Page 81 of Bloom

James removes his hand from my leg and gets out of the car. “Max,” he says in a voice that scares even me, and he’s not mad at me. “What the hell?”

“Dude,” says Max. “I told you my friends were coming into town.”

“No, you didn’t,” James snarls.

“Oh,” shrugs Max. “Sorry. I’m gonna put the girls in my room, and the guys can crash in the living room, so you mind if I’m on your floor?”

“Are you fucking serious?” asks James.

“Yeah,” says Max. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“How long?”

“How long has there been something wrong with you?” Max begins. “If I were to venture a guess I’d say … ”

“How long are they staying?” James hisses.

“Just two nights,” Max replies.

James is coiled like a spring. I maneuver him away from Max. It’s pretty big of me, I think, considering that I want to punch him too.

Chapter 45

Thus begins our excruciating weekend. Between Max’s friends and our housemates, James and I are never alone. When I go to the deck with my coffee in the morning, three people are already there. When James and I walk into town, someone decides to come with us. We think we’ve managed to escape by ourselves to the beach, and we don’t even have our towels down before they are there too, cheerfully wedging their towels between us. If Max had hired a crew to keep us apart they couldn’t do a better job.

And the timing of it is what makes it hardest, because what we did on Thursday is something I really, really need to repeat.

“You shouldn’t have forced me to sleep with you,” James grumbles quietly behind me when we’re at work.

“Did you really just say I ‘forced’ you?” I gasp, rounding on him, but he’s grinning.

“Maybe ‘forced’ is a strong word,” he says, pulling me behind the freezer with his hands at my hips. His lips find mine, and he tugs at the bottom one with his teeth. “But I’m thinking about it at 20-second intervals now, and I need someone to blame.”

“Blame Max and his friends,” I breathe, as he pushes me back against the counter.

“I am going to do such bad things to you once they’re out of here,” he promises. His kiss is harder this time, his hands roaming, finding the hem of my shirt and sliding beneath it. He could convince me to do about anything right now.

“This is the first time I’ve ever wished they made us wear skirts,” I sigh.

He groans. “Thanks for that visual, Elle. I was already painfully hard.”

Footsteps approach and we part, reluctantly.

“Just one more day,” I tell him. “We can live until then.”

**

But the next day I get home from the lunch shift, expecting them to be gone, and find them all on the deck, throwing back beers, getting ready to grill out. James sits with them, looking decidedly unhappy.

“Um, I hope one of you is the designated driver for tonight,” I say.

“Why?” asks one of the guys. “Where are we going?”

I look toward James and realize the source of his sour expression. “I thought you were going home today.”

“I convinced them to stay,” says Max, with a little gleam in his eye.

“How are you able to miss this much work?” I ask.