by Kris Ripper
“Hey, your dynamic of mutual obstinance has nothing to do with me.” He smiled as he said it, like connecting us in his mind was right. Ideal, even.
Foolish boy.
I didn’t really know what to say to that, since it wasn’t a thing I could agree or disagree with. Safer to take a page out of Jamie’s book and ignore him.
* * *
We dusted the ceilings first, attempting to subtly cobweb each other as we went. I managed to tangle up his hair and dodge his extension duster at the same time.
“I’m generally better at everything than you are. Just a reminder.”
“Not everything, Jus.” His lips quirked up in a smirk.
I took a stab in the dark. Darkish. “You have a filthy mind.”
“For real, you have no idea.” Then he was smirking and blushing.
“Good god, get it together.” I switched out my duster for a broom and started at the far end of the attic, definitely not thinking about going down on Jamie. He would obviously be better at it than I was, since I’d hardly been able to study his technique the one time I was in the room. It wasn’t a thing I knew about more than in theory and I hated having to learn how to do things, that initial period of being shitty at them. Which wasn’t to say that with enough practice I might not give Alex a run for his money. Surely Jamie wouldn’t mind…
Not that it was actually something that could happen. Even if I was curious.
I was still wondering if internet research would be helpful in this case when Alex disappeared down the stairs.
Sometime later he was back, with a mop. “So I asked Denny if we could at least sort of damp-dust, since it’s an attic, and she said no direct application of water to wood, and I’d better make sure the mop was barely wet. Also, only if we thought it’d be dry in an hour or two, but I think so. Right? It’s warm up here.”
The air circulation from opening the skylights was helpful and cool, but it still felt very much like an attic: stuffy and dusty. “Warm, yes. Like a morgue during a power outage.”
He flashed a grin at me. “I think it probably smells a lot better than that.”
“Here’s hoping we never have an opportunity to find out.”
“She also said we can try leaving white vinegar around in bowls to freshen the air, and that we should bake vanilla for a few minutes in a mug and then open the oven door. We could do two mugs. Or three, one for every floor.” He’d moved closer as he was talking, gesturing with his arms and further collapsing the space between us. “I’m definitely trying that. Baked vanilla sounds awesome.”
“You find the strangest things intriguing.”
He took another step toward me. “No argument there.”
Oh god. Seriously. He could not mean me. I opened my mouth to say something biting, except I found myself instead staring at his lips. Nothing like Enrico Hazeltine’s lips, all flat and pale in old photographs. Alex’s lips were deeply pink at the center, a lighter rose at the edges.
“FYI,” Alex said slowly, drawing out the syllables. “You can kiss me. You should kiss me.”
“I…” I couldn’t kiss him. Or stop staring at his lips.
“Jame said it’s okay. I mean, if that’s your hesitation.”
Good lord, I was a terrible misanthropic third. It hadn’t even occurred to me that there might be rules around who engaged with whom and when. Of course there must be. Rules. For who. And what. And when.
Alex reached out again, not precisely to me, letting his fingers dance in the more diffuse light. Letting them turn, as if light had a texture only he could feel, sand through his fingers, maybe, or water rushing over skin. “I’d like it if you did. Sometimes I can’t make the first move. With Jame, it’s okay, most of the time. But it’s harder for me with you.”
“Why?” I asked, even though I knew all the ways I was difficult. Impossible. Obstinate.
“Because I love you so much I don’t know how to tell whether what I’m doing is for me, or you, or both of us. So then I don’t know if I should do it or not.” His gaze was directed at his hand, still playing in the light.
There were so many things I wanted to say, so many feelings I wanted to find a way to share. But that was the biggest folly of all, and I couldn’t pretend any amount of love was enough to make a dent in the stupidity of me kissing Alexander in the attic of the Saints house.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, not knowing what else to say.
“You don’t have to be. Anyway, if you want to kiss me, you can.”
“It’s got nothing to do with what I want. I’m trying to not be stupid.”
He glanced up, smiled sweetly. “Okay. You don’t have to.”
I clenched my fists until my nails dug into flesh. “It’s not—I’m not saying—” But I cut myself off. “I’ll go bake some vanilla.”
“Okay.”
Okay, okay, fucking everything was okay with Alex. I went down the stairs quickly, planning to pass the open door to the bedroom I’d been staying in without glancing to either side, but of course Jamie called me in.
“I’ve given up on this. I don’t know what I was thinking, this can’t be your permanent bed anyway. So come pick a better one.” She held out her phone.
“Ikea?”
“Yeah, the only way we’re getting something up those stairs is if it comes in boxes.”
I shook my head and handed her back the phone. “The cot’s fine. I’m not here that often.”
“None of us is here that often, but suit yourself. I’ll pick something out for you.”
“Cork, really—”
“It’s not up for discussion. You need a better bed. To say nothing of a bigger one.” She did an eyebrow thing to indicate sexual activities.
“Because I’ll be bringing so many tricks back here from the local gay bar?”
“One: we should totally buy a bar and queer the fuck out of it. And two: you know exactly what I mean, stop being obtuse.” A poke at the screen. “Right, that’s that. Sin sin, Jus.”
“Isn’t that redundant?”
“I can declare something being taken care of in multiple languages, thanks. Look, don’t overthink it, okay? You have a room here. That’s how we want it.” When I didn’t say anything to that—and what the fuck would I have said?—she sighed. “Anyway, where’re you going?”
“To the kitchen. Denny has prescribed baked vanilla as a method to combat dust smell.”
She rose up, scattering screws as she went. “Yum.”
I gestured to the floor, where my disassembled cot lay as if waiting on a surgeon. “You’re not going to put it back together?”
Jamie stepped in far too close and put her hand on my chest. “No, lad. You got a place to sleep down the hall, don’t you?” Without waiting for a reply, she brushed past me and headed for the kitchen.
It didn’t take a genius to figure that was part of the plan. I knew it would come down to this. Though it was clever of her to take apart my bed. Insurance against me bolting, maybe.
I considered dragging the mattress up to the attic, if only to make the point that I had choices, but then I’d actually…have choices. Which really only sounded good in theory. In practice, the fewer choices I had, the less responsibility I’d have to take for them.
Chapter Four
MOST OF THE rooms were still empty. We had a table and chairs in the kitchen, and a futon in the main living space downstairs. Upstairs there were only the beds and a few additional thrift store chairs that we used for everything from a place to hang damp clothes, to bedside tables.
By the time we got it together to make dinner, it was too damn cold to eat outside and the kitchen table was covered in pizza makings, so we huddled on the futon under a pile of blankets.
“M-might be time to get the p-propane delivered,” Jamie said, teeth chattering.
Alex put down his plate. “I could get the space heater from upstairs.”
“No, no. Just hormones making it so I can’t regulate my b-body
temperature. Goddamn, it gets cold fast.”
The fireplace stood vacant on the other side of the room. Someone would have to come in and clean it before we could use the thing. “Maybe time to prioritize a chimney sweep, Cork. Since it’s November.”
She nodded, tugging the blanket around her ears. “Then we’d have to learn how to light a fire.”
“I can light a fire.”
Both of them looked at me.
“Why is that surprising?”
“Um.” Alex paused. “Because in your entire life I’ve never seen you light a fire that wasn’t at the end of a cigarette, maybe?”
“Moment of silence,” I said.
They rolled their eyes, but let me take a moment of silence for addictions I’d quit.
“And no, I’ve never actually done it, but I understand the theory.”
“The theory…of fire.”
“Of starting a fire, yeah.” I angled back on my side of the futon to more imperiously point at them. “You’ll see. You’ll rue the day you mocked my fire-starting skills.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I’d drop to my knees to worship you if you magically started a fire right now.” Jamie smirked. “You know what kind of fire I would welcome, though…”
“Could you stop making sex jokes like a twelve-year-old boy?”
She pretended to be affronted. “Excuse me, I made plenty of sex jokes as a twelve-year-old. Let’s not unnecessarily gender bias immaturity.”
“Pardon me.”
“Damn right.”
And oh fuck, I loved sparring with her. It didn’t matter about what.
I focused on what was left of my pizza. “Anyway, I think if you got the thing checked out so we knew it was safe, I could start a fire. They sell bundles of logs and kindling. Not that difficult.” But I’d watch a few YouTube videos when back in civilization just to make sure I didn’t look ridiculous, now that I’d claimed to know what I was doing.
“Good note, I’ll call someone this week.” Jamie set aside her plate and burrowed in to the blankets. “Tired, boys. Very tired.”
Soon after that we cleaned up the kitchen and decided to watch a movie. In their room, of course, because that’s where the space heater was.
* * *
This was a bad idea. I stood in the doorway as they set up the computer (on a chair with a stack of DIY books beneath it), and actually turned down the bed, like the three of us were just gonna cuddle up together, no big deal.
“Before you say anything, hear me out.” Jamie looked up from where she’d honest to god just fucking fluffed the pillows.
I arranged myself in an artful lean and made my face distinctly unimpressed.
“This can be, or not be, whatever we want. It can be sex when sex is convenient, and nothing the rest of the time. It can be Alex picking out a dress to wear at our three-way wedding.”
Alex grinned. “You guys would look really good in suits.”
“Bet your ass we would.” She sat down and gave me the full-on stare. “We don’t have a lot of ground rules for this. You don’t have to wait for both of us to be present. You don’t have to feel for me what you feel for him. You’re already a jealous asshole when it comes to Alex and other people, so it’s not like we’re demanding you stop being that way.”
“Are you—” Fuck. If I asked questions, she’d think I was fucking agreeing to something, and I wasn’t. I didn’t plan to. I couldn’t, dammit.
“Are we what?”
“It doesn’t fucking matter.”
She rolled her eyes. “It obviously does. You want to play Questions for it? If I win, you say whatever you were just gonna say.”
“Weren’t we trying not to be twelve-year-olds?” I shot back.
“Are you trying to trick me, Justin?”
“Why would I do that?”
“What’re you hiding?”
The thing is, I’m smart, but I’m not great at word games. I was good at the school-related skills: figuring out what teachers wanted, giving it to them with the least possible effort, smiling enough to not offend people who mattered (and knowing who those people were).
“Why do you assume I’m hiding something?” I asked, grasping for just-short-of-cheating echoes.
“Why didn’t you kiss Alex earlier?”
My hand went to my heart as if I’d felt the force of that question from across the room. “Why are you so quick to…push him into my arms?”
Jamie smiled, a shark tasting blood. “Wouldn’t you give him everything he wanted if you could, Jus?”
“I’m like, right here. You can stop now.” Alex stood up, pulled his shirt off, started rooting around in his bag. “You know, it kind of makes me feel like this jerk who wants too much when you guys act like it’s all about me. If I didn’t know that was bullshit, I might actually feel kind of lousy.” He tugged a ratty old Propagandhi shirt over his head and kicked his way free of his jeans.
“You’re not a jerk,” I said. Maybe I was forfeiting the game, maybe he’d already ended it. I realized I didn’t care.
“And I don’t want too much, either. I’m just the one you guys feel safe talking about wanting, right? So I don’t know, I just think maybe you should look at that.”
He pushed past me and walked across the hall to the bathroom, leaving Jamie and I staring at each other. No longer playing.
“That’s on me, like,” she murmured, sounding a lot more Cork than California. “Oh, pet. I fucked that up.”
“We definitely accomplished that together.” Since there wasn’t much use in posturing at this point, I went to sit beside her. “And he’s right, too. Which is incredibly annoying.”
“I know.” She leaned against me. “I don’t want to scare you off.”
I was startled into a laugh. “You really think that’s a possibility?”
“Aw, Jus, you have no idea, do you?”
“About what?”
“This. What it means to us. Why do you think we’re outfitting you a room? I bought you those bookshelves you like, too, by the way.”
“For…here?” I flashed to the attic, imagined it with a bed, bookcases, a dresser. “Jamie, I…”
She sighed and took my hand. “I know. I know it’s too much. We probably should have been more direct, but if you disappear like you did last time…I don’t know what the hell I’ll do. And it’d be even harder on him. But fuck, I’m supposed to be not putting pressure on you.”
I bought you those bookshelves you like. This can be, or not be, whatever we like. But no pressure.
I swallowed.
“Anyway, there’s only so much pushing we can do before it gets fucking creepy, and I think the only way you’ll let yourself be with us, is if we push you. So just…think about it.” She traced a line from the tip of my middle finger up to the crook of my elbow. “Both of us. Not just him.”
I wanted to say, You deserve better than I will ever be. Or, I can’t be responsible for not hurting him. All I’ve ever done was hurt him. In some obscure way I wanted to kneel at her feet and beg her for absolution, that elusive blend of confession and forgiveness her people had created, to which my people did not have access. How many times over the years had she jokingly said, Tell Father McGowan all about it.
How desperately I longed for her playful blasphemy now. But I said nothing, chest tight, the skin of my palms starting to tingle a little as if a snarl of all those unspoken words blocked my bloodstream, cutting off the circulation.
I imagined dropping to my knees and begging her to push me. To force me. To overpower the part of me that resisted, which had nothing to do with physical strength and everything to do with the tangled mess in my head of desire and self-preservation and the deep, weary ache of responsibility.
This road led to hurt feelings and irrevocably changing our friendship. I knew it, because I was a bastard, barely fit to be alone, and they were perfect for each other. There was no way we fit together without shearing off bits of either me or them.
“Will you help me drag the cot mattress up to the attic?” I finally said, when it became clear that Alex wasn’t coming back until we’d sorted ourselves out.
She sighed. “Of course I will. Let’s bring the whole stack of extra blankets up, as well. I don’t know what you’ll need, but there’s nothing between you and the sky but a few planks of wood and some beams.”
“Thank you.”
We retreated into politeness, but there was nothing cool or distant to it. Something like the quilts we’d picked up from Goodwill and now laid across my bed: years of comfort and living ran beneath the surface of our politeness.
I kissed her goodnight in their room and went in search of Alex.
He was standing in the bathroom, staring at the mirror. I stepped in behind him and he straightened up, still not as tall as me, though he’d sworn he was gonna grow until we were in our twenties.
“Alexander.”
“If you had a car here, would you be leaving right now?”
I hadn’t expected the question. “Uh. No. I hadn’t…even thought about it, actually.”
A rigid line of tension eased in his shoulders. “Okay. Good.” He turned. “Then everything will be fine.”
That I wasn’t running away in the night like I’d just stolen the good silver didn’t actually seem like a sign of momentous tidings to me, but like I said, Alex had always been a romantic. He saw goodness in everything. An exhausting trait, honestly. “So goodnight, then.” I hesitated. He’d been right; it was harder to kiss him than it had been to kiss Jamie. But still, there were standards of equality to uphold.
I leaned forward, and a split second later, he did as well, both of us closing the distance at once.
Kissing Alexander filled me with the sense of a bell tolling somewhere far away, a high, pure note that cut through all other sounds until it was the only thing I could hear.
His hand cupped my cheek. “If you freeze your butt off, come down and climb in with us. For your health.”
I snorted. “Cork’s already piled a million blankets on the bed, I’ll be fine.”
“But promise me. You know. If it becomes a medical necessity.”