Chapter 8 — Pantry Shelves And Bad Ideas
Pantry Shelves And Bad Ideas
The Bishop and Hollis families knew how to make a Saturday look innocent.
That was their first mistake.
By noon, the lawn between the Bishop house and the lake had turned into a summer machine.
Folding tables under white canopies. Coolers sweating on the porch.
Cornhole boards in the grass. Giant Jenga under the maple tree, already doomed by the number of competitive people within shouting distance.
Mark Bishop stood near the grill with tongs in one hand and the grave expression of a man who believed propane safety belonged in the Constitution.
It should have been easy.
I had done this exact kind of lunch a hundred times. Show up, bring something useful, move a cooler, laugh when Vince Hollis turned lawn games into moral combat, accept whatever plate Caroline Bishop put in my hands. I was trusted furniture in this circle. Useful, steady, harmless.
Then Kiki Bishop handed me a glass of lemonade like she knew exactly how I liked it.
Too much ice. No straw. Lemon wedge squeezed and dropped in.
Her fingers brushed mine when I took it.
"Careful," she said softly.
"With the drink?"
"With your face."
I looked down at her, which was the first of several bad decisions I made that afternoon.
Kiki wore a pale blue sundress with thin straps and tiny buttons down the front, the kind of thing that looked sweet enough for a family lunch and dangerous enough to ruin my entire moral architecture.
Her hair was loose around her shoulders.
Her mouth curved in the private little smile she had started giving me after the first morning she had made coffee in my kitchen wearing one of my shirts and nothing else.
The smile that said she remembered.
The smile that said she knew I remembered.
"My face is fine," I said.
"Sure it's."
Behind her, Caroline called for more napkins. Kiki turned immediately, all helpful daughter, all sunshine and manners.
"I'll get them, Mom."
Then she glanced back at me.
One look. One second.
It landed low in my body and stayed there.
I took a drink of lemonade and nearly choked when Shay Hollis dropped onto the bench beside me hard enough to bump my thigh.
"Wow," she said. "Hydration. Very adult. Very sensual."
"Shay."
"What? I support your healthy choices."
She leaned in like she needed to inspect the cup.
She didn't need to lean in that close. Her shoulder pressed against my arm.
Her knee knocked mine. Her hair smelled like lake water and coconut sunscreen, and underneath that was Shay.
Warm skin, trouble, the memory of her breathing my name in a tent while the whole world slept around us.
Across the lawn, Vince looked over.
"You two behaving?" he called.
"Not even slightly," Shay called back, cheerful as a felony.
Vince laughed and went back to arguing with Cooper about whether ladder toss counted as a sport.
I stared at the lake.
Shay bumped me again. "Relax, Luke. If you look more guilty, my dad's going to think you broke the mower."
"I might throw you in the lake."
"That would be very on-brand for us." Her voice dropped just enough that it belonged only to me. "Also wet. Also maybe not the deterrent you think it's."
The problem with Shay was that she had always been like this. Loud. Physical. Funny. Impossible. She could drape herself over a friend, steal food off someone's plate, say something borderline obscene across a yard, and no one thought twice because that was Shay.
Except now I knew what she sounded like when she stopped joking.
Now I knew what she looked like when she said she loved me and was terrified I'd make her into a punchline.
Now I knew what her body felt like after she stopped daring me to want her and started letting me.
And Kiki knew it too.
That was the part that turned the whole bright afternoon into pressure.
Kiki came back with a stack of napkins and settled on my other side.
Not across from me. Not near me.
Beside me.
The bench was long enough for three people if everyone respected personal space. Kiki and Shay didn't respect personal space. Kiki's thigh touched my left. Shay's touched my right. Kiki set the napkins on the table, then rested her hand on the bench between us, her pinky barely against mine.
Nothing. Nothing at all.
A familiar woman who had grown up in this summer circle, sitting close at a family lunch.
A second familiar woman on my other side, grinning at me like trouble had learned my address.
The whole lawn full of people who trusted me.
"You're quiet," Kiki said.
"I'm eating."
"You don't have food," Shay said.
"I'm preparing emotionally."
"For lunch?" Kiki asked.
"For surviving the two of you."
Kiki's smile warmed. Shay leaned forward with her elbows on the table, all loose confidence and wicked timing.
"We're delightful," Shay said.
"You're a hazard."
"A beloved hazard," Kiki said, and handed me a napkin before I could reach for one.
That shouldn't have done anything to me. A napkin wasn't erotic. A glass of lemonade wasn't erotic. The fact that Kiki knew I'd forget both the napkin and the lemon wedge wasn't supposed to feel like a hand closing around some secret part of my life.
But that was the problem with desire when it stopped living only in bedrooms.
It got into everything.
It got into Kiki sliding a plate toward me with the pickles Caroline only made in summer because she knew I liked them.
It got into Shay stealing one of those pickles off my plate and licking the vinegar from her thumb while she watched me watch her.
It got into Caroline smiling at us like nothing in the world was strange, because Kiki had always been sweet and Shay had always been chaos and I had always been safe.
Safe was becoming a very complicated word.
Kiki made it worse by being useful.
She didn't flirt like Shay did. She didn't announce trouble, climb into my lap, or say something loud enough to make half the table choke.
She simply took care of me in ways that belonged to a woman who knew my life from the inside.
She set a second napkin beside my plate before barbecue sauce hit my fingers.
She nudged the bowl of pickles closer without looking at me.
She touched the back of my hand when she passed me the salt, a soft brush that could have meant nothing if her thumb hadn't lingered in the hollow between my knuckles.
Then she leaned across me to answer Caroline, and her hair slid over my wrist.
I held still like the fate of the republic depended on it.
Shay noticed because Shay noticed everything worth weaponizing.
"Luke looks tense," she announced, bright as sunshine and twice as dangerous. "Do we need to stretch him? I'm very good at stretching."
Vince laughed from the grill. "Leave the man alone, Shay."
"I'm supporting his wellness journey."
Kiki took a drink of lemonade to hide her smile. Her knee pressed against mine under the table, warm and steady, while Shay shifted on my other side until her thigh was snug against my leg and her shoulder tucked close enough that every breath moved through both of us.
Nothing they did would read wrong from across the table.
That was what made it worse.
To everyone else, it was Kiki remembering my habits and Shay being physically incapable of personal space.
To me, it was Kiki's fingers knowing where I liked pressure, Shay's mouth close enough to my ear that I could feel the heat of her next joke before she said it, and my cock trying to react inside a pair of jeans at a family lunch with both their fathers in shouting distance.
I reached for my water.
Kiki had already refilled it.
Shay smiled at the glass, then at me. "Hydration again. Wow. Somebody has plans."
"Lunch," I said.
"Sure," she said, and stole a bite from my plate with her fingers. "Lunch."
Kiki's shoulder brushed mine when she leaned in to rescue the salt from Shay's side of the table.
Shay leaned too, because of course she did, and for one insane second I had both of them reaching across me, laughing like this was normal, their hair sliding against my jaw, their breasts brushing my arms, their bodies turning the bench into a trap no one else could see.
"Poor Luke," Shay said, loud enough for Paige to hear from the other end of the table. "Always trapped in the middle."
"He loves being useful," Kiki said.
Paige snorted. "He does. It's a sickness."
Everyone laughed.
I didn't trust myself to laugh.
Kiki's hand landed under the table, light on my knee, hidden by the fall of the tablecloth. Shay's bare foot hooked behind my ankle. Neither touch lasted long enough to prove anything. Both lasted long enough to make my cock harden another brutal inch inside my jeans.
This was the game they were playing.
Not exposure. Not recklessness. They were too smart for that. They were using the exact shape of what everyone already believed. Kiki was caring. Shay was shameless. Luke was safe. The three of us had always moved like family in this circle.
Now family was the camouflage.
Kiki handed me a fork before I reached for one. "You always use the wrong one if Caroline sets out extras."
"There are wrong forks?"
"There are deeply wrong forks," she said.
Shay leaned toward my ear while Kiki smiled at Caroline across the table. "I know exactly which fork I want you to use later."
I almost choked.
Shay patted my back with the concern of a woman committing a felony in broad daylight. "Careful, Responsible Luke. We need you alive."
"For cooler duty," Kiki said, perfectly innocent.
"Among other duties," Shay murmured.
There it was again. Public words. Private meaning. A whole fucking second language built out of lemonade, forks, knees, smiles, and the fact that nobody at that table had any idea my entire body was negotiating surrender while Caroline asked if anyone wanted more chicken.
Kiki's pinky brushed mine again under the table.
Shay's foot tightened behind my ankle.