“I know. I was waiting for you to decide you were ready.”

His eyes were glassy, and I knew he was feeling as mellow as me. The tension he’d been carrying around was gone.

“Wanna try that porn scene we watched?” he asked.

“The washing machine one?”

“We only watched the one.”

“Sure. I mean, minus the sloppy blowjob and nakedness, right?”

“Right.” Asher’s gaze fell to my mouth, and he drew his bottom lip between his teeth. “But the rest of it. We can do all the other stuff.”

“Well … the guys in the video ended up fucking, Ash. We probably shouldn’t do that either.”

He snorted, and it erupted into uncontrolled laughter between us. “I didn’t mean that part. The stuff before.”

“Okay.” I glanced around the small hotel room. “We can pretend there’s a washing machine over there. Use the TV stand. The height isn’t the same, but we can make it work.”

Asher studied where I pointed. “Yeah. That’s good… Atti?”

“Yeah?”

“Will Lewis make us do it naked?”

“Probably. He’s an asshole like that.”

“Should … we just do it naked now? To practice.”

My brain was slow to respond, alcohol dampening my processing and reasoning. It was like a computer virus lagging me out. “Um.”

“I-I was kidding.” Asher slapped my leg and slid off the bed, his back turned away from me.

Was he? My intuition said he was serious.

It had to be the alcohol tampering with my head. There was no way.

Asher spun, leaning back against the TV stand. “So … I read that manuscript. The um … the first book for this series that Charlotte sent us. It’s called Secret Lives. Did you read it?”

Manuscript? Oh shit. He did!?

“I didn’t. I’ve been busy. My schedule’s been rough. You read it?”

He wrung his hands and focused on a spot on the carpet. “Yeah. Because… Well, to see what Ender and Elliot were like. To learn why.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Why two brothers might decide to … you know.”

Become lovers?

“It’s all fiction, Ash. I’m sure whatever their reason, it was fluffed up and exaggerated. It wouldn’t happen that way in real life. I hope you didn’t let it get to you.”

Asher gnawed his lip and cracked his knuckles. “The way she wrote it was believable. To me.”

Oh?

“How so?”