Chapter 567 | The Best I’ve Got

Chapter 567: 567 | The Best I’ve Got

"I’m not grading." Diane’s fingers traced lazy patterns on Sloane’s spine. "I’m providing feedback. There’s a difference."

"There really isn’t."

"Sugar, I run a PR agency. Feedback is how people improve. Would you rather I lied and said that first attempt was your best work?"

Sloane lifted her head just enough to glare at her mother. Her pink hair was a disaster, stuck to her forehead with sweat, and her cheeks still carried that post-orgasm flush that made her look younger than seventeen. "I would rather you not be here at all while I’m trying to have sex with my boyfriend."

"And yet here we are." Diane stretched like a cat in a sunbeam, completely unashamed of her nakedness. "Besides, you invited yourself into my room. I was perfectly happy with my two hours."

"You went forty-three minutes over."

"I went until I was satisfied. Different metric entirely."

I lay there with Sloane’s weight on my chest and Diane’s hand on my arm and wondered, not for the first time, how my life had become this. Eighteen months ago I was a transmigrant in a dead kid’s body with no Aspect and no prospects. Now I had a System that rewarded me for making powerful women fall in love with me, a spot at the world’s most prestigious hero academy, and apparently a standing invitation to threesomes with my girlfriend and her mother.

The System had a sense of humor. A deeply fucked up one, but a sense of humor nonetheless.

Sloane rolled off me and flopped onto her back between Diane and me, staring at the ceiling. "I can’t believe you taught me how to ride dick. That’s not normal mother-daughter bonding."

"Would you prefer scrapbooking?"

"I would prefer not having this conversation."

"Too late." Diane propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at both of us with an expression that carried equal parts affection and mischief. "Besides, who else was going to teach you? Certainly not whatever inadequate fumbling you would have figured out on your own. I’ve seen the search history on the household router."

Sloane’s entire face went red. "You said you didn’t look at that."

"I said I respected your privacy. Those are different statements."

"Mom!"

I laughed, which earned me a punch to the shoulder from Sloane. It didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt anymore, not really, not with the Pain Tolerance trait doing its work underneath everything. But I flinched anyway because that was what boyfriends did when their girlfriends hit them for laughing at inappropriate moments.

"Don’t encourage her," Sloane said.

"I’m not encouraging anyone. I’m lying here minding my own business."

"You’re lying there looking smug."

"I just had two beautiful women take turns riding me. Smug is the appropriate facial expression."

Diane’s laugh was low and warm. "He’s not wrong."

"He’s always wrong. It’s his default state." Sloane turned her head to look at me, and underneath the annoyance I felt something softer through the bond. Relief. Gratitude. The bone-deep certainty that I was alive and breathing and here with her. "You almost died, you know."

"I’ve been informed."

"Multiple times."

"Also informed."

"And the first thing you do when you get home is fuck my mother."

"Technically she fucked me. I was instructed to lie still and let her take care of things."

Diane made a sound of agreement. "He’s a very good listener when properly motivated."

Sloane covered her face with both hands. "I hate both of you. I hate this entire situation. I hate that I’m lying naked in my mother’s bed after watching her demonstrate proper cowgirl technique."

"The hip circles were important," Diane said. "You were bouncing like you were trying to win a pogo stick competition."

"I was enthusiastic!"

"You were inefficient."

"You said there’s no grading!"

"There’s no grading. There is, however, objective assessment of mechanical performance."

I pulled Sloane’s hands away from her face and kissed her forehead. Through the bond I sent a pulse of warmth, of love, of the quiet certainty that had settled into my chest since waking up in the hospital. The certainty that said this was mine now. These people, this place, this absurd and complicated life.

Sloane’s expression softened. Her hand came up to cup my jaw, and for a moment we just looked at each other while Diane watched with the patient stillness of someone who understood exactly what was passing between us.

"I thought you were dead," Sloane said quietly. "For three seconds. The bond went silent and I thought—"

"I know."

"You can’t do that again."

"I know."

"Promise me."

"I can’t promise that." I turned my head and kissed her palm. "I can promise I’ll always try to come back. That’s the best I’ve got."

Her jaw tightened. For a moment I thought she might argue, might demand something I couldn’t give, but then she exhaled and the tension left her shoulders.

"Fine. But if you die on me, I’m going to find whatever afterlife you end up in and drag you back by your stupid hair."

"That seems reasonable."

"It’s not reasonable. It’s insane. But so is jumping in front of black fire at four percent stamina, so we’re both working with what we have."

Diane’s hand found mine and squeezed. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. The gesture carried nine years of complicated history, two months of even more complicated intimacy, and the simple fact that she’d sat in a hospital room for eleven days watching a monitor tell her whether I lived or died.

We lay there in the fading evening light, three people who probably shouldn’t work together and somehow did. The System notification from earlier pulsed in my memory. Internal betrayal. The only thing that could break the bond with Sloane.

I wasn’t planning on betraying anyone. But the System had put the warning there for a reason, and I’d learned to pay attention to the things it chose to tell me.

"I’m hungry," Sloane announced. ℴ

"We have leftover Thai food."

"That’s cold now."

"Microwaves exist for a reason."

"The pad thai gets weird when you reheat it."

"Then eat the spring rolls."

"You ate all the spring rolls."

"I ate three spring rolls. There were twelve in the box."

"And I ate six before we came upstairs, which means there are three left, which means you ate all the remaining spring rolls."

Diane sighed and sat up. "I’ll order more food. Any preferences beyond ’not the pad thai you refused to eat when it was fresh’?"

"Pizza," Sloane said immediately.

"We just had Thai."

"And now I want pizza. My body requires carbohydrates to recover from the workout you just put it through."