5. Auden
Auden
Why am I on the floor?
My back is the first thing I register, a deep ache sitting low enough that I stay still and give moving a serious thought before I commit to it. When I finally roll onto my side, something along my waist pulls hard enough that I hiss and look down.
A bruise is already coming in, dark fingerprints spread over my skin in a shape I recognize immediately. I run my thumb over the edge of it and laugh under my breath, because there’s exactly one person responsible for that and Khalil had been holding on tighter than I accounted for.
The rest of me checks in once I sit up. Thighs.
Ass. A hollow pull inside me that makes me plant a hand behind me and wait it out, like my body hasn’t gotten the message that Khalil’s not still stuffed inside me.
I can still feel how full I was with him locked in place while Elio took everything I gave him, and the sudden desire for more of that pressure pisses me off.
Zaire and Elio never mentioned Khalil’s dick as addicting and that’s the last thing I need when I’m trying to finish out this degree.
A tired shiver works through me. Then my stomach growls loud enough to cut the memory off at the knees.
“Shit. What time is it?”
Everything farther than a few feet is a blur, so I lean toward the table and feel around until my fingers close over my glasses.
The clock by the door sharpens once I slide them on.
A little after three, which means we slept through most of the party we were supposed to be running, and I have the unhelpful thought that I should care more about that than I do.
What I care about now is food, and the fact that my skin still feels too aware of itself.
I twist around to find Zaire and Elio still dead on the lounge, tangled like they shoved me onto the floor and used the extra space to wrap around each other.
Zaire is sprawled mostly over Elio, who has one arm around his waist and half his face buried under a mess of curls.
Neither of them so much as twitches when I groan my way to my feet.
“We missed the whole fucking party,” I tell them, reaching for my pants. “Khalil fucked us good.”
I drag the pants on, leave my shirt where it landed, and head for the kitchen trying not to walk like every muscle below my waist filed a detailed report of that table.
I make it three steps into the hallway and have to stop with my hand on the wall because the house smells like a crime scene. Stale beer. Sweat. Somebody’s cologne fighting a losing war with body odor. A sour note of liquor spilled into a rug and left to die there.
It’s always smelled like this after a party. I know that. I’ve walked this hall a hundred times with a mild wrinkle of my nose and kept going. Tonight, the smells are almost pungent. My stomach turns hard enough that I have to breathe through my mouth, which doesn’t help as much as it should.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I attribute it to the copious amounts of alcohol I poured down my throat and get moving again before I can stand there analyzing it. Hunger has already made the executive decision, and if I stay in that hallway I am going to be sick on the floor like a freshman.
The kitchen is a little better only because the smell of food is competing with the rest of it. I go straight to the cabinet where somebody usually keeps cereal and find liquor, protein powder, and a bag of chips shoved behind a stack of plastic cups.
“Of course.”
The next door sticks. I tug, and the whole thing comes away in my hand so suddenly I have to step back before I hit myself in the face with it. The hinges are still attached. Screws and little splinters of wood hang off them, and the frame has two ugly holes where the hardware used to live.
“Cheap-ass house,” I mutter, and set it on the counter. Nothing is in there so I move onto the lucky cabinet that always has something useful.
Ramen. Peanut butter. Still no cereal. I start to close that one and the second door comes off too.
I hold it in both hands and stare at the torn screw holes, replaying the amount of pressure I used, because there’s no version of last night that should have turned me into some jacked out human being.
My stomach growls again while I’m still looking at it. “Fuck this bullshit. I’m just drunk. Right.” I set the second door beside the first and move to the next cabinet slower.
Nothing useful inside and yet, I still end up holding a third door.
I put that one with the others, already pissed, and then I just stand there because my head is starting to spin.
The kitchen is a mess of leftover pizza, spilled mixer, and whatever burnt itself to the bottom of a pan hours ago, but underneath all of that is a dry, grainy sweetness I can pick out like it has a label.
I lean in and breathe in through my nose, feeling ridiculous that I can somehow pick out those frosted cornflakes above everything else.
Fourth cabinet. Left side. Top shelf.
I pinch the handle with two fingers. “Definitely this one.” My nose scrunches up as I try to concentrate through the hangover. “I’m not going to break this door.”
The door creaks halfway open, then the wood splits in my hands.
I hiss through my teeth and set the fourth slab on the counter harder than I mean to, already pissed about hinges and ruined frames and whatever it’s going to cost to put this kitchen back together.
I stare at the shelf, seeing the frosted cereal on the top shelf, exactly where my nose knew it would be.
“I just wanted some fucking cereal.”
I glare down at my hands and turn them over, backs first, then palms. Nothing looks different. No swelling, no marks, nothing I could point to if somebody asked me why the door came off. Jesus. How much are four cabinet doors going to cost?
A small, annoyed growl pulls from my throat, a sound I’ve never made in my life. It reminds me of the growls and whines we were pushing all night, sounds that reminded me of animals rather than humans.
How much did we actually drink last night?
Someone passed out at the table makes a miserable sound and lifts his head just enough to squint at me. “What the fuck are you doing, Auds? Some of us are trying to sleep off our hangovers.””
“Looking for cereal.” I glance at the open frames, then back at him before offering Francis a crooked smile. “Badly. Why aren’t you in your bed? It can’t be comfortable sitting like that.”
Francis’ eyes drag to the counter as he ignores my question, confusion flooding his features. “Why are the doors off?”
“I don’t fucking know. Every time I open one, it comes with me.”
He considers whether that deserves follow-up, then drops his face back onto his arms. “Weird.”
He’s already half gone again, which means he won’t remember this in the morning.
I look at the refrigerator and decide against it.
If I take that door off too, the guys will make me move out.
I grab the cereal box with two fingers like it might also personally betray me and start back toward the study because if I stay in this kitchen I am going to keep taking the house apart once I start looking for toast.
The hallway is worse the second time. Heat and beer and a trail of people who never discovered deodorant hit me all at once.
I have to swallow hard and keep my breathing shallow, and even then I almost gag when I pass the bathroom.
I used to think I had a decent nose. But now I can smell everything and I want to go back to the way it used to be.
By the time I reach the study, I’m still opening and closing my hand, trying to decide whether I got stronger or the house got fragile.
The first cabinet could have been loose.
Maybe the second. I have no excuses for why there are now four doors laying on the counter or why I could suddenly smell my frosted cereal through wood.
I stop in front of the door to the study with my hand hovering over the knob. “Gentle,” I tell myself. I don’t need to add a fifth fucking door to the stack. I take a deep breath, closing my eyes to prepare myself as I clutch my cereal tighter against my chest.
Then I get a whiff of my boyfriends through the wood. Zaire’s shampoo. Elio’s wash. Sleep and skin and Khalil’s musk scent still sitting in the room like he never left, warm and dark and all over both of them. All over me.
Strength and a super nose?
Panic tears through me as I turn the knob too fast. The door comes with it, wood cracking as it jerks out of the frame, and I have to catch the whole thing against my chest before it hits the floor, cereal box pinned under my arm.
The noise tears through the room and Zaire and Elio shoot upright on the lounge while I’m still holding it. Zaire’s hair is smashed flat on one side as he blinks at me for a few seconds before his eyes drop to what I’m holding.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“This is the fifth one,” I say, and set the door against the wall until I’m sure it will stay.
“Four cabinets in the kitchen came off when I opened them. I wasn’t even wrenching on them.
I pulled like I always pull, and the doors came with me.
Same thing just happened with this one. I told myself to be gentle and it still ripped out of the frame. ”
Elio’s hands drop from his hair. “You ripped four cabinet doors off looking for what?” His gaze drops to the crushed box in my hands. “For cereal?”
“Yes. Because I wanted cereal, and apparently I can take a kitchen apart now.” I stalk over to them and drop to the floor with the box and tear it open, because if I stay standing I’m going to keep looking at the empty hinges.
“I don’t know why. I looked at my hands.
Nothing’s swollen. Nothing’s cut. They just work too well. ”
Zaire rubs a hand over his face, then settles back on the lounge behind me. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not trying to be funny.” I eat a handful of flakes dry. “I’m telling you what happened.”
Elio slides closer, still half wrapped in the throw, and for a minute nobody makes a joke out of it. Then Elio leans in and kisses the corner of my mouth, the same way he does when one of us has had a shit night and there isn’t a speech that will fix it.
Zaire follows on the other side, his mouth warm and slow against my cheek as I relax further. Then he twists my chin toward him, Zaire’s mouth finding mine, as Elio kisses under my jaw.
I set the box aside and turn, sitting up on my knees so I can get Elio in front of me properly.
I draw him closer by the waist and run my hand down his side, until my palm settles on his ass.
He makes a small sound into my mouth as Zaire’s fingers sift into my hair and tip my head back so he can kiss me deeper, and Elio goes with it, crowding in until I’m holding both of them against me.
Elio lets out a whine against my mouth, that same needy pitch as last night with that same helpless little break in it.
I pull back as the need that crashed over me drops off just as fast, leaving me blinking at them on my knees like I walked into a room and forgot why I stood up.
A sweet smell fills my nose when I try to catch my breath, honey and vanilla sat so close to their skin it makes my mouth water.
It’s addicting but if I lean back in, we’re going to end up fucking on this floor, and my body is not ready for a replay of last night.
“Both of you smell like honey and vanilla,” I say. “Did you put on cologne? Perfume? Anything?”
Elio sniffs his own shoulder and looks at me like I’ve lost it. “At three in the morning? No.”
Zaire playfully jabs at my shoulder. “You need to get your nose checked, babe.”
“You really don’t smell that?”
They both shake their heads. Elio reaches for the throw and drags it around his hips, already grimacing when he stands. Zaire stretches until his back pops and starts hunting the floor for a shirt.
“I need coffee before we diagnose whatever is going on with you,” Zaire mumbles.
Elio groans. “If I have to be awake, I also want caffeine first.”