by Krista Wolf
Easy, Brooke.
It took me a moment to calm myself down. To remind myself of exactly why I was doing this in the first place.
It’s all for the purpose of research, remember?
Yeah, I remembered. The article. Always the article. But not just any article, this time.
No, this could easily be the biggest article of my entire life.
I glanced down again at RadTriad’s profile page. I saw strong, ripped arms. Broad, beautiful shoulders. It was hard dragging my eyes from the cluster of hot profile pics, but somehow I eventually managed. The tiny bell beside the name was illuminated now, indicating the user was actively online.
Still up. Was getting ready for bed though. Lucky you caught me.
Immediately after hitting SEND, I winced. I was trying to come off as fun, playful. But it might’ve just as easily come off as bitchy and evasive.
Bed, huh? ;)
Relief flooded through me. I wasn’t even trying to flirt, really. It was just the simple truth.
It’s not as exciting as you’d think, LOL. I wrote truthfully. Long day. Longer one tomorrow.
My eyes fluttered back over their profile pics. Three guys. Three ripped, muscular, beautiful guys…
Three guys looking to date a single, solitary woman.
It made no sense to me really, that guys this good-looking would be into something like this. Then again, I was only assuming they were good-looking. Every photograph had been taken from the chin down, no faces visible, for purposes of discretion.
Well tired or not, we really like your profile.
There it was again, that word “we.” The one little word that made this whole thing so strange, so foreign So incredibly—
And we absolutely LOVE your photos.
I would’ve been flattered, but the profile wasn’t really mine. I’d borrowed pretty much everything witty or funny from other profiles on the site; other women looking for polyamorous relationships. The pics were mine however. I’d taken three different shots, two of them casual, one of them a little flirty. A little sexy…
Hannah? You still there?
Hannah. It had been the name I’d chosen. The first name that popped into my head two nights ago, when creating my fake little online persona. I liked the name because it was a palindrome. Plus, it just sounded cute.
Or did we bore you to sleep already?
I smirked a little before reaching down for the keyboard again. My fingers flew over the keys with journalistic speed.
Your profile is pretty far from boring, I typed. Almost a little too good to be true, if I’m being honest.
It was, actually. Three shredded, athletic-looking men — all professionals, according to their profile descriptions — all looking to share the same woman. Even judging from their cut-off photos I could tell they were hot-looking. Square, masculine jaws. One clean shaven, the other two covered in sexy stubble…
So you don’t think we’re real? Give me your number.
My heart was actually racing now. It didn’t make sense. I didn’t even know these guys! But if I wanted to write my article…
I hammered out the ten digits, area code first. A half minute went by. Forty-five seconds…
My phone beeped out a new text alert. I grabbed it and punched the button, nearly gasping at what I saw.
The photo on my phone’s screen was absolutely gorgeous! The man had dirty blond hair. Steel grey eyes. His face was beyond handsome, and split wide with the warmest, most genuine of all possible smiles.
Wow…
Below his adorably dimpled chin, he was holding up a small piece of paper. Scrawled across it, apparently in black Sharpie, were the words “Hi Hannah! I’m Adam.”
Somewhere beneath my belly-button, my stomach did a sexy backflip.
Now you.
The two words appeared on my phone, but for a few seconds I ignored them. I was still busy staring at the photo. ‘Adam’ was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, showing off a pair of strong, sculpted arms. And my God… his shoulders…
You don’t think I’m real either? I typed, trying to stall. You don’t trust me?
You gotta earn trust, Adam shot back, adding a little smiley face. Besides, if I’m being honest? You could be anyone, really. Your profile is only two days old.
Maybe I created it because I saw your profile? I suggested. Maybe I only made it for the sole purpose of reaching out?
That part was actually true. This was the third poly-dating site I’d browsed, and it was the best one by far. It was also the only one that came up with hits anywhere near local to me. Adam’s had been within the Ithaca city limits, a little more than a mile away.
He still hadn’t answered though. Carrying my phone into the kitchen, I sighed and typed:
Okay, fine.
Scrambling for pen and paper, I wrote the words ‘Hi Adam’ followed by a little heart on a yellow Post-It note. Then I took a smiling selfie, slapping the Post-It comically on my forehead, and sent it off to him.
I saw the little text-bubble appear immediately, indicating he was typing.
Damn. You’re even beautiful at bedtime.
I blushed — actually blushed — while staring at his photo for a third time. On a whim I typed something. Something I never in a million years thought I’d type:
Gonna need you to re-take that pic, but without the sign. It’s totally blocking my view.
I bit my lip as long, agonizing seconds ticked by. A full minute passed. I started wondering if maybe I hadn’t scared him off.
Suddenly my phone chimed again. A photo came through… one in which Adam was lifting his shirt to his chin, showing off a six-pack of shredded, washboard abdominals that would make any woman drool. Just above it, I could see the hint of two perfect pecs, rock-hard and muscular.
How’s this for a view? the text beneath the photo asked.
Two
BROOKE
It was a double-edged sword, working for Mythic Daily. On one hand, it was one of the more successful independent magazines. We came into a thriving marketplace, with a solid online presence and a good mobile integration team. This was especially important as so many of our sister-mags were going belly up, having been too established in the ancient world of printed copies to adapt to a more modern-day format.
On the other hand, it wasn’t like I was writing literary prose, either. Most of my articles had to do with celebrity gossip or not-so-important current events. I wrote shock value stuff with high visibility; the kinds of things people read on a whim, simply because they were too interesting not to.
During my three-year tenure I’d done it all. I’d run sex polls for a while. A relationship advice column called Bring it to Brooke. I’d even put out a series of godforsaken makeup tutorials, before finally rising up through the ranks to more important pursuits.
Yet no matter what I did, I always tried to keep the work serious. I labored hard at making every article compelling, even when my stories were twisted into grotesque caricatures of their original format, or when editors were swapping my titles out for click-bait headlines that would garner more views, and thus, more advertising revenue.
But now…
Now I was near the top. Finally recognized as one of the best writers in the whole magazine, and given near free rein over what to write. The promotion came with a tiny office, a zero-percent raise, and triple the responsibility.
But it was freedom. And so I took it.
What came as a surprise however, was the latest opportunity given to me by my boss, Chloe. An assignment more important than any other article in the history of our magazine, because if we didn’t blow it, it could lead to a much more lucrative future for Mythic Daily.
And that’s because Cosmo, of all magazines, wanted to do a collab with us.
“It’s not so much of a collab,” my boss had said two weeks ago, “but more of a guest spot in an upcoming issue. One that could potentially lead to a recurring role, which would boost visibility and l
egitimize Mythic Daily in ways that no amount of bought-and-paid-for publicity ever could.”
The article I’d been tasked to write was on the nature of polyamorous relationships. Poly meaning ‘more than one’ and amory meaning ‘love’, it was about any number of couples or thruples (or foursomes or moresomes) that were, on a consistent basis, opening their committed relationships up to others.
The whole idea fascinated me, and always had. The idea that people would actually do this… that they could somehow share their partners with other people, somehow without getting jealous?
Well it pretty much just blew my mind.
And yet last night, I’d been talking with someone who actually did those things. A guy who by all accounts shouldn’t need any help getting a girlfriend, yet somehow felt the desire to share his woman with not one, but two of his closest friends.
It was enough to leave me breathless the rest of the night, especially after making a date with them. I’d spent a restless hour and half staring up at my bedroom ceiling, wondering what would happen when I met them on Friday night. Wondering what it could be like to date all three of them.
It’s just coffee, my mind told me over and over again. You’ll ask some questions. Get some great ideas for the article…
Only coffee was just for starters. Adam had told me they wanted to take me out — to dinner and beyond — as long as the four of us ‘hit it off’. I couldn’t say no. Or rather, Hannah couldn’t refuse… especially since she’d been the one who reached out to them in the first place.
So far I’d interviewed quite a few people involved in the polyamorous lifestyle. I’d met Paul, who had a wife and a girlfriend. I’d sat down with two other women who had multiple boyfriends each, and who’d even traded off from time to time.
But this situation… this was three guys willing to share one girl. Three young guys, just out of college. Friends and roommates who were looking for a very specific arrangement, at least according to the profile.
And it sounded a lot like they’d done it before.
I’d met Adam already, at least through text-messages. We’d even shared a few flirty photos before I’d drifted off to sleep. On Friday I was slated to meet Dante as well, and their other friend Trey. I had brief descriptions of each, based on their profile page and their collection of faceless — yet still smoldering — photos.
Shit, even their names were hot.
These things and more ran through my mind, as I typed up an outline of what I had so far. I needed to go deeper. I needed to get inside the heads of these guys, and find out what made each of them tick. This couldn’t be just some bubblegum article on a sexually charged topic. No, it had to be the best fucking article ever written.
“Hey baby.”
My body stiffened in my chair. The voice was like nails on a chalkboard. I knew its owner even before glancing up over my monitor, to where my smirking ex-boyfriend stood leaning in the doorway.
“Soo… What are we doing tonight?”
Three
BROOKE
Chris slithered into my little office without being invited. His body bent in a very snake-like, unnatural way, as he helped himself to one of the guest chairs.
“Same thing we do every night,” I answered, looking back at my screen. “Nothing.”
He asked the question almost daily, and always with the same smirk. My answer was always the same as well, but it never stopped him from trying.
“C’mon,” he said, shifting until he was comfortable. “There’s a new Thai place on State Street. They have the best drunken noodles.”
“Have you even had their drunken noodles?”
“No,” he said defensively. “But that’s what Yelp says.”
“Do you even know what drunken noodles are?”
He made a face, like he’d just swallowed something sour. I let out a little laugh-hiss, through partially-clenched teeth, then went back to typing, just to look busy.
“So I’ll pick you up at—”
“CHRIS,” I interrupted him sternly, as always. “We are not dating.”
Now it was his turn to scoff. He let out a short laugh of dismissal, as if I were being totally silly.
“We haven’t been dating for what is it… six or eight months now?” I asked.
“We’re still dating,” Chris insisted. “Remember what you said? We’re just taking some time off.”
I sighed in exasperation. “The ‘time off’ thing was to soften the blow. I never should’ve said it.”
“But you did.”
I shook my head. “Well I’m telling you now, our breakup is permanent. You know that already. I’ve told you a million times.”
Chris leaned forward in his chair. He was wearing one of his usual blazers over a red printed T-shirt, probably with some witty, geeky saying scrawled across it. I couldn’t even tell with this one. It was written in Japanese.
“We just need to reconnect,” he said slowly, as if it would somehow help me understand. “We can’t keep doing this. C’mon Brooke, we were meant to be together!”
I closed my eyes in sheer frustration and sank back heavily into my chair. The momentum rolled me a few inches away from him.
So it was going to be one of those days…
“Chris—”
“You love me,” he jumped in. “You said it yourself.”
“Chris, that was a year ago.”
“You don’t just stop loving someone,” he pleaded.
Yes you do. Especially if you never really loved that person in the first place.
It all started over a year ago, with a drunken makeout session at the company Christmas party. I’d taken Chris home, back to my apartment, where I proceeded to have mediocre sex with him. This turned into a mediocre relationship, mostly because I was bored and lonely, but also because he seemed like an okay guy.
But then he’d moved in with me…
And things went from bad to worse.
To say Chris was weird would be the understatement of the century. Every odd quirk, every little idiosyncrasy I’d identified while dating him — it was all magnified a thousand-fold, once we were living together. As a boyfriend he was overbearing yet underwhelming, and had to micromanage everything. From the placement of my furniture to the calorie counts of every meal we shared, he never let up, never stopped pushing for total and complete command of our daily lives.
At first he was more annoying than harmful. There was the time he threw out all our condiments and bought new ones, just because he saw a silverfish in the cabinet. And the time he set all the clocks — including the one in my car — fifteen minutes ahead, just so I’d never be late for anything.
But the final straw was when he went through my closet and threw out anything I’d owned before I met him. Something about ‘not needing a past without him’ he’d said, and then grinned triumphantly as if such behavior were totally normal.
We broke up after only eight or ten weeks together. Yet it took another half year to get rid of him. Six long, ass-dragging months to have him dragged practically kicking and screaming from my apartment, thanks to an expedited eviction notice, served by one of my good friends at town hall.
Even after it was over, he refused to accept it. I’d come home to find Chris sitting on the couch, eating spaghetti like he still lived there. Wondering why the hell I was screaming at him, when he’d gone through all the trouble of cooking us both such a nice dinner.
I changed the locks. He changed them back. Special thanks to his friend Eddie the locksmith for that one, although once I had the police threaten to charge him if he ever did it again, my locks stayed mine after that.
Yeah, Chris was a real piece of work. And worst of all, he worked with me. I could go to human resources, of course, and stop this whole thing once and for all. Keep him out of my office forever, and back on the other side of the building where he worked as an editor.
There was only one thing stopping me, though.
Chris was my b
oss Chloe’s brother.
“Brooke!”
I drifted back to the unfortunate reality of my situation, just as Chris was snapping his fingers in my face. It was just one of the many things that made him a horrible person, much less a terrible ex-boyfriend.
“Are you even listening to me?”
I was angry now. He’d finally pushed me to that point.
“Chris?”
“Yes?”
“Get the fuck out of my office.”
My tone, and the look in my eye, told him I was deadly serious. He stared back at me for a moment, contemplating his next move. Sometimes Chris pushed me even past this point, and that’s where things got really ugly. Fortunately not today, though.
“Fine,” he said, waving his hand with a nervous laugh. “Maybe tomorrow, then.”
“Not a chance.”
“Actually Friday might be better,” he said, more to himself than to me. “I’ve got bowling tomorrow night, so we’d have to cut things short. And I’d rather spend more time with you than less. We really need to talk.”
I sunk my head into my hands, which were finally starting to shake.
Hold. It. Together…
I felt the presence of motion, and even a slight breeze as he left. My blood pressure dropped almost immediately. I took a long, deep breath…
And then finally looked up, right into my boss’s face.
“You should be working on the Cosmo article rather than bullshitting with my brother,” said Chloe. “Don’t you think?”
I bit down hard on my tongue to keep from screaming. She was standing in my doorway, hands on her hips. Not exactly angry, but not happy either.