Chapter 7 — The Morning After Math #2
I grabbed the nearest empty cooler and threw myself into the work like a man with something to prove, which I was.
Heavy plastic, sloshing with half-melted ice and the dregs of whatever punch had been flowing last night.
I hauled it to the drainage ditch at the edge of the property, dumped it with more force than necessary, and went back for another one before my brain could catch up with my hands.
“Whitaker! There he is.” Vince emerged from the boathouse with an armload of water noodles, his face split in that easy Hollis grin. “Thanks for the help with the tent. Shay said you two got the fire ring squared away. Appreciate it. Always count on you.”
The irony landed like a physical weight. I’d squared away Shay’s pussy on a squeaking air mattress while Vince thought I was moving blankets, and the trust in his face was so thick I could have built a dock with it.
“No problem,” I said, and my voice sounded normal. Miraculously.
Trina appeared with a clipboard, which was so perfectly Trina I almost laughed. “Luke, honey, would you mind with the chairs? The ones by the water need to go in the shed, and Knox keeps getting distracted by his phone.” She rolled her eyes with fond exasperation. “Boys.”
I minded the chairs. I minded them with the focus of a man trying to outrun his own conscience, stacking and carrying and lining them against the shed wall with a precision that would have made a naval architect proud.
Each chair was a thought I didn’t have to have.
Each trip to the shed was ten seconds where I wasn’t remembering the way Shay’s back had arched on that ridiculous mattress, the sound she’d made when I’d pushed into her from behind, the wet heat of her pussy gripping my cock while cleanup sounds carried from half a mile away.
Knox materialized beside me, sun-browned and competitive, grabbing chairs two at a time like it was a race he hadn’t told me we were having.
“Morning, Whitaker. You look rough. Shay keep you up all night with her marine conservation lecture?” He laughed, the sound easy and brotherly, and the innocence of it made my chest tight.
“Girl’s got opinions on coral bleaching. Strong ones. Comes from Mom.”
“She was... thorough,” I said, which wasn't a lie.
Cooper Bishop wandered over with a trash bag in each hand, his sandy hair messy from sleep, his grin the easy Bishop charm that made him look like he’d been born on a dock.
“Need a hand with the coolers? Dad sent me over. Says the Hollis ones go in the boathouse, the rest can stay on the porch.” He clapped my shoulder.
“Thanks for helping with Shay. Girl’s a handful. Always has been.”
She was. Two handfuls, minimum, and I’d had both of them wrapped around my cock not two hours ago, and Cooper Bishop was thanking me for chaperoning his sister’s friend with the warm trust of a man who had no idea what kind of night I’d actually had.
The guilt should have been crushing. It wasn’t. It was something warmer, messier, a low hum beneath my ribs that had less to do with regret and more to do with the fact that every time Shay crossed my line of sight, my body remembered exactly what she felt like.
She was everywhere. Drifting through the cleanup with that post-sex glow that no amount of casual denim shorts and tank tops could disguise.
Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders, still damp at the ends from whatever quick cleanup she’d managed in the tent, and every time she laughed, loud, carrying, that dirty Hollis laugh that turned heads, I felt it in my cock like a physical thing.
She helped Trina with the snack table, stole a muffin from a passing plate with fingers that brushed mine deliberately, and when she caught me staring from across the yard, her smile was so bright, so satisfied, so utterly unashamed that I had to look away before Vince noticed.
He didn’t notice. Nobody noticed. They saw Shay being Shay, bright and wild and slightly rumpled from a night in a tent, and they saw Luke being Luke, reliable, helpful, moving chairs with the steady competence of a man who’d been part of this circle for longer than most of them could remember.
Kiki noticed.
She found me by the shed, a stack of folded blankets in her arms, her golden hair pulled back in a messy ponytail that left soft pieces framing her face.
She was wearing cutoffs and a pale blue tank top, her skin sun-warmed and glowing, and the look she gave me contained no surprise, no jealousy, and a great deal of warm, pleased smugness that made my chest tight.
“Good morning, baby,” she said, and her voice was honey, sweet and knowing. “Sleep well?”
“Kiki—”
“Don’t.” She stepped close, close enough that I could smell the vanilla sunscreen on her skin beneath the lake-morning scents of grass and dew.
“I’m happy for you. For both of you. She’s been waiting a long time.
” Her blue eyes held mine, clear and certain.
“And you look good, Luke. Really good. Tired, but good. The kind of good that comes from being exactly where you’re supposed to be. ”
She pressed a quick, soft kiss to my cheek, innocent enough for anyone watching, intimate enough that I felt it in my ribs, and bounced away toward the house with her armload of blankets, her ass swaying in those cutoffs with a rhythm that made it very difficult to focus on chair-stacking.
I stood there with a folding chair in each hand and the distinct feeling that I wasn't hiding anything from the only people who mattered, and the worst part was, I didn’t want to.
***
The girls clustered in pockets. That was the thing about them, they moved like water, finding each other’s gravity without discussion, forming little eddies of conversation that looked like ordinary party gossip to anyone passing by and landed in my ears like direct confession.
I was hauling trash bags to the big can by the road when I caught the first cluster: Kiki and Shay by the snack table, heads bent together, Kiki’s golden hair brushing Shay’s dark shoulder as they whispered.
From twenty feet away, it looked like two friends comparing notes on a harmless night.
Up close, the way Kiki’s hand rested on Shay’s arm, the way Shay’s laugh dropped to something lower and more intimate, told a different story.
I dumped the bag and circled back toward the coolers, and Kiki peeled off from the cluster to intercept me, her fingers finding my wrist with a touch so casual it could have been accidental if I didn’t know better.
“She’s happy,” Kiki said, her voice low and warm.
“Really happy, Luke. And so am I.” Her blue eyes held mine, clear and certain.
“That’s the part I need you to hear. Not the ‘it’s okay’ part, or the ‘I understand’ part.
The ‘I’m happy because she’s happy’ part.
Because she is, and I am, and that’s not something I expected to feel and I love it. ”
She squeezed my wrist and slipped away toward the house, and the simple generosity of it sat in my chest like something I couldn’t name but recognized as essential.
Shay found me by the grill, where I was scraping charred burger remnants into a trash bag with more focus than the task deserved. She leaned against the stone counter beside me, close enough that her hip brushed mine, and the smile she gave me was pure, unholy delight.
“So,” she said, popping a grape into her mouth from a plate someone had left behind. “I may have shared some details.”
“Shay—”
“Not all the details. Just the good ones.
The really good ones. The ones that made Reese cover her mouth and Tatum squeal and Penny say ‘I need a minute‘ and walk into the house.” She grinned, wicked and unrepentant. “Eden took notes. Actual notes, Luke. On her phone. I think she’s naming the strategy.”
I closed my eyes. “Jesus Christ.”
“Hey, you signed up for this. All of it. The six of us, the group chat, the fact that your sex life is now public domain with a very loud, very invested audience.” She stole another grape, her fingers brushing my arm.
“And for the record, Kiki’s right. I’m happy.
I’m so fucking happy I could scream, and the best part is, I don’t have to feel bad about it because she’s happy too, and that’s—” Her voice caught, just slightly.
“That’s not how I thought this would go.
I thought there would be jealousy. Claws.
Blood on the dock. Instead, I got heart emojis and a woman who loves you telling me she’s glad I had you, and I don’t know what to do with that except want more of it. ”
She kissed my cheek, quick and warm, and bounced away before I could respond, calling something over her shoulder about floaties that made no sense and made perfect sense because it was Shay, and Shay made chaos feel like coming home.
Tatum found me by the water, where I was gathering abandoned towels from the dock chairs.
She materialized beside me with the bright Bell energy that felt like being caught in a friendly tornado, copper-red hair escaping its ponytail, freckles dark against her fair skin, and she stole the towel from my hands before I could fold it.
“My turn,” she said, and the way she said it, bright, teasing, utterly certain, made my stomach drop.
She bumped her shoulder against mine, a physical press that lingered a beat too long, and her blue eyes held mine with a challenge that contained zero ambiguity.
“I’m thinking soon. Very soon. Like, maybe-today soon.
Depends on how fast I can manufacture a crisis that requires your patented brand of rescue.
” She winked and bounded away with an armload of towels, calling over her shoulder, “Also, Shay’s walk is different.
Just saying. Very different. Very satisfied. We can all see it, Luke. All of us.”