For a moment, just before I fell asleep, I worried about not having this; not having a bed surrounded by all the men that I cared about and feeling their touch each night as I closed my eyes and their bodies cocooned around me. But then I felt Michael’s soft breath on the back of my neck and when I turned my head to touch our noses together for just a moment, he instinctively kissed my lips.
“I love you, Lisette,” he whispered.
I kissed him back and smiled as I fell asleep, too tired to keep my eyes open for another second or speak a word in return.
16
The next morning, we all slept in late. Even after the guys got up, I slept in even later still. I didn’t even hear or feel when they got up from the bed. I was too wonderfully exhausted to move. I laid there, curled up beneath the blankets with my toes wrapped up in the fuzziness of the fleece, and I dragged out the thought of opening my eyes as I flirted back and forth between sleep and waking. Finally, my eyelids started to peel open on their own and I blinked against the light of day that was shining too brightly in through the window. I felt good about today. I felt as if it was a new beginning for all of us. The guys were no longer in strife with each other, and we were all on the same team working toward the same goal. The Sanctuary was going to be a huge success. I got up out of bed and meandered my way toward the kitchen to get some coffee started.
“Good morning,” Rob said as he looked over the top of his coffee cup at me. “We were wondering if you were indeed going to wake up today.”
I rolled me eyes at him playfully.
“Well, it was quite a lot of physical exertion last night,” I said. “I needed a rest after such a night in the garden.”
“What garden?” Sarah asked as she walked into the kitchen and took one of her protein shakes out of the fridge.
“There’s a beautiful garden on the Lineage campus,” I said benignly. “We took a walk over there last night and looked at all the fireflies and flowers.”
“Sounds nice,” she said as she plopped down at one of the tables to have her drink. It was the most I’d seen her out of her bedroom.
I walked over to the coffee pot where Michael was pouring me a fresh cup of coffee from the pitcher. He reached his hand around to the small of my back and pulled me closer to kiss me on the top of my cheekbone.
“So which of you guys are dating her?” Sarah asked.
We all stared at her as if she had just said something offensive.
“Didn’t mean to pry,” she said when she saw our surprised expressions. “I was just curious since I seem to have seen all of you with her at one time or another. Or was that supposed to be a secret? Shit, I’m not very good at all of this. This is why I don’t date.”
“It’s okay,” I smiled at her when I realized that she was just trying to be social and that we were supposed to be welcoming to the residents here and not standoffish. “I guess it does seem a bit convoluted at times.”
“Not anymore though, right?” Adam said. There was a tinge of sarcasm and angst in his voice that everyone seemed to pick up on. “We’re all happy with this new arrangement that we’ve agreed to.”
Michael stood and stared at Adam as if he was waiting for his head to pop off his shoulders or something. I started to get a bad feeling about the agreement that the guys made. An agreement is only as good as the word of those who enter into it. Rob seemed fine with everything and he waved a hand at Adam as if to shush and dismiss him.
“Don’t listen to him,” Rob said to Sarah. “Michael and Lisette are together. Adam and I are just her close friends.”
Adam made a snorting noise as he spit out his coffee.
“Close?” he said with a pointed laugh. “I think we should come up with a better word than close. Me and my favorite barista at the coffee shop are close, but I don’t think that holds a candle to this.”
“You guys are all pretty weird,” Sarah said as she stood up from the table and walked out of the room.
“Is there something you want to say, Adam?” Michael asked bluntly. “If so, spit it out.”
“Maybe just don’t spit it out like the coffee you just spit all over the table,” Rob said. “Some of that got on my pants.”
“There’s nothing that I want to say,” Adam said under his breath.
He pushed the chair out from under his legs and stood up to leave. I watched as he stormed out of the room and down the hallway toward the bedroom, not our mutual bedroom, but instead the one that he had recovered in after we had rescued him from the safe.
“What’s going on with him?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Rob said. “Just give him some time and space and he’ll get over it. You know how he is.”
“Yeah, actually I do know how he is,” I said. “And up until recently, he never used to act this way. He used to always be the most laid-back and chill guy that let things roll right off his back. Now he seems to be full of angst and anger.”
“I don’t think he’s going to stick to the agreement,” Michael said. “We made a deal.”
“He will,” Rob said. ‘Like I said, he just needs some time to get over it.”
“I hope you’re right,” Michael said as the two of us brought our coffee to sit down at the table with Rob.
I didn’t like the feeling that Adam was pulling away from all of us. It worried me.
“Maybe you should go talk to him,” I said to Michael.
“Me?” he asked sounding surprised. “I’m the one who has taken you from him, at least that’s what he thinks. I’m the last person that he would want to talk to I’m sure.”
“But you two were friends way before I came into the picture,” I reminded him. “I think Adam will listen to you.”
“I don’t,” Michael said bluntly.
“I have to agree with him,” Rob said. “They may have been friends before you arrived, but love changes things. I doubt that Adam can clearly see their friendship right now. He’s clouded by his feelings for you.”
“But you’re not,” I said, trying to figure out why Adam was the only one that seemed to be miserable now.
“Trust me,” Rob chuckled. “I’m still not happy that I can’t have you. But that being said, the three of you had more history together before I came into the picture. That might have something to do with it too.”
“What should we do about it?” I asked. “I don’t want Adam to be upset.”
“I know you don’t,” Michael said as he rubbed my hand with his fingers. “But sometimes you just have to let people work through stuff on their own. I think Rob is right; we just need to give him some space.”
After I finished my coffee, I headed down the hallway toward the bedroom to take a shower and get dressed. I was a little surprised to see Adam standing in the hallway talking with Sarah. She barely seemed to talk to anyone here, and Adam didn’t seem to be at all in the mood to talk to her earlier. They both looked up when they saw me come into the hallway, and Sarah immediately ducked back into her room.
“Hey,” I said as I walked up to Adam. “Listen, I don’t want you to be mad at me again.”
“I’m not mad at you, Lisette,” he said.
“You could have fooled me. You seemed pretty damn angry in the kitchen.”
“Not at you. I can’t stay angry at you.”
Adam lifted his hand to my face and traced the side of my jaw with his fingertips. I smiled and hoped that he was being honest. After such a wonderful night last night, I really didn’t want any of the three of us to be at odds. But when Adam leaned forward to kiss me, I pulled away. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to kiss him; I did. But after how wonderfully last night had ended, and how well it seemed to put a closure on things and carve a path ahead for me and Michael; it just didn’t feel right.
“What are you doing?” I asked quietly. “I thought the three of you had an agreement.”
“I don’t want to agree to it anymore,” he said.
“I don’t think that’s how agreemen
ts work.”
“You’ve never pulled away from me before, Lisette.”
“I know, I’m sorry. But it just doesn’t seem right,” I said.
Adam looked at me with a hurt expression and then turned and walked away. I tried to call after him, but he just closed his door and ignored me. When I walked past Sarah’s open door, I happened to glance in as she was looking up at me. Her expression was difficult to read, but it kind of reminded me of the kid in class who always used to cheat off of someone else’s papers.
“I’m not lying!” Sarah shouted.
I knew that having a few days of drama-free time wouldn’t last too much longer. It had only been about three or so days since the drama with Adam in the kitchen, and at least he seemed like he was trying to move on from it. But now there was drama with a resident of the house. I mean, I guess that’s part of why we were here; to help people through whatever drama it was that they were dealing with. But I had so much of my own, that I was really too exhausted to deal with anyone else’s issues right now. As soon as I had that thought, I realized how selfish it made me sound.
I pulled on a pair of sweatpants since I had just woken up and the guys had beaten me out of bed and to the coffee machine again, and walked down the hallway, getting closer and closer to the commotion that Sarah was making. She was loud enough to wake the entire building, but thankfully I had slept in late again and it wasn’t too early.
“What is going on?” I asked as I appeared in the doorway of the kitchen and rubbed my face as I yawned. It was too early to deal with this without coffee, even if it was technically already like ten o’clock.
I looked around and was taken aback by what I saw. Sarah was standing in the kitchen and lifting her shirt up to expose her stomach for some unknown reason. Michael’s face was fire hydrant red, which meant that he was either very angry or very flustered. Rob seemed to be sitting at the table with a mixture of amusement and disbelief on his face.
And Adam looked like he couldn’t care less about whatever Sarah was going off about.
“This is simply not true,” Michael said sternly. I could tell by his tone of voice that it was anger which was turning his face red. “I don’t know why you would say something like this, but it’s crazy.”
“Careful,” Sarah said. “Calling people crazy here is frowned on by your girlfriend.”
“Okay,” I said as I stepped fully into the room. “What the hell is going on?”
“I’m pregnant,” Sarah said.
Okay, well that was surprising I guess, considering that I’d never seen her with a guy here. I supposed that was why she had her shirt lifted up to expose her belly as if it were some attempt at proof. She did look a little swollen around the abdomen, but who knows.
“Congratulations, I guess,” I said. I wasn’t trying to sound rude; I just didn’t know if this was something that she was happy about or not. “I still don’t understand why you’re all yelling at each other about it in the kitchen.”
“Oh, you will in a minute,” Rob said with a look of shock still resting on his face.
“He’s the father,” Sarah said as her finger lifted up to point in the air.
I felt the room start to go fuzzy and my legs shake beneath me as I choked out a single word.
“What?” I said as I looked at who she was pointing to—Michael.
“She’s lying,” he said.
The scarlet coloring of his skin gave indication that he was getting ready to tackle her to the ground or at least give her a solid smack in the face.
“Why would I lie about who the father of my baby is?” Sarah cried. “He just doesn’t want to admit that he slept with me when I first got here. And now look; now I’m pregnant and he’s trying to just throw me away because he’d rather be with you.”
I didn’t know what to say or what to do. There was just no way that I could believe that this was true. Michael and I were more in love with each other, more bound to each other, than anything imaginable. He would never in a million years sleep with someone else.
But why was Sarah doing this?
If she had gotten accidentally knocked-up and just wanted to find a man to pin the baby on who would be with her and take care of her, she could have picked any one of the several single guys here. It seemed way too difficult to try to pick Michael. She knew that Michael and I were together. In fact, she had just asked about it a few days ago which honestly made it seem all the more suspicious.
“I have never slept with this woman,” Michael said with fierce defensiveness. “I don’t even know her aside from the very few, brief conversations that we’ve all had with her together.”
He turned to me with a look of helplessness.
“Lisette, please, you know that I’m telling you the truth. I would never lie to you, not about easy things or hard things. This woman is lying.”
“I believe you,” I said as I went up and threaded my fingers in his. “Of course I believe you.”
“I don’t,” Adam said without looking up from the table.
“That’s just because you’re still pissed off,” Rob said to him with a huff.
“No,” Adam continued. “It’s because I saw him coming out of Sarah’s bedroom.”
“What?” Michael said as he looked at his friend.
His jaw dropped open as he stared at Adam and it looked as if someone had just driven a dagger straight through his heart.
“Why would you say something like that?” Michael asked him.
“Because it’s true,” Adam answered nonchalantly. “You thought that nobody saw you, but I did.”
“Why are you lying for this girl?” Michael said as his voice began to raise in both pitch and volume. “What are you doing?”
“I just think that Lisette deserves to know the truth, that’s all,” Adam said.
“Is that what this is about?” Michael asked. “You’re stooping so low as to betray our friendship in some ridiculous attempt to paint me as being unfaithful so that you can take Lisette for yourself?”
“Now who’s being ridiculous?” Adam said.
There was a snakelike quality to his voice now. One that made him sound slippery and dishonest.
I was becoming overwhelmed with worry as I continued to clench onto Michael’s hand, both because I felt like I needed to hold and touch him, and because I thought that if I didn’t, he might punch Sarah, or Adam, or maybe even both of them. No matter which one of the guys was telling the truth, it meant that one of them was lying to me and I couldn’t bear the thought of that. I was absolutely furious at Sarah for somehow getting herself in the middle of all of us. The only thing that I could think of to do, was to deal with her on my own and take the stage of men away from her performance. I let go of Michael’s hand, and as soon as I did, he reached for me again.
“Please tell me you aren’t believing this garbage,” he said as he held on to my hand, not wanting to let me go until we resolved this mess.
“Trust me,” I said. “I’m currently not believing anything from anyone.”
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I just want to talk to Sarah alone for a little bit. I’m also going to take her to go get a pregnancy test so we can at least rule that out as being either truth or lie.”
Sarah rolled her eyes dramatically at me. “Seriously? Are we going to go have girl-chat or something? I’m a resident here, not a patient. I don’t need you to take me to get a pregnancy test, I already know that I’m pregnant.”
“Humor me,” I said as my patience was fading.
I pulled Sarah out of the kitchen with me while the guys all watched looking dumbfounded. I could hear them start to talk and argue once we left the room. I was relieved when we got out of earshot because I hated hearing the guys fight.
“How did you get pregnant?” I asked as Sarah and I walked through the store aisles to find where they kept the pregnancy tests.
“I think you might need to retake health-ed if you don�
�t know the answer to that question,” she snarked.
“You know what I’m asking,” I said in a less than friendly tone. “Who did you have sex with?”
“I already told you, Michael.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said sternly. “Michael wouldn’t sleep with you; he loves me.”
“You can tell yourself that all you want, but I’m telling you the truth. Michael came into my room a couple of nights after I got here. We had sex, he left in the middle of the night, and your other friend even saw him with his own eyes. You can’t really believe the voice of one man over the voice of two others.”
“Yes, I sure as hell can,” I said. “If that one man is someone that I know I can trust.”
“Well,” she said as she picked up a pregnancy test from the shelf and shrugged her shoulders. “That might work with me since you don’t know me hardly at all. But does that train of thought really work with your other friend? What’s his name again, Adam? Are you so sure that Adam is lying about having seen it, that you’re willing to just take Michael’s word for it?”
The only accurate point that she was making, was that I trusted both Michael and Adam. Which made things in this situation utterly impossible to deal with because it meant that one of them was lying to me. They both had reasons to lie, I suppose. Adam wanted to frame Michael as being dishonest and disloyal, so that I might then consider being with him. But if Michael actually had done it (which I still don’t believe that he had), then he would want to lie to cover up his infidelity. Either way, this whole thing sucked, and I found myself wishing that Sarah had never come to the house at all.
When we got back, she went right into the bathroom to take the test. I stood at the door to listen and to make sure that it wasn’t being altered or tampered with. Although I wasn’t really sure what you could even do to alter a pregnancy test to begin with. We waited the five minutes and then she and I stared at the pink plus sign together. Well, at least that question was proven to be answered. Sarah was definitely pregnant.
Vicious: A Dark Bully Reverse Harem Romance (Beautiful Tyrants Book 3) Page 13