✶·˚ content: afab!reader, throuple makeout sesh, domestic bobkat fluff (established relationship), bobkat are both equally down bad for reader, hella bisexuality, discussion of consensual polyamory, bobby being overprotective of reader (inklings of jealousy shh), it’s halloween baby!!, reader is an art student and a trust fund baby (but a sweetheart), no use of y/n

✶·˚ nsfw: marking, voyeurism (someone records the dare using bobby’s camera) (and he keeps the tape afterward bc duh), general horniness, honestly very sfw otherwise

✶·˚ wc: 6.2k

✶·˚ note: using finn and lukita’s irl birthdays, i made it so reader and bobby are still 21 at this point & kat is already 22 (bc i luv the idea that she’s older than him by two months lol). i apologise if there are any inaccuracies about cali, etc; i do not live in the states (yippee!). rip bobby you would have loved deftones

NOVEMBER, 1989

Santa Clara County, California. November, 1989. The doorstep to the 90s.

Ever since the tech boom of the past decade had wiped out a significant chunk of regional agricultural land, the fall season in Santa Clara had stopped looking less like an explosive motley of cozy colors—reds, burnished oranges, yellows—and more like the corporate hell landscape of its sister city, San Jose.

Silicon Valley was a shithole. Robert Franklin knew this. Kathrine Taylor knew this, too. And so did you.

But this anecdote isn’t quite about you. At least, not through your eyes—not yet.

It was the last week of fall—a weekend—when Bobby and Kat found themselves awake late at night; so late, their neighbors had fallen into a rare, languid silence. The bed was for sleeping and for sex, of which they were doing neither. So, they’d settled for slumping down onto the living room sofa while Bobby pretended not to worry about student loans and Kat pondered over the odd behaviors bossman Clark had been exhibiting lately.

In the corner of the room sat an old television, an unplugged fan that hadn’t seen a day of rest over the summertime, and several cardboard boxes of Bobby’s shit he had had yet to bother to unpack. The staticky hum of the box TV had become a soft drone below the movie neither he nor Kat were particularly invested in. She’d slotted in the first VHS her hands found—some horror movie Bobby had seen a hundred times—and used the distraction as background noise while she stitched new patches (two of which you’d given her) into her favorite denim jacket.

“You know you can buy ones that iron on, right?” Bobby said beside her, meaning the patches. He took a long drag from his cigarette, angling his chin to blow out the smoke away from his girlfriend rather than at her.

She didn’t look up from what she was doing. “And you know that I already know that, right?”

“I—”

“And that what I know now is more than what you’ll ever know, do you know?”

“You—what?” Bobby blinked. He checked to make sure that what he was holding was, in fact, a regular Marlboro red and not a joint. Yep. Regular cig. Bobby’s brain was fried alright, only it was the kind of neurological brain fry he’d been born with. “Whatever.”

Kat quietly snickered to herself. Bobby, whose arm was slung over the sofa, reached around her head to teasingly pinch her earlobe.

He was sporting a Grateful Dead t-shirt he almost never took off except to begrudgingly let Kat launder it. The shirt matched the same one you had in your own closet; concert merch you’d bought when he, you, and Kat saw the band perform live back in September. Bobby’d blown through over three weeks’ worth of salary (and emergency pot money—fuck) to acquire those concert tickets off some slummy scalper charging three times the price they originally sold for. But Kat’s birthday was coming up, and it was so worth it just to see the way she and you had lit up when presented with the tickets.

Then, at the venue, when you’d offered to buy everyone merch (“I insist!”) and Bobby had causally brushed you off (“I insist you don’t.”), you eagerly paid anyway with a million-watt grin that gave even the stage’s pyrotechnics a run for its money.

It was the least you could do, really. Bobby getting you those tickets (and for such an extortionate price, too) had very nearly given you a heart attack. You were, as far as the broke college students of the Valley were concerned, a trust fund baby. You could afford the small luxuries (at least, your parents could), and as such, you saw no reason behind your friends spoiling you the way they had been. Both Bobby and Kat had been so kind to you already. They didn’t see you for your money, or your status, or your all-exclusives-paid-for ride into art school. They saw you as your own person.

Someone truly important to them.

By the time the third act of the movie had swung into its final climax, Bobby and Kat had stopped paying attention altogether. The topic for the past hour had been about you. Offhanded mentions at first, so casually slipped in it was as if they had known you for years rather than some thirteen or fourteen months.

“Do you remember when she. . .”

“Oh! And the time the three of us. . .”

“What the fuck, Kat? You knew she stole my novelty lighter this whole time and said nothing?”

“Sometimes she’ll do this thing where. . .”

“No, no, I’m pretty sure she was the one who told me about. . .”

“Yes, I’m still pissed about the lighter! It was vintage and molded after a Scooby Snack!”

It had become glaringly obvious that you were not just a footnote in their lives now, but a book half-read. There were pages to you they had yet to peel back, with many more chapters to go. Some memories of you were like bookmarks; carefully placed and pressed between layers with a soft, endearing charm. Other memories were dog-eared; sharp and bent with defined ridges that served as permanent reminders of your existence: in the unlikely event you became a novella slotted away onto the bookshelves of their minds, traces of you would remain regardless.

“You take that back,” a grimacing Bobby was in the middle of saying. “I’m nothing like Shaggy. I’ve never smoked pot in a Mystery Machine.”

Kat grinned. “You do shag, though.”

The sound that erupted from Bobby’s throat was somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “The both of you are unbelievable, you know that?”

“Unbelievably good kissers.”

The couple fell very still.

There it was.

The first acknowledgement. That casual slip of the tongue. Only, things were. . . not-so casual anymore, were they? For all their chatter about you, there was one thing they had been skirting around for weeks now.

Kat sighed. “Bobby, I didn’t mean—”

“I can believe it,” he interjected, his voice a degree away from a mumble. “I had the bite marks to prove it. That woman has teeth.”

Tension clotted the air like smoke as Bobby waited for a cue. And he got it, eventually, with the slow upturn of his girlfriend’s glossed lips and a glint in her dark eyes that told him this wasn’t crossing a line, but the relocating of one; drawn in the sand somewhere else, just a little farther out.

“I’ve been thinking.” Kat put down her jacket and punched the needle through the denim for safe keeping. “About the, um. . . about what happened that night, at the Halloween party.”

After another sideward exhale of smoke, Bobby quickly turned his head back to her. “Mm?” He immediately clocked the troubled look in her eyes. “Hey,”—he smoothed his hand toward the nape of her neck, massaging her warm skin with a thumb—“what’s up? Talk to me.”

“I can’t—well.” Kat tried to find the words. Couldn’t. Puffed up her cheeks like a chipmunk and theatrically sighed. “I think, maybe. . . us kissing her was a bad idea.”

Bobby’s breath caught and settled awkwardly in his chest. “Oh.” He was suddenly conscious of the way Kat was drawing circles into one of his knees with a thumb of her own. “I see.”

“I know it was just a stupid party game,” Kat said. “And that’s all it should have been, right? Just a stupid game. But it was also. . .”

His frown was barely perceivable—but Kat noticed, just as she did everything. “A mistake?”

“I was going to say fun.”

“It was—” Bobby laughed through his nose. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was expecting her to say, but that wasn’t it. “Yeah, it was. . . fun. Which is half the problem, isn’t it?”

There was nothing cruel or conniving about the way Kat grinned at him. It was just a grin; this knowing, coy little spark of amusement. “You like her,” she said, “don’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do know.”

“No.” His smile was coy. “I don’t know anything you don’t know, remember?” As Kat chuckled, Bobby turned very quickly and scooped her up into his arms. “But I know I love and care about you,” he went on. “So fuckin’ much.”

“Even if. . .?”

“If?”

“If you maybe did like her in that particular way. . . Would you love me still?”

“Yes,” he said without missing a beat. “Christ, Kat—would you even love me?”

“Oh, babe.” Her tone lowered into that soft, warm note she used whenever Bobby was being a baby about something—which, embarrassingly, he realized he kind of was. “Of course I would. I do.”

She did seem a little offended by the notion that she couldn’t possibly love him still, but she wasn’t saying as much.

“I’ve actually. . . Well.” Kat hummed. “I’ve recently been thinking about that night, too.”

“And every day after?”

“You get it.” She smiled. “We’ve found someone we both connect with, you know, and it’s great. She’s great. I’ve never met somebody whose baseline trait is just. . . kind.”

“Sometimes a little too kind,” Bobby added. Not to be cruel, or necessarily judgmental, but to finally put a voice to an ingredient he had long since noticed about you. “And she’s disarmingly funny, too. I’ve been out-sassed! But, you know, it’s whatever—pfft—not even worried about it.”

Kat snickered and poked the corner of his mouth, which had curved downward into this funny little pout. When she next said your name, it was with a fondness that settled in her chest like a warm, fuzzy glow.

Kat reached up and kissed along her boyfriend’s jaw. “Does thinking about another girl make us bad people?”

“Even if it’s the same girl?” Bobby shuddered; Kat’s breath was like a warm caress against his skin. “I don’t know what it makes us,” he said. “But I feel a lot better talking to you about it.”

“I’m glad you are.” Another kiss, this time to his temple. Then again to his jaw, then his chin, and then— “Because I think I might like her a little bit, too.”

“Just a little bit?”

“Okay, maybe. . . a little more than a little bit.” She blushed. “Probably a lot more emotionally than you do sexually though, you perv.”

He guffawed. “I didn’t even say anything!”

“Bobby, you’re a man with a pulse.” Kat clicked her tongue. “You aren’t slick. I see the way you look at her—and I know you’ve caught me looking at her, too. You get this. . . face about you, like,”—she mimics the so-called face—“this. All stupid and starry-eyed and shit.”

“Fuck off,” he laughed. “I do not.”

“She’s hot.”

“God—right?” He immediately caved. Sucker. “So fuckin’ hot, it’s unfair. And that day we all went swimming in Del Valle? Seeing you two in your skimpy bikinis together was just—I mean, shit. Just—fuck, man.”

At this point, rolling her eyes had become instinct for Kat whenever it came to her Bobby. This time, however, she was grinning big and wide.

Her Bobby.

Yes. For all of his faults and those of her own, her heart told her he was still her Bobby. And you were her girl, in a way. Bright-eyes, she liked to call you. Kitty, you liked to call her.

There was some overlap there.

(And she was willing to share.)

Bobby watched through hooded eyes as Kat propped herself up on her arms and hovered over him, her cropped black hair framing her softly rounded face. She stared at him, searching his face for something, and Bobby stared right back. It was an exchange of silent communication and of respect.

At last, Kat said, “Let’s think on it. Later. Together. What to do about our little. . . conundrum.”

Bobby slid his hand through her hair, pulling her head to his shoulder to plant a somewhat rare, tender kiss to her forehead. “This changes nothing, baby. What we have together. . . I hope it won’t be—you know—awkward or anything just because a gorgeous girl came in with the wind and blew our way—”

“That’s. . . oddly sweet of you to say?”

“I wasn’t done.” The corners of Bobby’s mouth curved slightly upward. “I was about to say she blew in like that first breath of fresh air I get after hotboxing. My head is a little clearer, but she still has me fucked up.”

“Ah,” Kat sighed in reservation. “There’s my Bobby.”

“I trust you, babe,” he said. “And I know I can be irresponsible, and an asshole, and really moronic when I’m stoned,”—she stuck her tongue out at him at that—“but I really do hope you trust me, too.”

Reflex almost got her to make a joke about it. But she wasn’t about to ruin something that felt like progress; even if she wasn’t exactly sure what that progress was heading towards. “I do trust you,” she replied, and meant it. “Of course I do.”

“Then let’s think about it.” Bobby stamped out the last of his cigarette against the grain of the old coffee table—a bad habit Kat hated, and he still had yet to kick. “Whatever we do about this,” he went on, taking one of Kat’s hands into both of his, “whether we decide to tell her about how we feel or not. . . we’ll decide that together. Worse case, she only likes you, and I’ll just have to experience the unfortunate view of you two going at it while I sit there and—”

Kat shoved him. “Dude!”

“Oh, what? You said so yourself—I’m a man, and I have a pulse. You think I haven’t imagined how you two would look together ever since that day at Del Valle?”

“You’re so whoreish.”

“I’m truthful.”

“Truthfully whoreish! I keep expecting the two of you to lay down and have passionate sex right in front of me.”

His responding smirk was shameless. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Kat turned her face away to hide her blush, but Bobby was quick to pull her back to him. He kissed her, slow and soft, the scent of her coconut shampoo and aloe lotion washing over him like a cool day at a poolside.

Pools. Water. You and Kat in bikinis that left nothing to the imagination. Oh, great—Bobby was hard downstairs and thinking about that day at Del Valle all over again.

And then there was Halloween.

Better yet: he had the evidence on camera.

OCTOBER, 1989

“You’re an angel.”

With the flash of a smile and a theatrical curtsy, you replied, “Why, thank you.”

The mellow stranger before you—dressed like a character from a movie you watched religiously—gave a hearty chuckle. “Personality wise too, I suppose,” said the young man—a boy, really—gesturing to your own costume. “Did you make your wings? They look heavy.”

You wriggled your back a bit, feeling the swish, swish of the white feathers you’d painstakingly sewn on to an apparatus constructed from chicken wire, fabric, and foam.

“With a little downtime and wishful thinking,” you remarked, “anything’s possible.”

“Hell yeah,” the stranger said, raising his red solo cup to you as a gesture of cheers. “I’m Dick, by the way.”

You provided your name in response. Only after you took a tentative sip from your own cup did you realize what he’d said. “Wait,”—the faintest bit of liquid dribbled from the corner of your mouth, which you were quick to wipe away—“is your name really Dick?”

“Richard,” he grimaced like that was worse somehow—and maybe it was. “Richard Chaney.”

“Well,” you said, your smile true, “it’s nice to meet you, Dick Chaney.”

You met the rim of his cup with your own and, with a wordless understanding, the two of you chugged back whatever remained of your beers. The beer was cheap, but it was free. And, like a bird released from a cage (or in this instance, an angel), you felt like you’d been marginally freed, too. It was your first night drinking at the tender legal age of twenty-one, though it was far from the first time you’d gotten buzzed.

You weren’t drunk, you were certain of that. But the few hits Bobby had given you of his joint earlier as a “pregame” to Halloween night had begun to turn the edges of everything very soft and misty, like looking through an optical bloom effect of a camera lens.

Now that you were here at the off-campus party, the booming and decidedly pretentious SCU fraternity of male self-importance looked suddenly small. The sheer amount of bodies packed together from room to room was stifling. Students danced, drank, conversed, shouted, sucked face. For your first of-age party, it was, admittedly, a little overwhelming.

Unknown to you was the fact that, as you stood there talking to your new friend Dick Chaney, Bobby had been quietly watching you from the other side of the room. Had been for the past five minutes now. There was nothing sinister about it. Overprotective? Probably. But men noticed you—women, too—and Bobby knew you’d been burned before.

“Having fun being a stalker over here?” Kat inquired as she returned to Bobby’s side with a new drink in her hand. “You’re like a goddamn gargoyle.”

His frown deepened. “I don’t like him.”

“So your solution is to explode the guy with your mind?”

The red in Bobby’s eyes—that glazed-over high ringing the bright blue of his irises—remained as he blinked and merely said, again, “I don’t like him.”

Though she was grinning, Kat rolled her eyes. Her costume was a downplayed version of Lydia Deetz’s red tulle gown from Beetlejuice, her hair jelled and teased into submission like the titular gothic character. Meanwhile, Bobby was dressed as Back to the Future’s Marty McFly, JVC camcorder and all.

That camera was the only thing keeping him sober—alcohol wise, anyway. It wasn’t his. As a matter of fact, it belonged to you. What Bobby did not know, however, was that your declaration of allowing him to “borrow” it was secretly your way of saying “Have it; it’s yours.”

Despite her amused grin, Kat rolled her eyes. “Come on then.” She made a grab for Bobby’s hand and yanked him along, not caring for his protest of ‘Hey!’ as his beer sloshed over his solo cup mid-sip. “Let’s go rescue our girl who definitely doesn’t need rescuing.”

You were alone when the couple approached you—Dick having left to apparently search for his own group of friends—and immediately broke out into a smile with a warmth like the sun.

“Hey again, bright-eyes,” Kat greeted with a quick peck to your cheek. It was a casual exchange, innocent and instinctive: something you’d adopted since the two of you became fast friends after meeting during a protest in the name of feminism. “He wasn’t bothering you, was he?”

“Who?” You blinked. “Dick?”

“Who names their kid Dick?” Bobby grimaced. Even in front of you, he wasn’t hiding his annoyance over the guy—though a slight waver in his tone almost bordered on jealousy. “Or is that your way of saying he was an asshole to you? ‘Cos I can always—”

“Dude,” you said with an ‘are you kidding me’ eyebrow raise, “the guy was dressed as Jareth from Labyrinth. Every good Bowie fan is respectful and at least a little bit gay.”

Kat chuckled, abandoning her half-empty solo cup upon a nearby chest of drawers—and Bobby did the same. “Speaking from experience, obviously,” the former said.

You winked. “Duality, baby.”

For the umpteenth time that night, Bobby awkwardly asked you, “Are you sure you’re okay with me using this?” He switched the JVC camcorder from one hand to the other. “This is an expensive fuckin’ cam to be using as a prop, angel. It’s not even—I mean, look at this thing—it’s practically brand new.”

Angel. Somehow, you felt like he wasn’t just saying that because you were dressed as one.

You managed to keep a straight-face, refusing to betray the fact that you’d bought it specifically as a gift to him. “I prefer photography,” you said with a shrug.

As a briefly distracted Bobby fiddled with the viewfinder, you and Kat shared a knowing look that had you two quietly giggling.

At last, you chirped out an, “Okie dokie!” and put down your empty solo cup between each of theirs. “I’m done standing around.” You grabbed the couple by a hand each, tugging them toward the throng of dancers in the center of the room before either of them could refuse. “Dance with me!”

Neither of them did refuse you, of course—and how could they, when your enthusiasm and tender heart were so infectious?

So, the three of you danced. Amidst the fray of bumping, costumed bodies, the room seemed to shrink until it was two sizes too small. Again, you were hit that vague sensation that it was all very overwhelming. And that was saying something. You’d been in the dangerous throng of mosh pits and underground raves before, and had braved the heat whilst innocently sitting beside your rich parents in the stands of Wimbledon.

It was different with Bobby and Kat, though. They were warm, and welcoming, and. . . safe. They radiated an energy you had become addicted to. They were your friends. You liked being around them. You liked them.

. . .Friends.

They were your friends.

And together.

As a couple.

Oh, how troublesome that was for both your fluttering heart and the current situation you found yourself in—or rather, in between.

“Oops,” Bobby muttered close to your ear, knocking his pelvis against your hip as he carefully avoided your wings and stepped around them to move to the other side of you. “Sorry.”

He was not even the least bit sorry.

Bobby missed both your smile and your eye roll as he moved to stand at your back; Kat pressed to your front in the meantime. You’d folded your wings down into a straight line behind your back—a mechanic you’d had the foresight to add ahead of time—which allowed the three of you to be closer. Now that you were in the middle, the already stifling room had become a furnace. The three of you weren’t dancing anymore so much as swaying, rocking, grinding. Compared to the heavy flux blasting over the sound system, your shared laughter with Kat’s was as melodic as wind chimes as the two of you laughed.

Bobby noticed. Even if he’d arrived to the party stoned out of his fuckin’ mind (he hadn’t), he’d have noticed.

Arms around your neck, Kat—needing to shout to be heard—said to you, “You’re so tense!” She slid her hands down to massage the tender dips between your neck and shoulders. The gentle pressure made you reflexively sigh. “You were fine ten minutes ago.”

Well, you wanted to say, I wasn’t practically dry humping an established couple ten minutes ago.

“I’m great, Kitty,” you instead said, only half lying. “Less talking, more dancing!”

The two bodies pressed against you responded in kind, moving with you like water. Five and a half songs later (most of which you’d all spent shouting out the lyrics to along with the crowd), and the three of you were retreating back to the sidelines for some fresh air.

You found solace outside on the back patio, which looked out onto a light-speckled view of Santa Clara. You’d barely made it past the sliding glass doors when you heard a shout of your name some ten feet away.

It was Dick Chaney again. You realized he was waving you over to a group of partygoers you supposed were those friends he’d scampered off to go locate earlier. There were seven of them in total, and they were sitting and laying in a circle upon a patch of lawn.

“It appears that Dick guy wants you to go over there,” Kat remarked.

“Stupid name. . .” Bobby mumbled when he thought you couldn’t hear him.

You blew out an amused breath. “Come with me,” you rasped. “Both of you, please? I sense a sinister party game is about to occur.”

The couple shared a cautious glance over your shoulder. Obviously, they weren’t about to leave you alone out here with seven strangers—all of whom were costumed; some near-unrecognizable under layers of facepaint and makeup. So, they followed behind you toward the circle of spirited faces, subconsciously holding hands as a means of communicating that they were together.

That didn’t stop Dick from raising an eyebrow at you as you lowered yourself onto the lawn beside him. He’d only known you for a combined twenty minutes, tops, but something about that momentary, wordless exchange with him told you he somehow understood what your friends really meant to you.

Introductions were quickly passed around; a few names you’d managed to latch onto while guiltily forgetting others. Kat, who looked a bit like a puffy red beanbag with her dress now bunched-up around her, was sitting next to you; Bobby and his camera on her other side.

“How about a sexy game of spin the bottle?” one of the guys amongst the group said, chugging the remnants of his Bud Light before throwing it into the middle of the circle.

Dick made a grab for the bottle and immediately tossed it back him. “We can’t spin a bottle in grass, dipshit.” He guffawed—and you decided then and there that you might one day like to become true friends. “Let’s stick to the classics, eh? A little truth or dare.”

Several people ‘oohed’ and hummed, including Kat. Bobby, who was still growing increasingly annoyed at a number of things regarding strangers, hesitated to comment.

“Three rules,” began Dick, holding up a finger for each rule spoken. “One: no choosing truth three times in a row—that’s chicken shit territory. Two: no one leaves this backyard. I can’t be assed chasing everyone around to make sure they held up their end of the dare. Okay? Okay. And three: everyone has to be comfortable with it. Either you’re committed, or you’re out. Told to strip? You strip. Reveal your crush? Reveal it. Told to eat a snail? Uh—maybe don’t do that, actually. Oh, and no maiming, violence, or blood related shit either—this isn’t a cult. Everyone in agreement?”

Everyone verbally murmured and nodded their approval. No one moved or stood to leave, which you all took to mean the ten of you consented.

The game soon proceeded clockwise around the circle, and with Dick volunteering to go first, that meant you’d always be last each round.

It was odd, the amount of things you’d managed to pick up about a group of strangers simply by the way they answered truths and went about completing dares. A particularly mouthy white guy who seemed to be all talk was dared to streak naked in the backyard (He did—it was terribly embarrassing and hilarious). One girl revealed her family supposedly had ties with the Italian mafia (Um?). Bobby was even dared to kiss the hottest guy in the circle (to which you and Kat tried very hard not to burst out laughing after Bobby sighed, crawled over to Dick, and kissed him on the mouth—tongue and all).

Exactly seventeen truths and twelve dares later, and the third round of the night was once again ending with you. Having chosen truth the previous two rounds, you had no choice but to settle for dare this time.

It was Dick who declared he had the perfect dare for you. You were relieved at first (only God knew what mafia girl might have had you do. . .) until you saw it again: that knowing, wordless eyebrow raise Dick quickly shot you.

“I dare you to. . . Hm.” Dick began, stroking his beardless chin just for show. He then got this sort of glimmer about his eyes as he pointed between you, Bobby, and Kat. “I dare you three to make out.”

You startled as though he’d lit a firecracker right beside your eardrum. “That’s daring three people, Chaney. You’re supposed to be daring me.”

“Okay,”—he flashed his palms in mock defense—“then I dare you to make out with the two of them. Better?”

Better? You wanted to scream! You wanted to—to. . . To what? God, this was about to get very dangerous, very quick, wasn’t it?

(. . .Wasn’t it?)

Your gaze immediately drifted to that of your friends to the right of you, who you were somewhat surprised to see already looking at you. Considering the subject matter, they looked. . . reserved somehow. Calm, almost. As if they were handing you all the cards in their deck, and were waiting to see how you would play your hand. Call Dick’s bluff and fold? Call check and go all in?

There was only one choice, really.

The more exciting play.

You lifted your chin in self-defiance. “Alright,” you said. You were never one to pass up a challenge, but this one felt personal, and was breaching new territory entirely. “For—um—how long exactly?”

“Oh,” mumbled Dick, scratching his real hair below his blond Jareth wig, “I hadn’t actually thought that far ahead.”

The guy on the other side of Bobby patted the JVC camcorder that sat on the grass near Bobby’s thigh. “How about until the tape in this bad boy runs out?” the guy declared with a shit-eating grin. “Why not make an event of it.”

“That tape can hold twenty minutes of footage, man,” Bobby remarked, clearly annoyed someone not you was touching the cam.

“Too short a time for you, horndog?”

Bobby narrowed his eyes. You rolled yours. Kat, in the meantime, snickered and turned to her boyfriend beside her. “Well,” she said, “how much B-roll of the night have you recorded so far?”

“Shit, I don’t know,” Bobby contemplated while working out the kink in his neck. “Fifteen minutes, maybe?”

Someone amongst the circle whistled in that suggestive ‘things just got sexy’ way.

Your sudden lack of confidence, however, was decidedly not very sexy. At least fifteen percent of you lacked the certainty to go through with it, but it was that eighty-five percent—that rush of doing something risky and exciting—that really mattered.

And so, to reel it back in, you blew out a steady breath and said, more to the circle than to Dick, “Okay. Dare accepted.”

More whistles and hoots of encouragement sounded off from around you. It was impossible not to blush; you suddenly wished your wings were real and that you could take flight, or perhaps cocoon them around yourself like a blanket to hide under.

“That is,” you quickly shot your friends a look, specifically making eye contact with Kat, “if it’s okay with you guys?”

Her giving the okay meant more to you than his did. Because Bobby was Bobby—sometimes you wondered whether he’d had wet dreams about watching you and Kat making out before, and deduced that he probably had.

(A correct assumption.)

Kat fisted her fingers through the grass to literally ground herself. She didn’t even need to look at Bobby to know he was waiting for her word. And she gave it—sort of—by saying, “I’m not one to chicken out on a dare.”

“Neither,” you and Bobby said in tandem.

The guy beside Bobby plucked the JVC up from the ground before the latter could protest, hiking it up into position near his shoulder.

“Careful with that,” Bobby hissed.

“Yeah, yeah. Calm down, Franklin,” the guy rebutted, and only then did you realize they knew each other. Judging by the way the guy switched on the cam and adjusted everything through the viewfinder, you guessed he must have been a film student at SCU, too. “Okay.” He pointed at you the way a director might. Suddenly you wished it was Bobby recording you, like he usually was—but that wasn’t exactly an option. “Ready to roll at your word, chica.”

You shot the guy an unimpressed glare. “Keep my ass out of your shots,” you said pointedly. “No unnecessary pervy shit.”

“Tempting. . .”

Bobby struck the guy’s knee for that.

With one last accusatory look Dick’s way—who merely winked at you in return (the bastard!)—you pushed yourself up onto your hands and knees and began the crawl toward the space between Bobby and Kat. You went slowly, attempting to steady the rapid beating of your heart, which had the absolute opposite effect on the couple as they watched you slink closer like some kind of aphrodisiac pantheress. Kat, already closest to you, swallowed and shuffled a little to the side to make room for you between her and Bobby.

You bit your lip and glanced back at the camera. “Until the tape runs out, right?”

Director-guy gave a thumbs up behind the viewfinder. “Starting. . .”—he clicked a side button to start the recording, upon which the tape whirred to life—“now.”

Five minutes.

What was five minutes of kissing between friends?

Four minutes and fifty-six seconds.

You weren’t sure who to grab first. So, abandoning forethought, you simply grabbed the both of them at the same time, tugging Bobby in by the vest of his costume and warmly cupping your hand around Kat’s cheek to guide her face toward you. At the very last moment, you decided to kiss her first, testing your theory about Bobby imagining you together.

When her lips met yours, they were petal-soft and willing, parting as you coaxed a gasp out of her by moving your hand from her cheek to the nape of her neck instead, where you used the friction to bring her closer. She tasted like a berry you suddenly couldn’t recall the name of—one of them; all of them; whichever. Sweet. Sharp. Almost floral. And a lot like the color red; a shade as vibrant as the tulle of her costume.

Still with your hand fisted in his vest, Bobby hovered a breath away, watching you both, studying you, as a low groan erupted from the back of his throat only you and Kat could hear.

Knew it, you thought.

The camera picked up everything else, including the way you traded her mouth for his, yanking him to you with a strength that lacked any and all caution and had now become something closer to desperation.

In comparison, Bobby tasted almost. . . familiar. You often smoked together; had hit the same pregame blunt earlier. You preferred the same brand of alcohol. He tasted like both these things. And yet, you were briefly perplexed as your mind raced to find a way to describe the underlying note of his kiss. Hungry. Self-assured. Burning.

So too burned the tender flesh of your skin as Kat dipped her head to kiss the salt of your neck, already warmed and slick with a thin sheen of sweat from dancing. Her tongue dragged slow circles over you, encouraging your own to flick out from your mouth to explore more of Bobby’s. He was surprisingly responsive and self-possessed. A little stiffer than Kat, perhaps (he was a man with a pulse, yes—but still a marginally respectful man), and he let you lead for the most part, not quite sure how far he was allowed to go.

You were distantly aware of voices, and whistling, and music, and a prickle of invisible electricity stabbing at your back from the video camera. But the witnesses and the background noise and the night around you faded, until all there was was you, Bobby, Kat, and this unspoken, nuclear energy warbling between you three like radioactive fallout.

Suddenly you were all over each other. Any restraint you might have had fizzled away along with the neurons in your brain, which had turned to mush. Kat was kissing you. . . and then she was kissing Bobby. . . and by that point, you’d already latched onto the place below his jaw with your mouth, trailing a line of kisses toward his throat.

He hissed as you near-bit and sucked a little too hard, but he did not stop to complain about it. You left several markings with your teeth, then moved on to pepper a few kissed-on bruises over the tender muscle in Kat’s neck.

Someone in the circle said something; a far-off, distant voice in some other land, in some other time. You didn’t care for it. You were attentive as you watched Kat reach around to pull Bobby in by the blond of his hair until the two were crashing their lips together over your shoulder. Your lashes fluttered like the feathers on your wings as you gazed at the two above you, your chest rattling with a soft, auspicious laugh. They were touching you and kissing each other at the same time—messy and uncoordinated and all tongue—and you felt wonderful.

You barely had time to blink before they detached and immediately set to work on you again. Bobby’s tongue and teeth found your neck, sucking and biting at the flesh, while Kat grabbed you by the chin and devoured your mouth with hers. You were breathing heavy, faintly mewling as they molded you between their hands like putty.

And then came that distant voice again.

“Yo!” they yelled. “I said that’s it for the tape; the recording called quits!”

There was an audible little ‘pop’ of your lips detaching from Kat’s, then another as Bobby pulled away from your neck after one last purposeful suckle. You didn’t make immediate eye contact with the two, or wait for either of them to say anything.

Now that it was over, you were afraid the mirage of that radiating togetherness would somehow shatter.

Steeling your resolve, you turned your head, heart slamming against your ribs like a gale force wind, and made eye contact with the camera.

“You get all that?” you asked.

Director-guy grinned. “Three minutes of footage, chica.” He whistled low. “Now that’s what I call a show.”

Three minutes.

When you finally turned back to Bobby and Kat and fell level with their eyes, the two of them were breathing hard and panting like you. Likewise, your own costume and hair were surely as frazzled as theirs appeared.

Talk about a show indeed.

Mustering up whatever sliver of confidence remained within you, you declared, “That was fun!” and reached out with both hands to affectionately pat the both of them on a cheek each. “If my ass ended up on that footage at all thanks to your director friend there, Bobby,” you murmured, “I’m coming to your place and burning it.”

It came as a great relief when Bobby laughed. Kat, meanwhile, melted below your touch.

Three minutes.

You’d been expecting five.

Somehow, cruelly, it felt like those precious two minutes had been stolen from you.