Nobody Asked Him

Grant wants a shower and a horizontal surface.

What he gets is Harlow standing on the stone island between two cases of water, holding up a bottle of warm grocery-store beer like a trophy.

“We took a whole store today,” she says. “A bad guy died. None of us did. That is a party whether the building likes it or not.”

Leanne pinches the bridge of her nose.

“We also have a watch to run.”

“So run it,” Harlow says. “After he sits down and lets us be happy for him. He looks like a man who carried a grocery home on his back.”

Mary is in the foyer chair with the rifle nearby and an expression that says she saw this coming the second the last rice bag hit the floor.

“One hour,” she tells the room. “Music low. No terrace. No yelling out windows. If the river van shows up, the party dies and the guns come out. And nobody gets cute about leaving the floor.”

That is all the permission the penthouses need.

Lily finds speakers that still work and puts on something stupid and bright from somebody’s phone. It is not good music. It is music. Paige and Kelsey shove the dining chairs aside and suddenly there is a dance floor in a warehouse of canned food. Brooke laughs with her whole body. Chloe pulls Natalie into it. Piper’s ruined braids bounce. Jaycee steals a beer, grimaces at the temperature, and drinks it anyway. Noor tapes her watch list to the fridge and then, shockingly, accepts a plastic cup.

Grant stands in the cut wall like he missed a meeting.

“I didn’t ask for this.”

Ashlyn appears at his elbow with a cup and that same soft face from the bus steps, except now she is pink from dancing.

“You didn’t have to. We wanted to. You got us out of that store. You got us food. You look tired and we hate that.” She pushes the cup into his hand. “Please just… let us.”

The beer is warm and terrible. He drinks it.

Jose and Garret do not get invited up. The landing gets two more sandwiches and the muffled sound of a party they are not part of. Garret says, “Unbelievable,” with no real strength. Jose just eats.

The first hour is almost innocent. Almost. Girls dancing between water cases. Sarah showing off her bandage like a war story and then immediately telling Willa she is fine. Maya putting pharmacy bottles away and then getting dragged into a song she pretends not to know. Zoya does not dance. Magdalena does, once, small and precise, and Grant feels the whole map brighten when she does.

Then Harlow points at him from the island.

“Okay. Reward portion.”

Mary’s head snaps up.

“Harlow.”

“What? We said celebrate. His favorite thing today was not rice.” Harlow hops down, beer in one hand, grin sharp. “He can say no. He won’t.”

All of their smiling faces turn toward Grant like a compass.

He should say no. He can feel how tired his body is under the strength. He can also feel thirty-seven women waiting on his words.

“I’m not doing a roll call,” he says. “If this turns into a line, I’m going to bed.”

Mary gets up. The room actually quiets for her.

“Then it isn’t a line,” she says. “It’s a room full of people who want you to stop looking like the day is still happening. Couch. Sit. Anyone who wants to put their hands on him can. Anyone who wants to watch can watch. Anyone on watch stays on watch. Ashlyn, you already made your point this afternoon. You can be here. You don’t have to be first.”

Ashlyn nods, flushed, and stays close anyway.

Grant sits on the sectional because the alternative is standing there like an idiot. The leather sighs. Jaycee drops to her knees between his legs with zero ceremony and starts on his belt.

“Hi,” she says, cheerful and filthy. “You look like you need this more than another speech.”

“Jaycee—”

“You can tell me to stop.” She has him out in two seconds, already half-hard from the attention of the whole room. She licks her palm and strokes him, easy, familiar, then takes him into her mouth like the bus never happened and this is just what victory looks like.

Grant’s head drops back. A couple of the seniors make small shocked sounds that turn into interest fast. Claimed interest. Brooke whispers, “Oh my god,” and then edges closer. Riley bites her lip. Paige crosses her arms and watches like it is film study.

Mary does not look away.

Harlow kneels on the couch beside him, kisses the corner of his mouth, and talks into his cheek while Jaycee works him.

“That’s better. You took a grocery. You carried half of it up here. Let them spoil you.” Her hand slides under his shirt. “Jaycee, don’t hog it. There are like ten girls in this room who have been staring at him since the soup aisle.”

Jaycee pulls off with a wet pop and laughs.

“Then come here.”

It gets messy in the good way.

Ashlyn takes Jaycee’s place like she has been waiting for permission she did not need, that innocent face sinking down his cock in front of a roomful of women. She is sloppier than this afternoon, less private, humming when Harlow says, “Good girl, show them.” Spit on her chin. Hands on his thighs. Grant’s fingers in her ponytail again.

Brooke gets brave and kisses his neck. Lily sits on the arm of the couch and watches with her thighs pressed together until Grant tugs her closer by the wrist and she makes a helpless happy sound. Mary stays standing at first, then swears under her breath, unbuttons her own pants, and puts her hand inside while she talks, same as the bus except now the whole house can hear her.

“Look at him,” Mary says, voice low and mean in a way that makes several girls shiver. “He spent all day being careful. He can be less careful now. Ashlyn, deeper. He likes it when you try. Jaycee, get his shirt off. Paige, if you’re just going to scout, pick a side.”

Paige snorts, then comes over and kisses him, hard and athletic, while Ashlyn chokes softly and stays.

It is not choreographed. It is a party that fell onto a couch. Hands on his chest. Mouths trading off. Harlow whispering filthy encouragement. Maya watching from the kitchen island with her keys still in her pocket and her cheeks scarlet, then coming over when he looks at her and kissing him like thank-you and please at the same time. Tatum and Grace on the floor together, touching each other because watching him is already too much. Leanne, on actual watch, mutters, “I can hear you,” from the foyer and does not leave her post.

Grant stops trying to manage it.

He pulls Ashlyn off before he comes, because if he finishes in the first mouth the room will take it as a schedule. She whines. He kisses her and says, “Couch. On your back.” She quickly gets naked and obeys. He gets his jeans down far enough and sinks into her tight pussy in front of everybody, and the sound she makes is too sweet for how wet she is. Brooke covers her own mouth. Mary’s hand moves faster.

“That’s it,” Mary says. “Take what you want. She wants you to. We all want you to. God, Grant, you should see their faces.”

He fucks Ashlyn through one shaking orgasm, then another girl is there — Jaycee, impatient — and he pulls out and lets Jaycee straddle him on the next cushion. Harlow sits on the arm and puts his hand between her legs so he can feel how soaked she is while Jaycee rides him. Lily kisses him whenever there is an angle. Paige ends up behind the couch with her hands in his hair, breathing against his temple, saying, “Yeah. Yeah, you earned this,” like a locker-room blessing.

When he comes it is in Jaycee, deep, with Ashlyn kissing his shoulder and Mary watching him over the back of the couch with her fingers still moving and her eyes dark.

The room actually cheers, which is so stupid he laughs, breathless, wrecked, surrounded by water cases and bare skin and warm beer.

“One hour,” Mary reminds everybody, voice ragged. “That was the deal.”

Harlow, still flushed, salutes her with the bottle.

“Fine. But it was a good hour.”

They peel off in pieces. Some to showers. Some back to dancing like they did not just turn the sectional into a crime scene. Willa throws a blanket over the worst of it with the professionalism of someone who has decided not to comment. Noor adds CLEAN THE COUCH to the fridge list, underlined twice.

Grant sits there with his pants half on and thirty-seven happy points humming through the map. No new power. No ding. Just a body that finally got used for something that was not a fight.

Ashlyn leans on his arm, smug and soft.

“Was that okay?”

He looks at the warehouse island, the dancing, Mary buttoning her pants like she did not just talk a whole penthouse into getting him off.

“It was a lot.”

“Good lot or bad lot?”

“Good lot,” he says, and means it. “Now I want two people to stay awake who did not just participate.”

Leanne’s voice from the stair:

“Already handled. Please put a shirt on before I have to take this watch seriously.”

Grant finds a shirt. The music drops one notch. The party becomes leftover laughter and girls stealing crackers in hoodies. The river van does not come. The terrace stays locked. Jose, far below, says, “Are they watching a movie?” and Garret says, “I don’t think so, man.”

Mary sits on the coffee table facing him after the worst of the crowd thins, knees almost touching his.

“Tomorrow we run a grocery,” she says. “Tonight they needed to give you something that wasn’t work. Don’t make it a tradition every time we don’t die.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Yes, you were. They’ll offer.” She glances at Ashlyn, still naked and already half-asleep against his side. “Say yes when you want it. Say sleep when you don’t. They’ll survive either answer.”

Grant looks around at his ridiculous, overstocked, cardboard-smelling penthouses.

Thirty-seven women.

One ruined couch.

He starts laughing again, quiet, because the day began with a folding chair and ended with Harlow using his kitchen island as a stage.

“Okay,” he says. “Party’s over. Watches stay on. If anyone finds my other shoe, I want it.”

Piper, from the floor, holds it up without standing.

“Got it.”

Of course she does.

Grant takes the shoe, takes the last warm swallow of bad beer, and lets the victory be stupid for one more minute before the night turns back into locks and lists and dawn.