Page 83 of Worth Every Game
A strip of light between the curtains falls over the bed, leaving her in the spotlight. Which is exactly where she should be, and where I’ll make sure she is once we’ve got her over whatever block is holding her back from owning her talent.
She’s sleeping on her front, her mass of curls spilling over my pillow, her back rising and falling in a relaxed rhythm. I can’t believe she’s here. It’s the same feeling every morning, as though I’m drifting through a dream. After all the years of barbs and teasing and ridiculous banter… and how many times she’s pissed me off in the past… I’ve known her for a decade, more or less, but never like this. Never soft and vulnerable andmine.
I stroke a fingertip down her spine, and she murmurs into the pillow. “Let me sleep. You’ve exhausted me.”
Her grumpy voice brings a smile to my lips and warms my heart.Fuck, I’m in too deep with this woman, but I don’t care. I kiss her shoulder blade. “You have to get up, El.”
“Why? It’s Sunday.”
“Because I booked you into a mate’s studio. Recording time.”
She jolts up to sitting, eyes wide and pinned on me, but I’m staring at her perfect breasts because she’s just exposed them and it’s been a good couple of hours since I last saw them. I reach for one, needing to run my finger over that small pink nipple. Elly slaps my hand away. “You did what?”
I shift back, surveying her, trying to get a read on this reaction. “Are you mad?”
“No.” She squeals and throws her arms around my neck, kissing me full on the mouth. It only takes a second for what was an excited slam of her lips to mine to turn into something else entirely, and I break off before I get too aroused. “We have to stop...”
“Do we?”
“Today, yes.”
She shoots me a sly look before she jumps out of bed, and I get a tantalising glimpse of her naked form before she disappears into the bathroom.My bathroom.I hear the water turn on and a blissful satisfaction rolls over me.She’s showering in my shower.
I must be far gone for her if the fact she’s making herself at home in my space makes me feel like this… all warm and contented.
The doorbell rings, hauling me from my thoughts.Who is here this early on a Sunday?
I push back the covers, pull on a hoody and boxers, and head downstairs. As I approach the door, the bell rings again. Whoever is out there is impatient. Maybe even irate.
When I open the door, Kate is standing on the doorstep, wrapped up in a coat and scarf. She has a furious expression on her face and at first she doesn’t acknowledge me, instead tilting her head and peering over my shoulder as though she’s looking for someone else, but, seeing no one, she fixes her gaze on me and holds out my phone without a word.
I have no idea what she’s thinking, or why she’s decided to deliver my phone in person despite the fact she must have a cracking hangover after last night. Cautiously, I take it from her. “Thanks. Where was it?”
“The table outside the bathroom. Exactly where you said you left it. I found it this morning.”
“That’s weird. I swear I check—”
“Are you sleeping with Elly?”
The question cracks out like an accusation, and my heart rolls like a die. “You looked at my phone?” I squeeze the handset tighter, panic setting in that Kate has been riffling through my photos.
Kate draws back, her upper lip curling. “Of course I didn’t look at your phone.” She says it with such disdain, as though it’s insulting that I’m asking whether she would invade my privacy like that, and I know in a flash of clarity that she never would.
Still standing on the doorstep, Kate stamps her feet one after the other, not in irritation, but because it’s so cold out here. I’m being rude, not letting her in, so I back up against the front door, opening it wider, and she brushes past me towards the kitchen. I follow behind, aware of a prickling sensation inside my body, as though it’s preparing for a fight.
In the kitchen, Kate paces back and forth, twisting one of the buttons on her coat. I stand still, watching her until she halts and brings her attention to me. “Is it true? Are you sleeping with her?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Mum told me you were. She’s freaking out because apparently you and Elly were going at it in the bathroom of Nico’s flat last night.”
“Mum? But how—”
“She phoned me this morning at the crack of dawn to ask for confirmation, and I couldn’t give it to her. And you know what I thought? I thought, there’s no way Jack would screw around with my best friend.” The look on Kate’s face is one of desperation, and her voice is thin. She’s speaking fast and it feels like my brain has to do cartwheels to catch up. “There’s just no way you’d do that, right? Especially not in Nico’s flat. That’s myhome. I thought, surely he wouldn’t fuck my best friend in the bathroo—”
“Shit. Kate, hold on a sec.” I hold up a hand to stave her off. “I just woke up.”
Kate pauses. “Is it true? Did you fuck Elly in—”