if it’s not perfect. Maybe that’s the whole point that Nana was trying to get across.” I prop up my blob, but it falls over again.

“Probably. It’s just hard to not…” He gestures vaguely toward the dog-blob. “Be good at it.”

“I get you.” I poke at my blob. “But we can be shitty at it together so it’s not so terrible.”

He looks at me, surprised for a second before he nods.

But he doesn’t say anything else. He just adds a wonky tail onto his Murphy sculpture.

I sip on my wine and study his hands. Doing both at the same time isn’t the best combination, because now I can’t stop thinking about how they feel on my body.

Thankfully, Hugh swoops in and admires everyone’s pieces. He especially appreciates my Ditto, calling it inspired.

“Your next emotional prompt is whimsy, served with a sparkling rosé,” Hugh says, giving us all equally generous pours of the wine. I’m already feeling very loose, so this won’t help.

“ Whimsy? ” JD says it like the prompt was to go to the nearest nursing home and start throwing punches.

“Are you capable of tapping deep into yourself to find a shred of whimsy?” I ask, grabbing a lump of clay and picking at the cup filled with tools. “Deep, deep down? Way deep?”

“I can sincerely say I’ve never had a whimsical moment in my life.” Even so, JD grabs some clay.

“Ever?”

“Ever.” His brows furrow as he pulls the lump of clay into smaller lumps.

“Not even with Bubba?” I look at my lump of clay and tilt my head to the side. “He’s capable of whimsy. I saw a butterfly land on his nose the other day. It was so cute.”

“Did he immediately eat the butterfly after?” JD asks, raising an eyebrow at me and accepting his rosé from Hugh.

I bite my lip. He licked it off his nose the moment he realized he could. “Okay, yeah, but it was cute for a second. Whimsical, even. How did you know he ate it?”

“He loves eating butterflies,” he says. “My mom has a flower bush that attracts them, and every time we’re there, he sneaks over and just goes for them all.”

“Like…he just murders them all? Like they’re a bush full of potato chips?”

“Yep.”

“That’s kind of fucked up. Are they more delicious than any other insect?”

“Apparently. He won’t even eat a fly or even a moth that drifts into the house.” He shrugs, the tension that’s usually between his brows melting away. His shoulders are more relaxed than they were when we were doing our first sculpture too.

“Wow. I kind of love it, though. He’s such a sweet dog. Having a bit of a dark side makes him more well-rounded.” He loves to cuddle with me on the couch and shadows me when I cook. He even reacts when I talk to him about whatever I’m doing in the kitchen, his ears perking up and tail wagging.

He tends to visit me, then disappear back to JD’s office, then reappear again, like he’s trying to hang out with us both equally.

“He’s the best dog I’ve ever had. I can’t imagine going to work without him.” JD cleans his hands on a damp paper towel and picks up his wine.

“You’re such a dog dad.” I lightly bump his shoulder. Yeah, the wine is kicking in. This is a friend blind date, but I’m feeling inches away from flirty. I need to rein it back. “When did you start taking him to work with you?”

“My parents were the ones who got him as a puppy, but they saw how much we were bonded. I guess he was maybe a year or two old when I started taking him to work daily. He’s the brand ambassador of Big Bubba Bourbon.”

“The brand ambassador?” I glance down at his phone, which is lit up with a random notification. His phone background is Bubba, looking like the biggest goofball on earth. “That’s…”

“It’s a joke, but only to me,” he says. “It drives everyone else crazy.”

“Are you trolling your employees?” I grin at him and he gives me a noncommittal shrug, the corner of his mouth quirked up just a bit. “You’re absolutely trolling them! I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“It’s the only way I can joke around with them, and I’m not even laughing,” he says. His little smirk turns into a rare, genuine smile, and it makes my heart skip. “But don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t.” My voice comes out weak. God, over his smile. Imagine if we actually touched each other. I’d probably combust.

This wine was a terrible idea. It’s erasing every single reason why I should keep JD at arm’s length.

But if it’s the wine talking and I’ll find my sense when I sober up, what’s wrong with a little lusting?

God, I need to get laid. Not by JD, though.

JD excuses himself for a moment, giving me a second to check my phone. Mom sent me a text of her in her new place, a big smile on her face. I text her back a heart, and she texts back, let me cook for you here! The kitchen is amazing and we can catch up. I want you to meet Dillon.

My buzz deflates. How would she feel knowing I’m in contact with JD again?

I hadn’t thought about that and now the worry is creeping in.

Would she be pissed off because we’re roommates?

Or would she be fine with it because she split up with Raymond, her ex-husband at the center of my split with JD? I don’t even want to think about that.

I start shaping some ears for my Bubba sculpture, the tiny motion soothing me. I can’t let anxious thoughts kill tonight.

Hugh surveys everyone’s work again, before grabbing even more wine.

“Your next emotional prompt is pleasure, paired with this exotic chardonnay,” Hugh says.

“Pleasure.” JD has a hot voice—deep and a bit rough—so just hearing him say the word pleasure sends a tendril of warmth straight between my thighs. “That should be easier.”

It was always easy between us physically. Even with the slightest hints, he was able to get me, and I was able to get him. Like finding the kind of dance partner where you can just communicate with the nudge of the hand or a swivel of your hips.

JD lets out a long breath, more like he’s trying to steady himself than anything. His composure is rock solid when he’s sober, so the visible cracks in his facade tell me he’s feeling as tipsy as I am.

“You ok?” I ask, fiddling with my clay but not knowing what to put. It’s not like I don’t experience pleasure in my life, but the word is weighty. There’s stuff I like—dessert, naps, stuff like that, but pleasure? I can only think of one thing, and it came from the man sitting next to me.

“Just trying to fulfill the prompt.” He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “What are you going to make?”

“I have to dig deep down and find inspiration,” I say with a sigh.

“Deep down?” JD starts rolling clay on the table into a tube. “Hopefully not that deep.”

I bite my bottom lip and hold back a smile.

“Did you mean for that to be suggestive?” I ask.

“No, but it could be if you want,” he says, his tone even.

His flirting style—if it could be called that—was straightforward back when we first met, but it’s been so long since he’s done it that I’m taken aback.

I want it to be suggestive. I want it be so badly. It’s such a bad idea. But this night is making me entertain it.

“I’m not sure,” I say instead. I still don’t know what to make. “This shouldn’t be so hard. And don’t even say it.”

“Do you really think I’d say that?” JD huffs, but there’s amusement behind it.

“I didn’t even have to say it for you to know what I’m talking about. About why it shouldn’t be so hard.”

“That’s what she said,” the man in his forties across from us blurts. His cheeks go red, his expression sheepish. “I couldn’t let it go.”

“Thanks.” I start pulling pieces off my lump of clay. “I think I have an idea.”

I start to make petals for a rose. Symbolic and basic, sure, but it’s all I can think of. Calling my vagina my “flower” is something my prim high school sex ed teacher would do.

“A flower?” He looks at me, then at my sculpture. “Isn’t it supposed to be an animal?”

“Hugh’s going to love it. He accepted a Pokémon as an animal—at least flowers exist. What are you…” I look down at what he’s doing. He’s been fiddling with his lump of clay and now it looks… “Is that…?”

It looks like a penis. But it’s clearly not—he has some flaps hanging off it. But it really looks like a dick. I mean, I’d understand if he sculpted one. His is very, very nice and brought me quite a lot of pleasure.

“I was going to go with a lizard, but if we’re saying fuck it to the rules, it’s now supposed to be a space shuttle.” He tilts his head to the side, as if changing the angle will make it look different from what it is. “Not a dick.”

“A space shuttle? To where?” I choke back giggles. “Penis Planet?”

“I don’t know.” He tries to shape it and add bits to it, but it only makes it look worse, somehow.

“What does a space shuttle have to do with pleasure anyway?” I ask through my laughter..

“I like space, but sculpting the void of it is outside of the scope of this…whatever we’re doing.” He glances around the class.

“Two more minutes on this prompt, everyone,” Hugh says.

“Y’know what, fuck it.” JD puts some dots of clay on the side, which I assume are supposed to be windows on the dong-ship. “Close enough.”

“There we go.” I smooth some petals together so it looks vaguely like a rose. “Releasing that perfectionism.”

“Is that what we’re calling this?” JD asks.

Hugh cruises around the room, his eyes red, surveying our work. His eyes lock onto JD’s.

“It’s so…” Hugh tilts his head to the side, like it’s going to look like anything other than a giant dong. “Expressive. Bold.”

JD gives Hugh a look, one eyebrow raised. No one has ever been less amused than JD is right now.

“It looks like a massive penis,” JD says, his tone dry.

I snort wine through my nose so hard that I start coughing. Hugh pats me on the shoulder, which doesn’t help at all.

“Yes. I can see that.” Hugh nods, tilting his head to the side as if he’s never seen anything like it before. “Truly bold. Literal. I like it. It deserves to be enshrined forever.”

Before JD can stop him, Hugh takes the piece and puts it on the tray for the kiln. JD’s mouth opens, but he closes it.

“You’re going to have a weird phallic space shuttle sculpture in your house,” I say.

“You’re assuming I won’t toss it into the closest dumpster.”

“I’ll keep it. Forever.” I grin.

And he smiles back, the slightest tinge of pink across his high cheekbones.