The Corner House: A Reverse Harem

by Daisy Jane

  “With beer and wine, the magic of it really all happens before you get it. The process of harvesting and fermenting, all the things that go into those happen pre-consumption,” he leans back, getting comfortable and I know I’ve found a topic he can go on about. And that’s all I want. More time with him. To get to know him. To feel the rumble of his voice through my chest.

  “With whiskey, all that happens, too. But then there’s other factors. How you drink it can be variable.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, knowing next to nothing about alcohol in general aside from the fact that I like wine and I will drink it from the box because I have no shame.

  “There’s an art to making a really good cocktail with whiskey. Things need to be just right. But,” he waves a hand and sits up, as if he’s desperate to clarify. “It’s not just that. If you drink whiskey neat, there’s still so many variants to your experience.”

  “Like what?” Tell me all the things, Eli, my heart says.

  “Well, first you only pour like, one to one and a half ounces at a time. And you don’t shoot it like a shot, you know? You sip and taste. Each sip, you know, should be a study in flavors. And then you can add water to your whiskey, to open up the flavor, and that’s a completely different drink, too.”

  “Adding water doesn’t just make it taste weaker?” I know that’s what I do with my black tea.

  He shakes his head and holds a finger out. I want to lower my mouth over that finger. “No, that’s what you’d think, right? But with the higher proof whiskeys, you don’t dilute with a cup of a water. You’re adding literal drops. And that opens up the flavor.” He chuckles to himself. “Don’t laugh but I’ve actually purchased water online from a place in the United States where the water has more limestone in it, naturally occurring.”

  I crinkle my brow.

  “Allegedly, water with more limestone brings out the flavors in the whiskey.” He shrugs. “I think I can tell the difference but it could be in my head.”

  “What’s the name of the club you’re in?”

  “Trevvor’s,” he says, “and it’s located on the East Coast but they have a branch out here. When we meet, we do Zoom tastings with our East Coast crew.”

  “Yeah? That’s pretty cool. Are there a lot of people in the club?” Are there a lot of women trying to drink whiskey with you? Because if so, whiskey just got a lot less cool.

  “It’s a private club. Invite only, and there’s an annual fee,” he says, tilting his chin to the ceiling with an air of importance. Then, he runs his finger up the bottom of his nose, flicking it. “I’m very high brow.”

  “Do you wear a monocle when you go?” I bite the corner of my mouth and smirk.

  A slow grin takes over his lips but his eyes don’t smile. His eyes study the part of my lip that I’m gnawing. He watches me chew my lip; he studies my mouth with an intensity that makes me insane.

  Then it’s like he realizes he’s doing it and stops. Don’t stop, I want to say.

  “Do you go alone?” I ask, trying to keep him here, talking to me. Desperate for morsels of him.

  “I do. Um, I used to take my girlfriend.”

  That’s the first mention of his ex-girlfriend, the one that Bodhi and Bastian warned me he had a hard break up with.

  “I regret taking her,” he adds, surprising me. I swallow hard and play with the edge of the placemat at the table.

  “Why?” it comes out quiet, like I’m unsure if I can ask this.

  “It’s something that I’ve given a lot of time to. I’ve emersed myself in this group of people, I’ve done these distillery tours and tastings. It’s, I mean I know it’s just whiskey but it’s become important to me. Not just the drinks and samplings but the club is like a second family to me. It’s just important.”

  I stay silent, urging him to continue.

  “She and I were together a couple of years,” he rakes a hand up the back of his head and I know I’m getting a story. My heart quickens. “The whole time, she gave me so much shit that I wouldn’t take her. You know, it’s such a big deal to you and you keep it to yourself, you shut me out.” He uses a feminine voice that makes me giggle, so I press a closed fist to my mouth.

  “She didn’t really sound like that,” he adds, with a smirk, “but you get the idea.”

  “I do.” I smile.

  “Finally, I take her. I take her on World Whiskey Day, one of Trevvor’s biggest tastings. There are brand reps, there are head distillers from distilleries all throughout the United States. The tasting for that event had like, twenty expressions,” he says, stopping himself to clarify. “Expressions are samples of whiskey, just tiny amounts that you taste the way you like.”

  I nod, appreciating the clarification.

  “Anyway, it was like, the biggest event for the club. I was fucking pumped. Some people from the East coast were actually going to be there, so I was going to meet them in person. You know, you Zoom with someone for years so meeting them is... special,” he says, and I love that he just said that.

  “Well, if you’d believe it, we don’t get drunk at these things. I mean, okay, sometimes we get toasty. But it’s not a club to get drunk. At all.”

  “I understand that. It sounds like an art, discovering new whiskeys and finding how they’re best served and tasted. It sounds beautiful and interesting.”

  Eli freezes and our gazes idle together. I meant what I said. I really hope he doesn’t think I’m teasing him. He reaches out and squeezes my hand and before I can let my body enjoy it, he takes his hand back. Smiling, getting a little red, he continues.

  “She got drunk and she made an asshole out of herself. And me, in the process.”

  “Oh Eli,” I say instinctively.

  “The club was cool about it. I apologized profusely and promised I’d never bring anyone again. They said that wasn’t necessary. But still, I was hurt.”

  “I’m sure you were embarrassed, having her behave like that in front of your people.”

  He nods, “they are my people. Yeah. But,” he shakes his head. “I wasn’t embarrassed. I was hurt. Because I’m an easy-going guy. I share everything with a woman when she’s my girl. But this was special. And she didn’t treat it the way I would’ve treated anything she deemed special. It just hurt.”

  “I completely understand.” What a fucking idiot this ex of his must be. “Hey,” I say, taking his hand now. He looks up. His hand is solid and warm and his fingers are thick. Everything about his hands make me imagine what they’d be like in my panties. But I release his hand so it’s not weird. God, I want to touch this man, even in the slightest of ways. “Thanks for sharing that with me. Not just about your ex-girlfriend but the club. It sounds amazing.”

  Our eyes just hover on one another. I feel so insanely hot. I clear my throat.

  “And thank you for sharing your house with me,” I say, taking two of the plates off the bar and sliding them onto the table. Grandma winds through my legs because food and I reach down, scratching behind his fluffy ear.

  He sniffs my hand before he lets me fully scratch and even when I’m done, he sniffs my hand again before walking to Eli and lying on the floor by his feet.

  “Grandma is a temperamental asshole,” Eli says, “but he warms up to you. Give him some time.”

  I snort. “I still think Grandpa makes more sense.”

  “What makes sense to most people is not even a consideration to Bastian,” he says, with an easy smile that tells me these men are really friends with love and respect for one another.

  Yes, I got all that from one smile.

  “Can I ask you something kind of weird and definitely uncomfortable now that I’m your roommate?” I ask, wincing a bit. The Sloane that didn’t get headaches was reserved. She thought her thoughts a million times over, then thought about them again upside down. This Sloane sees how that worked out.

  Headaches, dumped by a man who can’t orgasm and well, nearly jobless.

  This Sloane can’t hold ba
ck. She owes it to herself to finally just be.

  Eli matches my wince and holy hell even his wince is sexy. When I get this attracted to a guy—magnet attraction levels—I remind myself of all the things.

  He burps and farts, he probably misses the toilet sometimes when he pees, I’m sure he’s been known to leave a dish in the sink, and of course there’s been times when he’s left lights on and been grumpy for no reason.

  He may be the hottest man I’ve ever laid eyes on with an unspoken charisma that makes me wet. There’s no denying any of that. But he’s still a human being.

  I’m trying to ground myself in reality before I float away on an Eli high.

  “I’m not feeling super pumped on this question with that intro but,” he lifts his shoulders and nods, “go for it.”

  “Bastian invited me over last week. But after you guys left, we just kind of, hung out. Like, he didn’t make a move or…” I pour four glasses of San Pellegrino—I’d taken a good survey of their fridge and pantry last time I was here and had groceries delivered at the corner house today, my first contribution. Because as I’d learned last week at our dinner, they did everything together when they could—including meals. “It’s just weird because he does things guys do when they like a girl but then when we’re together, he never acts like he likes me.”

  I feel Eli tense and his uncomfortable reaction to this territory pleases me, because if he doesn’t want to hear this—maybe he does like me?

  It seems so farfetched. We barely know each other. Okay, so we did do a crammed-Cliff’s Notes version of getting to know one another but we didn’t have that innate comfort that came from existing with someone in a space together. Only time could give us that intimate comfort.

  “I don’t like Bastian,” I say, and the words come out fast, seemingly right on top of each other, and my face feels hot. God, is it hot in here? But I look up to Eli and this time, he gives me his eyes.

  “No?” one eyebrow barely raises.

  I roll my teeth over my bottom lip. “No. I mean, as a friend, of course.”

  “No, I just wanted to ask, do you guys have a lot of female friends like me? That you all get along with but no one actually like, dates?”

  “Not a single one.”

  Eli looks back to the towel where he reaches across my chest to empty the crumbs into the basin of the sink. His elbow grazes my breast and immediately he apologizes and I swear, time crawls and I crawl inside the moment, memorizing the feel of his body tensing next to mine. Remembering the curl of the edge of his lips in his embarrassment, his adorable apology. I want to save this moment and replay it later. Maybe when I’m alone. Maybe when the lights are off. Because if a shy and humble Captain America doesn’t do it, what will?

  “I want something else,” I start to say, my nipples hardening with my confidence. With my spine. With my resolve to take what I want.

  Grandma leaps to her feet and lets free of a howl I suspect she wanted to give me earlier but saved for this moment. The moment the front door opens. After a second of getting her traction, she breezes through our ankles and greets Bodhi and Bastian, who are coming in from the front.

  Eli steps back, to see if they have anything they need help with, but before he can make it out of the kitchen, I grab his wrist.

  “Hey, revisit this conversation with me?” I ask, smiling so organically that I smile harder, because he just brings it out of me.

  Okay, maybe I am a little bit high school girl around him but better than being girl who can’t make her boyfriend come. I’ll take high school girl any day over that.

  He runs his tongue over his teeth. “I can’t wait.”

  I release his wrist and the last bit of reservation and hesitation I was holding on to? I released that, too.

  Chapter 12

  As with most people, as it turns out, I own way more shit than I thought I did.

  I had every intention of revisiting that conversation with Eli. I thought I would later that night. But the fatigue of moving kept everyone in their rooms and we were all tired the next morning. Then between getting my keys back to the homeowner, taking last-minute appointments (because while I hated the last-minute clients, I had no leg to stand on and needed the cash), and unpacking.

  So. Much. Unpacking.

  I don’t think I’ve worn a pair of earrings in over six years and yet two boxes full of belts got put up in my closet. Unpacking led to a very generous donation of items to my local Hope Chest, because it took having to carry it all to a new house to realize I didn’t want it. After creating a capsule wardrobe, I put the rest of my stuff in bags for giveaway.

  After arranging and rearranging too many times, I had my queen-sized bed, dresser, two lamps, area rug and wardrobe mirror set up just right. The bathroom—which I’d expected to have to clean before I set up camp in—was actually spotless. Almost as if it hadn’t been used, but I know it was Bodhi’s. These guys really are clean.

  I know clean shouldn’t be a thing that tickles your fancy until you’re like, way older and have kids making messes but even now, weeks later, I still got a little hot when they vacuumed, swept or did dishes.

  My bathroom was set up to my liking with my towels in a rack against the wall, my soaps and shampoos in a caddy under the sink. Even though I wasn’t sharing this bathroom, I always felt like houses looked better with less stuff sitting out.

  By the time I’d gotten my Salon Six book set up for the next few weeks, completely unpacked my kitchen and general items, and gotten settled, it had been a week.

  Even though I did a lot in that week, I didn’t forget that time with Eli in the kitchen.

  I couldn’t forget my racing heart, the smell of his aching muscles and the feel of his warm skin. He’d been kind but quiet all week, not engaging in extra conversation but more so just listening. I felt him watching me a few times and more times than I’d like to admit I thought about how much I wanted to straddle his lap and wrap my fingers together behind his neck and taste him.

  He was the focus of my eyes-closed thoughts, more than Bodhi or Bastian were. Still, as much as I found my mind going to Eli—I wanted them all. That part of me was still alive and well, thriving as if I’d been feeding the need.

  I guess I had. Living at the corner house for just a week I’d seen a lot of topless hot guys—tattoos, pierced nipples and nose (okay, that’s just Bodhi), swollen and overworked muscles post pump—the sound of a protein shake being made was the bell to Pavlov’s dog. I swear as soon as someone unscrewed the lid on the protein powder my heart started beating faster.

  Being their roommate hadn’t changed the fact that having them all on me, inside me, against me, for me—it was something I knew I had to have.

  Bastian was coming off three-night shifts on patrol while Eli was preparing for a major system upgrade at work, which required a lot of rest because he was going to be up for a few nights in a row. A week after I moved in, that left just Bodhi and I at the table tonight.

  “Did you have a good day today, sweetheart?” he mused, giving me his biggest, cheesiest grin.

  He’d tried but not been able to recreate Brynn’s perfect Dutch braids. His hair was down, wet, as he’d just taken a shower. I had too because while he had been working out, I had been organizing books in my bedroom. First, I’d placed all 102 books in alphabetical order and then wiped away all that hard work on a whim after seeing a bookstagrammer post her shelves organized by color.

  After turning my bookshelf into a small but beautiful little rainbow of spines, I took a shower, putting on a pajama set of boxers and a tank top, and headed down. I knew Bastian was probably napping and I knew Eli was turned in for the night already, based on a note he left on the fridge two days ago.

  The note had read “Hello fuckers and Sloane, I’m doing that big upgrade at work this weekend so I need rest the next few nights. Keep the debauchery to a 2 on the noise and remember, I’m making coffee this week so man up. -Eli”.

  I though
t it was cute how well these guys communicated their needs to each other.

  Turns out, they took turns making coffee, too, and because Eli liked his strong and dark, he had to warn the other two. Surprisingly, Bodhi took his coffee with almond milk and agave, whereas Bastian dumped half a cup of Coffee Mate Sweet Italian Cream into his. He may as well have eaten a damn Snickers bar for breakfast every morning, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that. And apparently his abs didn’t get the memo.

  “I did indeed have a wonderful day, darling,” I reply to Bodhi, popping my hip into his. “I’m making vegan pizza,” I tell him, stirring the pot of near-bubbling tomato sauce. It’s my personal sauce recipe. At my old house I had a small garden in the back yard where I grew tomatoes. SO MANY TOMATOES. A few tomatoes are a lot of tomatoes when you don’t like tomatoes. I started making sauce because even though jarred marinara isn’t expensive, free is free. And I liked reading and stirring, and that’s really all sauce required.

  “Know any Vegans who might want to eat dinner with me?” I nudge him with my elbow and it’s completely fine because aside from Eli, the guys are playful and sweet with me. And it’s not that Eli isn’t those things…. It’s more like, he wants to be but he’s not letting himself.

  “Oh!” Bodhi jams his hand in the air. “Put me in coach, I’ll punish a pizza with the mood I’m in.”

  Bodhi is wearing gray sweatpants and a black t-shirt that is fitted because when you’re bulked with sinewy muscle the way he is, I’d be willing to bet you don’t come across a lot of stuff that’s too big on you. His hair is drying quickly in soft waves around his face and when it’s down like this he almost looks like a different person.

  Like a big teddy bear.

  If teddy bears make your legs pull together and your mind go dark.

  “What happened today?” I ask, trying to focus on anything but his looks. It’s easier when we sit down and eat and talk, and all of the ink and nipple piercings are covered. It’s not easy, still, because Bodhi is a presence. But it’s easier.