Chapter 2: The Whiskey and the Green Light
The click of the front door was too loud in the silent living room. Edwin stared at the bottle in his hands. Alex watched the empty space where Kitzia had been, the ghost of her sway still hanging in the air. The hum of the TV was just nonsense now.Edwin cleared his throat. “She’s pissed.”
“No, she’s not,” Alex said, but he wasn’t sure. The tequila made everything feel true and false at the same time.He listened for her steps on the stairwell outside, heard nothing. “She’s thinking.”
“About what a pair of psychos she’s stuck with.”
“Maybe.”
The door opened again, softer this time. Kitzia stepped back in, a bottle of amber whiskey swinging loosely from her fingers. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed from the night air or something else. She didn’t look at either of them as she walked past the couch, headed for the kitchen nook. The sharp tap of the bottle on the laminate countertop was a period to the silence.“Kitchen shots,” she announced, her voice aimed at the cabinets. “I can’t look at that couch right now.”
Alex stood up. His legs felt unsteady, charged.He followed her into the narrow, fluorescent-lit space. Edwin hesitated a beat longer, then the groan of the armchair signaled he was coming too. The kitchen was cramped, barely room for three. The overhead light buzzed, casting a cold, unforgiving glare on the empty chip bags and the sticky rings from earlier. The sharp, clean smell of the whiskey cut through the lingering tequila fog.
Kitzia spun the cap off, poured three fingers into three separate tumblers she pulled from the dish rack.She didn’t look up. Alex leaned against the fridge, watching the nape of her neck, the way her hair parted over the sharp line of her spine. Edwin stood in the archway, a mountain blocking the light, his hands shoved deep in his pockets.She handed Edwin a glass first, their fingers brushing.Then Alex. Finally, she took her own, lifted it. “To bad decisions,” she said, echoing Edwin’s earlier words, but her tone wasn’t playful.It was testing.A challenge.They drank. The whiskey was smooth and hot, a different burn. It settled the jumping in Alex’s nerves into a low, steady thrum.Kitzia set her glass down hard. She turned, leaning back against the counter’s edge, the cheap laminate digging into her palms. Her eyes moved between them, the confidence back but changed.Less bubbly, more measured.Curious. “So,” she said.“Now what?”
The question hung in the buzzing air.Edwin shifted his weight. Alex’s heart slammed against his ribs. The memory Edwin had painted—the wet bikini, the sharp smack, the strawberry popsicle—was a film reel playing behind his eyes. It wasn’t enough to just know it happened.The heat in his gut demanded more.He pushed off the fridge. The small space forced him close to her. He stepped up behind Kitzia, not touching her at first, feeling the warmth radiating from her body. He looked over her shoulder, directly at Edwin, who was watching, frozen.“You remember,” Alex said, his voice low and rough in the quiet kitchen. “You remember how her ass felt under your hand?”
Edwin’s eyes widened. He started to shake his head, a denial forming on his lips. “Alex, man, come on—”
“I want you to feel it again.” The words were out, absolute.They shocked even him. Kitzia tensed against the counter, a small intake of breath the only sound she made. “Right now.”
Edwin looked like he’d been punched. His gaze darted to Kitzia’s face, searching for an exit, a veto. Her expression was unreadable, her lips slightly parted, her eyes locked on her cousin’s.She didn’t say no. She didn’t move.
Alex pressed his chest against her back, his hands coming to rest on the counter on either side of her hips, caging her in. He was hard, a rigid line against the softness of her, and he knew she could feel it. It was part of the point. “Slap it,” he murmured, his mouth close to her ear, but his eyes on Edwin.“Grab it.Whatever you want.Do it.”
Edwin’s throat worked. The fluorescent light gleamed on his shaved scalp. He looked from Alex’s intense, commanding stare to Kitzia’s waiting, silent form. The air was charged, thick with whiskey and sweat and the scent of her coconut shampoo. The buzz of the light filled the space where words should be.Slowly, as if moving through deep water, Edwin took a single step forward. Then another.He was in the kitchen proper now, the space shrinking further. He stopped an arm’s length from Kitzia. His big, calloused hand, the one that swung hammers for a living, rose tentatively.It hovered in the air between them, trembling just slightly.
Kitzia leaned back, pressing herself more firmly against Alex. It was the slightest movement, but it was permission.Edwin’s breath hitched. His eyes closed for a second, a flicker of conflict.When they opened, something had shifted. The guilt was still there, but it was submerged under a current of pure, overwhelming want. The same want that had driven the stupid, drunk smack years ago, now given a terrifying, explicit invitation.His hand descended.
It wasn’t a slap.It was a slow, deliberate claiming. His palm, rough and warm, cupped the full, perfect curve of her ass over the thin black spandex. He didn’t move it.Just held her there, his fingers pressing into the soft give of her flesh. A shudder ran through Kitzia’s whole body, a convulsive little tremor Alex felt against his own chest.A soft, muffled sound escaped her lips, swallowed by the hum of the light.
Edwin’s gaze was locked on his own hand, on the shape of her under it, a look of awe and horror on his face.He squeezed, once, gently. The material of her shorts strained. Alex watched, a surge of possessive triumph mixed with a dizzying, shared arousal so powerful it stole his breath.He’d made this happen. He’d put his girlfriend in his cousin’s hand.“Again,” Alex breathed, the word barely audible.
Edwin’s hand lifted, only an inch, and came down again. This time it was firmer, a proper, open-handed smack that landed with a quiet, fleshy thwack. The sound was obscene in the bright, cluttered kitchen.Kitzia jerked, a gasp tearing from her throat. Her head fell back against Alex’s shoulder, her eyes squeezed shut.
Then Edwin’s hand molded to her again, not striking now, but exploring. It slid down the curve, his thumb digging into the crease where her ass met her thigh. He let out a ragged breath, a sound full of wonder and defeat.“Jesus,” he whispered, to no one, to both of them.
Alex turned his face, buried it in Kitzia’s hair. His hips pressed forward involuntarily.His hands on the countertop were white-knuckled. He was watching, but he was also feeling it through her—the shock, the tension, the forbidden thrill. It was all theirs, a twisted, three-way secret crystallizing in the buzzing fluorescent glow.
Edwin’s hand finally, slowly, withdrew.He stared at his palm as if it belonged to someone else. He took two stumbling steps back, hitting the doorframe. The spell broke, or maybe it just solidified, becoming a permanent new layer in the room.
Kitzia was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling rapidly. She opened her eyes, looked first at Edwin’s shattered expression, then tilted her head back to look up at Alex. Her face was a chaos of feelings: confusion, excitement, a dazed kind of empowerment.No one spoke.The whiskey in their glasses sat forgotten. The only sounds were their ragged breathing and that relentless, buzzing light. They were trapped in the aftermath, in the clear, brutal truth of what had just been done.
And Alex knew, with a certainty that was both thrilling and terrifying, that there was no going back from this. The line wasn’t just crossed; it had been erased. They were all standing together in the new territory, and the night was still young.