Tied Between

by Kira Barker

  And when I woke up, I realized I had barely ten minutes to get ready for work, having forgotten to set my alarm. Jack wasn’t home yet—a good thing, if you asked me right then—and I lingered at the back of the living room, staring at where Simon was reading something on his screen, headphones on, but in the end I just left.

  Night shift was endless and boring, but come morning, I felt positively resentful to return home. I realized that I was reacting exactly as I had when things had started to spiral out of control, but I simply couldn’t help myself. Even leaving on time, I wouldn’t make it home before Jack was out of the house—again—leaving me alone with Simon—again.

  I felt incredibly stupid as I hovered outside on the porch, ready to open the door but not quite able to make myself. There was likely a window open in the bedroom that I could use to crawl inside, and then pretend to be asleep should Simon accost me before I actually was. The past month had proven that we could play this game without even wanting to, living side by side without much interaction. And with time there would come distance, and that sounded like a damn fine solution to me right now.

  And it also sounded like the first nail in the coffin for our relationship, whatever it was right now or might turn into; so I forced myself to stop acting like a stupid git and strode into the house with purpose.

  I knew something was off when I almost fell over the suitcase and gym bag parked in the already small, crowded foyer. Eyeing them critically, I saw that the tag had Simon’s name on it. That was strange. And unsettling. Hysteria-inducing unsettling, really.

  The sudden unease creeping up my spine immediately spiked as I walked into the kitchen and found Jack still lounging at the breakfast bar, but he was relaxed and smiling as he was talking to someone in the den that I had yet to glimpse.

  And there she was, perky, way too much cleavage showing, framed by bottle-blonde hair—the infamous Miss Alva, Simon’s publicist. In truth, she’d never given me any reason for the animosity I felt toward her, but then her appearance was enough to sour my mood even on a good day. And today wasn’t one of those.

  A further glimpse revealed Simon, for once not in his usual house uniform of sweat pants but wearing jeans and a jacket over his shirt, clearly getting ready to leave. I tried to remember if he’d told me anything about leaving, but came up blank.

  “Morning everyone,” I greeted, sounding not exactly cheery, but then I was coming home from a night shift.

  Jack flashed me a grin that promised a more thorough greeting once the obstacle was removed from the room, while Simon looked up, giving me a positively harassed look that somehow managed to alleviate most of my fears. But it was the trollop that chose to speak up instead.

  “Erica, right? It’s so nice to see you again!” she chirped, extending her manicured claws toward me.

  “Erin,” I corrected her. “Like one of the three people Simon dedicated his debut novel to? Not that hard to remember.” I was tempted to ignore her hand but instead shook it, squeezing with all the strength of someone who makes a living with her agile fingers. She winced, but her fake smile didn’t betray a thought.

  “My bad. Did you come over to say goodbye to Simon? Silly him completely forgot about his book tour. Really, he would be lost without me.”

  A snort from the direction of the kitchen told me that Jack was of a mind with me on that—if there was one person in his life that Simon could easily make do without, it was her—but I didn’t know how to respond to the news. It sounded like a blessing, true, or would have, if I hadn’t just made up my mind a minute ago that it was the wrong idea to let things stew rather than clear them up.

  “She’s here to have breakfast with me,” Jack came to my rescue when it became apparent that I wasn’t quite up to offering the snappy response that deserved. Alva’s brows shot up, but then a condescending smile replaced the surprise on her face. By now, someone must have told her that Jack and I had a special kind of friendship. Stress on friendship. Like few things before, it made me want to pull both guys over to the couch and molest them right in front of her, but thankfully, now was really not the time for entirely inappropriate displays of affection.

  “Do you have a moment?” I asked Simon, just as he turned to me and said, “Can we talk?”

  We shared a somewhat queasy smile that should have tipped off Alva if she’d had a working brain cell between her ears, but she only checked her phone. “Your Uber should be here in ten minutes, so you have five. Make it quick.”

  Simon nodded toward the back hallway, following me as I made my way out of earshot quickly. He closed the door to the bedroom behind him, looking, if anything, even more uncomfortable than before.

  “You actually forgot you had to go on a business trip?” I asked, hardly managing to contain my amusement. He glared at me, likely because I was wasting precious time on something he clearly didn’t like to be reminded of.

  “Yes, and you can stop gloating right there. I forgot to write it in my planner, and because I was a little late on my deadlines, I didn’t really check my online stuff for the last few days not to get distracted. And it’s not like you’re any better with keeping dates. Marcy called earlier for you, asking why you hadn’t cancelled the lease on your old apartment yet.”

  Oops. I hadn’t exactly forgotten about that, but probably should not have let things slide so much.

  “Whatever. We need to talk.”

  Simon exhaled loudly, likely because he was trying to swallow the remark that we were, in fact, already talking, but before he could say whatever else was on his mind, I forestalled him.

  “Me first. I’ll be quick,” I promised, then did some stalling myself. “Look, I know my reaction yesterday was childish and immature—“

  “It was, but I get where you’re coming from,” Simon interjected.

  “You don’t, but that’s okay, because it would weird me out incredibly if you could read my mind.”

  He grimaced. “So this wasn’t at all about you getting emotional because you were feeling torn because on the one side you want to rely on me because of how I make you feel, but you won’t let yourself because you already feel like I have too much power to hurt you because your feelings toward me aren’t just of a platonic nature, while at the same time feeling you’re doing Jack a disservice because he has fallen head over heels for you, but you’re not returning his feelings and that makes you hyperconscious of anything that could make him feel remotely uncomfortable otherwise?”

  My head was spinning, trying to keep up with that most endless of sentences, but I figured that’s what you got for living with a guy who made a living from screwing around with words. And my feelings, it seemed.

  I opened my mouth, ready to reply, but he’d pretty much said it all there, if more to the point than I could have, so I closed it again, my jaws snapping shut with an audible sound.

  “Well. Yeah,” was what I finally settled on.

  Simon didn’t even look smug, and that made me realize that he wasn’t any happier about the situation than I was.

  “Look, I’m not saying that this isn’t a terrible mess, but it doesn’t have to be,” he picked up the thread. “I get it, okay? I may not be the most responsive person, and I think we both proved yesterday that we’re way better at avoiding something than resolving the issue, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m sorry that I was so insensitive yesterday and made you hurtle down that rabbit hole.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “It was,” he insisted. “I should have just shut my mouth and not gotten emotional myself, thus pushing you into a similar defensive reaction. You had a very good excuse not to be thinking clearly, one I gave you, no less, but I didn’t. And I think it’s pretty obvious that you and I are utterly incapable of finding a solution for this.”

  “So what do you suggest?” I would have loved to discuss this in more detail, particularly how he’d deduced all of that, but we were running out of time, and he clearly had more to say tha
n that he was aware of the slippery slope we were on.

  “Clear things up with Jack.”

  That was not what I had expected. “I don’t know what there is to clear up.”

  “A lot,” he pointed out. “Maybe you just need to spend some quality time with him, I don’t know. Give him the feeling that you still need him. I think his main issue right now is that I can give you something that he can’t, and I’m taking away time that you’d normally spend with him. Talk to him. If you have to, slap some sense into him. Whatever makes you cringe or uncomfortable where he is concerned, resolve that. If you can’t, I’m sure he can, because he’s not as stupid as you and I both are. Explain it to him. If you have to, show him. If you need my help, make a list or whatever that we can work through once I’m back. But use the time you have together without me to settle all the things that stand between you but don’t have to.”

  “You clearly spent some time giving that some thought,” I noted.

  Simon shrugged. “A few months. Remember the part where I’ve always known that, whatever you feel for me, you will always take his side in a fight? And don’t even deny it. We both know it’s true. And I’m okay with that, even if it rankles. You spent the months since things went askew trying to get your head screwed on right. I spent them trying to work out how to come out of it without losing you both. And that’s pretty much the only solution I came up with. Not sure it’s the right one, or whether it’s even going to work, but now the ball’s in your court.”

  I nodded, my head still spinning trying to work through all the information he was dumping on me.

  “How long will you be gone? Where are you going?”

  “A couple of cities. The schedule’s on my website. Not that I check that, but you can. You’ll likely know more than I do if you look it up.”

  I wondered if I should have asked him why he’d even agreed to this if it made him so uncomfortable, but I knew not to bother. As much as he hated all public events, I knew that he silently preened for the attention.

  “You’re flying?” He nodded. “Good flight, then. Don’t forget to tweet about having Wi-Fi on your flight if you do.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t forget,” he said and turned to the door, but then halted. Before I knew what was happening, he’d gathered me up in his arms and was kissing me, both gentle and intense at the same time. There was a knock on the door, followed by the annoying chattering of that woman, forcing us apart although I wanted nothing more than to cling to him. Simon seemed equally reluctant to let go, hesitating for another second with his forehead pressed to mine, his eyes not moving from my face. “I know that this is not what you want to hear from me, but you are fucking important to me. You’re not just a friend, and you’re not just my sub. Don’t forget that.”

  With that, he let go of me and was gone before I could form a coherent reply—which was probably for the best. Still a little dazed, I sat down on the bed, staring at the half-closed door until I heard the front of the house quiet down with the departure of half of its occupants. When I felt more or less myself again, I got up and did what Jack had used for an excuse what felt like forever ago—I joined him for breakfast.

  Chapter 13

  I was halfway through the scrambled eggs with onions and green peppers by the time I finally opened my mouth for something besides shoveling food in or caffeinating myself. Jack had been suspiciously quiet so far, making it plain that there was an elephant in the room with us, and we really shouldn’t ignore it.

  “Not that I’m complaining, but why are you still here? Shouldn’t you be working?”

  He shrugged off my question with his usual relaxed attitude.

  “Contrary to your job where when you go missing people die, the worst that will happen to me is my boss getting cranky. I think he’s in meetings all day today, so he’ll likely not miss me. And the rest of the monkey farm won’t rat on me. I did a lot of overtime over the last couple of weeks. They owe me an hour or two now.”

  I nodded as if that was anything but news to me. I really was shitty about keeping track of other people’s schedules. I was so used to being the one who never had time for anything but sleeping and eating, and sometimes not even that, it made me a shitty roommate. Also a sleepy or absent one.

  “Great that we can spend some time together,” I offered. “Do you know how long Simon will be gone? Not that it matters, but he didn’t tell me.”

  “Ten days, give or take a couple of hours with bad connection times. So a lot of time that you can have me all to yourself, if you want to.”

  He said that with enough sarcasm to make me look up sharply.

  “What did I do to deserve that?”

  Jack shrugged, actually looking a little taken aback. “Sorry, that came out weird. But if I consider Simon spending the entirety of yesterday evening moping, and then your entrance and hush-hush conversation today, I feel a little like the kid no one tells anything.”

  “He didn’t tell you?” Why that surprised me, I didn’t know, but it would have been convenient if I didn’t have to dish. Because now I would have to—Jack wouldn’t let me off the hook otherwise.

  He shook his head. “No, he was irate when I got home, pretty much ignored me the entire time, even slept on the couch, which is pretty stupid as he could just have taken my bed, or kicked me out of his if he didn’t want any company. Worked out well in the end because that way that nitwit didn’t walk in on us doing it but rather on him drooling on the sofa cushions. I just got back from my morning run. It was kind of hilarious watching him scramble, still barely awake.”

  “Only kind of?” I teased.

  “It was fucking hilarious,” he agreed, giving me a real smile. “You know how he can be in the morning. But that reminds me—you obviously know what’s going on, better than I do. Spill.”

  I wondered how best to explain, but there really was no easy way.

  “We kind of had a… I don’t even know what it was. It wasn’t really a fight. I got stupid, he got mad, then I ran off and shoved him away, he felt guilty and let me, and we couldn’t really resolve stuff today because it was a conversation not best held with that whore breathing down his neck.”

  Jack had started to frown as soon as I mentioned my less than stellar initial reaction, but that last part made him grin.

  “Wait, why are you allowed to call her a whore but whenever I use that word to describe anyone, even a bona fide prostitute, you get in my face?”

  “Because I’m a woman,” I quipped back.

  “And that makes no sense at all,” he pointed out.

  “It doesn’t need to make sense. It’s a fact of life.”

  Jack snorted. “Simon calls you names in the playroom.”

  I felt that familiar twinge of unease creep up my spine, but Simon’s words were still too fresh in my mind to ignore that issue.

  “First, that’s none of your business. Second, he calls me his slut. There’s a difference.”

  “Is there?” he wanted to know.

  “There is,” I assured him. “And you know that he doesn’t mean it as an actual derogatory term. It just wouldn’t work if he’d call me babe.”

  “You hate anyone calling you babe,” Jack said.

  “Right. Not the point. Stop distracting me.” His grin widened and he stretched, making his T-shirt ride up, absolutely not incidentally. I took my eyeful of abs, but then fixed my gaze firmly on his face. “Very mature. Now, do you want an answer or not?”

  “Please. Answer.”

  Scrubbing my eyes, I tried to force my sluggish mind back into functioning.

  “What we quarreled about isn’t the point. The real issue was that I was getting self-conscious because of something I thought you’d say or think, and that made him angry. And when we talked about it briefly just now, he said that the only way out of this is that we clear up our issues.”

  “What issues?” Jack sounded so genuinely surprised that he made me blink with irritation, then frown w
hen I realized that he was serious.

  “We have issues. Even if we never talk about them.”

  “No we don’t,” he insisted.

  “We do.”

  Just listening to our conversation gave me a good idea why Simon sometimes just got up and left the room when we reached a point like that. Unlike usual, Jack didn’t go on, but instead regarded me with a gravity that I really wasn’t used to from him.

  “What was it that you were fighting about? What do you think would skeeve me out enough that you supposedly get weirded out by my reaction?”

  The fact that even that made my skin crawl just underlined that this conversation was probably long overdue. We’d had similar talks before where he’d assured me that he didn’t care what Simon and I got up to, but I’d never really believed him. And as much as I didn’t want to reply, there was no way around this except right through the middle.

  “Fisting.”

  Jack blinked, but didn’t look particularly perturbed. He also didn’t crack any of the stupid jokes I was secretly trying to steel myself against.

  “Okay. How am I the problem there?”

  “Because it’s exactly the kind of thing where you end up talking trash to me,” I said after a way too long pause.

  He took that in silence. I hated not being able to glean anything from his lack of a reaction, but it was better than him not taking me seriously.

  “Okay,” he repeated himself, careful about his choice of phrasing. “I would love to claim that it isn’t so, but yeah, you might have a point there.” He paused, and a small frown, paired with disbelief, came to his face. “But you never take me seriously when I talk trash about anything. Or use some stupid, misguided humor. It’s what I do—I say something stupid and you roll your eyes, and if it was really fucking stupid, you try to slap or punch me. We’ve been doing that for, I don’t know, forever?”

  I really had to fight with myself not to let his words make me feel like I got too defensive over nothing.

  “When it’s some random topic, yes. Maybe. But not when it’s about sex.”