Your jaw twinges visibly. “I’m his girlfriend.” you grind out before he can even think about responding. You feel his big hand on the small of your back, and you aren’t sure if it’s a comfort or a warning— or, most likely, both— but you’re too drunk to care either way.

The girl doesn’t even spare you a glance. “Are you, like, a surgeon? You give surgeon vibes—“

“He’s my boyfriend.” You speak up again, harsher this time. The girl’s eyes roll in their sockets before finally landing on you.

“What, he’s your boyfriend so nobody’s allowed to talk to him?”

Your jaw drops for a moment at this girl’s audacity, and Robby’s surprised he can’t see steam coming out of your ears. “Nobody’s allowed to hit on him.”

“Does he know that?”

Your hands ball up where they’re resting on the bar. “Excuse me?—“

“Cause just a second ago he seemed pretty—“

That’s all it takes to send your fist in the air. Robby’s strong hand catches your forearm before you’re able to take a swing, “Jesus— cool it, Mohammed Ali.”

the girl’s laughing in your face, her hands up to shove you back defensively

You try to elbow robby off you, your movements weak and clumsy, and your other hand comes out to push back against the other girl. “You’re fucking delusional!—“

“Not my fault your boyfriend thinks I’m hot!”

You lunge forward as the girl takes a stumbling step back

“Enough! That’s enough.” Robby’s arm wraps around your middle to pull you away from the girl, which he does easily.

Your limbs and tongue all feel heavy as he drags you away, but you still manage a shrill. “Fuck you!” before robby gets you out the door and it shutters closed behind you.

You keep struggling against Robby’s hold. “I wanna go dance!”

“You need to take a deep breath.” Robby orders, and his voice is calm but has dropped an octave, daring you to argue. You still your body, allowing him to loosen his grip, and then you step away to glare up at him.

“I wanna go back in.”

“We’re not going to dance.”

“You said we could!”

Robby laughs dryly. “Yeah, well, that was before your little cat fight. And now we’re going.” he nods towards the car as you cross your arms, and he raises his brows. “Don’t start with me, little girl—.”

“This was not my fault! She was— she was the—“

Robby’s shaking his head as he raises his voice a bit to talk over you “I don’t care whose fault it was. We’re going—“

“She was the one being completely insane—“ you take a sharp breath, drunk words coming too fast for your lungs to keep up and hot tears stinging your eyes “and you were the one who flirted with her.”

Robby laughs again and scrubs a hand down his face. “I didn’t—“

“You said you were flattered,” you push harshly at him now, feeling flushed and angry and hurt and too far gone to stop a messy sob from escaping your throat. “You— you think she’s hotter than me!”

Robby’s big hands cup your face, halting your tantrum and making you look at him through the big fat tears blurring your vision. “Stop.” You smack his chest. “Stop it. Stop throwing a fit.”

You smack his chest again. one of his hands leaves your face to swiftly gather both your wrists, which isn’t hard given your slow reaction speed. He holds them in place between your bodies as you continue to spit in his face—“You flirted with a girl and now you don’t wanna dance with me!”

Robby grips your face harder, making your lips jut out in an even more dramatic pout. His tone has, somehow, lowered further. “Take a deep breath.”

You stare at him for a moment, stubborn, before inhaling shakily. Robby nods.

“Attagirl.” He keeps nodding along as you do it again. “You know I didn’t flirt with her. You know that. She just wanted to piss you off— and you made it pretty damn easy, didn’t you?”

You scowl at him. “You’re mean.”

Robby laughs. “Yeah? Look who’s talking, slugger.” he bobbles your head with his grip on your cheeks. “You done now? Yeah?” he lets go of you and pats your cheek. “Good. Jesus, you’re a feisty little thing when you’re drunk.”

You huff and let him start leading you towards the car.

“You didn’t say I’m hotter than her.” You grumble when you get to the passenger side. Robby unlocks the car then opens your door for you.

“You’re hotter than everyone, babygirl.”

You didn’t think this little plan of yours all the way through. 

Which, in your defense, implies there was a point at which there had been a thought-through version, and that feels charitable now that you’re standing in the middle of your living room with a paper plate in one hand and a steadily souring sense of dread in the other.

Because really, what sort of person invites her chief attending over to the apartment she shares with her resident boyfriend while the two of them are still in the world’s iciest little bro-divorce? 

Your sort, apparently. Certified dim-bulb. Girl who sees a gas leak and thinks, hm, maybe a sparkler would improve this situation.

But in your defense the frost between them had been spreading and you were tired of pretending it wasn’t. Tired of pretending it wasn’t affecting the job itself. Everyone was.

So yes, maybe engineering one contained, inescapable little social crucible had felt wise at the time. Healing, even. Put two men in a room and let nature take its course. 

Frost can’t survive fire, you told yourself. What you failed to remember was that fire tends to not be warm in any benevolent way. Fire bites. Fire blackens. Fire leaves marks.

The proof of your terrible idea now sits on opposite ends of the sofa. Robby on one, Frank on the other, a clean swatch of empty cushion between them while they chew their food in perfect, hostile union — bite, grind, swallow, repeat — ostensibly watching the TV. 

The screen washes them in intermittent blue light, giving them both somewhere neutral to stare, somewhere that is not each other’s face. 

You give it three more seconds. A generous three, really. More than either of them deserves. Then your patient collapses inward on itself. With a sigh, you deposit your plate on the coffee table and cross the room.

If they want to commit to this pageant of masculine emotional constipation, fine. You can be disruptive. You turn and reverse yourself right into Frank’s lap, crossing your legs at the ankles.

His breath catches against your neck, a fracture in an otherwise composed exterior, surprise or shock of you climbing on him in front of your boss, but he stays statue-still except for the palm that migrates to your thigh and clamps there. 

“Robby, you still think their rookie QB’s gonna choke in the red zone?” you ask, making a doomed little bid for peace with the ragged scraps of football knowledge you’ve managed to absorb by osmosis, your chin tipping toward the drive unfolding onscreen. 

Without so much as a glance your way, Robby grunts, “Kid’s overdue for a disaster,” a verdict delivered to the television but seemingly tagged for his recovering subordinate to his left.

The half-smirk that follows is pure instigation, and Frank answers it the only way he can in mixed company: “Disaster? He just took them eighty yards in two and a half minutes. Think that earns him at least a little faith.”

And spiteful tone notwithstanding, the words pass between them minus bloodshed, which you decide counts as a victory.

Maybe not a large victory, not something they’d name a holiday after, but you’ll take whatever pocket-sized miracles the universe is handing out before it changes its mind.

Robby finally cuts Frank a sidelong look, head ticking just enough to register annoyance. “Faith won’t change the fact he’s already gift-wrapped the defense a few choice turnovers. Odds say he does it again once the end zone feels too close for comfort.”

Frank’s knee bobs once with a scoff, bouncing you with just enough force that your t-shirt shifts, neckline dipping. Robby’s gaze snaps there like iron to a magnet; he tips his beer to hide a grin, but the swelter in his stare is anything but subtle. 

Interesting.

It’s not the first time you’ve caught Robby looking at you like that.

There have been other moments, in passing, usually at work. You’ve caught him with that glazed, faraway stare before he could reel it back in when you bend over a counter to grab a pen or crowd too close beside him in those paper-thin scrubs.

It’s always just been filed away under things that are none of your business, because you are Frank’s and happily so, and desire from other men has always struck you as one of those minor background inconveniences of having a body in public.

But now this feels less easy to write off. Like all that tension that had been hard and almost boring in its predictability has warped into something else entirely. It feels humid and unstable and just this side of visible. 

You can’t name it yet, but it waits there all the same, right at the edge of articulation, poised like it knows you’ll eventually have to. 

“Real rich, coming from you,” Frank says to himself and you, but the tail end mutters itself into “— jackass.” 

They both return to the TV after that, or pretend to, shoulders squared forward, expressions set into the particular blankness of men who are absolutely not done arguing but have decided, temporarily, to ferment.

You take advantage of the attention shift, letting gravity slump you into Frank’s chest, hips shifting in an absent figure-eight as you settle. It would’ve been innocent if the movement didn’t drag you directly over the hard proof of his excitement beneath you.

Your brows lift.

Another interesting development.

Useful, too, knowing whatever strange atmospheric disturbance has rolled through the room has not passed over him untouched. Not just Robby, then.

“Easy.” His inhale saws across your nape, voice pitched for you alone, the consonants clipped and almost panicked. “You tryna start something?”

You really weren’t, but you know he’s not in a position to believe you right now after you made a show of climbing on top of him not two minutes earlier.

Across the cushions, Robby’s tongue drags across his lower lip like he’s cleaning a knife, bottle slack in his hand.

“Hmm? Third-and-four, babe. Pay attention.”

“You don’t even know what third-and-four means,” he growls under his breath. “You’re already on thin ice after springing Robby on me — so do us both a favor and quit squirming.”

“Should probably listen to him, kid,” Robby says suddenly. You and Frank turn at the same time, guilty in stereo. He reclines deeper into the couch, lids at half-mast, utterly unmoved by Frank’s incoming glare. “If Langdon wants you to quit squirming it’s only ‘cause he’s struggling to keep up,” he drawls, eyes flicking to the tell-tale bulge under your ass. “Guy’s never been great at thinking and feeling at the same time.”

You don’t even have time to be embarassed before Frank’s growling, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Robby.”

“Is that right?” he challenges with raised brows. “Well, you’re welcome to show me.”

Heat prickles along your neck, a phantom fingerprint.

Surely that’s not the invitation you take it as. You just have your mind in the gutter. A mind that happily projects the image anyway. Robby reclined in that same spot, beer perched on his knee, gaze foggy with lust while Frank’s mouth maps yours and your hips test how steady the good doctor’s hands really are.

It is, on reflection, not nearly as appalling a thought as it should be, which feels like a separate problem and also, perhaps, the main one. 

“Relax, Frank. If you can’t handle it, just say the word — I’m happy to keep her occupied.”

Oh. You stand corrected.

Frank’s lips peel back in something just shy of a grin. His hand slips from your thigh only long enough to cup your jaw, turning your head until the room blurs to the halo of his face.

“She’s already occupied,” he tells Robby, but his eyes stay on you, a dare stretching between eyelashes. 

You don’t blink. Don’t breathe. Don’t so much as twitch, and that tiny surrender is apparently all the permission Frank needs.

His lips crash into yours, teeth scraping, soda-sweet fizz sparking on this tongue while his arm bands tight around your waist. The couch groans under the sudden torque of bodies. Denim grinds denim until sparks pop behind your eyes and every rational neuron shrugs, clocks out, leaves libido in full command.

The instant your mouths part for air, Robby’s bottle clinks onto the table.

You turn just as he leans in, forearms braced on his knees, broad shoulders now blocking half the TV’s glow. Up close, his stare tracks the smear of Frank’s spit on your bottom lip, the way your chest still heaves in uneven intakes. 

A shadowy smile carves on cheek as Robby tilts his head, dark eyes roaming from your swollen mouth to Frank’s white-knuckled grip on your thigh.

“Could use a closer angle,” he mutters. 

“By all means,” Frank sneers, one fist gathering your waistband, tugging you a slow quarter-turn until you’re astride him, chest to chest, knees snug to his hips.

On the short but damning list of Professional Conduct Hell-Nos, “make out with your boyfriend while your boss spectates” probably ranks very high. Somewhere between falsifying patient charts and starting a fistfight in the ambulance bay. Possibly above stealing narcotics, which feels in poor taste to think with both men in the room, but then again, the evening has already wandered several zip codes past good taste.

It wanders even further when Frank kisses you again.

The list of reasons this is wrong atomizes into glitter until even Robby’s razor-keen gaze becomes another blur at the edge of the frame, taking in tremors you no longer have the bandwidth to hide.

But the awareness of the extra set of eyes of you only seems to dump pure accelerant into your bloodstream until you’re arching into Frank and rolling your hips down against the thick seam of his fly, bumping perfect pressure against your clit.

A wet rush answers between your thighs, lace sticking to your folds, and your breasts mash against Frank’s chest until you can feel your own heart ricochet through peaked nipples.

You break the kiss again only to clamp down on his lower lip in your teeth and tug, over-dramatic, leaving a sticky sheen that practically screams look what you’re missing, Dr. Robinavitch.

“Sure he’s convinced, Frankie?” you ask, breathless, thumb dragging over his lower lip to soothe the place your teeth had just nipped at. “Convinced I’m tied up and off-limits?” 

Frank laughs, a thin, rattled sound. His hand coasts up the slope of your back, ironing himself into every dip and imperfection.

“Dunno, baby.” He ghosts a kiss at the corner of your grin, another softer one under your jaw. His gaze darts over your shoulder to Robby, then sinks back to you, trouble puddling in the dimples you love. “You wanna show him? Show him how much you like taking care of me?”

You’re nodding before the sentence is half-born, a frantic little yes-yes-yes of motion.

In your haste you misjudge your own limbs, nearly knotting them with Frank’s before scrambling free. You drop between his thighs, the carpet scraping your knee raw as one hand shoots out to catch the dense muscle of his quad for balance.

To your left, Robby shakes loose a low, entertained hum. “Poor thing was just waiting to be useful.”

“She’s useful all the time,” Frank murmurs, and there’s no bite in it. His fingers sink into your hair and comb it gently back from your face. With his other hand, he pops the button of his jeans, zipping sliding down slow enough to hear every metal tooth give way. “Just happens to be especially pretty when she’s desperate to prove it.”

A guttural breath escapes Frank as he eases himself out, fist wrapped around a length that stands fierce in his hand, the flushed head of his cock blushing deeper with every absent pass of his thumb.

Your lips part, tongue wetting the seam, gaze fixed with the naked intent of an animal staring down dinner. Satisfaction flickers in his eyes. He offers a slow, decisive nod.

You don’t wait for a second invitation. You are many things but wasteful is not one of them.

Fingers wrap him in one cautious loop, then tighten once his inhale hiccups above you. You lean in and drag your tongue in one flat stripe from base to tip, tasting salt and the darker thing that’s only his.

He hisses through his teeth, every muscle in his thighs wiring tight under your palms, his hands balling like he’s fighting the reflex to bury them in your hair and steer.

Before he’s recovered, you’re already sliding him past your lips, and all that soft worship knifes into raw, unfiltered hunger.

His fingers finally tangle at your nape, gathering the curtain of your hair back in a practiced sweep, granting him an unobstructed view as your mouth sets a slow pulse around him. Like he needs to see every inch of what you’re doing to him or he’ll die from not knowing.

Your hand picks up the slack, stroking the length your mouth vacates.

“Jesus.”

“Told you,” Frank says. “She likes takin’ care of me.”

“I’m getting that,” Robby drawls, dryness turning brittle-sharp . “Little overeager, though.”

And you are. Eager. Greedy. Shamelessly so, student-raises-her-hand-before-the-question-is-finished so. You take Robby’s little barb as praise anyway, letting it roll down your spine, because if he wanted you less eager then maybe he should stop sounding so interested in it. 

You work him deeper, spit glazing the shaft, smearing over your knuckles. Saliva puddles in the cradle of his pants, printing a wet halo.

Frank’s head thunks back against the couch. “If you had her mouth on you, Robby,” he grits, “you’d be begging for the same… enthusiasm.”

“You offering?” Robby asks Frank. “Because I’ll admit — she’s a lot more tempting on her knees than being a smartass during rounds. I could get used to that view. Might even teach her some new tricks.”

You answer with a muffled growl that vibrates along Frank’s cock. He twitches under it.

That is such bullshit. You are not a smartass indiscriminately. You are a smartass with standards. A smartass in self-defense. A smartass only when Robby shows up in his holier-than-thou vestments and wonders aloud if you’re “having trouble following directions” for daring to question a single judgment call, or when he lofts that patronizing brow at a truth everyone else is simply too cowardly to say, or when he coaxes your attitude out of you with all the patience of a snake charmer and then acts scandalized when it finally bares fangs. 

And yes, fine, maybe you’ve needled him once or twice simply because the little pinch of his mouth brings you joy.

Sue you. People have hobbies. Frank has terrible coping mechanisms. You have this. 

Your nose nudges the downy trail at Frank’s belly, saliva threading between your lips as your throat opens, then you draw up in one long, slow drag.

Warning flashes through every tense line of him a second before his breath punches out in a fractured little curse.

“Fuck, sweetheart —”

Frank’s fist eases you off him, and when your mouth slips away with a wet pop, he’s panting, cock flushed bruise-dark, a string of precum still kissing the corner of your lip before it snaps.

“Sorry — shit. You keep doing that and I’m gonna come down your throat in front of your boss.” 

You shrug. “I wouldn’t mind.”

Robby whistles. “Pretty sure we crossed that line a while ago, Langdon.”

Something hair-thin cracks across Frank’s face, a little fault line opening where the smirk had been, sour and old and too personal for the room you’re currently kneeling in. You can’t place it. Can’t tell how Robby managed to find the bruise when he’d only seemed to brush the skin. 

“Kind of rich, you saying that.”

Robby’s smile doesn’t move, but his eyes freeze over. “You implying somethin’?”

“Implying nothing. You love quoting policy til it suits you to break it.”

“You wanna pick a fight with me right now?” Robby scoffs. “Because I gotta say, your sense of timing’s still shit.”

“At least I’m consistent” 

“Listen, Langdon, the day I take a lecture on —” The rest of Robby’s retort dies when you stand, stepping straight into the line of fire and blotting out the last scrap of civility left between them.

This is what you wanted, right? The attention snapping toward you. Both of them suddenly silent because you have become, for one second, more interesting than their pride.

You catch both set of eyes as your fingers hook beneath the hem of your shirt, skimming it up your ribs, knuckles brushing the goose-pimpled slope of your stomach.

The cotton’s off before either man can inhale a protest, pooling at your feet like a dropped flag, and for a heartbeat you let them see you in nothing by the pale, breath-strained lace of your bra: straps sliding, cups stretched indecently tight, nipples pebbling hard enough to ache.

You reach behind, flick the clasp, and let the bra fall too, shoulders rolling back so your breasts lift, unapologetic, into the hush. 

Frank reacts the way he always does, as if this is a miracle he’s somehow been deemed worthy of witnessing — never mind that he’s had your tits in his mouth four times already this week. 

But it’s Robby’s look that reroutes every living cell in your body. No wide-eyed marvel here, just pure clinician, jotting mental footnotes on nipple angle, respiratory excursion, overall breast biomechanics.

He’s studying you so hard you swear the room compresses, a slow squeeze that coaxes your back to arch and your knees to drift tighter, slick pulse drumming a reminder of why you stood up in the first place. 

You channel their attention straight into your backbone, thumbs hooking the waistband of your shorts and tugging until they puddle beside your discarded shirt, leaving you to stand in nothing but a damp lace thong.

“If you two would rather keep the pissing contest going, that’s fine,” you say. “I’m perfectly capable of finishing solo.”

A bluff — half bluff — because you could, but gods you’d rather make them beg to help.

You turn, gifting them a sway of your ass, all bravado, as you saunter toward your shared bedroom.

You make it exactly three steps. An insulting distance, really, before Frank’s hand brands the small of your back and Robby’s palm spreads wide over your belly, both of them converging so fast your brain barely has time to document the win under effective tactics.

Together, they swing you back into the wall hard enough for the plaster to kiss your shoulder blades.

The air leaves your lungs in a little hmph, quickly swallowed by Frank’s mouth claiming your collarbone, while Robby’s thigh muscles between yours and pins you there, your pussy dragging firm against his pant leg. 

“Sensitive little thing,” Frank murmurs, thumb stroking the underside of your breast while his lips charts a slow latitude up your throat.

Robby catches your chin between his fingers and tilts your face, giving Frank better access and forcing your gaze up to his at the same time. Efficient. Very attending of him.

“All that attitude for a fifteen-second wait? Spoiled, aren’t we?” He glances at Frank, amused as he jerks his thigh higher to your clit. “Think she even remembers why she started the tantrum?”

“Doubt it,” Frank answers, sliding a palm between your panties and robby’s leg to cup at the wet heat there. A tremor shoots down to your toes. “Memory’s about to get a lot worse, too.”

“Good,” Robby says, smiling crookedly as his hands make their way up your thigh. “Maybe then she’ll let the adults talk.”

Adults, you want to scoff, but Frank’s thumb circles over your clit and you forget what else you wanted to say about that. 

“Bedroom,” he decides.

“Copy that,” Robby answers, and then before you can blink, you’re scooped over his shoulder, world flipping until you’re staring at his (very nice) backside.

His hand smacks your ass once, proprietary punctuation as Frank follows, tossing directions like you’re precious cargo being delivered: “Second door on the left.”

You hit the mattress with a squeak. Plush bedding cups your spine, breasts pitching up and down before settling into a slow rhythm that seems to hypnotize them both.

You blink up into the twin eclipse of their silhouettes. Four eyes drinking you in. Every rise of your chest pulls a twitch from Frank’s jaw, drags Robby’s lower lip between white teeth. Shared silence of men who have finally found a reason to put their differences aside. 

Robby looks to Frank for permission. “Can I?”

Frank gives one curt nod. “Hands and mouth only.”

“I can work with that,” Robby says. 

He crawls forward, knees depressing the mattress, settling between your thighs. 

He leans in, and suddenly his eyes are galaxies: black centers swallowing brown until just a thin halo glows like caramel on a burner. 

It’s a weird feeling. How Robby, the same man who can watch arterial spray and merely sigh for suction, is gazing down at you like he’s the one white-knuckling the edge. 

But then the galaxy eyes disappear and in their place returns Dr. Robinavitch. Cool and insufferably sure. His expression settles into something almost cruel, like he’s caught you noticing the crack and intends to punish you for it.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, thumb stroking a glistening stripe through your underwear. “Soaked through already. That’s pathetic, sweetheart.”

He punctuates the verdict with an almost tender kiss to the inside of your knee, then another, higher. Instinct yanks your thighs together, but Frank is suddenly there on your right, palm bracketing one knee and pressing it outward again.

“Don’t hide now,” he chides.

A raw, useless sound breaks from your throat.

“There she is,” Robby praises, mouthing higher. “Nothin’ smart to say?”

You do. You must. Somewhere. But you find only ache. Voice trembling, you plead, “Please… Robby.”

He answers with action, sealing his lips over your clip through the fabric, drawing a slow, punishing suction that makes you cry out. 

Frank’s hand pushes your abdomen down, steadying the tremor, while his voice near your ear sounds: “That’s it — let him see how polite you can be.” 

You look to your right to see his cock sitting against his stomach, free hand doing lazy strokes up and down the base.

Robby hums low, mouth dragging down the damp seam of your underwear in languid swipes. His tongue flattens, gathering your taste, then flicks upward. His nose nudges your swollen bud with every rise. 

“Press a little harder right there,” Frank tells Robby. “She’ll act like it’s too much, but she likes it. Don’t let her squirm away.”

Robby listens. You hate that, you decide. How he’s on Frank’s side now.

You had been counting on his natural contrarianism to save you from Frank’s encyclopedic knowledge of all your most intimate buttons. No suck luck.

He bears down on the pulse point Frank named, then tongue-blades upward. White heat flashes through you and you flinch, trying to shear sideways, but his grip tightens, thumbs denting soft skin. 

“Uh-uh, baby — stay right there and take it,” Frank croons, the up and down rhythm he approaches with his cock kicking up speed. “You know it feels good, let him give you every drop.”

Robby works you relentlessly, sloppy and dirty, tongue alternating broad licks and focused circles that make you arch off the bed. You bury both hands in his hair, nails scratching his scalp, unable to keep your moans at bay.

“Good girl,” Frank drawls. “Let him make it up to you. All those times he’s been a dick at work. Seems only fair he uses his mouth for something useful.”

Robby shoots him a murderous side-eye but doesn’t slow. Instead he hums, vibration punching straight through the fabric. Your moan breaks into pieces — so close you can taste it. 

“Michael, I’m gonna —”

He hears his first name like a starting gun. His tongue locks onto your clit in punishing patterns, each lap faster than the last, crooked nose grinding everything just right. 

In two heartbeats the world pinpoints to a blistering of sensation. Your vision whites out, fingers clawing uselessly at this hair and the sheets as your climax slams through you. A ragged cry spills against Frank’s thigh while every muscle locks, then ripples.

Still, Robby doesn’t relent. His mouth stays on you, tongue lapping through the quake, coaxing aftershocks that make your thighs quiver against his braced shoulders.

Only when tremors give way to trembling afterglow does he ease back, breath hot against the sodden fabric, leaving you boneless and blinking, pleasure echoing through every nerve like a fading siren. 

Robby lifts his mouth, chin and beard glistening. 

“Thought about this every damn shift,” he says, tongue darting out to chase another bead of you from his lip. “Tastes even better than the fantasy, doll.”

Your eyes drag into focus by inches.

“That’s wildly unprofessional,” you mumble, the words softened by the fact that your thighs are still trembling around his head. You try to look stern. You suspect you look freshly exorcised. “You should probably report yourself.”

Frank’s hand tightens where it rests on you, his voice dropping to something rougher. 

“Don’t worry, baby. We’ll give him plenty to confess to.” He looks over your body, then to Robby. “Think she’s ready to find out what happens when we stop taking turns?”

“She’s ready,” Robby responds. “And if she isn’t, she’ll tell us. Won’t you, angel?”

A twin grin blooms across two previously warring faces.

This is not how you pictured getting Frank Langdon and Michael Robinavitch back on the same page. 

But if this is what conflict resolution looks like nowadays, who are you to stand in the way of progress?