One Too Many

by Jade West

  I shook my head against his shoulder. “Don’t think about that now,” I told him. “It doesn’t matter. None of that matters now.”

  But it did matter. I could still feel them both inside me, aching both at the thought of doing it again, and at the thought of never feeling Tom’s naked body next to mine from this point on.

  I was grateful when sleep found Brett, swallowing him up with the same easy breathing I’d come to depend on for my own.

  I was less grateful when the hours ticked on ahead and I was still staring at the ceiling, still reeling from the heartache of finding out the man I’d fucked for money was my husband’s stepbrother.

  It was the most natural thing in the world to slip out of bed and step up to the window, even if I ached every step.

  It was also becoming the most natural thing in the world to find the man I’d known as Thomas Heath standing out on the front smoking a cigar.

  I guess it made it a triple whammy that it was becoming the most natural thing in the world to step out and join him, too.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Thomas

  I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to get in my car and drive away from this place, not even now, as the Fosters’ world churned raw around me.

  I felt her there before I heard her, the touch of her fingers becoming too familiar as they slipped in the crook of my elbow.

  “I’m sorry you had a rough start,” she told me, and although the words were nothing more than a dab of sherbet on something thoroughly grotesque, I had no doubt she meant them.

  “I watched you for years,” I admitted. “You and him, hand in hand like you owned the world.”

  If she was taken aback she didn’t show it. “You seem to think we had it all. It really wasn’t as glamorous as all that. We were just two people loving each other. We still are.”

  I breathed in cigar smoke as I weighed up the truth in her words, feeling like a fool all over again for my idiot goal to tear them down.

  “I didn’t believe it existed,” I admitted. “Love, I mean. It seemed a desperate concept for lonely people too weak to stand alone.”

  “And like I told you before,” she said. “That’s a very sad way of looking at the world.”

  “You’ll note I used past tense,” I pointed out, and couldn’t hold back a smirk amidst the crazy.

  “Noted,” she said, and her grin in the moonlight was enough to take my breath. “I’m glad we gave you that insight.”

  We stared at the sea with her arm through mine. I felt rooted to the spot, unable to tug her closer despite the intimacy we’d shared, but unwilling to let her go, holding off the point I’d have to face my own isolation all over again.

  “Do you want to be his brother?” she asked, and I admired her bluntness.

  “I’m not sure what I want,” I admitted. “I wasn’t expecting to enjoy what we’ve shared nearly as much as I have.”

  “I think we could all say the same.”

  I didn’t doubt it. The connection between all of us was alive, even if somewhat deranged.

  “It’ll be hard for him,” she continued. “He loved his dad so much. The guy was on a pedestal, could do no wrong.”

  “It’ll be hard for all of us,” I said, then took a breath. “But especially him, yes. He has a concept of family vulnerable to breaking, as do you. I wasn’t blessed with the same luxury.”

  “But you could be,” she whispered as a wave crashed below. “You could be blessed with the same luxury, if you’ll hang around, let him find his family in you.”

  My laugh was barely more than a rasp as I tossed my cigar over the railings. “We’ve shared your pussy, Grace. I’m not sure that’s the best precursor to sharing a brotherly bond.”

  She didn’t argue with me.

  “About that,” I continued. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to forget it ever happened, no matter what family bridges we try to construct from nothing.”

  She didn’t argue with that either.

  “I’m tired,” she said, and squeezed my arm. “You must be too. Please walk me back up to the porch, I’m aching like stink and at least fifty percent of that is your fault.”

  The little minx in her was still burning bright, no matter the oil slick we were drowning in.

  It was my pleasure to walk her up to the porch, and my pleasure to land my lips on hers with a whisper of goodnight.

  As I turned away from her and retreated to my own bedroom, I wondered whether that would be the last time I’d ever taste her.

  And as I slipped between the sheets into a cold, empty bed, it worried me that – in spite of everything past and every potential future on offer – I hoped it wouldn’t be.

  I’d grown to enjoy the touch of a woman like Grace Foster far too much to let her go.

  Which made it likely we were all fucked. All three of us and our dirty pleasures, not least if Brett Foster was my new brother.

  Because I had more than an inkling I was falling in love with his wife.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Brett

  Mum tried to call me ten times over that next morning. I didn’t pick up.

  I had nothing to say. Not then and likely not for a long while to come, having more than enough shit to sift through on my own without her adding a fresh pile on top.

  My wife and I were picking at a late breakfast with my new blonde brother just about as merrily as possible when the courier stepped through the reception doorway and pinged the bell.

  My heart dropped through the floor as I signed for the package, knowing full well what the fuck was likely to be waiting inside.

  I wasn’t prepared for my dad’s handwriting on the letter when it dropped free of the document wallet. I was also unprepared for the way Heath’s eyes widened as he clocked the scene.

  “Mum said it was left for you,” I explained as I handed it to him with uncharacteristically shaky fingers. “In the will, I mean. They couldn’t find you, with the name change.”

  “I doubt they tried particularly hard,” he said, and I’m sure that was the truth of it.

  All three of us stared at the envelope in his hands as he turned it over and over.

  The writing was a familiar scrawl, close enough to home that it choked my breath.

  Tom.

  Not even Thomas. Just Tom.

  “I’m not entirely sure I’m ready for this,” he said, and I offered up my hands.

  “It’s your gig,” I told him. “Between you and him, whenever you’re ready.”

  I felt a godawful mix of sadness and relief as he slipped the unopened letter into his inside pocket.

  “I’m going to head out for a walk,” he said. “I must at least attempt to clear my head a little. Care to join me?”

  Grace slipped her hand over mine before I could consider my answer. “Elaine’s here for the laundry,” she told me. “We could go for a few hours. Catch some sea air.”

  I shrugged, resigning myself to continue bobbing along on these crazy waves we were riding.

  “Sure,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

  We did do it. Wrapped up tight against the morning chill with Grace’s hand in mine as we made our way slowly down the beachfront and around the craggy outcrop. Thomas was surprisingly relaxed given everything he must be feeling with that envelope burning through his pocket. He kept his eyes high on the cliffs and his smile as easy as I’m sure he could muster.

  I choked everything back in my bid to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and eventually, after what felt like miles of steady rhythm on sand, I finally began to feel it.

  Calm.

  The permanence of the sea, crashing on a constant loop against the shore. Grace’s fingers warm in mine, her steps falling into sync with every move I made, on instinct from years at my side.

  And now there was him too. Right by us. His steps in tune with ours along the coast. Here with us, from nowhere, a stranger with enough money to tempt us into the craziest decision of our
goddamn lives. A stranger who wasn’t a stranger.

  He was my brother.

  My fucking brother.

  I couldn’t stop looking at Grace looking at him. Her eyes were on him as often as they were on me, her expression muted but optimistic, eyes bright with the prospect of what lay ahead – of what could lay ahead – even though it made my gut lurch.

  We’d developed a vague measure of boyish respect, him and me. Like a rival turned good on the sports field, only it wasn’t a sports field, it was my wife’s pretty pussy and he’d been scoring along with me.

  And it was different now.

  It should be different now.

  No more. Not ever again. A line so red in the fucking sand it should blow away his dickish sensor and everything it stood for a million times over. This one was firmer, deeper. Red from blood and pain, and a relationship that should never cross that sordid line ever a fucking gain.

  So, why did I still want it so fucking bad?

  He pointed up to a little white pub on the clifftop and I gave a nod. The walk up was brisk enough that it pumped my blood hard through my veins, and through my dick with it. Realising I was thinking about him on her as we stepped over the threshold of the place was enough to turn my stomach. It wobbled and lurched, bacon and eggs mashing into a vile soupy mess in my gut.

  I retreated to the gents with a clipped smile on my face, barging into the cubicle before retching my breakfast straight up into the bowl.

  My balls were aching, wanting to share my beautiful wife’s holes with him all over again, my face burning as I retched up so hard there was nothing left to spew. This was fucked. We were fucked.

  I flushed the cistern when I heard the creak of a door beyond the flimsy little box partition I was in, praying he wouldn’t hear my discomfort, if it was indeed Heath coming calling.

  “That walk upset your stomach?” he called out as the stream of his piss sounded out in the cubicle next to mine.

  “Something like that,” I grunted, and he sighed before he flushed.

  I met him at the basins, both of us staring at the mirrored wall tiles and not each other.

  “Your wife still makes me hard,” he told me, and I visibly fucking flinched.

  “I can’t deal with that,” I blurted. “Not today, Heath, not today.”

  “She does,” he said. “And that isn’t going to change, not today, not tomorrow, nor the day after.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” I insisted, but his smirk spoke volumes.

  “I should go. For definite, before this shit really does rear its head,” he said, but I shook mine.

  “Don’t start that same old shit up,” I told him. “You’re not going anywhere until we know where we’re fucking at.”

  “Where we’re at, is a pub a few miles from your place, with your pretty wife walking between us and thinking about taking us both in her wet little cunt. Where we’re at, is you vomiting your breakfast up because your balls are tense for another round and you’re picturing me as your brother. Your brother fucking your wife.”

  “Where we’re at, is a brand new fucking page,” I insisted. “And we’ll figure out what’s fucking written on it, alright?”

  I slapped his arm and he groaned as he shook his hands in the basin. “If you insist.”

  I did insist, not least because I didn’t know what else to do.

  Grace was waiting by the open fire in the main seating area when we headed back through, a large glass of white in front of her and a smile on her face. Two pints were waiting on the bar top for us, the place deserted aside from the three of us in our high-buttoned jackets and the barman reading the morning paper on the counter.

  I placed my hand on Grace’s knee as I joined her on her comfy bench, and Thomas sat down the other side from her, his own knee so close to hers they were virtually touching as he leaned forward. He drank half of his beer down with a sigh of relief, and I did the same, thanking my blessings for alcohol and the distraction it offered in this space.

  We could do the same at our place, hang out in the bar over a mountain of whisky, but it wouldn’t last forever. Wouldn’t even last the full week out before Grace was flashing the eye and wanting more all over again, even if she didn’t realise she was doing it.

  “Tom,” she said out loud. “Can we call you that?”

  He tipped his head. “I guess you can call me whatever seems fitting, given that the goalposts have moved.”

  The goalposts weren’t even on the same fucking field.

  “Tom,” I said. “Cheers.”

  He raised his glass to mine, as did Grace.

  It was the most awkward toast of my life, my gut unsettled for a second round before I’d even downed the rest of it.

  But this time I couldn’t call another bathroom retreat, not with two pairs of eyes right on mine. I was forced to deal with it, brush it off with a smile I didn’t feel and get to my feet at the earliest opportunity.

  “Let’s go,” I said, and the new dynamic was set, so much fucking different from the old one.

  Both of them sprang into action, following my lead. Heath without so much as an empty sneer in opposition to my leadership.

  That’s when I knew it, for sure. I really was the older brother. The one who would take the lead in decision making. In us. In her. In governing every fucking mess we’d likely land ourselves up in while trying to make it out of this sorry state.

  It was the most natural thing on earth to sling my arm around my wife’s shoulder as we dropped back down to the beach. And the most natural thing on earth for her to reach out for the man she’d grown accustomed to taking along with me.

  I fought the urge to retch all over again as she took his hand. And he saw it. He must have fucking seen it.

  His smile was bright but false as he dropped her grip and held back his footsteps to lag behind.

  Digging the envelope from his pocket was the perfect illusion. Pretending he needed space was the only way we’d have walked on by without protest.

  “Give me a few minutes,” he told me, and I nodded, tugging Grace along right after me.

  “Take all the time you need,” I said.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Thomas

  I watched them walk away, hand in hand. Both of them glancing back over their shoulders until they were out of view.

  The letter was burning, and so was the thought of them. The thought of where this was going. The man I could be, with them at my side.

  And her.

  Polly.

  The thought of her was enough to burn me alive from the inside out.

  I’d always been a man of strategy, of surveying the whole board before I contemplated my next move. And so I did, seeking out the nearest piece of rock on the beach and taking a seat, staring out to sea. I turned that letter over and over, my heart in my throat as I wondered what words would be in there to greet me after so many years of silence.

  Maybe the angry ramblings of a man as lost to me as he’d ever been. Maybe the rant of a father who’d never wanted to know the boy he’d turned away from all those years ago.

  Or maybe something else.

  Something I daren’t even hope for.

  I finally plucked up the courage to tear into the seal with a vicious thumb, my jaw gritted as my heart pounded hard.

  It was handwritten, the scrawl dancing before my eyes before I focused on the greeting.

  Dear Tom

  And so I read it. Page to page in a blur of heartache and tears, my breath barely rasping as I struggled to comprehend the meaning in those words.

  It was nothing like I’d ever imagined. More than enough to bring me to my knees on that quiet beach with the Fosters heading into the distance.

  My whole life spun before my eyes, every bitter decision I’d ever made crumbling to pieces and freeing the boy and his weakness and his tears to wail at the sky. The wind was a sting against my face, the spray from the waves dampening my cheeks along with the wetness from my eye
s.

  I knew it then and there, in that desolate heart of mine still reeling, that my life should have been so much more and so much less all at once.

  No amount of money would cushion the blow of love denied. No amount of businesses fractured to shards would have healed the shards inside.

  And no amount of marriages ruined would have been enough to convince me that I’d missed nothing but broken promises.

  The afternoon was dulling as I ventured back up that beach, the light from the Fosters’ porch a beacon in the fading day. They were waiting with edgy smiles as I stepped into the bar to join them, a whisky waiting on the bar top before I’d even taken a pew.

  They didn’t ask, not either of them. No questions and no prying, just the well-meaning stares of two people I’d hated more than all reason just a few short weeks ago.

  I drank my whisky and passed the time of day with nothing but small talk, which they ate up gladly.

  Talk of movies, and old holidays and their life back home back when they lived it in parallel to mine. Laughter about old teachers and recounting of Brett on the sports field, none of it filling me with spite as it had done for as long as I’d known.

  And then, finally, as those other few residents around us drifted upstairs for the night, our own goodnight loomed loud in the air between us.

  Only tonight I didn’t want to wave them off at the stairs. I wanted to be with Grace. Sharing the same closeness I’d come to rely on like air these past few days. Now possibly more than ever.

  She saw it in me, I know she did, those eyes so similar in colouring to mine seeking out my gaze with a delicate smile on her pretty lips.

  I watched her squeeze Brett’s fingers once he’d got the lights and dipped under the bar hatch, her grip conveying so much unspoken as his stare mashed with hers.

  “I think we all need a port in the storm tonight,” she told him, and I felt his reluctance, every cell wavering at the prospect of closeness with a man whose relationship to him he was still trying to decipher.

  I felt it too.