Falling For Them Volume 2: Reverse Harem Collection

by Nikki Bolvair

  Silence takes hold as Hughe digests the information.

  Did he really think I rejected them now because of a stupid school dance when we were fifteen? I shrug out of his hold and take a step away. It leaves the width of the sidewalk between us to fill with the chill of winter wind. Ahead, our houses come into view, the shine of the porch lights calling us home.

  Fog ghosts down the street in white eddies that swirl around the lamp posts, dancing in the small puddles of illumination. Colorful balls of light flicker in my peripheral vision, but when I turn my head, I only see more porch lights.

  At last, as we near the driveways, Hughe’s hand on my arm pulls me to a stop. A large hand cups the back of my neck, urging me to look up at him. I scowl up at him, lips pressed into a thin line.

  “Shiv, talk to me. Tell me how I can make this right between us?” His thumb sweeps across the frown lines between my eyebrows. “If you’re not mad about that night, then tell me the reason for your anger, and we can fix it.”

  “You can’t fix it.” Stuffing my hands into my pockets, I twist out of his hold and march toward my parent’s house.

  He hurries to catch up, fingers brushing my sleeve before I yank away. “Let us try. Shiv, you’re our destined partner. You can’t throw that away.”

  I freeze, one foot on the step. “You really want to fix it?”

  “Of course we do.” He cups my waist, and even through the thick jacket, the heat of his body seeps into me, trying to melt the walls I built around my love for the O’Brien triplets. “Meet with Jameson. Punch him if you really need to. But let us back in.”

  Inside my pockets, my hands curl into fists. ”Go back in time.”

  “What?” His voice sounds incredulous, as if he doesn’t believe he heard me correctly.

  Slowly, I turn around, my nails digging into my palms to fight back the urge to reach for him. “Go back in time. Don’t leave.”

  “Shiv.” His arms drop back to his sides, his hands curling and uncurling in helpless frustration. “We were kids, we didn’t have a choice when our aunt came to get us.”

  “Fine.” I nod and stare over his shoulder. “Then go back to five years ago, when you weren’t kids anymore. Go back to that point and come back for me.”

  “Shiv—”

  “No!” I hold up a hand to cut him off. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m cold and slightly drunk, and I don’t want to have this conversation right now. I’m going inside.”

  His heavy tread follows me onto the porch. “Shiv, the letters—”

  “Shut up about the letters!” Anger burns in my stomach, and I spin around to stab a finger at his chest. “Where was your letter? Where was Jameson’s? You cowards hid behind Davin, expecting him to smooth things over. It’s not tha—”

  Hughe grabs my wrist, yanking me against his chest as his mouth swoops down to cover mine. Unlike in third grade, his lips find mine on the first try, dry and cold from being outside. Caught by surprise, his tongue slips easily inside to push against mine with a warm, persistent heat that travels through my body in an instant.

  The anger washes away on a fast tide of desire, years of pent up longing breaking through my barriers. My pulse spikes, heart pounding, and I drag in a breath through my nose, filling my lungs with the musk of his cologne. It makes me think of bedrooms and warm sheets, the tangle of bare limbs. We never had time for that, but I’ve had nine years to fantasize about how it could have been.

  I clutch the front of his jacket with shaky fingers, curling them into his lapels as my knees weaken under the onslaught.

  His large hands shift to cradle my head, strong fingers digging through my curls to tip my face up. When he pulls back to nip at my lower lip, my breath leaves me in a hiss of pain.

  He backs up in an instant. “Shiv, I’m sorry. I forgot you bit your lip last night.”

  His callous roughened thumb sweeps across the sensitive flesh, bringing with it another sting of pain that slaps some sense into me. When his head dips toward mine once more, I turn my face away. “I’m not drunk enough to let you do that again, O’Brien.”

  Undeterred, his nose brushes across my cheek in a light caress before his lips find my ear. “Come take a drive with me. We can talk.”

  “I don’t think you have talking in mind.” Gently, but firmly, I push him away. I pull in a shuddering breath of icy air and force myself to meet his eyes. “I don’t want to pick up where we left off, Hughe. Not with you, not with Davin, and certainly not with Jameson.”

  “I’m not asking you to.” He grabs my hand, his fingers warm even in the dead of winter. “We can start anew.”

  My heart thunders at the idea, but I shake my head. “There’s too much history. Too much expectation. I can’t do this again.”

  “Do what?” He leans his forehead against mine, his eyes pleading. “Fall back in love? Because that’s where you were at before, right? You loved us.”

  “I was fifteen. I don’t know what I felt.”

  “Liar,” he whispers, voice insistent. “You loved us.”

  I shiver as his fingers slip beneath the cuff of my jacket to trace over my racing pulse. “Whatever I felt, it didn’t make a difference. Not in the end.” I shake him off. “I can’t do this again. I won’t let you break me a second time.”

  Desperation fills his voice. “One week.”

  I stop, hand already on the door. “What?”

  “We’re not leaving again, Shiv. There’s no reason for us to go and every reason to stay.” The porch creaks as he steps closer, but he doesn’t try to touch me again. “Give us one week to change your mind.”

  “Nothing can be fixed in only a week,” I scoff.

  “I know that. I’m not trying to fix it. But if you can move past it—”

  The anger surges back. “You want me to pretend the last nine years never happened?”

  “No, of course not.” Tentatively, his hand cups my shoulder. “I want you to understand why it happened.”

  I shrug him off. “Excuses.”

  “I’ll tell the others to stay away until Sunday night.” The porch creaks again, and I risk a quick glance over my shoulder. Hands shoved into his pockets, Hughe backs toward the steps. “We’ll come for Sunday dinner. Read the letters before then. Think it over.”

  The urge to follow him, to bury myself back in his arms, sends a tremor through my body. I turn away before the desire takes hold of my limbs. “I already told Davin I burned them.”

  “He said you lied.” Certainty fills his voice.

  I don’t know how they know. It doesn’t matter how well ensconced in each other’s lives we were. After nine years, we’re practically strangers again. I stay silent, unwilling to test how well he still knows me.

  When he doesn’t speak again, I open the front door, slipping inside. Warmth envelops me in an instant, defrosting my cheeks with a cozy heat brought on by the wood burning stove in the living room. Dad likes to keep it stoked during the winter to save on the electric bill. An old habit that saves little since we now buy the logs from a store instead of traipsing out to the woods to cut our own lumber. But Mom likes to let him pretend.

  I step out of my shoes, lift them in one hand, and tiptoe on sock covered feet through the living room and into the kitchen.

  The scent of pot roast and baked potatoes lingers in the air from dinner, and I half expect to find Dad at the dining table, sipping on a cup of coffee. But the lights downstairs have been dimmed, leaving only enough illumination to find my way to the stairs at the back of the house without tripping. Everyone else must already be in bed. I check the time on the stove as I shuffle past, surprised to find it close to eleven.

  I didn’t mean to stay out so late on a work night.

  The beer from earlier wearing off leaves me sleepy, my body heavy with the need to lay down. I stop at the sink to fill a glass of water, chug it, and refill it again in the hope of avoiding a hangover come morning.

  When I tiptoe up the back stairs,
I keep one hand on the banister and skip the fifth step up to avoid the loud creak it always releases. I feel like my teenage self, sneaking home after staying out too late. At twenty-four, I really should have my own place by now. But apartments are hard to come by in our small town, and I had college up until a year ago, so staying with my parents was just easier. Now, all my hope rests on the small apartment above the community center.

  Upstairs, the air turns chilly once more, the wood beneath my feet cold.

  My sister’s night-light glows from beneath her door in alternating shades of pink and blue, splashing the floor in color. From the end of the hall, Dad’s loud snores resonate through their bedroom door.

  I slowly open my own door, cringing as the hinges groan. I keep spraying them with oil, but it never solves the problem for long. Sometimes I wonder if Dad does something to make them loud. My sister’s door does the same thing. Tomas never has this problem in the basement.

  The glows from the streetlight shines through the branches of the tree outside my window to cast long fingers of shadow across my small bedroom with its single person bed and small dresser. A desk, wedged beneath the window, blocks half of the closet, which I keep stuffed with an equal measure of books and clothing.

  At the sight of my down comforter, my body becomes heavy, my legs like lead weights as I drag myself across the short distance to set my water glass on the nightstand.

  The light through the window suddenly cuts off, leaving me in darkness.

  Surprised, I glance out my window at the fog shrouded street, confused to find the entire block dark. When I glance at the alarm clock on my nightstand, I find it dark as well. What could have knocked out the electricity?

  A flicker of light near our backyard pulls my attention in the opposite direction.

  A thin line of trees runs partway through the city, a small oasis of nature the town founders left untouched. Port Lapton curls around it, leaving the woods untouched even as the city expands outward. Our house borders one side of the small forest, a tall fence in the backyard all that holds the wilderness at bay.

  Just past the safety of our fence, yellow, red, and orange balls of light dance. I drift closer to the window. Will-o’-the-wisps rarely come this close to civilization. They weave around the tree trunks, venturing closer in a mesmerizing pattern that whispers to some part of me that yearns for change.

  Where do the wisps lead? To adventure? Or to my heart’s desire?

  I’ve spent enough nights being alone to see the appeal of the myths.

  Mom believes her sister vanished by following the wisps and worries that, since I resemble her so much, I’ll do the same. With the sudden turmoil I find my life thrown into, the temptation to walk away wiggles at the back of my mind.

  A flashlight flares to life from Mr. O’Brien’s house, a bright beam aimed at the wisps and chases them back into the woods. From my vantage point, it appears to come from the second story where the triplet’s rooms used to be. The beam skips around the woods until the wisps disappear, then flicks off, leaving the street in darkness once more.

  Breath held, I wait a moment to see if they return before I finally tug my curtains closed.

  Walkabout

  Head throbbing and slightly nauseous, I arrive at work the next morning fifteen minutes late with a bag of cookies in hand to help sooth Mrs. Flanagan’s temper at my tardiness. When I reach the community center, though, the front door is still locked, the sign still turned to Closed in the window.

  Shocked, I fumble the keys from my pocket and hurry inside, turning on the lights and flipping over the sign in a rush to get the place ready for business before my cranky boss arrives.

  Running down the hall, I throw my jacket onto the coat rack and plug in the kettle, then jog back to the front. Breathless, I slide behind the counter and try to give every appearance that I arrived on time.

  As the minutes tick by, though, my gratitude at not being caught tardy slowly morphs into concern as Mrs. Flanagan fails to appear. When the clock strikes eight thirty with still no sign of her, I pick up the phone on the wall and dial her number. As it rings, I hear the faint trill above my head from the apartment above the community center.

  I count them under my breath and hang up after ten. Worried, I put up the sign that reads Back In Ten Minutes. The early morning cold cuts through my wrinkled cardigan as I hurry back out to the street and around the side of the building to the wooden staircase that leads up to the apartment.

  The damp wood still holds a hint of ice despite the granules of salt that crunch beneath my boots, and I grip the narrow banister for safety as I climb to the top. Mrs. Flanagan really shouldn’t live up here anymore. This can’t be safe for a woman of her age to traverse, even during the summer. A tumble down these stairs would break more than her hip.

  When I reach the top, I knock quietly on the door, then louder after a moment of no answer. Breath held, I press my ear to the thin wood. No sign of movement within.

  Lips pressed close to the jam, I call, “Mrs. Flanagan, it’s Siobhan. Are you okay?”

  My heart beats fast, panic taking root. What if she fell in the shower? Darcy’s been trying to get her to move to the retirement home with her and the other ladies for a while now, but Mrs. Flanagan refuses to accept that she’s too old to live alone. If she fell and hurt herself… “Mrs. Flanagan, I’m coming in!”

  I grab the rusted handle and twist, the knob turning easily beneath my hand. No one in Port Lapton locks their door, a fact I’m grateful for as I push my way into the apartment.

  “Mrs. Flanagan, are you here?” I freeze in shock as I enter the small front room.

  Boxes fill the room in neat stacks. Stunned, I stare around. Doilies no longer adorn the back of the couch and small side tables. The shelf, which once held her collection of glass seals, lays bare and free of dust. The hand crocheted afghans, once neatly rolled in a basket next to the old rocker, are gone.

  “Mrs. Flanagan?” Hesitant, I close the door and venture farther into the apartment.

  The worn carpet muffles my footsteps, the patches once covered by a runner now exposed by the dim light that comes through the front window. In the small kitchen, more boxes fill the counter, only a sauce pan and kettle left unpacked.

  Down the short hall, I bypass the first two doors, small bedrooms that the elderly lady keeps draped in sheets to ward off the dust. Intended for the caretakers family, Mrs. Flanagan and her late husband had never had the children to fill up the extra space. A quick check through the open bathroom door reassures me she didn’t fall in the bathtub.

  At the end of the hall, I find the bedroom door closed tight.

  I tentatively knock. “Mrs. Flanagan?”

  The silence that answers back unnerves me.

  Why would all of her stuff be packed? She’d given no sign she was anywhere near passing the community center over to me as the new, official caretaker.

  I push open the door, terrified of what I might find.

  Here, the packing seems to have stopped. Her queen size bed still has the lace pillows at the top, her heirloom blanket neatly folded at the foot. Doilies still cover the short dresser against one wall, and the open closet door reveals neat, color-coded rows of cardigans in varying shades of pink and purple.

  But Mrs. Flanagan herself is nowhere to be found.

  Closing the door, I hurry from the apartment and head back to the community center. Maybe, I’m overreacting. She must have gotten up early and gone to get herself a scone before work. She’s been doing that more often the last couple weeks, ever since Mr. McArthur started bringing in the cardamom ones to go with the new chai tea his son put on the menu.

  I busy myself by setting up one of the larger conference rooms with card tables and chairs in preparation for Friday Night Pinochle. From one of the cabinets against the side wall, I lift out the tray where we store the cards. Ever since Mrs. Moran was caught marking her decks, it became a rule that they were only allowed to play with
the ones provided by the center.

  One deck goes in the center of each table along with a tray of blue chips. The ladies like to bet on the games, claiming it makes it more exciting. I’ve only ever seen five cent pieces exchanged, but it makes them happy.

  When I turn the lights off and leave the room, I pass the dark manager’s office. Even if Mrs. Flanagan ran into someone at Lapton Steam, she should be here by now.

  Back at the front desk, I dig out the phone directory and call Darcy. As a member of the knitting circle—or the knitting nannies as most people my age like to call them—Darcy is one of six people in town guaranteed to have heard anything.

  “Home of Daly and Darcy, Darcy speaking!” Her chipper voice sounds like she’s already been awake for hours.

  “Hello, Darcy, this is Siobhan from the community center, how are you?” I twist the phone cable between my fingers, anxious to get through the formalities.

  “Oh, hello, dear! We’re doing well. Daly was just saying he’d like to pop on down to Lapton Steam for a cuppa. You just caught us on our way to the bus.” Her voice becomes muffled for a moment as she speaks to someone else. “No, love, the one with the flower on it.”

  I restrain the urge to tap my foot while I wait for her to finish instructing her husband on appropriate attire for an outing.

  At last, she comes back. “Sorry, dear. How are you doing today? I heard you had a date last night. So exciting!”

  “I’m doing well, thank you for asking.” I ignore the comment about my date. “The reason I called is that Mrs. Flanagan hasn’t come in for work this morning, and I’m worried something might have happened. Have you spoken to her?”

  “Oh? Has she not arrived yet?” The coy tone of her voice lets on she knows something. “Don’t you worry, dear. I’m sure she’s just taking a walkabout before she comes in for work.”

  “A walkabout?” I straighten in surprise. “Do you mean—”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, dear,” Darcy cuts me off. “Daly and I really must be going if we want to catch the bus into town. Ta ta!”