Page 128 of Double or Nothing

“You know, BT, I think this might be the first time I’ve seen you look properly unemployed.”

I laugh before I can stop myself. Bad taste, but hilarious.

Such bad taste. A flash of Christopher fucking Otley slams behind my eyes, but I force it the hell away.

“Bastard. I hate you,” Bryce mutters, though there is no heat in it. “I’ve still got reports to do before ten.”

Jack grins, triumphant and wicked, but then something shifts. It’s so small I almost miss it. His grin softens. His hand moves across the messy space between them, not showy, not teasing, not another performance for my benefit. Just his fingers finding Bryce’s. Bryce stills dead, and I just watch. Heart thumping.

Neither of them says a word.

Then Bryce lets his hand turn, lets their fingers lock, and Jack looks away too quickly, like tenderness is a card he hadn’t meant to play face-up. My laughter fades into something warmer. Something aching. Because this is a whole new part to the energy.

Not chaos.

Not the danger of unbound lust with no meaning.

Not a scandal.

It’s Jack Reid reaching for Bryce Maddocks in the quiet, and Bryce holding on.

Eventually, we get out of bed, because even Jack’s bedsheets can’t hold the world off for ever.

“Let’s get the bubbly flowing,” Jack says.

Bryce sits on the edge of the bed with his hair wrecked, making a noise of genuine horror.

“Fucking hell. I need coffee,” he says. “For God’s sake, I’m going to have to pull an all-nighter. Right the way through.”

Jack looks at him with theatrical disgust.

“Honestly, BT. Talk about killing the vibe.”

But he goes to the kitchen anyway.

That’s what gets me. He complains all the way through the apartment, as Bryce and I follow him, saying that De Chante would be ten times more fun, but he makes the coffee. Proper coffee. Strong, dark, expensive coffee in sleek black mugs that look like they were chosen by an interior designer.

I wince with every step I take, still leaking with cum from my battered holes. Bryce leans against the kitchen island looking beautifully ruined with his messed-up hair and cum caked face, trying to appear composed and failing so badly I want to kiss him and laugh at him in equal measure.

Jack slides a mug towards him. Then one to me.

I ease myself up onto one of the high stools, wrapping both hands around my mug. Champagne would be a good symbol of celebration, but coffee feels different. Coffee is morning. Coffee is staying. Coffee is three people blinking at each other in the clean light after a crazy night.

Bryce catches my eye over his mug, tired and shy and still somehow brave. Jack sees it, as usual. But this time he doesn’t make a joke. He reaches across the marble island and finds Bryce’s hand like he’s got a taste for it, his fingers closing around it with a tenderness I thought he’d have left in the bedroom.

Bryce stills, then lets their hands settle together between the coffee mugs. And in Jack’s too-perfect kitchen, with the city glittering beyond the windows and none of us pretending quite hard enough, it feels as reckless as the scene that just unfolded with two dicks pounding me at once.

“Didn’t expect you to be so sappy,” Bryce says to him.

“No big deal. I’m just nursing your morning woes.”

“Sure, tell yourself that all you want.” Bryce squeezes his hand.

For half a second, Christopher’s name rises in my throat. A vile emotion, at odds with the tenderness. Part of me wants to spew it out like bile, for something…

I don’t know what.

Reassurance?