by JA Huss
I give in for a minute. Knowing I shouldn’t. Understanding that this kind of slip can lead nowhere good. Everything is up in the air right now. Opportunities, and possibilities, and future outcomes.
But I can’t make myself care.
So I kiss him.
It’s long, and slow, and there’s no more talking. Just hands on skin. And lips. And tongues. And legs trying to fit together.
Finally he pulls away first and leans back against the wall.
I wipe my hand across my lips and lean into the staircase.
It feels like a sizing-up moment. And I don’t think we’ve had one of these since college. Maybe since that very first night we met during rush week.
“Then what happened?” Huck finally says.
“When?”
“After we bought you.”
“Oh.” I smile. “We went to the lake house.”
“Really?” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“That’s the best you can do? The old standby, Joey?”
“Dude.” I laugh.
“Come on. Where did we go? After we bought you, what did we do?”
I let out a breath and my shoulders drop. “We… we went to the airport.”
“Yeah? Where did we go?”
“Home,” I say. “We went home.”
Even in this hazy, stray, leftover light I can see him smile. “Home, huh?”
“Yeah. We just went home.”
“Nothin’ wrong with home.” Huck pauses. Then nods his head to the other set of stairs that lead down to the basement. “That’s home now.”
I raise my eyebrows at him.
“Not the basement, you dumbass. Them. Us. Forget about what home was with your brothers. Forget about the home you never had and the one you’ve spent all these years looking for. Because it’s not there, Joey. It’s just not there. This is home now. We’re your home now. Wherever we are, that’s home.”
I want to grab that offer and hold it tight. I want to keep it close and never let it go. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, I realize.
Them. With me.
And I never quite knew how to get there. I never quite understood what we were to each other so the right words to express my feelings for them never materialized. No one ever told me the secret. No one ever gave me an in.
Until the other day when Brooke Alder found her way into my temporary office at Bright Berry Beach Cosmetics and Huck Newtown got an idea.
It was a spectacularly bad idea and a genius-level good one at the same time.
But it worked.
We’re here. Together. And no one’s making excuses.
I suddenly realize none of this is about Maisy.
“So,” Huck says. “Should we go see what they’re up to down there?”
“They’re probably fucking,” I say.
“Well, then we should probably join them, don’t you think?” He stands up. Turns to me and offers me a hand.
I take it. Let him pull me to my feet.
“It’s gonna work out, Joey. You’ll see.”
“I don’t really have much control over this, do I?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Maisy.”
“Joey Boston. You have more control over more things than almost anyone else on this planet. If you want your daughter back, you will get your daughter back.”
“I want her back,” I say. “I really do.”
And it’s not a lie. Maybe this whole fake girlfriend plan is really more about us than it is Maisy. That’s probably true.
But it doesn’t change the fact that I ache for that little girl.
“Then take her, Joey. She’s yours.”
“She is but…”
We stare at each other for a few more seconds. There’s some sort of understanding between us. Some new way of looking at things.
So I nod. We walk over to the top of the stairs and look down. There’s some murmured whispering but no obvious sex noises.
“Hey,” I say, a thought coming to me.
“Hmm?” Huck says.
“That article you were telling me about yesterday? About those three Japanese guys who were sharing a girl?”
“What about it?”
“What happened to them?”
“They killed themselves.”
“What?” I laugh.
“You know. Fucking cultures are weird like that. Sometimes shit makes sense even when it makes no sense. It’s all perspective.”
“That’s… not even close to our scenario.”
“I told you it devolved, remember? Wasn’t the point. The point was… well, I’m not sure about their point. But my point was… hell, I’m not sure I had a point, either. But my new point is this.” He looks at me and smiles. “Do you even know who we are?”
I laugh.
Which makes Wald yell, “What the fuck are you two doing up there?”
“My real point,” Huck says, leaning in close and talking low, “is that we can do whatever the fuck we want.”
“Come down here,” Wald says. “We need you.”
“You hear that?” Huck says, still talking low. “They need us.”
“Then I guess we should not disappoint them.”
“No,” he agrees. “We shouldn’t. And we won’t.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - BROOKE
Wald has his fingers between my legs. I’m lying back on the large sectional couch with my head propped up on a pillow. One foot is flat on the floor and my other leg is bent at the knee with my bare foot resting on his shoulder.
After Wald and I sorta… came to an understanding that we are a thing now—all of us are a thing now—we were quiet. We could hear Huck and Joey upstairs. There was some talking. Some laughing. Then some long stretches of silence.
I couldn’t tell what they were saying and I doubt Wald could either. But there’s only one real thing on our minds right now.
The collective. The us.
“Hey there,” Huck says as he comes around the couch. He’s looking and talking to me.
“Hey,” I say, then close my eyes. Because Wald’s fingers are pushing deep inside my pussy.
“Room for us?” Huck asks.
“There’s always room for us,” Wald says.
I don’t know what’s happening. I have no idea where this is going. Or what tomorrow will look like. But life is like that even when you’re not starting up a precarious polyamorous relationship with three men.
There was no way to know I would be kidnapped walking home in Acapulco one night. There was no way to know that a few weeks later I’d be in Europe sporting a new name and a new life doing dangerous things.
There was no way to know that the relationship I had with Miklos would turn into something real. That he would die and leave me alone. Leave me lonely. Leave me drifting.
I certainly didn’t see that coming.
I loved him. Miklos. He was a good father. Not that I had one to compare him to. Just my mother’s boyfriend growing up.
I hated him. That’s about all I remember of that asshole. I hated him.
He was probably happy when they figured out I was gone. I bet they went home to Florida and never talked about me again.
You’d think a kidnapping would ruin your life. For a little while, at the very least. Until you were rescued or you escaped.
But that’s not how it went with Miklos and me. He was just sad and I was just… nothing. I was nothing before Miklos gave me a new life.
I owe him everything.
There was no way to see these guys coming either.
I wasn’t even looking for this. All I wanted was a simple job. A reason to wake up every day after Miklos’s death. A purpose.
I’d have settled for just about any purpose.
Now I just feel lucky. But lucky is a precarious feeling. It’s unsettling and always temporary. You just never want to admit that when luck is shining down on you. You want to think you did this. Y
ou built this. It will be like this forever. But nothing is forever.
One of them takes my hand so I open my eyes and find Joey looking down at me. “Sit up,” he says.
I do. Because I like directions. Directions are easy. You don’t have to think about them. You just follow them. And ever since the funeral there’s been no one giving me directions anymore.
Oh, there was a letter for me. Telling me that decisions had been made and what to do next. To take my name back. The passport and the money. But once that was done, once I landed here, then what?
Joey slips in next to me and allows me to lie back so my head is propped up on his thighs. His hand immediately goes to my breast and he begins to massage it.
I feel floaty right now. Kinda out of my body. Like a dream.
Not a nightmare, but a dream. Because they’re surrounding me. They swallow me up and make all the uncertainties disappear.
I know it can’t last. Nothing ever does. So I’m making a decision right here, right now.
I’m going to enjoy this while I can. I got lucky. I accept it. And I will be OK when the luck runs out because even though I don’t like starting over—it’s hard, and stressful, and everything about it just breeds anxiety—I’ve done it twice now. Twice I have reinvented myself and things got better. So I know that if I do have to start again from nothing, after all the hard work, luck will find me again.
Huck kneels down next to me and starts kissing my lips. His hand massages my other breast for a moment before slipping down my stomach and sliding between my legs.
His fingers press into me. Pushing against Wald’s.
“What did you talk about up there?” Wald asks them.
“Memories,” Huck says, now kissing my neck.
“We made a new one,” Joey says. And then he starts telling us about some charity auction. And how I bought him for us. And how we went home to Japan.
“It might not be our home anymore,” Wald says. “We’ll have to reorganize, I guess.”
I almost say no. I almost protest and tell them it is our home. We have made memories on the other side of the world. The go-karts, and the goldfish, and the beaches.
I’m not dumb. I’m not even delusional. I get it. It’s all lies. But so what? My whole life since I was sixteen has been a lie and I wouldn’t have it any other way. So I almost say no. I almost say we will be going home to Tokyo.
But we won’t. Not if Joey gets Maisy back.
And we will. I have a feeling that no one denies Joey Boston anything once he sets his mind on a prize. Not even the Kane family can stop this. I think they know that. I think they’re panicking.
“I want to be inside you,” Joey says.
I open my eyes and find him staring down at me. But I don’t move.
Joey frowns as he unzips his pants and pulls out his cock. Begins jerking on it with a tightly closed fist.
Then Wald says, “Put Joey inside you,” and the statement becomes an order, so my eyes find Wald’s and I nod.
I stand up and immediately Huck has his arms around my hips. Grinding against my ass as he gently pushes me forward and I straddle Joey’s lap and hover over his fully erect cock.
He positions it at my entrance, flicking it back and forth across my clit. I moan a little because it feels very good. And even though we just got done fucking a little while ago and I’ll probably be sore tomorrow, I don’t care. I just reach down, grab him, and push him inside me with two flat fingertips.
Huck presses on my back, urging me to lean over towards Wald. He’s got his cock out already. Was playing with it while he was playing with me.
My mouth covers his tip and his hand rests on my head, urging me to take him deeper.
Huck is at my ass. And I know he will fuck it. He won’t want to share with Joey the way Joey did with Wald. He will take me in his own way.
He rubs his fingers over my tight puckered hole, then drops them down to my pussy and fingers me. Pressing up against Joey’s shaft as he and I roll our hips in a synchronous rhythm.
He begins to play with my ass. Pressing a finger inside, just a little.
A glob of warm wetness drips down my crack and I know he just spit on me.
I don’t even care.
I want them. I want all three of them. I want all their arms around me. All their lusty kisses. All their frantic fucking.
I don’t care what it takes to get that feeling again, I just want it.
I just want to feel whole again. I want to be whole. And there’s so many missing pieces inside me these days, there’s room for all three of them.
Huck presses his cock up to my entrance and then, without hesitation or warning, he thrusts inside me.
I sit up, gasping with the shock of pain, but his hand is firmly between my shoulder blades.
Wald grabs my face. Both hands on both cheeks, and looks me in the eyes. “You’re OK,” he says. “You’re OK.”
And I am.
Then he kisses me as Huck goes even deeper. And Joey leans back a little, giving himself more room to thrust his hips up to meet Huck.
I have had two men inside me.
But I have never had anyone like this.
Huck retracts as Joey thrusts. And a rhythm forms. One pulling out, one pushing in.
The feelings are indescribable. And then Wald is twisting my breast and guiding my face down to his cock.
And I can’t wait. I can’t wait to put him in my mouth. I need it. I need it now or I will scream.
I scream anyway.
But it’s muffled by his dick sliding towards my throat.
I lose time. I lose myself. I lose all sense of the world around me. There is nothing but a long, dark, narrow tunnel of dirty, filthy sex.
I want that dark.
I want that tunnel.
I want all the dirty, filthy sex.
And they give it to me.
I know we come. I know this because eventually we’re a heap of satiated bodies lying across the large sectional couch.
All sweaty and breathing heavy.
All tangled up and tied together.
And then the darkness fades into the light of a new day dawning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - JOEY
The Kane family estate isn’t that far from our lake house. It’s not in that neighborhood or that village, and there’s no lake. At least as far as I know. They own three hundred acres, so there could be a lake.
It’s deep in the hilly countryside. And after we get off the highway we take many narrow, winding roads that have so many tall, old trees lining them that the canopy of leaves starts to feel a little claustrophobic.
Of course there is a gate and a small house to go with it. And of course a whole team of security surrounds Wald’s truck as we pull up.
He’s driving, so he slides the window down and says, “Wald Wynn, Huck Newtown, Joey Boston, and Brooke Alder to see Miss Maisy Kane.” Snapping off our names and purpose without a single pleasantry.
The guy listening to Wald asks for our IDs. We hand them over and he disappears into the small house.
Wald slides the window back up.
“Jesus Christ,” I say. “Do they really need eight men with automatic weapons surrounding our truck?”
I’m sitting in back with Brooke, so Wald meets my eyes in the rear-view mirror. “Do you even know who we are?”
I almost laugh. But it’s not a joke. “I get it,” I say.
“And you did bring up Johnny with their lawyers,” Huck says. “They have no idea what we’re planning.”
“We’re not planning anything,” I say. “We’re just… meeting my daughter.”
“I think it’s a little over the top,” Brooke adds. “But even if we don’t know who we are, they certainly seem to.”
This makes me glance at Brooke. And for a second I almost panic. I almost wish she wasn’t here. Because I don’t know who she is.
Or maybe a better way to put that is… I don’t know who she was.
> It’s not fair. I get that. And this panic is a pattern I’ve fallen into. I panic, and I fuck things up or I don’t take chances, and then I lose the things I want or drive people away and…
The security guard comes back out of the house and Wald sends the window down again.
“All good?” he asks.
…and I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m not.
The security guy hands back our IDs, then makes a hand signal to someone in the house, and the gate slides open. For a second I don’t think he’s gonna say anything. Just wave us through. But then he bends down a little and peers into the back seat to find my face.
“They’re expecting you, Mr. Boston.”
“Cool,” I say.
“And… nice to see you again, sir.”
“What?” I ask.
He’s got a helmet on. And there’s like a chin-strap thing. And he’s wearing body armor. I mean, the whole fucking nine yards. So he looks like any other generic security person who works for a family like the Kanes and stands guard at their gate with an automatic weapon.
But he takes the helmet off and smiles at me. “I went to school with your cousin Zach. I met you once at graduation.”
“Oh,” I say. “Well…” Then find I have nothing to say to that.
“Nice to see you again,” Wald says, then slides the window back up and pulls away.
“That was awkward,” Brooke says.
I look at her. “It kinda was, wasn’t it?”
“Jesus Christ. Can this driveway be any more pretentious?” Huck says.
Brooke and I look around. It’s long and there are trees, but not right up against the road. There’s a wide expanse of well-groomed grass on either side and the edge of the woods is a good hundred yards away.
“They must have whole teams of landscapers to keep this lawn looking like you could putt balls on it,” Wald adds.
Well, the driveway is nothing compared to the house.
Can a place that big really be a house? It’s a proper fucking mansion. Not a mini-mansion like you see in the city. A real, honest-to-God two-hundred-year-old stone mansion that probably has the same number of rooms and comes with towers with turrets, and what might be a keep.