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“Good game tonight. Fucking shootout sucked. You know Coach Soukal is going to ride Virtanen’s ass for letting that goal bounce off his skate and back into the net.”
I winced. I wouldn’t want to be our goalie, Virtanen. The kid was tough. He was from Finland, and he didn’t take much crap from the press or the fans. But anyone would wither under the sheer disapproval of Coach Soukal.
I narrowed my eyes at River. “You don’t want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?”
I snorted. “You know about what. Don’t be an asshole.”
“You mean about Nova and Dev? Wasn’t that the point of this whole thing? Did you really believe they weren’t going to have sex at the first opportunity they had to be alone? Because the opportunities for privacy living with two other dudes and a baby are slim. I’m not surprised they decided to take the step while we were on the road.”
He drank half his beer in one gulp and I did the same. “You don’t think it was a little quick?”
Flopping down on his own single bed, he just scoffed. “What, did you think they were gonna wait for marriage or something? Get a promise ring? They’ll move as fast as they move; no one says you have to move at the same pace.”
Who the fuck had inhabited the body of my best friend? “Are you possessed? Where is all this mature shit coming from? Did you get hit too hard into one of the boards?”
He just flipped me the bird. A second later, my phone dinged in the main group chat.
“What? We were just gonna keep talking about her like she isn’t in bed with him? May as well add her to the conversation. Besides, you’re the one all about the ‘sharing is caring’ bullshit.”
He opened his phone.
River: Mazel tov on the sex. It's a good idea to start with the worst in bed to save disappointment later.
Devan: Fuck off, Cooper
Nova: No comment.
Devan: What do you mean no comment?
River laughed and peeled off his suit, hanging it in the closet. He also grabbed my shirt and jacket, hanging them up while he was there. River liked order. He wasn’t as bad as Devan when it came to control, but small things slipped through that hinted at what his life had been like in the foster care system. Or maybe even before that.
The need to keep his surroundings immaculately in order was one of those things. My room tended to look like a war zone, and nothing ever ended up back on the hanger. It annoyed the shit out of River; I just said it made me well-adjusted. He said it made me a man-child.
I lifted my phone and snapped a photo of him hanging my shirt and jacket.
Me: You may have Nova, but I still got a bitch.
River looked down at his phone, then glared at me. “You’re an asshole.” But he was smiling. I called that a win. This whole thing was going to be okay.
ChapterTwenty-Seven
NOVA
While the guys were away,I was happy, but it didn’t seem quite right. Don’t get me wrong, falling into bed with Devan every chance I got was absolute bliss. The things that man could do with his tongue would forever be seared in my memory. One day, I would be an old woman on my deathbed, sharing my fondest memories with my nurses, and one of those would be the time Devan finger-banged me so good that I squirted.
I mean, I was horrified in the moment—as horrified as you can be when wrung out by multiple orgasms—but Devan had looked like he’d just won a gold medal or something. It was hard to be embarrassed by something that obviously made him so proud.
River and Rigby would be back this evening, and I was kind of nervous. It was dumb, but Devan and I taken a massive step since they left. Their return was obviously going to affect our relationship. They’d sounded cool about it over the phone, but that was a lot different than seeing it in person.
I’d made dinner, a beef bourguignon that was slowly braising in the oven, as well as some fussy filled chocolates with the stuff that Rigby had bought me. It had been… a pleasure. It had been a long time since a task had given me so much joy. I wondered how long I’d been coasting through life doing what Ishould, just because it was safe, not because that’s what I wanted to do?
When had I given up the simple things that made me happy?
Devan was at work, so it was just me and Huey home as I danced around the kitchen, making parmesan bread on a giant fresh baguette I’d picked up from the fancy store in our neighborhood. At least no one thought I was a teenage mother here, because if I was, there would be no way I could afford beef that must’ve been given acupuncture and positive affirmations before it was slaughtered, since it cost as much as someone's daily wage.
I leaned down and sang an old Bruce Springsteen song to Huey, whipping my hair from side to side just because it made him laugh. The Boss had been my dad’s favorite, and he’d always sung his songs to me. I wanted Huey to have a little piece of that, even though he’d never meet the man himself.
