Chapter 17 — The House Was Awake #3
The day left evidence everywhere. Damp towels over chair backs.
Swimsuits drying on the deck rail. Glasses sweating on the island.
The ceramic frog still watching the stove with the dead-eyed confidence of a tiny tyrant.
Someone had ordered pizza because nobody wanted to cook after a day in the pool, and we ate it standing around the island while the house smelled like garlic, lake water, sunscreen, and six women who no longer looked for permission before opening my cabinets.
Kiki ran point on plates.
Penny redistributed napkins like a logistics officer.
Tatum ate three slices and argued that crust counted as a separate food group.
Shay toasted the frog for holding the kitchen together under pressure.
Reese laughed into her wine glass, warm and quiet.
Eden watched me from across the island like she had been watching me all day, with that pleased Archer focus that said she had plans and I was somewhere near the center of them.
The hot tub was already running outside.
I noticed the steam through the sliding glass door before I noticed who was missing from the island.
Shay and Tatum had migrated toward the family room, still arguing about whether Tatum's flip counted as a flip if the water displaced enough volume to qualify as a weather event.
Kiki and Penny were in the hallway near the photo wall, shoulder to shoulder, talking quietly while Penny held a frame in one hand and Kiki pointed at something along the bottom row.
That left Reese near the sink.
And Eden by the door.
Not an accident.
Almost nothing Eden did was accidental, but this had Reese in it too. That made it warmer. Less like a scheme and more like a tide.
Reese rinsed a plate, set it in the dishwasher, and dried her hands on a towel.
She moved slowly, not because she was nervous, exactly, but because she was choosing each step.
Her cover-up had slipped off one shoulder.
Her hair was still damp from the pool and curling at the ends.
When she looked at me, there was no first-time fear in her face. No question about whether she belonged.
She belonged.
That was what made the look dangerous.
Eden opened the sliding door.
Cooler air moved into the kitchen, carrying steam and the lake and the mineral heat from the tub on the lower deck. The lights under the water glowed blue. The deck lights were low and amber. Beyond the rail, the lake had gone dark enough to make every reflection look private.
"Hot tub's ready," Eden said.
Shay's voice came from the family room. "Someone should responsibly supervise that."
"You aren't responsible," Penny called from the hall.
"That's why I said someone."
Tatum appeared briefly in the doorway with a slice of pizza in one hand. She looked from Eden to Reese to me, then smiled like the entire evening had suddenly become much more interesting.
"Oh," she said. "That's happening."
Reese blushed, but she didn't look away.
Kiki came to the hall entrance beside Penny. Her smile was soft, already understanding. Penny's mouth curved with quiet approval, sharp and tender at the same time.
No jealousy.
No performance.
No one asking if this was fair or possible or too much.
They all knew.
They had known before I did.
Reese crossed the kitchen and stopped beside me. Her hand found my arm, fingers light at first, then more certain. Her touch was warm. Madden-warm. The kind of warmth that made twenty summers feel like they had been leading somewhere.
"I keep thinking about the dock," she said quietly.
I looked at her.
"Which time?"
Her smile moved, small and private. "All of them."
That went through me clean.
"Baby."
"I know." Her thumb moved once against my arm. "I'm not asking because I'm unsure."
Eden came to my other side.
She fit there like she had been doing it for years, hip against mine, arm sliding around my waist. Her hair smelled like sunscreen and clean water. Her mouth was close enough to my shoulder that I felt her breath when she spoke.
"We started it an hour ago."
"The hot tub?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Planning ahead?"
"Obviously."
Reese's hand tightened on my arm.
Eden looked past me at her, and something passed between them that didn't need words. Reese's warmth. Eden's mischief. Both of them steady. Both of them wanting the same thing.
That was the part that almost undid me.
Not competition.
Not one of them stepping aside for the other.
Together.
Reese reached for the towel on the counter and folded it once, twice, just to give her hands something to do. Then she set it down and looked at me fully.
"Will you get in with us?" she asked.
Her voice was soft.
It wasn't uncertain.
Eden smiled against my shoulder.
"Both of us," she said.
The kitchen seemed to go quiet around that.
Not silent. The house was still alive. Shay and Tatum murmuring from the other room. Kiki and Penny in the hall. The hum of the fridge. The low movement of water outside. But everything narrowed to Reese's hand on my arm and Eden's body against my side and the steam rising beyond the glass.
"We've been thinking about it," Reese said.
"Together," Eden added.
I looked through the door at the hot tub. Blue light under the water. Steam rising into the dark. Three towels folded on the bench, neat enough to be Reese, deliberate enough to be Eden.
Then I looked at Reese, who had loved me across years and pictures and family dinners and one very squeaky Madden bed.
I looked at Eden, who had gone last because wanting me had scared her and now touched me like fear had lost.
The answer was already in my body.
It was in the way my hand found Reese's waist.
It was in the way Eden's fingers spread against my stomach.
It was in the way the other four women quietly let the room belong to us for a minute.
"Yeah," I said.
Eden's smile went slow and wicked.
Reese exhaled like she had been holding the breath for a long time.
"Good," Eden said. "Because we've been patient."
"Very patient," Reese said, and the warmth in her voice made the words filthier than they had any right to be.
I laughed once, low and helpless.
Then Reese took one hand, Eden took the other, and the three of us stood there with the door open, the steam waiting, and the whole night on the other side of the glass.