by Daisy Jane
“Hangover day?” Bastian asks, thoroughly confused.
I giggle softly. “That’s what I call the day after the migraine. I have a headache hangover. My head still aches and throbs, my senses aren’t quite right—sometimes I can’t spell or taste normally. And often my speech can still be slow.” I shrug, wanting their wide eyes to go away. Their shock to go away. “Like a hangover. You’re okay, you’re just not yourself.”
“Fuck,” Bastian says.
“And you’ve been to the Doctor and he says what?” Bodhi questions, knowing that it would be silly to even ask if I’ve been to the Doctor.
That’s the thing about chronic illness and chronic pain. People have no idea how life-consuming your ailment can be, so they offer up little nuggets of help, giving no thought to how offensive they are.
Have you tried lavender oil in your diffuser?
An Excedrin migraine and a donut.
Drinking a real Coke, the kind from Mexico made with real cane sugar.
Have you tried de-stressing?
Seriously. You name it, I’ve heard it. The best is when you are mid-vision loss and someone asks why your head is down and when you try to explain to them you get vision loss with migraines then they say something like “that doesn’t sound good.”
No shit.
But Bodhi isn’t doing that and neither is Bastian. They’re treating me the same way Brynn and Abbie and Kayla, do. Ask questions to have answers so they can better understand.
My chest floods with a warmth I’m only somewhat embarrassed to admit is a direct reaction to these hot as hell guys caring about me.
“As much as they are debilitating, there’s not much you can do for migraines, really. There’s a drug they wanted to take daily but it can cause seizures if you miss a dose and that was more stress than I could handle,” I admit. “I have an injection that helps, it’s proven to have its issues but usually,” I say, licking my lips, feeling heat climb up my neck. “It helps.”
“Have you had scans done, you know?” Bodhi says, suggesting that perhaps there’s more to the problem. But as crazy as it sounds, migraines aren’t typically symptoms of tumors or cancers. Unbelievably.
I nod. “Yeah, all clear just,” I shake my head, “doomed to struggle.”
Wow. I would trade doomed to struggle for an awkward duck face any day. How am I going to ask for what I want when I’m talking about my poor health and my life being doomed to a struggle? I need to get this back on track. Their faces don’t read like I’m a disaster, but still, I need to turn this around.
“Anyway,” I flit a hand carelessly in the air then sip my bubbling water, eager to change the subject.
They aren’t done with it yet.
“Burn through your savings after losing clients?” Bastian asks, the question so accurate I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t some massive hallucination now. I never trust my brain anymore.
He steps closer then back, remembering he hasn’t showered. “I heard you talking to Brynn at the accident, remember?”
I nod again, both embarrassed but somehow relieved, as if these things were my dirty secrets If they know I’m on the brink of being homeless (okay, not really) and struggle with headaches, then, well, they’ve got all the facts. If that keeps them from wanting some wild fun together then I guess I don’t want them anyway.
But I think we both know that’s bullshit because I want them and that’s why I’m nervous for them to know these things.
I’m afraid they’ll see me how I see myself.
A failure.
“Can you keep that house of yours?” Bastian asks, popping a bliss ball into his mouth before I even told him what they were. As if reading my mind, through a mouth of dates he chews out “I trust you,” and points to his mouth.
“Vegan,” I say, nodding to the tray of goodies. Bodhi rubs his palms together enthusiastically, and the sight of a tattooed and brawny Bodhi with braided hair and concerned eyes, it makes it hard to focus. Then I look at Bastian and the way he licks his lips as he finishes his treat, solid shoulders back, muscles all swollen from his work out. Clark Kent has me thrumming, too.
“And no, actually,” I say, matter of fact. “I saw it coming. I've been using my savings and well, next month I need to find some roommates or move back in with my parents.” I cringe a little saying those last words, my shoulders lifting and tightening to my neck, bottom lip rolling under my teeth.
Bastian looks over at Bodhi and nods up to the ceiling. Bodhi agrees with this wordless nod and then, as he chases his bliss ball with his own protein-looking mixture from a separate blender bottle, Bodhi says “move in here.”
Bastian moves around the island to the stool two seats away from me.
“I’m going to go shower but seriously, you should move in with us. This is a four-bedroom house and there is literally one room that has been empty for the last four years.” He reaches for another ball before Bodhi jerks the dish back.
“I have been hand-making gluten free vegan pasta for the last two hours,” he says, sliding the bliss balls onto the counter behind him. His tone reminds me of when I’d come home from school and eat potato chips while my mom was hand rolling meatballs. “You’ll ruin your dinner” she’d say, defeated and aggravated “No I won’t!” I’d shout back. But I always did.
“Sorry,” Bastian says, “It won’t happen again Dad.” He looks at his watch, which had a military style canvas band. “Ten minutes,” he says, before walking back through the foyer. We hear his feet take the stairs two at a time and then, moments later, the creak and groan of the water pipes on the second floor.
“He really stunk didn’t he?” Bodhi says, pinching his nose.
I laugh, feeling this playful banter tingling in my sore brain. It’s not healing any pain but it is making me happy. I can actually feel the little happy cells fight against the sore, aching, maybe moving in with my parents stress cells.
“I didn’t notice.” I say, really not knowing if I smelled him or not. His arms had rings of perspiration and his back had streaks. His hair was damp on the side and his stubble was overtaking his jaw. He looked fucking sexy and all I could smell was want.
How bad I fucking wanted him.
“And ten minutes?” Bodhi folds his arms over his chest, shaking his head gently. “His balls are still gonna stink. Ten minutes is not enough for that level of sweat.”
I chuckle, not wanting to talk about balls. Not yet at least.
“Do you guys work out together?” I ask.
Bodhi looks at his biceps and hold up one arm, flexing so the muscle swells spectacularly under the ink. “I work out,” he says, “Bastian does some girl shit.”
Briefly I imagine Bastian in tights flashes in my mind so before I get carried away, I ask about Eli. He’s shown me the least amount of attention and, because I am a girl, that makes me interested in him the most.
Sick, I know.
I’m telling you, these guys fucking have me in ways I’ve never been had. Mentally. We haven’t even gotten to the physical yet. I tuck some of my hair behind my ear.
“I can’t imagine him doing anything girly,” I say on a laugh, taking the last drink of my San Pellegrino.
“Cutie?” Bodhi says, assigning Bastian a nickname that I of course did not know he had.
“Cutie, huh?” I laugh and press my hand over my mouth, trying to trap in the wildness of my tone. Something about hearing the word ‘cutie’ from a man like Bodhi. It makes me giggle.
“They call him Officer Cutie down at his gym. He says he doesn’t like it but,” Bodhi makes an exaggerated look of disapproval, “who doesn’t want to be known as a cutie?”
I laugh harder at that, because it’s not how I expected him to finish that thought. I thought maybe he’d accuse him of being a pussy or saying what a weak nickname that was but instead, he was playfully jealous and I loved it.
The back door flung open and I could hear Bastian’s dog wake from wherever it was, sc
ampering to the back door to greet whoever just walked in.
I didn’t know these guys all that well--I suppose it could have been another friend, a family member, a fuck buddy? I mean, people came and went from Monica’s apartment on Friends all the time and these guys seemed very friendly.
Then my spine straightened. The voice from behind the wall wasn’t much but a low rumble at this vantage point, but my nipples hardened and I found myself wetting my lips.
Bodhi watched me.
“Like Eli?” he whispered across the bar, where he was still leaning forward on his elbows.
I was here for Bastian, that’s what I thought they thought. I was really here for all of them but now with Bodhi’s question, I wondered if they just saw me as a friend.
I mean, I just thought of how this could be the Friends house. It makes sense.
“What?” I ask, my cheeks betraying my lie and going instantly red. “No, I mean,” and then he turned the corner.
His thighs had more definition that I remembered in the brief time I spent near him last week. Wearing fitted charcoal slacks and a fitted navy dress shirt, sleeves rolled just below his elbows, Eli looked like he was just getting home from work.
If his work was panty-creaming male model dressed as a casual business man in a big city. If his work was being a placeholder for the man of my fantasies. If his work was... okay, you get the picture.
His thick hand played at the neckline of his shirt until the top two buttons were loose, exposing the top of his inked collarbone. His blonde hair was combed, carelessly swoopy in that way that made you actually wonder if he styled it or was just that fucking lucky. As a hairstylist, I would have guessed he did spend time on that look, but as he shoved his fingers through his hand, just the way Bastian did to his own, I wondered.
“Sloane,” he said, some surprise in his low rumble.
I jump up from the barstool, sending it backwards, skidding against the wood floor. Bastian’s dog runs in, snorting as he investigates, and my cheeks feel like flames. I pick up the stool and when I turn to shove it under the counter, Bodhi is there, towering over me like a wall of man. I can feel his body heat even though there’s a foot between us. Swallowing, I look up at him.
“Relax,” he mouths, providing discretion in his advice. I give a little nod. I’m not admitting I like Eli--I don’t even know Eli--but I can’t deny that I am uncool at the moment, nervous and twitchy. Hopefully not sweaty, too.
Taking the stool from me, I step up to Eli and for some damn reason the first words to leave my mouth were “balls.”
Bodhi clears his throat behind me. Eli quirks a brow, taking a pitcher of water from the refrigerator.
“I brought balls. Um, bliss balls.”
“Vegan balls,” Bodhi adds, now back at his spot facing the stove, his water fully boiling now. He drops dowels of pale, uncooked noodles into the large pot and tosses the towel over his shoulder again.
“We got plenty of Vegan balls at the house,” Bastian says, coming around the corner, freshly showered. He’s wearing fitted dark blue jeans and an Oakcreek PD t-shirt, gray and worn, fitted and sexy as all hell. His Clark Kent signature hair is damp, but drying, and I can see as he runs his hands over his head, he purely combs his hair into drying that way.
“You love my Vegan balls,” Bodhi says, pinching Bastian’s shoulders as he passes through the kitchen. Eli sets down his glass of water and Bastian and he hug, chests pressed together. Each man pats the other across the back as they embrace and before it’s over, Bodhi turns around and wraps his arms around them both.
“Alright,” Bastian says, starting to buck his shoulder underneath Bodhi’s weight. “We have company. Let’s not weird her out.”
I smile, finding it absolutely adorable how close these three are.
“We hug every day,” Bastian says, feeling like it needs clarification. “In my line of work, you never know. I lost a partner two years ago and ever since then, we hug every day.”
Oh my god. My poor little bromance-adoring heart. My poor, lonely vagina. My hungry ovaries. I swear the same-sex romance of their friendship nearly makes me combust.
“You guys are all cuties,” I say, winking to Bodhi. He laughs.
“I guess we are, aren’t we?” he squeezes the backs of Eli and Bastian’s necks before he returns to his side of the kitchen, where he pulls a large over-the-sink strainer from the cabinet below the stove.
“Are you okay?” Eli speaks again, finally, and I don’t know if it’s his hesitancy or shy demeanor but I swear when he talks my whole body stands at attention. The damp hairs on the back of my neck rise up, my body drifts forward and my eyes pin him down. “I heard you were sick.”
“You missed the headache talk, bro, she doesn’t want to repeat it all.” Bastian says, pulling an apron from one of the kitchen drawers. I smile but it doesn't surprise me these guys have cooking aprons. Bastian pulls it down over his neck and ties it at the small of his back. On the front there is a hole in the crotch area. Above it reads, “KISS THE COOK” with an arrow to the hole, the words under reading “THE COOK”.
“Cute apron Officer Cutie,” I say, my brows in my hairline. He looks down, reads it, then looks back at me.
“It’s Bodhi’s,” he says, “I am far more of a gentleman than this.”
Eli snorts and moves to the drawer where he pulls out an apron, slips it on over his neck and turns to face me, waving his hands down his newly aproned body.
The torso of a heavy-set man wearing a speedo is printed on the apron. The chest features mounds of thick hair, a gold chain tangled in said hair, red under-wear like speedo, and a heart tattoo with the word “Mom” in the middle. I cover my mouth with the back of my hand.
“This is gentlemanly?” he says, waving his hand over the headless body.
Bastian erupts with laughter. “It’s funny,” he says, hand across his belly, laughing hard. “Because I’m in shape but the apron makes me look not in shape.”
“We get it,” Eli says, rolling his eyes with a smirk.
“I think it’s funny because you’re a cop and most cops look like that.” Eli nods to the apron.
“Oh, and yours is so great?” Bastian quips, making a reach for the drawer. Eli grabs his wrist and Bodhi’s eyes dart to mine while the other two struggle with the drawer.
“He’s nervous, too,” Bodhi mouths, raising his eyebrows conspiratorially to me. A tingle spreads through my belly at the thought that a man like Eli is nervous because of me. And damn if I don’t feel seen by Bodhi.
I’m not the self-loathing, self-deprecating female that can’t wrap her mind around a man looking at her. That’s not me at all.
But you have to see Eli. He’s like one of those unbelievably handsome Instagram models that posts all these broody shots and you stare at them in the darkness of your bedroom at one in the morning, wondering what it would be like to be with him. Wondering what he’s really like.
Being in his presence is makes me question if I’m a strong woman or even a feminist.
Because there’s not much I wouldn’t let that man do to me.
Bastian pries the apron from Eli’s grip and I cannot imagine how stupid this one is for Eli to be embarrassed. He slips it down over his head, over the Kiss the Cook apron, and I cup my hands to my mouth when I see what covers this one.
Little spice bottles and on the front of those bottles? A tiny Eli face, on top of a white label. At chest level, white embroidered cursive reads “The Secret Ingredient”. Eli’s face goes red as he pinches the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.
Triumphantly, Bastian puts his hands on his hips and pushes his chest out.
“The Secret Ingredient to any dish is a dash of Eli.”
“His mom Brenda made it,” Bodhi adds, taking a spot next to Bastian, fully appreciating the apron all over again. He jabs his finger into Bastian’s gut, pointing to an Eli who is smiling, on a white label, the contents of that particular jar looking like parsley
.
“Dude your mom is so cool. I wish she’d make me an apron. Look, I think that’s like, cilantro or something,” Bodhi leans down, eyeing one of the bottles on the pattern. His face is very close to Bastian’s crotch and Bastian juts his hips forward so Bodhi can see better.
“Isn’t what you two are doing right now more embarrassing that the actual apron?” Eli asks, shaking off that cherry hue in his cheeks.
Bodhi rises and crosses his arms over his mountainous chest. “I am very secure in my sexuality and no amount of teasing will change the fact that my face can be by Bastian’s penis and I am fine with it.”
“Thank you,” Bastian says, “and I am fine with you being near my penis as well.”
Eli rolls his eyes and shakes his head, but there’s a trace of humor on his lips. These three have a dynamic unlike any group of friends I’ve ever met. Giving the actual Friends a run for their money.
“Hey,” he says, as if he suddenly remembers he walked out of the room after dropping a life-changing offer on me. “Sloane needs somewhere to live, we thought she could stay here, for however long.”
Feeling the need to take the pressure of Eli, I put a palm up and shake my head dismissively, quickly. “It’s okay, I—”
“Okay,” he says, over me, voice strong and unwavering.
Then all of their eyes are on me and God, my heart beats so fast. My fingers smooth through my hair then down the smocked bodice of my sundress. Touching everything but what and who I want to touch.
I came to ask for one, hot, delicious night of all four of us.
But now they’re asking me to live with them. Living with them could be torturous—all that Marvel (or is it DC?) muscle under my nose first thing in the morning and the last thing before bed at night? If they don’t want the group romp, it could be awkward. I gnaw at my bottom lip in thought, though not at all the thoughts they probably think I’m mulling over.