Page 55 of Just Past Two

“Well.” Jo sat up and stretched, arching her back before flopping back down onto Stephan’s chest. “We can always do it again.”

Abby surprised herself by laughing. Yeah, actually, they could. They could do this again. With them, and maybe with Zach, and anybody else they wanted.

Stephan rubbed his belly and yawned. “I’m starving.”

Jo grinned. “We literally just ate.”

“That was hours ago. And I did a lot of work. How about I make nachos?” He looked over at Sam and Abby. “You want nachos?”

Sam chuckled and sat up. “You make nachos, I’m eating nachos.” He grabbed Abby’s hand. She smiled and followed.

Chapter Eleven

Where the hell was she? Abby looked around and blinked, taking a minute to recognize the guest room in Stephan and Jo’s house. The reminders of the night before came flooding back to her, memories of the intimacy and, holy shit, the sex, all of that feeling more like something another person would have experienced than something she really did. Her body was sore, but the good kind of sore, the “I just got fucked” kind of sore. She was smiling, too, and couldn’t stop smiling.

Next to her, Sam stirred, sliding an arm around her and drawing her closer as he blinked awake. He smiled sleepily. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Damn, he was handsome. He had this lazy sleepiness about him, the groggy look of one just waking up but completely sated. Her heart felt like it might be too big for her chest. So much for her fears of the morning after. The morning after felt pretty good right now.

“I’m starving. You starving?” He propped himself up on his elbow and looked around, then fumbled for his phone on the nightstand. “Wow, it’s almost eleven.”

“What? Really?” Abby sat up. She never slept naked, but without having packed an overnight bag for this trip, it had seemed like the most natural option. She checked her own phone, which wasn’t quite dead, even after having not been charged overnight. Sure enough, it was ten fifty in the morning. “Jesus. We never sleep this late.”

“Well, we stayed up pretty late.” Sam rubbed sleep from his eyes.

A knock at the door made them both turn. Abby’s first instinct was to cover herself, but the ship had kind of sailed on that, hadn’t it? “Come in. But we’re naked.”

Jo was laughing as she opened the door. “I appreciate the warning. We were thinking about grabbing brunch. You want to come with? You can also stay here and sleep if you want.”

As if in answer, Sam’s stomach gave a loud gurgle, and he looked down at it. “I think that answers that.”

“Great. Oh, also.” Jo disappeared from the door, then returned a moment later with a pile of clothes. “I washed your clothes.”

“What? When? You didn’t have to do that.” Abby took the pile from Jo, still warm from the dryer.

“I got up early, thought you might not want clothes with sex all over them.” She smiled broadly, then laughed. “You look stricken.”

Yeah, Abby probably was making that horrified face, and she let it go and laughed as well. “Sorry. I’m just not usually so blunt about talking about this stuff.”

“I think once you’ve seen somebody’s bits, you’ve got to be a little more blunt.” Jo flopped the clothes down onto the bed and then backed away. “You want to shower?”

Abby looked over at Sam, whose stomach gurgled again. “Nah. We’re starved. Let’s just go eat.”

In the car, following Jo and Stephan as they headed to Sylvester’s for brunch, Abby kept glancing over at Sam in the passenger seat. His hands folded in his lap, he wore a slight frown on his face that seemed more thoughtful than upset.

“What?” she asked after a little while of silence. “You okay?”

Sam made a little “Hmm” noise and then shrugged. “I don’t know. I think so. I keep expecting to feel different, but I just don’t.”

“Yeah.” Abby was having that same sense. It was jarring, the way normalcy seemed imbued in this morning that should have felt not-normal at all.

There wasn’t time to talk further, though, because they were already parking. Sam took her hand as they walked up to the entrance, the cold biting into Abby’s skin and reminding her that winter was not over by a long shot. For now, though, she felt warm inside.

…

They sidled into a booth in the corner, couples on each side facing each other, and Sam reached over to give Abby’s thigh a squeeze. She had been hard to read this morning. Although she was all smiles, she had this odd look about her. Maybe she was going through the same questioning that he was.

“We come here all the time.” Jo didn’t even open her menu, keeping it flat on the table in front of her. “It’s our favorite brunch spot.”