“So? So?!” Angel shook her head, sharing disbelieving looks with Maria. She tried to catch Olivia’s eye too, but Olivia was already focused back on staring at Ellie like she was trying to crawl inside her head. “You never scene with the same Dom two weeks in a row. Not even Andrew. And you never scene in a private room with a Dom other than Andrew. But now you’re breaking both rules for Michael. That’s big!”

“I’m pretty sure she knows it’s big,” Olivia said dryly. “However, the bigger a deal you make it, the more pressure it is on both of them.”

“Oh... Right, sorry,” Angel said a little sheepishly. “I just get excited. I love Michael, and I really like you, and he obviously really likes you and... well... I just want him to be happy...”

Alarmed, Ellie froze as Angel teared up. What the- what should she do?

“Pregnancy hormones alert!” Maria passed a tissue over to Angel, who took it.

“Thanks... ugh... I don’t even know why I’m crying. I know I said I love Michael but I don’t love him enough to cry over him. Oh my god, please don’t tell Adam I cried about Michael. And definitely don’t tell Michael I cried about Michael. I will never hear the end of it.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t bring up my scening with Michael again,” Ellie said quickly, making sure to make it clear she was teasing by her tone of voice.

They all stopped and stared at her, Maria’s jaw dropping a little. Then Olivia held up her hand for a high-five.

“You tell her, Ell.”

Grinning, Ellie slapped Olivia’s hand. Okay, so maybe the Domme wasn’t so scary. Well, actually, she really was, but she was pretty cool too. Happily, Ellie dug into her sandwich while the conversation turned back to Patrick and Michael’s new business venture, which she was happy to hear all about. Part of her was a little sad she hadn’t heard about it first from Michael, but... it’s not like he even had her phone number. And they didn’t hang out or anything. They just saw each other at the club.

Maybe she’d ask him about it this weekend. If they had time before their scene.

5

Walking into Stronghold, thinking about how they were going to do the new club differently, made Michael look at the whole place with new eyes. He tried to ignore that though, because he wasn’t there to think about the new club (they really needed to think of a name), he was there to scene with Ellie.

Focus.