Repercussions (Siren Publishing Menage Amour)

by Rainey Daye

  On the monitor was a full-size photograph of a man with his pants around his knees and wearing a Clinton Halloween mask, fucking a woman from behind with her skirt around her waist in the middle of a crowded bar, the time stamp matching the date of the party at The Inferno and the layout of the bar confirming the location. “A friend e-mailed this to me last week,” Maggie was explaining. “Part of a joke e-mail. There are other pictures with humorous captions, and I was more interested in laughing at the captions than really looking at the pictures. Otherwise, I would have noticed that we actually witnessed this one taking place.”

  Jess and Alex were looking closely at the screen now. “That’s the woman I saw Troy leave the motel with the next morning,” Alex claimed, and Jess nodded as he said, “She’s the one I saw him making out with.”

  “Who is she?” Maggie asked.

  “Maria Washburn we assume,” Alex said.

  “You assume?”

  “The name on her mailbox says M. Washburn. And since the name on the piece of paper in Troy’s room is Maria, we’re assuming it’s one and the same,” Jess added.

  “So she’s not Troy’s girlfriend?” Alex asked Maggie, who raised her eyebrows in surprise.

  “Why are you asking me?” she wanted to know.

  “No, I meant, Troy didn’t mention a girlfriend to you or anyone else over the summer?” he clarified.

  “No, he didn’t. And since he’s never been here before now, I don’t know how he could have met her. That would be a hell of a coincidence if he had met her somehow out of town and she turned out to live in our city and he decided to follow her here,” Maggie pointed out.

  “Not to mention him deciding to stave off boredom when she’s not around by stalking his ex-girlfriend,” Jess said sarcastically. “And if by some chance she isn’t from around here, I really don’t see him being so suave that he can talk a new girlfriend into following him to the town his ex lives in and agreeing to live in a tenement while he lives in a crappy motel and spends his days and evenings spying on the one that got away.”

  “Are you done making your point?” Alex asked them both disgustedly and was rewarded with dual nods.

  “Okay then, this could be good. If we can get a picture of him and Maria together, coupled with this e-mail, then we have what could be good blackmail evidence against him,” Alex continued.

  “Blackmail? You want to blackmail Troy?” Maggie gasped.

  “We want to know what he’s doing here and what he might have discovered in all these months. So if blackmailing him will keep him quiet and get him gone, then yeah, Mags, we’re gonna blackmail him,” Alex pointed out while Jess vigorously nodded his agreement.

  Jess reached around Alex and pressed the print button on the keyboard and then pulled the picture of the Halloween duo off the printer, grinning in anticipation.

  “That’s pretty flimsy,” Maggie pointed out. “There’s no way to prove that that is Troy.”

  “True, but it can’t hurt. And I really don’t think that Troy is firing on all cylinders here, otherwise he would know that stalking someone is a no-no,” Alex said, using air quotes and a truly sarcastic voice.

  “But is he stalking me?” Maggie asked.

  “You don’t see our class schedules anywhere in his room, do you?” Jess asked caustically. “And even though Alex and I are ridiculously handsome, I just don’t think we’re his type.”

  “Funny, Jess,” Maggie retorted.

  “Face it, Mags,” Jess said, “Troy came to town for you. We don’t yet know what he hopes to accomplish or where this Maria comes in. But we figure she’s nothing more than a fuck buddy to him.”

  “A what?” Maggie asked with a frown, thinking she knew what the term meant but wanting it clarified.

  Alex scowled at Jess before he answered for him. “Just someone to mutually satisfy an itch with. No strings attached. No dating or anything like that. Just a purely sexual relationship. More than a one-night stand, less than a relationship.”

  “Oh,” Maggie breathed. “And you think they do things like that in public often?” she asked, referring to the picture.

  “For all we know, that’s probably where they initially hooked up, ’cause I sure as hell don’t see him bringing his fuck buddy to a party where he plans on spying on his ex. And it’s too coincidental that they decided to attend the same party we did when it’s really nowhere close to where either of them is living. So my guess is that they did meet for the first time at that party. And frankly, if a woman is willing to act like that in public, drunk or not, and then go to a motel with you for more of the same, and give you her phone number—you did notice that the handwriting on the note with her name and number didn’t match Troy’s?—then you’d pretty much have to be nuts not to continue screwing her, especially if she didn’t place any demands on you.” Jess finally finished his own rambling.

  It took Maggie a moment to sort through all he had said before she nodded in understanding. “Got it. And it sorta makes sense. Though I never would have thought that Troy was the type to have sex with a stranger in public.”

  “That’s another reason why we think he’s gone off the deep end and why we’re so worried for you, sweetheart,” Alex said softly.

  Jess got up and retrieved the lockbox and photos from the living room while Maggie sat in the desk chair, contemplating everything. Jess returned and set the box down and then reached out and took Maggie’s hand in his. He sat down on the edge of the desk and looked at her earnestly. “How long have you known, Maggie?” he asked gently.

  “About a month,” she confessed. “I truly thought I was imagining things when I spotted him from a distance around campus. That’s why I didn’t say anything to you. I was afraid you’d want to have a talk and have me explore my feelings and try to convince me that it was my subconscious trying to point out what I really wanted. Because what I really want is the two of you. I love our relationship, and I love both of you. I was afraid that you would think I was beginning to have doubts and you would be the honorable Boy Scouts that you are and break things off with me for my own good,” she finished on a wail.

  Both men were instantly bracketing her in their arms, offering comfort while trying to calm her down. After she had wiped her tears on both their shirts and with her hands, she pulled back and fixed them with a fierce yet watery glare. “Don’t you even start with the psychobabble, do you hear me?” she demanded.

  “We leave the psychobabble to you, babe,” Jess said with a grin.

  “And we’re too damn selfish and too much in love with you to ever offer you an out from this relationship, even if it is the right thing to do,” Alex added.

  “Alex,” she warned him with a growl, and he held up a hand in surrender and wisely shut up.

  They sat in varying stages of silence for a long moment, each pursuing their own thoughts. Finally, Jess asked a question that had been bothering both of them. “When you hyperventilated in class before the holiday, what was that all about?”

  Maggie took a deep breath and braced herself for their coming explosions. “Troy hasn’t just been following me at a distance on campus. I actually saw him sitting in the back of the auditorium during one of my classes. And I was pretty sure I saw him outside the café where we had lunch that day. And then I saw him walk by the door of our afternoon class and glance inside. That’s when I lost it.”

  True to her own silent prediction, both men did indeed suffer massive explosions, and Maggie knew it was futile to try to stem the flow of their anger, so she sat back, feeling miserable, conflicted, and confused, knowing deep down that somehow this was all her fault but not having a clue as to how to fix things. And she knew that unless she did something drastic, she would never get a chance to fix things because there was no longer a snowball’s chance in hell that she would ever be out of their sight as long as Troy was around.

  Chapter 16

  The debate raged for a solid two weeks. No longer did the men huddle together,
whispering frantically, only to break apart when Maggie entered the room. Rather they drew her into their arguments, with Maggie now contributing her own point of view. Jess was the most high-strung. He wanted nothing more than to run Troy out of town but only after he had beat him within an inch of his own life. Maggie was adamant that if she could only talk to Troy, she could convince him once and for all that stalking her was a monumentally dumb idea and he would go away on his own. Alex was unusually quiet about his own ideas regarding the Troy situation, although he argued quite vehemently against their ideas.

  None of them left the house alone anymore, not to go shopping, not on their scheduled dates, not to run errands. Nothing. Either all three of them went together or they all stayed home when they weren’t attending classes. Jess actually pointed out that this change in their routine wouldn’t go unnoticed by Troy, and Alex grimly stated that for all Troy knew, this was their normal routine around the holidays. Jess and Maggie exchanged grim looks, not buying into Alex’s spurious logic.

  To make matters worse, the guys continued their nightly rotation of spying on their spy. Maggie got so disgusted with both of them that she moved back into her own room and locked the door against them. Thus every night, one of the men sat in Danny’s car, the other spied through the window of the storage room, and Maggie spied through her own window.

  The emotional temperature in the house began to reflect the temperature outside, and Maggie reflected gloomily that if Troy’s goal was to come between them, he had succeeded admirably.

  On campus they each kept their eyes peeled, and now that they were actively looking for him, it was easy to spot Troy lurking in the distance. The guys wanted Maggie to drop out of the class that neither of them shared with her, the same one that Troy was aggressive enough to enter, but Maggie flatly refused. And when she caught Alex auditing the class also, she ripped a strip out of his hide because she knew that he had skipped his own class to monitor her.

  And to make matters even worse, none of them could concentrate on their schoolwork. End of term was fast approaching, and they each had finals to study for and final reports, projects, or term papers to finish and turn in. They faithfully gathered silently at the dining room table each night, trying to be dutiful college students, but the stress was taking its toll.

  Alex was the one who finally stepped up to the plate. He was on Troy duty that night and dutifully followed him when Troy finally got tired and climbed out of his tree. During the past two weeks, Troy had only gone to Maria’s once, and that was the night that he had returned to town and the roommates had revealed all to each other. But this night, Troy headed south again once he got on the highway, and Troy took a short cut, suspecting where Troy was going and wanting to get there first so Troy wouldn’t make his tail.

  Ten minutes after Alex had parked Danny’s car, Troy pulled up and headed inside without a backward glance. Alex looked up at Maria’s windows and watched their silhouettes come together. He raised his brow at the apparent lack of foreplay as he watched them come together furiously. He briefly wondered if Troy’s lack of technique had led to their breakup, because Maggie sure as hell lived for foreplay, or if Troy simply didn’t even bother with his fuck buddy. If Troy was still hung up with Maggie and was simply satisfying an itch, then Alex could see where Troy would hold back with the more intimate aspects of sex, then. Still, it vaguely bothered him, and he decided that it would be best if he left.

  Alex was just parking Danny’s car two streets down and walking toward Tucker House when “Mary Jane” started playing from his pocket. Alex stopped and frowned as he fished it out. What could their snitch be calling about? Even Troy couldn’t be done and gone so soon, could he?

  “Yeah?” he answered the phone.

  “Hey, man, you wanted me to call when anything interestin’ happened with our guy, right?”

  “Yeah?” Alex answered again.

  “Well, dude just pulled up looking real upset, ya know? Slammed his car door, beat his fist on the car roof, kicked the tires, cussing up a storm. Kicked a coupla things on his way to his room. And punched Travis when he asked our guy if he was okay, bein’ friendly like. Jus thought you’d wanna know, you know?”

  “Okay,” Alex said, frantically processing this surprising intel. “You did good. Big tip coming your way. In fact,” Alex decided, “I’m going to go ahead and swing by now to pay you. And to talk to our guy. Think you can get me in his room again if he won’t answer the door?”

  “For you, dude, sure!” the snitch said, anticipating the reward coming his way.

  “Don’t tip him off,” Alex warned.

  “Not a prob, man. No sweat.”

  Alex turned around and headed back to Danny’s car. Jess and Maggie were probably in their separate beds by now anyway, he rationalized to himself as he pictured how upset they would be when they found out that he had gone to have a face-to-face with Troy without informing them first. He further rationalized that since they were already asleep, by the time he woke them both up and they got dressed and headed over to Troy’s motel, it could be too late, for any number of reasons. He didn’t bother to try to think up those reasons since his mind was made up and he was already in the car, heading for the nearest on-ramp to the highway.

  A short time later, Alex was sitting in his car, staring at Troy’s motel room. Light seeped through the closed curtains, and a couple of the drug addicts loitering around kept glancing at the room, radiating unease. Alex frowned, wondering what could upset those habitually anesthetized on drugs.

  He slowly exited his vehicle, and his snitch scurried over to him, looking like a greasy rat with mange. “Hey, dude. It’s a pretty bad scene in there,” he greeted Alex.

  “What’s going on?” Alex asked, jerking his chin toward the room while he dug out his wallet to pay off his guy.

  “Well, we could all hear him throwing things around in there for a bit. And after I got off the phone with you, dude comes out and walks up to us and asks for a hit.”

  “A hit?” Alex asked, momentarily confused.

  “Yeah. He toked on a joint with us for a few minutes then asked for his own. Willie passed one over and dude dropped a dime for it. Said thanks and went back in his room. Ain’t seen him since.”

  “Uh, okay, thanks,” Alex said, peeling off a couple of twenties and passing them over. “Stay close if I need you, all right?”

  “Sure, man, sure,” rat boy said and scampered back to his friends.

  Alex walked over to Troy’s door and stood facing it while he considered all the options. In the end, he raised his fist and pounded on the door. He waited a minute and then pounded again. He had his fist raised a third time when the door was jerked open and he almost stumbled across the threshold. He took a tottering step before regaining his balance, giving Troy ample time to make an identification.

  “You!” Troy accused, glaring at him.

  “Yeah. Good to see you, too,” Alex retorted. “Mind if I come in?” Alex shoved his way into the room before Troy could slam the door in his face.

  Troy finally closed the door and leaned back against it, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared at Alex belligerently. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Troy demanded.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Alex said as he leveled a glare at his nemesis.

  Troy tried to engage him in a staring contest, but his drug-hazed mind quickly had him conceding defeat. Troy slumped against the door and groaned, and Alex automatically moved forward to offer assistance. Troy waved him off and shuffled over to the scarred linoleum table. He leaned down and picked up a lit joint that was balanced on the top of a can of beer and took a deep drag. Common courtesy had him holding it out to Alex afterwards, but Alex disgustedly declined. Troy shrugged and slowly let the smoke trickle out of his mouth and nostrils. He sat down at the table and motioned for Alex to have a seat.

  Once the two men were seated at the table, they sat in silence, sizing each other up. Finally Alex bro
ke the silence with, “I didn’t know you did drugs.”

  And Troy replied, “I don’t. But it seemed like a hell of a good time to start.”

  Alex raised a brow in question, but the nuance was lost to Troy, who simply took another deep toke on the joint and held his breath as he let the smoke seep into his body, coughing a bit as the smoke saturated his lungs.

  “You want to talk about it?” Alex offered, grateful for Troy’s now mellow mood.

  Troy shrugged and took a slug from his beer can. Then he shocked the shit out of Alex by saying, “I’m gonna be a daddy.”

  “What?” Alex exclaimed, truly shocked.

  “Yeah. Surprised the shit out of me. She told me tonight when I stopped by. Damn, but her timing sucks.”

  Alex stared at him speechless and a bit angrily. So the timing sucked because daddy duties would cut into his stalking his ex? Alex truly considered sucker punching him then and there, but fortunately, Troy continued his tale of woe.

  “I get a call from her tonight, and since she only calls when she wants to get laid, I head on over, getting harder and harder with each mile as I consider all the things we’re gonna do to each other. And I get to her place, and she jumps into my arms as soon as I get there. That’s par for the course, we seldom make it past the door, so no surprise there. But as soon as I try to pull her pants off, she pushes me away and blurts out that she’s pregnant. Talk about a big surprise!”

  “Wow, man. She didn’t even sit you down and tell you that you needed to talk?”

  “Nope,” Troy said, taking another swig of beer followed by another long drag on the joint. “I’m standing there with a world-class boner, one hand on her tit and the other trying to undo her jeans, and she just looks at me and says ‘I’m pregnant.’”

  “What did you do?”