by R. M. Walker
“Once!” Matt yelled. “I had a one night stand once, and you lot think I’m the next Casanova. I was with Connie for six months! Six months before she dropped me for that loser!”
“Rebound!” Jake and Josh shouted at the same time, pointing at him. “You don’t really like Lily, it’s rebound from Connie still!”
“Fuck off!” Matt shouted. The door slammed behind them, making them turn to see Jonas standing in the doorway, Mysty in his arms. She hissed at them, her ears back.
“Will you lot shut up or get out!” he snapped, not happy at all. “You’ll have Mrs Polden from next door complaining again.”
“She’s deaf,” Nate snapped, glaring at Matt.
“Well, I’m not!” Jonas replied tartly. “Look, I could hear every word you shouted at each other. And there’s one thing your tiny brains have forgotten.”
“What?” Matt asked, skimming his hands through his hair and sending it all over the place.
“That if she has any sense she won’t want any of you anyway! You’re all arguing over who gets her, boys, but the poor girl might not want to be got!”
“Shit.” Nate deflated as he realised the truth in Jonas's words. She was desperate for friends that was sure, but that didn’t mean that she wanted anything but friendship with them.
“Exactly. Now, please, shut up and let me sleep,” he said firmly. He went back out, closing the door behind him. He opened it again and stuck his head around the door. “And I meant it about the milk. If it’s all gone when I get up, I will never let you set foot over my threshold again!” He shut the door, and they were left staring at each other still.
“Shit, we’ve let happen what we swore would never happen,” Matt muttered and slumped down onto the sofa, his legs apart and his hands in his hair.
“We’ve let something get between us,” Nate agreed, and dropped into Jonas's armchair. The fire was still lit and the heat was too much. He snapped his fingers, and it went out.
“You two have,” Josh snorted, and slapped his hand on Jake’s back. “We’re quite happy with sharing her. It’s nothing more than we hoped would happen anyway.”
“Yeah, but that was between the two of you,” Nate pointed out, toeing off his shoes and propping his feet on the coffee table. “There’s us now as well. Look, Jonas was right, we have no idea what she would want. She may not want any of us.”
“So we still stick with the friendship?” Matt asked unhappily.
“It’ll have to be if she doesn’t want you as anything more than a friend,” Nate said quietly and rubbed his eyes. He swore when he dislodged a contact lens. He stood up, took both of them out, and set them on the mantelpiece above the fire.
“It’s going to have to be good enough for all of us if she only wants us as friends,” Nate said, his eyes watering as he sat back down.
“Hypothetically speaking,” Matt said slowly and they all looked at him. “If she likes us all, agrees to date us all, but couldn’t choose who she wanted a serious relationship with, what would we do?”
No one said anything. Matt closed his eyes and stretched out along the sofa he was sitting on. Josh and Jake laid themselves out on the other sofa, turning on their sides and facing outwards, pressed together tightly.
“It’s been less than a week, and she’s all I can think of. It’s stupid, I know it is. Completely unrealistic, but I like her a lot,” Matt murmured into the cushions.
“It’s not just you,” Jake murmured. “Perhaps Jonas has it all wrong and she is a witch, casting some sort of spell over us.”
“For what reason?” Nate snorted, putting a cushion behind his head.
“Because she knows we’re awesome and can’t choose already?” Josh suggested.
“Well, I’m awesome,” Matt muttered, half asleep. “You lot are passable.”
“Fuck you,” Josh murmured. “We’re going to have to play this one by ear. To be honest, there’s one other thing that we’ve forgotten in all this.”
“What?” Jake asked.
“We’re going to have to tell her what she is,” Josh answered him. “That’s going to blow her mind. She won’t even be thinking of how great we all are.”
“Oh, bugger,” Nate grunted. “That is not going to be easy. I’m voting for letting Jonas deal with it.”
“That’s a cop out, Nate.” Matt lifted his head, his eyes already bleary from tiredness.
“Nope, that’s self-preservation. She’s going to flip out on him, but we’ll be there to pick up the pieces and help her cope.”
“Point,” Matt agreed, his head flopping back down. “I can help her deal with it.”
“We all can,” Nate said and shifted on the armchair. “Has he made this smaller?”
“Shut up and come over here,” Matt muttered and turned to face the back of the sofa, leaving enough space for Nate to lie on his side. “Just face outwards, back to back.”
“She’s going to come between us,” Nate murmured as he got up and then settled down in front of Matt, facing the room. He snapped his fingers and the gas lamps went out, leaving them in darkness.
“Only if we let her,” Josh spoke up. “You two are our family. It’s not a huge stretch of the imagination to share her with you all.”
“Have you really decided to do that with a girl? You never said anything before,” Matt muttered.
“We didn’t know what you would think,” Jake murmured, his voice rough with sleep. “It just seems natural to us.”
“You do know you’re not one person, don’t you?” Nate said dryly, but neither of them answered him, just sniggered quietly.
Peace settled over the room, the clock on the wall ticked, and the walls creaked around them, but no other sounds were heard as they fell asleep.
Sharing
“You left me some milk; colour me impressed,” Jonas drawled, coming into the kitchen, Mysty ahead of him, tail in the air.
“And we made you breakfast,” Nate said, turning with a frying pan in his hand. He slid eggs and bacon onto an empty plate at the small table and then slid the pan into the sink. It sizzled as the heat of the pan hit the warm water, steam rising from the bowl.
“You can move in, boys.” Jonas sat at the table, pulling the plate towards him and picking up a fork. “If you promise not to kill each other at midnight again.”
“We didn’t even come to blows,” Matt said from the other side of the table, hidden behind the newspaper he was reading. “We were far too tired. Thanks for the loan of your sofas.”
“You didn’t even make it to the bedroom?” Jonas asked, with a roll of his eyes. “Why did I put beds in there if you won’t even get that far? Do you kids realise what an excellent library or study that room would make?”
“We’ve made it that far before,” Nate pointed out, scrubbing at the pan. “And we probably will again.”
“So, if you haven’t killed the twins and buried them at the bottom of my garden, where are the little miscreants?”
The back door opened on cue and they came in. Bags of shopping in their hands.
“Did you miss us?” Josh asked happily, setting milk, eggs, bacon, and a loaf of bread on the side.
“Like a hole in the head,” Nate said, and flicked water at him from the sink.
“As badly as you’d miss your mouth? Nate, we love you too, buddy.” Jake put him in a headlock and ruffled his hair affectionately before landing a big kiss on the top.
“Fuck off! I haven’t had my vaccinations yet,” Nate roared, his voice muffled under Jake’s arm.
“Language! So what are you all doing today?” Jonas asked loudly, pushing his fork handle against the edge of the newspaper to get Matt to hold it straighter so he could read the sports on the back page.
“We’re taking Lily swimming at the quarry,” Matt murmured, and turned the page.
“He’ll never get another season playing like that,” Jonas snorted, cutting into his bacon. �
�Well, I’ll be here all day, so bring her over whenever you’re ready.”
Matt closed up the paper and Jonas glared at him, picked it up, and concentrated on the back page again.
“About that,” Matt said slowly, and Jonas looked up. One eyebrow rose as he chewed his bacon. “What are we going to tell her?”
“Let me play that by ear,” Jonas said, wiping his mouth on a napkin. “I want to see just how much she knows already.”
“She’s clueless,” Matt said, running a hand through his hair.
“So you say,” Jonas drawled casually, and finished up his eggs.
“What do you mean by that?” Nate demanded.
“Just that I want to make sure she is what we think she is before we leap to any conclusions.”
“You think she knows? You think she’s playing us?” Josh asked quietly.
“I have no idea, and I won’t until I meet her. Go! Swim in ridiculously cold water and bring her in later.” He dismissed them with a wave of his hand. “Give me a little bit of peace to think as well.”
Nate dried his hands on the towel as Matt scraped his chair back and got up.
“We’ll bring her in about three-ish,” Nate said, opening up the back door. Jonas waved a hand at him, his attention back on the sports section of the paper. They went out, closing the door behind them and crossed to where Matt’s Land Rover was parked beside the classic MG Roadster that belonged to Jonas.
“I need to know something before we pick up Lily.” Matt stopped by the door and folded his arms over his chest. “Last night we were all stressed and knackered. What are we going to do? I’m serious about her being my girl. I’m just putting that out there for you.”
“I am too,” Nate said clearly, and looked over at the twins.
“So are we, you know that already,” Josh said warily, folding his arms. Jake moved to stand next to him, his stance identical to his twin as he watched Nate and Matt.
“So what do we do? Fight for her? Pistols at dawn?” Matt sighed heavily. “We can’t let her come between us.” He gestured at the defensive stances they’d taken. “But that’s exactly what we’re doing. We can’t let this happen. We swore we’d stick together no matter what.”
“What are you saying, Matt?” Nate asked, sticking his hands into his pockets, his head tilted as he studied him.
“I’m saying that we should re-think that whole business of sharing her.” He drew in a deep breath. “If—and that’s a big if—but if she does like us all, maybe we can convince her to stay with all of us.”
“I think we need to get today out of the way,” Nate murmured, his eyes on Matt’s slightly rounded shoulders. “I think we need to listen to what Jonas makes of her, and then we need to figure out how we’re going to help her. We’ve been fucking about here, thinking only of ourselves. We’re about to drop a bomb on her that’s going to shake everything she’s ever known or believed in. Which one of us gets to fuck her is probably not what we ought to be concentrating on right now.”
“It’s not about fucking her, Nate!” Matt spat angrily.
“I know it’s not, but I think we need to put her first. We promised to look after her, and we’d better make sure we hold up to that. We can’t let her down now.”
“And if she’s something we’re not expecting?” Jake asked. “If she’s playing with us?”
“She’s not.” Matt shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes. He swept it sideways impatiently. “I know she’s not.”
“I agree,” Nate said, nodding at Matt.
“But Nate’s right, we have to think of her right now,” Matt added. “She just…” Matt shoved a hand into his hair in frustration. “I just want to…”
“Look after her, be with her,” Jake said quietly. “Touch her as much as possible.”
“Hold her hand, talk to her,” Josh added. “We just want to be around her, and when we’re not, she’s pretty much all we can think or talk about.”
“Yeah,” Matt agreed. “That’s it.”
“I think we all feel it,” Nate said, staring down at his shoes. “Look, let’s just shelve it for now and see how it plays out.”
“Agreed,” Josh and Jake said together.
“Then let’s go change and get her,” Matt said quietly, the others nodding in agreement.
***************
Lily stared at her reflection in the mirror that hung in the living room. She looked exactly the same as she had the day before. Same long, dark, wavy hair that needed a good brushing more often than not, same pale face, same brown eyes, same dimples, same lips. Nothing had changed. And yet she was sure something had changed.
Nate told her she had hallucinated. Maybe she had. Maybe she hadn’t. All she knew was that it felt real; extremely and frighteningly real. For those split seconds, the children had been there. She’d seen them both go under the water, had felt the frantic urgency to get them out.
But they hadn’t been there. There were no children, no screams, other than her own.
She had been sure that she was going mad. Nate tried to calm her by telling her that he’d researched it and some epileptics also experienced hallucinations. The twins anchored her by sitting wrapped around her, and Matt soothed her with his gentle voice. They’d settled her, calmed her down enough to think rationally. But she couldn’t ignore the fact that her seizures were changing again, and the lack of control she felt scared her. Nate said they were hallucinations, and a huge part of her wanted to believe that. But a smaller part, a darker, scared part, told her that they weren’t hallucinations, but something else. Something that she wasn’t sure she wanted to even acknowledge, let alone explore.
“Lily! Are you okay?” Her mother startled her from her thoughts.
“Yeah, just away with the fairies again,” she said brightly. She started to brush her hair out, ready to braid. The last thing she wanted to do was scare her mother, so she would keep quiet.
Her mother took the brush and drew it gently through Lily’s hair. “It’s been years since I did this,” she said affectionately. “Where has the time gone?” she murmured to herself. Lily watched as her mother tugged her hair into a French braid.
“Will you be okay today, Mum?”
Yes, I’m going to town first. Then I want to make a start on the first oil, so I’ll be out at the manor most of the day. If you want me, ring the manor, as I may not get reception on the mobile.”
There was a knock at the door and Lily turned quickly. “That’ll be the boys,” she said, moving across to pick up her bag and push her feet into her canvas shoes.
“Be careful, Lily.”
“They’re perfectly safe, Mum.”
“I meant be careful because of your seizures. I could have sworn you either had one last night, or were about to have one, you looked dreadful.”
“All the fresh country air.” Lily played it off, kissed her cheek, and went to open the door.
“All ready, Lily Flower?” Matt asked as soon as she had it open. He looked good in black jeans, a red shirt, and a black jacket over the top. The wide smile on his lips mirrored the happiness in his eyes.
“I am indeed. Bye, Mum,” she called and went out, shutting the door, hearing her mother call back to her from the living room.
“How do you feel today?” he asked her, as he opened the gate for her.
“Much better than last night,” she said. She climbed into the passenger side, saying hello to the others. “I want to apologise for last night.”
“We told you not to worry about it.” Nate reached forward to touch her shoulder. “Let’s go and have some fun. Put your belt on, Lily May.”
Lily nodded, pulling the belt around her. She was more than willing to push it all to the back of her mind. If she didn’t actively think about it, it wasn’t real.
Crocodiles
The abandoned quarry was in the middle of a bleak stretch of moorland that separated Trenance from th
e local town. The pool was surrounded on three sides with sheer faced rock, about twenty feet in height. The signs that it had been a quarry were clear to see. Piles of moss covered rocks lay forgotten, leftover from when they’d been cut out to get to the granite. The pool was shallow for a few feet and then dropped abruptly away into deep water. It was peaceful, the water completely still, like obsidian, not even the slight breeze making it ripple.
“Are there any fish in there?” Lily asked, turning to see everyone setting their backpacks on the rocks.
“I’ve never seen any,” Nate said. “But it’s perfectly safe, nothing will nibble at you.”
“Nothing?” Josh sniggered as he sat on the rock and took off his boots. She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Is there anything in there?” she asked him. He looked up at her and snapped his teeth together repeatedly before smirking at her.
“There’s nothing that will hurt you,” Matt said. “Ignore him.”
“It would be just my luck that someone released a crocodile in there last night.” She crossed back over to her bag.
“Crocodile?” Jake looked at her, grinning. “You have a wild imagination. Why would someone release a crocodile in there?”
“Well, you know, sometimes people get these exotic pets that grow too big, or they can’t handle them anymore, and then they release them into the wild.”
“I think you can relax; no one in Trenance has had a pet crocodile recently,” Nate said quietly, humour colouring his voice.
“Well, you can go in first.” She grinned at him.
He straightened and tilted his head, arching one eyebrow at her. “Why, thank you, Lily May. It means a lot that you’re happy to sacrifice me to make sure it’s safe for you.”
She shrugged at him, still grinning. “You’d be my hero.” She undid her jacket.
“We can all be your heroes,” Matt spoke up quickly.
“Speaking of heroes, this is the smallest wetsuit we have. It’s a few years old, but perfectly good still.” Josh stood up and took a black wetsuit from his backpack. “They can be a pig to get on, so we’ll help you.”