The Toil and Trouble Trilogy, Book One

by Val St. Crowe

  Chapter One

  It’s after one in the morning in this fifth floor apartment in the city, and my boyfriend Brice is yelling for me to let him out of the closet he’s locked up in. Brice is a berserker, which means that every night at midnight, for one hour, he turns into this raging monster thing. It should only last an hour, but Brice isn’t exactly responding to treatment, which means it sometimes lasts longer. This freaks me out. But he’s back to normal now, so I don’t have to worry about it for the rest of the night.

  I get up off the couch, where I’ve been watching late-night TV, and go over to the closet. It’s a regular coat closet, but we reinforced all the walls with rebar and sheet metal and put a really big padlock on the door. That way, Brice can never get out. He’s really paranoid about that. I always hang out in his apartment during the change in case he manages to get free. Technically, I’m here to stop him from hurting anyone by hurting him. But if I’m honest with myself, I know I could never do that.

  “I’m unlocking the door right now,” I tell him.

  “Hurry up. It smells like a locker room in here,” he says.

  I unlock the padlock and open the door, “That’s ‘cause you’re sweaty.”

  Brice is leaning against the back wall of the closet. He’s pretty much the most beautiful boy in the world. And, okay, I might be biased, but it’s not like other people don’t agree with me. He’s starring in a new musical downtown. My boyfriend, the professional actor. He is heavily perspiring, though, but I don’t mind. Sweaty Brice is still really pretty.

  “You try throwing yourself up against these walls for an hour.” He grins, and his face lights up. “You’d get sweaty too.”

  “Did you get any more bruises?”

  “I’m tough.” He pounces on me and gathers me into a bear hug. “All I got to do now is get my sweatiness all over you.”

  I giggle, trying to shove him away. “Stop it. If I come home smelling like you, Nonna’s going to get ideas.” Nonna is my grandmother. I live with her. In fact, since Brice’s change is over, I need to be getting back home. I can catch the two o’clock ferry to the island if I get moving soon.

  Brice barrels me back to the couch, collapsing on top of me there. He speaks into my neck, in between kisses and nuzzles. “Oh whatever, she’ll just be jealous. And besides, you love my sweaty smell.”

  Which is actually true. It’s sort of spicy and masculine. I kiss his forehead, which is the only thing I can reach, since he’s got me pinned under him. “I have to get ready to catch the ferry.”

  He looks up. “What time is it? Was I out longer tonight?” He’s suddenly serious.

  I shake my head. “No, it’s only a quarter after one. It was pretty normal tonight.” Once Brice stayed a berserker until nearly four in the morning. I was so scared. I thought he might not change back. The way the virus is responding to treatment in him, that’s a possibility. Someday, he’ll just never come back.

  “Then we’ve got time.” He smiles mischievously and kisses me hard on the lips.

  I kiss back, and sometime in the middle of the kiss, it stops being playful, and starts to get more intense. About the same time I’ve opened my lips to his tongue, his hands are starting to roam over my body. I pull him close for a little bit, because it feels good, but I know I can’t let it go any further. I break the kiss. “Brice, I really have to go.”

  Brice’s hands are inching under the hem of my shirt. His fingers tickle my bare skin. “No, you don’t. It’s early.”

  I push his hands away. “It’s not a good idea to start getting too...you know, worked up.”

  Brice’s hands skim my hips. He grabs me and tugs my body against his. His voice deepens. “Stay, Olivia. Just stay. You don’t have to go home at all.”

  I run my fingers over his cheek, let them trail over his firm jaw line and neck. “Then Nonna would be really freaked out.”

  “So? You’re legally an adult. You can choose to stay here if you want.” His hands are under my shirt again, this time lightly tracing my ribs and moving higher.

  Shivers run through my body. It’s so nice to be touched like that. But...

  Brice’s fingers ease under my bra. I can’t think. I close my eyes and kiss him, letting myself get lost in the sensations of his mouth on mine and his hands stroking me. I’m lost in it for quite some time. We keep making out. Articles of clothing somehow get removed. But finally, I get my head back in the right place, and I pull away from him, gasping. “Brice, we’re getting into dangerous territory here.”

  Brice kisses my neck. “We’ve gone further than this before.” Brice kisses lower than my neck. And lower. And—

  I get a fistful of his hair and yank him away from me, “Stop it.”

  He’s right. We’ve gone further than this before. Hell, we went further than this on our first “date,” which was essentially me throwing myself at him in a baseball dugout. We almost went all the way that night, but Brice turned into a berserker before we could. And there was another time, in my bedroom, after I got out of the shower, when things got— But the point is, “Every time we go this far, it’s hard to stop.”

  And we have to stop. Because the berserker virus that Brice has is sexually transmittable. And so we always have to stop.

  Brice groans. But he nods, finally. And he moves away from me, shrugging back into his shirt.

  I start pulling my clothes back on. “I don’t think we need to make it so hard on ourselves is all.”

  Brice’s head is still inside his shirt. His voice comes out a little muffled. “But for you to like catch it, don’t we have to have like a simultaneous orgasm or something?” His head pops out. His hair is sticking up. “I hear those are rare.”

  I reach over to smooth his hair. “It doesn’t have to be simultaneous. They just have to be...near each other.” Even though we were both half naked with our hands all over each other a second ago, it still feels really awkward to talk about stuff like this. I’m not sure why that is.

  Brice is up on his feet, rubbing his hands over his face. “God, listen to me. What the hell am I saying?” He looks at me. “Of course, I would never ask you to risk that. Never.” He rocks on his feet. “I’m sorry for being pushy. It’s only that you’re beautiful, and I’m in love with you, and when I have you close like this...”

  I get up too. “It’s not like it’s easy for me, either, you know? I want you too.”

  He folds me into his arms, planting a kiss on the top of my head. “I still think you should stay. We could just hold each other and...”

  I break away. “Maybe you could. I feel... I need to go home.”

  He looks at his feet and bobs his head. “This is getting harder, isn’t it?”

  I kiss him on the cheek. “I’m going to find a cure.”

  He laughs, and it’s bitter. “There’s no cure, Olivia.”

  But there has to be. There just has to be. Because I love Brice, and the universe couldn’t be so cruel as to let us find each other, but make it impossible for us to ever completely be together.