Heartless Few Box Set

by MV Ellis

  “Coffee?” It was a not-so-subtle segue away from a topic of conversation he was obviously not keen on pursuing. I was desperate for my morning hit, so I kept my mouth shut.

  “Of course.”

  He headed for the kitchen, while I stayed behind to fix my face and freshen my breath. I was wearing one of Arlo’s old tour tees and my panties. No bra, not that that was big news. I toyed with the idea of getting dressed again, but in the end, figured the clothes I’d worn yesterday when I thought we’d be spending the night fucking each other’s brains out until I forgot my troubles left less to the imagination than the T-shirt. Besides, it was nothing Arlo hadn’t seen about a hundred million times before. I was struck by another previously unforeseen advantage of always bailing before the sun rose—leaving while it was still dark had meant that I’d never really had to do the walk of shame. There was nothing like yesterday’s seductress outfit at 8:00 a.m. to make you feel seedy.

  In the kitchen, Arlo warmed up the café quality coffee machine while I sat on the edge of the countertop, like I had countless times. Just like on those other occasions, as Arlo turned his back to make our coffees, I leaned over and slid open the top drawer. I silently reached into the open condom box, grabbing one before nudging the drawer closed again. Almost on autopilot, I pulled his T-shirt off over my head and pushed my tits forward a little.

  When Arlo turned toward me again, his eyes widened in surprise. Holding his gaze, I very slowly opened and closed my legs, my intent clear. I. Dare. You.

  I allowed my gaze to travel downward, stopping when I caught sight of his erection. Hard. As. Wood. Pun very much intended. I stretched out my hand, offering him the condom laid out on my palm.

  “One last goodbye, for old times’ sake?” I meant it too. I knew it was over between us. This “thing” with London wasn’t even a thing yet, but if Arlo had his way, and we all knew he always did, it would be. This was to be our swan song, and though he had no idea, it would mean so much more to me than just sex. This was major for me. For years, sex with Arlo had been my version of therapy. I didn’t know how much it had truly helped me heal, but what it had definitely done was allow me to forget, and that’s all I really wanted. To numb the pain I couldn’t afford to let myself feel. To drown out the voices I couldn’t bear to listen to.

  He took the condom from me, quickly rolling it on. Sex between the two of us had always been off the chain. That had been a big part of what had kept us gravitating to each other time and time again for all these years. Today was the exception. We were both just going through the motions, and neither seemed to be getting much pleasure out of it. As Arlo pushed mechanically back and forth inside me, I knew I had made an epic mistake in trying to go out with a bang. No pun intended.

  Even more so when I looked up into a pair of beautiful caramel-colored eyes over Arlo’s shoulder. I didn’t need to be told that those eyes belonged to London. London. I stiffened momentarily, but like a deer in the headlights, I couldn’t move. I stayed like that as Arlo continued to move, and as London gasped in horror at the sight in front of her.

  The whole situation was a train wreck. Still paralyzed by a potent combination of fear and shock, I did the only thing I could think to do. I offered London a small tight smile by way of apology. Although according to Arlo, they weren’t together, I was sure walking in on us that way would have hurt her regardless. It definitely seemed that way when she turned on her heel and walked away. I watched as she retreated slowly, with the grace of the ballet dancer that she was—each step deliberate and measured. Well, shit.

  Just when I thought the previous eighteen hours couldn’t get any worse, Arlo and I had managed to fall to new depths together. I was rarely proud of myself on a good day, but at that moment, the shame I always felt ratcheted sky high. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, hoping that when I opened them again, the whole sorry scene would be gone from my reality and from my memory. It hadn’t worked when I was a kid trying to block out what was going on at home and didn’t work then. When I peered out again through heavy eyelids, everything was just as fucked up as it had been before.

  Arlo seemed to come to his senses first, pulling out of me quickly before tucking himself back into his pants and disposing of the condom. Thank God one of us had finally done the right thing. He hadn’t even come.

  “I’m sorry, Marns. I just can’t. You’re right. I think I’m falling in love with her.” Fuck. We had screwed up epically.

  “I’m gonna get out of here.” Suddenly hyperaware of and self-conscious about my nakedness, I grabbed the borrowed shirt and quickly pulled it back on over my head before sliding down from the countertop. Watching Arlo pace the kitchen, I was sure he felt equally as bad about the situation as I did, if not worse. That in itself was momentous. I had chosen him over Luke all those years ago because I had seen something deep within him that spoke to something in me. He was broken just like I was. I knew we couldn’t fix each other, I’d seen too much fucked-up shit to believe in fairy tales like that, but I had figured that, given we were already damaged goods, we couldn’t do any more harm, either. Better still, while we were occupied with each other, we couldn’t wreck anybody else. My plan had worked just fine. Until today.

  “Yeah, look, I’m really sorry….” He reached out to touch me, but I jumped out of the way. The last thing I needed was more contact with Arlo. That’s what had gotten us to that point in the first place.

  “Don’t, Arlo. Just. Don’t. Even.” I stalked down the hall and back to his bedroom to collect my belongings. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. So much for not doing the walk of shame, though this shame was way worse than the usual regret of the morning after the night before.

  Eight

  Luke

  As I walked toward the kitchen, I saw London heading my way and knew instantly that there was a problem. Her body language wasn’t right. She seemed crumpled and heavy-footed compared to her normal light-as-a-feather, graceful gait. Usually she glided around the place as though hovering above clouds, with a speed and ease reminiscent of a hummingbird. Today she walked deliberately slowly. It was almost as though she was trying to walk both forward and backward at the same time. Forward was winning, but only just.

  A swift glance at her face told me she was close to tears. I looked beyond her to the kitchen and saw Marnie and Arlo in flagrante at the countertop, Arlo’s butt bared and clenched as he rocked in and out of Marnie.

  Jesus fuck. What in the living hell was wrong with my dumbass of a brother? I didn’t think I’d ever understand how his mind worked or what impulses drove him. What could possibly make him want to do something so callous and hurtful? Even worse, why would he do that to London of all people, when it was blindingly obvious that he was falling for her? Surely even someone as emotionally stunted as he was could recognize that simple glaring fact? He made literally no fucking sense.

  Yet again, I would need to clean up after his mess. It was how our thing worked. He stomped around fucking shit up with reckless abandon. I walked behind him, attempting to put the pieces back together, like one of those guys in the hazmat crews who went in after the police and cleaned up crime scenes. I often thought about stopping. Just no longer giving enough of a fuck to bother and letting him sort out his own shit, but I couldn’t seem to go through with it. Not only did I think it was in nobody’s interests to let Arlo rampage across the world unchecked, but I also knew that if there was nobody there to clean up the messes—me, Paul, or Ryan—we’d all suffer the blowback in some way anyhow. It was better this way, but this shit had gotten old years ago.

  I had to admit that I also still secretly felt indebted to Arlo. He’d had my back when I was the “quiet twin.” When I could barely string a sentence together to anyone other than our family and close friends without stuttering, blushing, and just generally making a complete ass of myself. That level of shyness can literally be debilitating, but Arlo helped me through. He was my mouthpiece and, sometimes, my muscles when I co
uldn’t handle shit for myself. I’d guessed I’d always feel I owed him for that.

  I drew London into my arms and pulled her into the nearby formal sitting room. She was trying so hard to keep it together, but it was obvious she was wrecked by what she had just seen. Quite rightly so. She had been hesitant about Arlo from the get-go, and with good reason—he had one of the worst reputations of anyone in the industry. But I could also see she was drawn to him in spite of that fact. She clearly wasn’t comfortable with her feelings either. I’d watched her when she was around him—the emotional war raging within her was palpable.

  I was so angry with Arlo I could barely see. Though no longer the quiet twin, per se, I was still overwhelmingly considered the calm one of the two of us, and that tended to be an accurate portrayal. I was genuinely a pretty laid-back and easygoing guy, except for when confronted with the antics of my younger, nemesis twin. As kids, and still as grown men, nobody ground my gears the way he did. I mean I loved the guy with every fiber of my being, but I couldn’t say I liked him a lot of the time. Over the years, I’d come to understand and accept our love-to-hate relationship as a simple fact of who we were as people. It was as ingrained in our DNA as our crazy green eyes and thick dark hair.

  Still, understanding it didn’t stop it. I put a lot of energy into controlling my emotions where Arlo was concerned and spent a disproportionate amount of time trying to work out ways to prevent myself from killing him. It wasn’t easy. The fact was, one of us had to be the calm, rational, in-control one, and given that Arlo could never be accused of being any of those things, it was left to me to not be a card-carrying fuckhole. With Arlo on the other side of the equation, it was hard, thankless work that could try the patience of a saint. Given that I was far from a saint, I was often out of patience. Way out. Today was definitely one of those days.

  As soon as we were in the room, London crumpled in my arms like a discarded Kleenex, the tears she’d struggled to hold back finally raining down. Fuck this, and fuck Arlo for being Arlo. I wasn’t sure what exactly was going on between them, and I wasn’t entirely convinced they were either, but what I did know was that carrying on with Marnie right in London’s face, no matter what their current status, was a low act. I would say this for my devil-child brother: he could still find new ways to disappoint me, even after all these years. It was a talent, I guess.

  “Well, that sucked balls just a tiny bit.” She sniffed loudly, and I stifled a small smirk. On the face of it, London seemed dainty and demure to the uninitiated, but in so many ways, that couldn’t be further from the truth. That sniff could have put most truck drivers to shame.

  “Welcome to life with Arlo, sweetheart. It’s nothing if not eventful.” God, I sounded bitter, even to my own ears.

  “I’m sorry, that was stupid. I don’t know what it is about your brother, but he seems to bring out the worst in me. You must think I’m a total loser.”

  Nope. I already knew she could verbally spar with the best of them and come out on top. More than once I’d witnessed her tongue-lashing Arlo in a way nobody else had. If that wasn’t enough, she had slapped Arlo in the face when he’d crossed the line the first time they met, which seemed to have set the tone between them from there on in. I was never an advocate for violence as a problem-solving measure, but if anyone was likely to bring out those tendencies in even the most placid and good-tempered of people, it was Arlo.

  Somehow all of that had put London above the scores of women Arlo had been with over the years, and I knew she brought out feelings in him he’d never had for anyone before. Still, despite her obvious strength of character, I could totally understand how the frustration of dealing with Arlo could drive someone to violence and, in this case, tears.

  “Not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. I think you’re incredible. You had a bit of a shock, but you handled it pretty well, under the circumstances. At least you didn’t let them see that they got to you. That can be our little secret,” I said, as though sharing a major confidence. “I was wondering when you’d run into Marnie.” The truth was, I had been hoping she wouldn’t.

  “She’s Arlo’s girlfriend?” The hesitation in her voice almost killed me. I knew right there that she had it bad for my fuckface of a brother, and I hoped to God that this thing with Marnie would act like some kind of epiphany for him. That he’d be a changed man—the kind of man that deserved a woman as phenomenal as London

  “Girlfriend?” She clearly still had a lot to learn about him. “Nah, that’s not his style, you know that. I suppose fuck buddy would be the best description of their ‘relationship.’ We’ve all known her since we were at school—she’s a few years younger than us—and she’s had a thing for Arlo pretty much since day one. He reckons they’re just friends with benefits, but I know she wants more.”

  I watched her features, trying to gauge her reaction to this information. Her expression remained neutral, but it didn’t matter. She’d already told me pretty much everything I needed to know, without even realizing. The fact was, she wouldn’t have reacted that way to seeing them together if she had no interest in him. A familiar battle raged within me. The one where I was conflicted between doing the right thing in any given situation and having my brother’s back. It was an almost-daily struggle. Today, basic decency won out. I felt I owed it to both London and Marnie to word London up on the situation between my brother and our friend.

  “Their arrangement is that if they’re in the same country—she’s a model, so she travels a lot also—and are single, which of course he always is, they hook up. Apparently, the sex is phenomenal, and it’s easier than dating.” I paused, unsure of how much I should share.

  “Well, that’s how Arlo sees it, but it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that little Miss Marnie is crazy in love with him. I know for a fact that even if she’s not single, she’ll drop anything and anyone and come running when he calls. All he has to do is message her, and she’ll be around in a flash to get him off any way he wants. She refuses to see the writing on the wall, which is that she’s a convenience.”

  I realized as I saw the look on London’s face that I’d handled the situation badly. Telling her was one thing, but I should have chosen my words more carefully. I wasn’t talking to one of the boys, where it was a case of balls-out honesty at all times. I had wanted to do right by her and open her eyes to the situation with Arlo, not upset her even more than she already had been.

  “It’s a shame, because one-on-one, she’s lovely, and really she deserves better than this non-relationship limbo she’s in. But then when she’s around Arlo, she behaves like a cold, hard bitch, and I almost feel like she deserves what she gets. If she’s here, I try to make myself scarce—I really don’t want any part of that hot mess. I keep hoping she’ll lose interest in him, but she never does.”

  On the other hand, I wanted to help Marnie too. She seemed locked into her arrangement with Arlo, despite it being a deal they’d brokered years ago, when she was too naïve and too broken to know any better. I knew she was entitled to do whatever the hell she wanted, but for a long time something had been telling me that the situation was possibly hurting rather than helping her. The thought of anything causing her pain sent ripples of anger through my body, and I had to admit that my actions weren’t purely altruistic, and never had been. The fact that I’d loved her since the minute I laid eyes on her definitely didn’t make me an impartial observer of the game they were playing. Not even close.

  “She’s stunning.” London’s voice took on a reverential tone. It was true, of course, Marnie was one of the most beautiful women on the planet, but London was out-the-park gorgeous too. I guess that’s one thing Arlo and I did have in common—phenomenal taste in women.

  “Yeah, no doubt about that. She’s got a banging body too, but he’s never been that into her. Maybe it’s because she’s so hot for him. There was never any chase. It’s definitely a case of easy come—no pun intended—easy go for him.” The look on London’s fac
e was like a kick in the gut and had me questioning my own motives. Who was I really trying to help here?

  I released her from my embrace, taking her hand and stepping back toward one of the plush sofas, pulling her down onto it with me. We sat with our bodies slightly angled toward each other so that we could easily see each other’s faces. She looked so vulnerable that it just about killed me. I really hoped my brother wasn’t about to shit on her from a great height, but I wasn’t optimistic about his ability to do the right thing in any given situation, especially not one as foreign to him as being in love. I predicted that the fallout from all of this was going to be epic.

  Nine

  Luke

  I charged into the kitchen and found Arlo sitting at the table nursing a coffee. Marnie was nowhere to be seen.

  “Don’t even.”

  “Don’t even fucking what, Arlo? Seriously, what? Don’t tell you for the hundred-millionth time in our lives that you’re a card-carrying, flag-waving douche canoe? Don’t tell you to grow the hell up and stop acting like a spoilt fucking kid and as though your actions have no consequences? Well, guess what, buddy. All of the above. I’m not here to blow smoke up your ass and act like everything’s okay when that couldn’t be further from the truth. Man. The. Fuck. Up. Take responsibility for your what you’re doing, and stop ruining everyone’s lives.”

  Arlo rolled his eyes but at the same time sat up straighter in his chair, his back stiff. The eye roll was intended to show that he was simply bored with my BS, but the rest of his body language screamed otherwise. He was hella pissed. A vein in his temple throbbed. Well, he could choke on his rage for all I cared. I wasn’t about to back down over this.