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That had been her own choice.
Which was why she was a little mad at herself.
“I think it says that you need to choose a boyfriend who is into kink next time — not necessarily Orlando. In fact, he’s probably a terrible choice, but I also saw you two last night and I have a feeling we’re in a mood to make terrible rebound choices, yes?” Brooke gave her another little squeeze before straightening up. This time Juliet got up with her, heading over to get the plates out of the cabinet.
“Yes. Probably. Maybe. I don’t know.” She sighed, handing Brooke a plate. “Why does everything have to be so complicated?”
“Because he’s a man. And your stepbrother. So it’s double complications.” Brooke loaded up her plate before making room for Juliet to do the same, grabbing her own mug of coffee and headed for the seat beside Juliet’s. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure how last night was going to go. I felt like he needed to be there and ya’ll needed to talk, and I had a feeling if you talked you wouldn’t be able to keep your hands off each other.”
“And you decided that was a good choice?” Juliet asked sarcastically, cutting off the end of the sausage link more aggressively than she would have normally. “Thank you for making breakfast, by the way.”
“You’re welcome. And yes, after seeing you two at Thanksgiving, I did.” Brooke gave her a look. “If you two hadn’t been all up in each other’s business on Thursday, I would have never called him, but there was something going on between you two even though you deny it.”
“Fine. He cornered me and told me I should dump London. Happy?”
“Only if you are.”
“Unfortunately, yes, I woke up feeling happy.” Juliet made a face as Brooke burst out laughing.
“Ah, yes, I can see how happy you are.”
“I’m just saying. It’s not the ideal situation. I literally broke up with London and had sex with my stepbrother again, after he’d already ghosted me the last time we did that, within twenty four hours. Who does that?” She stabbed at her food with her fork, the metal clanking and scraping against the dish, making both her and Brooke wince. She might need to chill out a little, but it was hard when she was so worked up. “And not only that, but I keep thinking more about Orlando than I do about London. I loved London. Shouldn’t I be like, crying into some ice cream, not lusting after my stepbrother?”
“You mean the way you cried into your ice cream after Orlando ghosted you?” Brooke raised her eyebrows, and Juliet scowled at her. Yes, that was exactly what she meant, but she wasn’t going to say it out loud. “That’s because I don’t think you ever let yourself feel too deeply for London. I think deep down, you knew he was all wrong for you. You moved fast with him, faster than I’ve ever seen you move with a guy, but I don’t think it was because of him. I don’t think you’re rebounding from London with Orlando. I think you rebounded from Orlando with London.”
Juliet choked on her sausage.
* * *
Orlando
Was it too soon to call?
Probably.
On the other hand, he didn’t want Juliet to think that he was ghosting her again. Which meant he intended to reach out first.
Though ten in the morning on the Saturday of a holiday weekend, the night after they’d had sex when she’d had a break-up in the morning… might be too early. Or maybe he was overthinking it. Maybe contacting her immediately to prove that this time things would be different with him was the right move.
Text.
He should text.
A call was too demanding. She could answer a text when she felt like it.
The impulse to call was because he was feeling demanding. He wanted to know how she was feeling, what she was thinking, and that she wasn’t going to ghosthimthis time. A text was easier to ignore.
Finally, he decided he was overthinking it. He was going to text because he wanted to make sure that he reached out first and he didn’t want her to think for one minute that this was going to be a repeat of their first night together. He also didn’t want to overwhelm her, and she might very well be feeling overloaded today. It had been an eventful holiday weekend so far.
It took him way too long to figure out exactly what he was going to text, but finally it was off and on its way.
Good morning —wanted to check in and see how you’re doing. Text or call me back any time today.
Waiting for a response was going to suck. He cleaned his apartment. Which didn’t really need it, but hey, a little extra dusting and vacuuming never hurt anyone. From there he moved on to his computer to get some work done. Nothing was pressing, because everyone else was too busy taking time off, but he didn’t have anything better to do.
Normally helikedhanging out alone at home and having time to think. This weekend, it was the last thing he wanted do. But he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do.
When his phone finally rang, he nearly broke his neck diving over the couch to get to it, only to find that it was an unknown number. Dammit.
