Written in the Stars(76)
She withdrew her fingers, moaning softly when Darcy continued to spasm with aftershocks. She kissed the hickey she’d left and rolled to the side, head pillowing on Darcy’s thigh.
Darcy’s fingers massaged Elle’s head, nails raking gently against her scalp. Despite being more turned on than she could remember being, Elle savored the moment, committing it to memory. All of it, the quiet, the peace, the anticipation, the way Darcy’s white decor served as the perfect backdrop for the rainbow lights shining from the naked-looking tree. How for the first time, everything in her life felt not just right, but perfect.
*
“Margot,” Elle called out, dropping her bag by the door and leaning against the wall. After the night she’d had, she could barely feel her legs and her arms weren’t much better. “You home?”
Margot popped her head out of the kitchen. “Hey. Have fun?”
“You could say that.” Elle skipped around the bar, making a beeline for the kitchen. Darcy had plied her with pancakes—not from a box—but she was still hungry. Little sleep and marathon sex would do that to a girl.
She opened the refrigerator . . . the empty refrigerator. Save for a jar of pickles and a Tupperware container full of Taco Bell hot sauces they collected because of the funny sayings on the packets, they had nothing. “Mar, we need to go shopping.”
Margot rifled through their basket of assorted K-cups and plucked out an extrabold, dark roast. The kind that made Elle jittery just from inhaling the aroma. “Want me to pick a few things up while I’m out?”
Elle shut the fridge and leaned against it, frowning. “You’re going somewhere?”
“Yeah. My stupid fucking computer is practically a relic, you know? It went all blue screen of death on me yesterday so Brendon offered to go shopping with me for a new one. He’s busy with his mom this afternoon, but said he had some time this morning.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find your friendship with Brendon mildly terrifying.”
“How can something be mildly terrifying?”
“Shut up. You know what I mean.”
Maybe it was a consequence of this thing between her and Darcy starting out disastrously, then fake, but Elle had been wary of spending too much time with Brendon outside of their work dealings. What if she let something slip, something incriminating that might blow the whole charade? Hopefully now that she and Darcy were real, achingly real, she and Brendon could become closer. Like he and Margot who were suddenly best buds, their shared love of Harry Potter and rock-climbing giving them plenty to bond over in addition to the partnership.
The Keurig beeped, Margot’s coffee finished brewing. She snagged her cup and lifted it to her mouth, blowing on it gently. “We barely talk about you and Darcy.”
“But you do talk about us.”
“Only in the sense that Brendon moons over you guys and pats himself on the back for, quote, orchestrating the match of the decade. I, of course, make fun of him for saying the words, match of the decade.” Margot gulped her coffee even though it had to be scalding. “Then he gets all wistful for a relationship of his own. Let me tell you, Brendon might be more of a romantic than you are. He looked offended when I told him he needs to get laid.”
“Uh, pot, kettle?”
“It’s a dry spell, Elle.”
Elle coughed. “Drought.”
Margot reached across the counter into the sink, scooping up a handful of soap bubbles and flinging them at Elle, missing by a hair when she ducked. “I hopped on Tinder and this guy legit thought that being pansexual meant I’m attracted to fucking nonstick cookware. ‘Oh yeah, baby, your griddle fucking turns me on. You shake that wok. Shake it harder.’”
Elle chortled. “That’s not funny.”
“I joke so I won’t commit fucking homicide.” Margot snatched a towel and dried off her hands. “Just because I’m not looking for something serious doesn’t mean I don’t have standards for who I sleep with.”
Elle knew how Margot felt. At least half her matches on dating apps, before she met Darcy, were couples looking for threesomes, thinking because she was bi she’d be into it. Dating, regardless of the type of relationship you were looking for, was hard.
“You keep your standards high.” Elle nodded resolutely. “They make vibrators for a reason.”
Margot’s tongue poked into her cheek. “When in doubt, rub one out?” Margot sighed and slouched against the counter. “You think it would be awful if I hopped on OTP?”
Elle grimaced. While not expressly against the terms and conditions of use, OTP wasn’t the app for hookups. It didn’t stop people from using it for flings, but the purpose of the app was to help people find their one true pairing, not their one true one-night stand.
“Don’t let Brendon know.”
“God no.” Margot laughed. “He’ll give me that I’m disappointed in you puppy-dog frown and I’ll hate myself for at least an hour.”
“At least.” Maybe it was because she was tired from staying up half the night doing delightfully dirty things to Darcy on her living room floor, but for the first time, Elle noticed an arrangement of pink stargazer lilies—her favorite flower. She always stopped to ooh and ah over them at the market, but paying thirty dollars for something that would die in a week—sooner probably thanks to her black thumb—felt egregious. “Where’d those come from?”