Page 11

11

It Reeks of Stardom

I stirred from a sleep so deep I couldn’t immediately tell what was happening. The room was dim, and I was cozy. Here—I remembered—I was safe.

Warmth pressed along my back. Probably Bobo. He knew he was supposed to remain at the foot of the bed, but my sweet boy liked snuggles. As much as I focused on consistency in his training, this was one area where I was lenient. I liked snuggling my pittie too much.

A muffled slapping sounded somewhere beyond the room, and some one groaned beside me. It definitely wasn’t my dog.

My eyelids fluttered open and I found myself staring at Layla’s face. Her head rested on the pillow beside mine, her eyes squinched tightly closed as if she too were struggling against waking.

The previous night came flooding back. We were in our new house, Magnum’s mansion. Griffin in the bed with me. Oh God … our hands and mouths all over each other, his body against mine, yearning for his … Then, our friends.

Although I’d been nearly asleep when Griffin entered, after Brady and Hunt stretched out on the mattresses on the floor we got to talking. At first, it had been about the serious stuff, the fears and admissions that were easier to eke out in the relative anonymity of darkness. We’d all been secretly freaked out about pretty much everything that had gone down since the Fischer House party. But then we’d fallen into old, comforting patterns, and we’d stayed up reminiscing and laughing until the middle of the night, when our frayed nerves and exhaustion had finally claimed us all.

“Shit, someone’s in the house,” Brady mumbled from beside the bed.

“Fuck,” Hunt responded, suddenly sharp, and Griffin—not Bobo—who’d fallen asleep on the other side of me, tugged my body closer, pushing up onto his elbow and partially leaning over me, as if preparing to shield my body with his.

“Hello! It’s me, Fanny,” Magnum’s assistant called out.

Either Brady or Hunt groaned. Layla’s eyes squinted open as she groggily wiped at a bit of drool in the corner of her mouth. And Griffin relaxed some, settling back down onto his side. I inched my hips back into the perfect spoon of his body—

To feel the stiff length of his dick now pressed against my ass. I had to swallow a moan as my body instantly wanted to respond to him. With Layla staring at me now, I couldn’t let on. For one, she’d never let Griff or me live it down—the morning she’d woken up in bed with Griff’s stiffy. I could practically hear her theatrics already.

Soft footfalls grew nearer, and then, with no more warning than Layla had given us the night before, Fanny rapped twice on the door before swinging it open.

“Whoa, lady,” Brady scolded while Hunt shot to his feet atop the mattress. He wobbled for a second before crouching into a fighting stance, hands up.

Griffin only ran his strong hand along the length of my bare thigh, as if wanting to extend this closeness as much as possible before it came to its jarring end.

With Layla propped up onto an elbow to glare at Fanny, I wiggled my ass against his hardness.

His breath hitched. The change was quiet, but I delighted in the effect I had on him. God, I hadn’t planned on letting myself be all over him quite so fast. I hadn’t had much chance to imagine what our relationship would look like moving forward, but surely I would have guessed it would be gradual. Not friends to lovers in like three-point-six seconds.

His roving hand splayed across my bare stomach, the camisole’s hem twisted up by my boobs. His fingertips trailed a line of fire up my torso until a single one brushed against the bottom swell of my breast, light as a feather but hot enough to brand me.

“What are you doing in here?” Layla accused Fanny when it probably should have been me since it was my room.

“I told you I’d be here at 2:00 p.m.,” she replied without a hint of apology as she openly studied us.

“It’s not two already,” Layla mumbled. “Is it?” She glanced around us, but without our phones or a clock in here, we had no idea.

“It is, young lady.” Fanny pressed her lips together. “You’ve already slept half the day away.”

Groaning at Fanny’s judgmental tone, I craned my neck to glare at her. “Well, excuse the hell out of us for needing the extra rest to recover after all we’ve been through. Maybe if you or your precious Magnum were the ones who kept having to die and come back to life again you’d care to be more understanding.”

I registered what I said. My life was officially bonkers.

I expected her to react like either of my faux parents would when confronted by my “smart mouth,” and instantly get on my case all the more. But Fanny’s scowl softened into what almost passed as a smile, though not quite. “Yes, I suppose that much is true. You certainly have been through a lot over the last several months.”

Hunt lowered his hands and looked around the room, finally settling on the lounge chair in the corner. He moved Griffin’s discarded shirt onto the armrest before sinking into the seat.

“Had we known you’d all sleep in the same room,” Fanny said, “Magnum might’ve saved himself some trouble in building you such a spacious home.”

Brady kept his blanket over his legs but sat up, his back resting against the side of my bed. “We don’t usually sleep together.”

From where I lay I couldn’t make out his face, but I could easily picture his expression all the same. Brows low, eyes slightly narrowed, lips pursed in a silent fuck you .

“Like we said,” I added in a cold tone, “we’ve been through some shit .”

“Yes, well, now it’s time to get your shit together, isn’t it?”

She sidestepped a mattress to access the panel embedded in the bedside table. With a tap of her fingers, the blinds began to rise.

Griffin, Layla, Brady, and I all groaned at the sudden brightness. Hunt merely stared at Fanny with a too-placid expression that reminded me of a cat biding its time for the eventual fuck you that would come.

If Fanny thought behaving like a mother would endear her to us, she couldn’t have been more wrong.

She strode back to the door, calling over her shoulder: “Magnum is expecting us, and he shouldn’t be made to wait. You have fifteen minutes before we leave. Don’t waste precious time cleaning up after yourselves. Staff will be coming in every day when the house is empty. Be dressed and ready or I’m taking you however you are.”

“What about breakfast?” Brady asked.

“The breakfast hour passed long ago, young man. If you wanted it, you should have been up in time for it. Magnum didn’t invite you here to—”

“ Invite ?” The five of us growled in unison, with differing levels of incredulity.

Undeterred, she plowed on: “You aren’t here to behave as spoiled rock stars. You’re here to … well, I’m sure Magnum will have more to say on that when we meet him.”

Halfway out the door, she turned back around toward us to clap her hands, like a fucking schoolmarm. I winced at the harsh volume.

“Come now! No time to dilly-dally. I for one am hoping every one of you will squeeze in a shower before we head out. It reeks of …” Her nose scrunched up. “… stardom in here.”

Then she stalked off.

“What the fuck does she mean by that ?” Layla muttered.

“Who the hell knows?” Brady grumbled. “Maybe she used to be a groupie or a roadie before she decided a life trailing after a rich asshole was more her style. Got up and personal with some stank ‘stars.’”

“I don’t trust her,” Hunt said.

Griffin’s hand trailed back down my bare stomach to settle across the dip of my waist. “Neither do I. But I don’t think she’s going to try to kill us, at least.”

“Maybe not,” Hunt said. “But Magnum has a whole team on standby she could delegate that fun task to.”

Layla sighed loudly, snaking a leg out from under the covers and sliding toward the edge of the bed. “Well, I guess we’d better get moving. Even though a part of me doesn’t want to just ’cause she told us to, I’m gonna hit the shower. After sleeping with these two lovebirds, I need a cold one.”

She glanced at Griff and me, and I plastered a look of total innocence on my face, the one that had many times convinced my teachers.

Her eyes widened and she chuffed an incredulous snort. “If you’re pulling out the ‘I’m a Goody Two-shoes’ look, it’s way worse than I was guessing.” Her eyes bulged. “Oh. Em. Gee. Are the two of you naked under there?! I didn’t even think to look last night before I climbed in with you! Was I part of a threesome without even knowing it? ’Cause if so, I’ll be super pissed. I’ve never had one before and I def need to be present for that bucket lister.”

“No, we’re not naked,” I snapped. “Obviously we’re not. Jeez. I can’t believe you’d think that of us, that we’d do that to our best friends. Come on.” I pulled at the strap to my camisole with a sharp duh tug. “Why would you even think that of us? Like we’d share a bed with you while getting it on …”

But it was like Layla wasn’t hearing me—or she knew us too well.

She gripped the covers and tried to tug them down to expose us. While we were both dressed, it wasn’t by much, and Griffin was still hard.

I clutched the covers like my life depended on it. Surprisingly, Griffin didn’t, like now that we were out to our friends he had nothing to hide.

Well, no one was about to see his stiffy before I laid eyes on it first.

Layla rolled her eyes. “Seriously, guys? You horny fuckers …”

“Hey. It’s not like that,” Griffin protested but as usual, she barreled right on.

“Now I need to rub one out in the shower before I’m ready to face the day. Horniness!” She stabbed the air with a finger in some kind of imagined victory. “That’s what Fanny was scenting like a freaking hound dog. I can smell it now, and it’s making me horny too. Thanks a lot, you two.”

“Lay,” Brady breathed on a shocked gasp, though he couldn’t actually be stunned. She was his twin after all, and Layla was just … like this. “What the fuck? Can you give it a rest with all your word vomit already?”

She grinned and stood, her feet next to the head of his mattress. “Nope. No fucking way am I gonna change a single little thing about myself to suit anyone else.”

Brady leaned forward and whispered, “Remember, they’re probably listening to everything we say right now.”

“I really hope they are.” She raised her voice. “Because they’re a bunch of limp-dick cocksuckers, gunning down a bunch of highschoolers like they did.”

She stopped by the door, mischief lighting up her face as she glanced at Brady, and I already knew a dig was coming.

So did he. He stood.

“At least you’re already used to jerking off with your parents listening. No big change there. I think you might even like it.”

She ducked out the door, and Brady charged after her.

“I’m gonna kill you, Lay!”

I would have laughed at their antics—a slice of normalcy, no matter how over the top—but his statement hit a little too close to my already sensitive nerves.

Hunt pushed his mattress against one wall and stalked out without a word, closing the door behind him.

Then it was just Griffin and me.

Suddenly, every place where his skin touched mine tingled like an electric shock was racing through it. His chest, his thighs, his arms, his hands, they pressed against me. Only the thin fabric of our underwear separated our extra-fun, saucy bits. The room, the bed, they simultaneously became too big and too small. He was everywhere, his body wrapped around mine, and yet not touching me enough.

He kissed my bare shoulder, drawing out the lingering press of his lips before flopping back onto the bed with an exasperated sigh. “Well …” he announced.

When nothing more arrived, I turned onto my other side to face him. “Well, what?”

He gazed up at the ceiling. “Given that we slept with Layla, and it’s Layla we’re talking about, that wasn’t too bad.”

“It wasn’t great.”

He dropped his gaze down to me, a smile stretching those plump lips of his, the ones I wanted to spend the rest of the day kissing. Now that I knew what they felt like pressed against mine, exploring my mouth, I wanted so much more of them.

“With Lay, it could’ve been loads worse though,” he said.

“That’s very true,” I answered, staring at his lips and not bothering to hide the fact.

He turned back onto his side but this time didn’t touch me, as if the temptation to keep going would be too great if he did. “I’m about to die I want so much more of you.”

I grimaced. “I think we’re gonna have to re-examine a lot of our usual expressions after everything that’s happened.”

“Nah. Lay might say some shit , and boy does she ever, but she was right about that. We don’t have to change who we are. We shouldn’t.”

“It’s gonna change us. All of this, everything, it will. But go on. With what you were saying.”

He chuckled and stared into my eyes, holding there. “If we’d been able to keep going last night … fuck, I have no doubt it would’ve been beyond amazing and I would’ve loved every single fucking moment of it. But since last night went down the way it did, I think I’m glad now.”

I arched my brow. “You’re glad.”

“Yeah. ’Cause I don’t want to rush a thing with you. I’ve waited this long to have you. I literally had to die and watch you die to get where I believed it’d be okay to take that risk with the friendship between us and with the others. Now that we’re here, now that we both know where we’re at, I want to savor every tiny little bit of it. Of you.”

I chuffed and smiled, probably a bit dreamily. “Nice idea and all, Griff. But not sure how that’s gonna end up working out with the two of us. I’m not particularly patient once I get going, you know that.”

He blinked, then grinned. “Yeah, I do. So we’ll see how it goes. I’m already having to force myself not to touch you ’cause I don’t know if I could get myself to stop even with fucking Fanny counting down out there.”

So I was right.

Excited flutters drifted through my chest.

He inched only his head forward and pressed the gentlest of kisses against my lips. Not chaste. No, not a chance. But one that felt like a tender promise. Of what, I wasn’t sure, but I liked it, whatever it meant.

Against my lips, he murmured, “You’re my dream girl, Joss. I’m never letting you go.”

And then, long before I was ready for him to leave, he climbed out of the bed and grabbed his shirt. I watched him as he tugged it on and arranged it to conceal the partial tent he was still pitching.

“Dream girl,” he emphasized, beaming the happiest grin I’d seen from him in years, then he slipped out the door.

Fanny chose that exact moment to holler, “Five minutes!”

But even her forceful countdown couldn’t snuff out the elation bubbling up my stomach and through my chest. It was like I was filled to the brim with fizzy champagne.

Finally with a moment of privacy to myself, I grinned my happiest too. I pressed a pillow over my face, kicked my legs against the mattress, and squealed as if I were still starry-eyed and na?ve enough to believe love was a force so great it could overcome absolutely anything and everything.

I squealed once more, then tossed aside the pillow to scoot out of bed. No way was I letting Fanny drag me anywhere wearing what little I was.

Love was a powerful force, of course it was. Love was everything . My love, not just for Griffin, but for all my friends, was sufficient to move the proverbial mountain. No doubt about that, none at all.

But love also only made the losses that much more painful. Unbearable. Devastating.

Hell if that motivation didn’t give me every reason I needed to fight and keep on fighting—no matter what or whom we faced.

Death might be staring us all in the face right now, but we’d never had more reason to live.