by Eva Ashwood
“I think our Anthropology project is going to be great,” I say. I caved and had a second beer, and I’m feeling relaxed and happy.
“Nope. No school talk allowed. It’s the fucking weekend.” Trent throws his hands in the air.
“Okay, okay!” I chuckle. “You’re right.”
“Let’s talk about sports instead,” West says, his lip tilting up a little on one side. I get the feeling he’s fucking with me—but not in the cruel way they all used to. In a sweet, teasing way.
“Only if you don’t mind hearing me talk about how many goals the players score in basketball. Or how many touchdowns they score in baseball,” I deadpan, and the other side of West’s lips curves upward too.
“Yeah, that’s totally not fair, West,” Reese puts in. Then he winks at me, his boyish features lighting up with amusement. “Let’s talk about something we all enjoy. Porn.”
I slap his arm, laughing, but as the laughter dies out, the entire room goes silent. I can feel tension building like a cloud around us, and I’m suddenly hyper-aware of each one of the guys. Of how close they are to me, of how their distinctive scents seem to linger in the air, of every small movement they make, the flex of their muscles as they shift in their seats.
Can they feel this too?
“You’re disgusting,” Trent finally says with a roll of his eyes, breaking the tension, and everyone chuckles.
“Porn isn’t disgusting,” Reese argues, looking at Trent like he’s crazy.
“Yes it is. I don’t watch that shit,” Trent says.
“I do,” West says flatly.
The conversation moves on to other topics, but I can’t focus very well after that.
My mind keeps coming back to one thought. Trent broke the tension growing between us by making a joke.
But what would’ve happened if he hadn’t broken it?
21
Trent
“How’s school going? How were finals?” Mom asks me.
“Good. I’ve got one more tomorrow, then I’m done.”
“I’m so happy to hear that.” She lights up as she closes the fridge, her arms loaded with ingredients for dinner.
“Yeah. I think my grades are pretty solid.”
“And you and Emma?”
Shit, I was trying to distract myself from thoughts of Emma. Ever since I came home to visit my mom, she’s all that I’ve been thinking about. I can’t stop thinking about that night at her dorm. We fucked for hours, and it was the best damn sex of my life. I can’t stop thinking of the way her body looked and felt and even smelled. It’s all like some kind of dream now. We haven’t had sex since, but I’ve wanted it so badly.
“We’re doing okay. We feel like friends again.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful, Trent! It will make Paul so happy to hear.”
I’m not lying either. Emma and I do feel like friends again. She’s been hanging out with all the guys and things have been super chill.
“And you and Paul?” I ask, even though I know the answer. Even though I have to force the question out, I’m trying. I’m trying to be okay with this shit.
“We’re really happy together.” A smile beams on her face.
She is happy. I can see it on her face. And that’s good. She deserves that after the hell she’s been through. Her divorce from Dad nearly wrecked her, I think, and I’ll do whatever I can to make sure she never gets hurt like that again. He held her infidelity over her and used it to punish her, and the whole thing got so ugly, it was awful to watch.
So I’m glad she’s in a good place now, even if I still sort of hate the guy she’s seeing.
Shit. If my mom and Paul get married or something, is that going to make it awkward between me and Emma? On a scale of one to ten, how fucked up is it to want to bang your step-sister?
Is it more fucked up than knowing the girl you want to bang has had sex with both of your best friends and still wanting her anyway?
I know Emma had sex with Reese and West. Reese came out and admitted to it—as a challenge to me, I think. He figured out that she and I had hooked up, but I was trying to keep it on the down-low. I couldn’t easily do that when he was talking about how he’d fucked her in his car though, could I? I had to let him know he wasn’t the only one with a claim on her. So I came clean too.
West… well, he’s a whole different story. He never admitted shit. That man could take a secret to the fucking grave. But I figured it out anyway. I told Reese, and the two of us had a little chat with him and dragged the truth out of him.
I have to say, I was seriously jealous at first. I want Emma to myself.
But in the days that followed, all four of us have been hanging out, and it’s been… good. I like having Emma as a part of our group like she used to be, and for the moment, we’re just leaving things at that. But I still want more from her. So much more.
I’m supposed to hate her. I still don’t know who else could’ve sent that anonymous message to my dad telling him that Mom cheated on him. Emma and I were the only ones who saw. There’s no way anyone else was in that room.
But I’m ignoring that fact. I’d like to say I’ve completely forgiven her, but it’s more like I’ve just decided to pretend the evidence doesn’t exist.
Because I don’t want to hate Emma.
I set out to destroy her, but instead, I find myself encouraging her, smiling at her in class, and sending her texts way too fucking often. And the crazy thing is, this feels better than the vengeance ever did.
“Chicken pot pie okay for dinner?” Mom asks.
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
She looks over at me from the kitchen island, where she’s gathering vegetables on a cutting board. “Well, come on then. Put those muscles to work and help your mother.”
I chuckle and step forward, taking a knife and beginning to cut up the veggies into chunks. I actually really love cooking. Mom taught me how, and I cook often at the house I share with the guys. It relaxes me.
“Have you spoken with your father at all?” Mom asks, grabbing another cutting board from the pantry.
“No.” I shake my head, glancing at her. Ever since the divorce, I barely talk to him. I’m still pissed at him for how he treated Mom, and I think he decided to cut me out of his life the same time he cut her loose.
“I heard he’s dating someone.” Her voice is a little tense, but when I look at her, she’s focused on the vegetables she’s chopping.
“How about you, in the ladies department?” she asks after a second, seeming anxious to change the subject.
“There’s someone that I like, yeah.” I nod.
“Oh?”
“She’s pretty special,” I add.
Mom perks up at that, like a bloodhound on the scent. “That’s wonderful. I’d like to meet her.”
Mom, you’ve already met her, and if you keep dating Paul, you’re going to be seeing a whole lot more of her.
I can’t say any of this, of course. If she knew the truth about what’s gone down between me and Emma—everything that’s happened—I think it would give her a heart attack. I also can’t tell her it was Emma who broke up her marriage in the first place.
“Paul and I have a little date after dinner,” Mom says, unaware of my thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” She grins. “We’re going to go out dancing!”
Ah, no wonder she seems like she’s in a bit of a hurry to get dinner going. I feel a little twinge of annoyance that Paul seems to be worming his way into her life so fast, but I brush it away.
An early dinner is good for me anyway. We’re finished with our Anthropology project, and I’m the one in charge of turning it in tomorrow. I gotta little more work to do on it tonight.
“That sounds cool,” I say, flashing her a smile that actually feels genuine.
“Yes, we used to dance all the time.”
I freeze.
What does she mean she and Paul used to dance all the time? I thought
that this was a new thing.
“All the time?”
She stops and blinks at me. Then she stops chopping vegetables, setting her knife down.
“Yes, we… well, I know we only just told you kids recently, but the truth is, we’ve been seeing each other for years.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yes, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this,” Mom goes on, looking embarrassed. “After Emma introduced me to Paul, two years ago, we began a relationship that has continued.”
I’m knocked completely speechless.
What the fuck is happening right now?
The cool, calm, composed Trent from moments ago has left the fucking building. All that’s left is a slow-rising anger. Is mom trying to tell me that she had a full-on affair during her marriage, and that this thing with Paul has been going on ever since?
“Emma introduced you to Paul?”
“That’s right.” Mom looks conciliatory, like she didn’t mean for it all to come out like this.
When the fuck did she think it was going to come out?
“And you had an affair behind Dad’s back and have been hiding this thing with Paul the whole time?”
“Trent.”
“Answer me!” I shout, losing my cool.
“Yes.” She looks heartbroken. “It’s true. I—I was having an affair during my marriage to your dad. And yes, Emma introduced me to her father.”
“Was dad cheating on you? Did he have someone else on the side?”
“No.” She opens her mouth to say something else, but nothing comes out. She shakes her head and repeats, “No.”
Deathly silence fills the kitchen as I try to process everything I just heard. I thought, I hoped, that the kiss between mom and Paul was innocent. A mistake, a one-time thing. I told myself that maybe dad was having an affair on her, so she wanted to get revenge. But it turns out my mom was the guilty one, and Emma was absolutely the cause of all of this.
Not only did she bring her dad and my mom together, she was also the one that gave the information to my dad, thus ending their marriage.
She broke everything.
She broke me.
“I can’t believe you hid all of this from me.”
“I know it was wrong, but I was unhappy with your father, Trent. So unhappy,” Mom pleads.
“So you had an affair? And even after the divorce, you kept it from me for like, two years? What, did you and Paul meet in secret all this time?”
“No! He was gone for a while. His work took him away, you know that. But we were still together. We didn’t know how real this thing between us was, but even when we were several states apart, we still wanted to be together.”
“So why is all of this coming out now? Why are you baking me a fucking chicken pot pie and finally telling me the truth?”
“Paul and I felt like we got to a place in the relationship where we couldn’t wait anymore. We wanted to get on with our lives and live in the truth. There was no way we could go on keeping it a secret, especially since you and Emma are in the same school again. It just wouldn’t be fair.”
“Why did Emma introduce you to Paul in the first place?” I growl, thinking that maybe this was all some kind of master plan from the beginning.
“It was innocent,” Mom protests. “She didn’t know we’d have the connection we did. We were at a school function and Emma introduced Paul to me, and there were immediate sparks. We felt guilty about it, of course, but we couldn’t deny how we felt about each other, even from the beginning.”
“And you knew full-well that Emma and I were best friends.”
“I knew you four spent a lot of time together, yes. I knew you were close. And trust me, Trent, that made the situation even more difficult for me.”
“I can’t talk about this anymore,” I grunt, abandoning the fucking vegetables and gathering up the project binder for Anthropology from the kitchen table.
“There’s more to say,” Mom pleads, following after me.
“No, there isn’t.”
Goddammit. I’m so fucking pissed I don’t even know what to do with myself.
“Do you want your dinner?” she asks, looking like she’s on the verge of tears. But at the moment, I don’t care.
“No.”
Fuck no. I can’t stomach anything right now.
I stalk out the front door, heading for my car.
Two years. Two fucking years. The thing with Paul was a legitimate affair, not a mistake. I’m angry at her, but I’m much more angry with Emma. It’s all come back again, full circle.
Another thought occurs to me. Maybe Emma planned all of this because she was looking for a mother. She lost her mom, and that’s why she tried to hook Paul and my mom up.
So that’s how it is? She tried to steal my fucking mother?
From the looks of things, she’s been pretty damn successful.
It’s time to rethink things. I showed up to my mom’s house feeling good, almost great. The friendship that all four of us were sharing, even though unorthodox, still felt right. I was dreaming of Emma’s body and remembering what it was like to be inside of her.
I was falling in love with her just like I did in high school.
And now this.
It’s all gone to shit.
Neither West nor Reese are home, so I spend the evening sitting on the couch at our place, thinking over all of this, weighing my options, and planning what I’m going to do next. I get super fucking annoyed when I look down and realize that I haven’t even touched this project that I’m supposed to turn in tomorrow. Emma gave me a list of shit to do with it to make sure that it was just right.
But as I stare at the thick binder containing our group project, an idea pops into my mind.
Maybe it’s too much.
Maybe it’s too cruel.
But Emma brought this on herself.
22
Emma
After finals, I’m feeling pretty good about myself.
I haven’t been seeing much of the guys all weekend, which seems strange after spending so much time together in the last few weeks of the semester, but I’m not thinking too much about it. I just want to focus on celebrating making it through my first semester at Clearwater.
So much has happened since I got here in the fall. It’s hard to remember what it felt like to walk across campus that very first day. But I feel proud when I remind myself that I really have earned my place here. The classes weren’t easy, but I worked my ass off, and I know that paid off. I have a good feeling about where things are going.
My phone buzzes, and I roll over on the bed to grab it, glancing at the screen. I sort of hope it’s one of the Icons, but my face falls when I read the message.
PETER: We need to hang out more.
Dammit.
It’s not that I don’t want to hang out with him, but I don’t want to lead him on either. Peter isn’t the one that I’ve set my sights on. He’s a really nice guy and all, but there are three other men who occupy my thoughts, and who are beginning to occupy a space in my heart.
And it’s not just one of them. It’s all three of them. I keep waiting for it to become clear who I should choose, but the more the four of us hang out, the more obvious it’s become that I would never be able to pick one over the others.
I’m surprised Leslie still wants to be my roommate, let alone my friend, after I told her all of the fucked up shit that’s gone on. About how I hooked up with three best friends and can’t choose between them. But she doesn’t seem disgusted by me. In fact, she seems to think I’m cooler than ever. It’s why I like her so much. She’s not the type to judge someone for going after what they want.
ME: I’ve been super busy with finals.
PETER: But finals are done now.
ME: Yes, but I just have other things to do.
PETER: I thought you were into me, Emma.
ME: I think you’re a great friend.
PETER: I want more than that.
ME: I don’t have anything else to give.
Thus ends that text exchange.
My stomach twists. I’m not great at this kind of thing, and I hope that I haven’t ruined things, but I sense that maybe I have. But I can’t keep leading him on just because I’m trying to make my heart and mind fall for a particular kind of guy. For better or worse, my heart, mind, and body know exactly what they want.
I’m ready to stand firm in the truth, but I hope I didn’t hurt Peter’s feelings. I don’t want to date him, but I’m open to being his friend if he’d like that.
“Hey, girl! Earth to Emma!” Leslie throws a pillow at my head, and it bounces onto the mattress after it hits me. “I’m boooored! You wanna go out? Find a party? Hit up a bar?”
I put down my phone, grateful for the distraction. No more drama for me today.
“Yeah, sure. That sounds nice. How are things going with Rory?” I ask.
Her expression tightens with pain. Then she rolls her eyes. “We broke up.”
“Oh, no! Why?”
“He said he wants to see other people. I don’t know what happened.”
“Ugh, guys are the worst.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Maybe he didn’t like that I waited so long to have sex with him.”
I grimace. “Seriously, if that’s what he’s like, then you’re pretty much dodging a bullet.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” She still looks pissed and disappointed. Then she cracks a bawdy smile at me. “What I need is one of those harems you’ve got going on. Then I won’t have to try to find the perfect guy. I’ll have one for every mood.”
I chuckle, shifting uncomfortably on the bed and picking up the pillow she tossed at me. She’s joking, I know she is, but that’s not why I feel attracted to all three Icons. It’s hard to explain the chemistry that draws us together, but it’s not like I’m just trying to Frankenstein together the perfect man out of the three of them. I know she’s just trying to make herself feel better after her breakup though, so I don’t get defensive about it.