He knocked on the door, waited for it to open, then stepped inside.
My stomach twisted. Did Dane have a girlfriend? Or a girl that he was seeing?
Jealousy reared its ugly head. My night with Beck and Noah had been hotter than hot, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t still fantasizing about Dane. It had been a mistake to get naked in thecourtroom at the town hall, but I hadn’t stopped thinking about the next time I could get naked with him, especially since Beck and Noah seemed amenable to group playtime.
Now I had to resist the urge to march up the walkway of the house next to Lena’s, yank on the door, and make a reality-TV-level scene on the porch.
I forced myself to breathe. Dane wasn’t my boyfriend. He didn’t owe me anything, especially since I was fucking his two roommates.
I got myself under control, turned up the walkway to Lena’s house, and rang the bell.
She opened the door a few seconds later, her brilliant smile lighting up her face.
“Hey! Glad you found… it.” Her smile faded. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, feeling stupid. I’d come to tell her about the slides and now I was upset because I’d seen Dane going into someone else’s house.
She grabbed my arm and pulled me inside a cozy foyer with dark wood floors and pale blue walls. “Come on.”
She led me up a set of narrow stairs at the front of the house.
“Lena? Is that your friend?” an older woman called out.
“Yeah, Gram. We’ll be down in a few.” Lena pulled me into a bedroom on the second floor and I knew immediately it was hers.
The walls were lime green, brightly colored pennants hanging from the corners. A chandelier hung overhead, casting rainbows over the room from multicolored glass shades, and her furniture was painted in happy, bright colors that somehow didn’t clash with all the other color in the room at all.
“My gram is dying to feed you,” Lena said. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. And she’s a good cook, so there’s that.”
“You live with your grandmother?” I asked.
“I’m saving money for a second store in Carleton,” she said. “Or maybe Blackwell Falls.”
“Oh wow, that’s awesome.” My mind was spinning between Dane, the brightly colored room that made me feel like I’d eaten too much sugar, and the new information about Lena’s life.
She sat on the edge of the bed. “Sit. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I came to tell you something about Harold,” I said, sitting next to her.
“Yeah, but that’s not what’s wrong, is it?”
I shook my head. “I saw Dane going into the house next door.”
She lifted her eyebrows like she was waiting for me to say something else. “And…?”
“I just… I guess I didn’t realize he might have a girlfriend.”
“A girlfriend?” She looked confused, but then her eyes widened, like she’d just solved a puzzle. “Oh! You think he’s next door visiting agirl!”
“You said he didn’t have family.”
She smiled. “Wow, you’ve really got it bad, huh?”
“I have no right to be jealous. Like… no right.” I wasn’t anywhere near ready to tell Lena I’d already slept with Beck and Noah.
“Well, you’re in luck. You have zero need — that I know of — to be jealous. Dane’s just working on Harmony House.”
“Harmony House?”