The Walsh Brothers

by Kate Canterbary

  She responded, I knew she did, but I couldn't hear it, couldn't interpret anything she said. I knew only the rhythm of her body, her skin against my mine. Her nails scratched along my scalp and shoulders, and I was there, pressing into her, and I couldn't think past the frenzied hunger in my head. I filled her with one thrust, groaning her name as I bottomed out.

  I closed my eyes, focusing on Lauren's musical sighs and reminding myself to be gentle. My hands clamped on her hips, my fingers digging grooves into her skin, and we crashed into each other. Her mouth mapped my chest and arms and jaw, and I wanted more than the warm, wet sensations she left behind. Bites and scratches weren't enough; I wanted her fingerprints tattooed on my skin. I wanted something that would be there tomorrow.

  "Tell me what you want," I panted.

  "What you're doing. That. More. Harder."

  Grasping Lauren's free hand, I placed it between us. "Touch yourself."

  I watched as her fingers skittered over her clit. I felt the difference immediately, her tissues turning molten, her skin flushing, and her breaths coming rapidly.

  Nothing separated us but it wasn't enough for me. I needed more, a type of more I didn't believe I'd be able to quantify, and I lifted Lauren's hand to my mouth. I gazed into her emerald eyes, searching for the flecks of gold while I sucked her arousal from her fingers.

  "Tell me what you want," I whispered.

  "I want you to come on my—"

  "No," I said. "No. Tell me what you want."

  She dropped her head to my shoulder, evading, rocking faster and faster until the pulses of her orgasm rolled over my shaft, her walls clamped around me, and she cried out against my neck. I lived for the soft whimpers and moans that heralded her orgasms, and I wanted them to exist in a secret place that only I knew.

  "Tell me," I repeated, and it sounded all wrong—demanding, yet desperate.

  "I don't know," she said. "I just want you."

  Pumping into her, my orgasm barreled down my spine, snapping my corded muscles and wiping every thought from my mind but one: Lauren. I spoke mindless obscenities into her lips and neck and hair, stopping just before I revealed everything else I wanted.

  Lauren lifted her head, and before her lips brushed over my battered jaw, her eyes flashed to mine, anxious and confused and so fucking beautiful. She was all sweet kisses and tiny purring whimpers, and as I sensed myself hardening again, I led her to the bedroom and buried myself in her until we fell asleep.

  I woke up around four-thirty, and I stared at her in the blue morning darkness, seeing everything she wouldn't say. She slept with her head on my chest, her legs twisted between mine, and her hand over my heart, and I wanted it to be enough.

  I knew it wasn't.

  23

  Lauren

  "You think I could pull off this look?" Shannon's elbow grazed my arm, and she handed off the magazine featuring an assortment of long skirts. "I can rock pencil skirts every day of the week, but those are tough for me." She gestured to her frame. "This height doesn't work with everything."

  Too lost in my own thoughts and pedicure-induced bliss to think critically about her question, I nodded and handed the magazine back. "Yeah, definitely try."

  "Are you crazy? Those skirts are the exclusive domain of nuns and peasants," Sam snapped. He tore the magazine from Shannon's hands and sent me an irritable glare. "And if there's one thing you're not, Shan, it's a nun."

  "What about weekends?" she asked. "I could wear one of those jersey skirts to brunch or the market, or," she gestured to the nail salon, "out for a Saturday afternoon pedi."

  Sam shifted in his massage chair and rolled his eyes. "Who do you think you are? Stevie Nicks? Stop it with the long skirts, short girl."

  They continued arguing about skirts while I paged through a dated copy of Real Simple.

  Our regular pedicure program usually focused on the important stuff: Shannon's disasters in dating, new fashion trends never intended for petite women, and whether high heels were actually screwing up our feet. We'd touch on the friends of our twenties who were flocking toward marriage, babies, and suburbia, and our refusal to live beyond the reach of the T subway lines, and the infrequency with which we truly unplugged from our hectic careers.

  Shannon and I were built alike. We shared a bone-deep dedication to our work, the belief we'd each be unstoppable if we put in enough hours, and the fuzzy faith that we'd be able to postpone our lives—that was, the actual living portions—for a few more years.

  Sam joined us occasionally, and when he wasn't busy crafting that manwhore façade, he was comical and fascinatingly neurotic, and on his way to becoming one of my new best friends.

  Shannon considered the skirts again and snapped a photo of the page with her phone. "It's not like I have time for shopping anyway," she mumbled.

  "You're not too busy," Sam said. "No one is ever too busy for anything. It's a matter of priorities."

  The world through his eyes was linear and ordered, and everything fit into proper, square compartments. It was only a matter of moving those little boxes around and making it all fit. He worked long hours but when he left the office, the office left him. Calls went to voicemail, emails waited until the next morning. It was that easy for Sam.

  There was even a tidy compartment for women. He wasn't especially forthcoming with details, but it was clear he subscribed to the 'you sucking my dick in a bathroom stall doesn't require me to learn your name' dogma. Seeing him here, his jeans rolled up to his knees, an oatmeal skin treatment painted on his calves, and a heated argument about skirts underway, I couldn't imagine the same man as a cavalier player.

  He went out most nights, hitting all the see-and-be-seen spots. He received invites to the swankiest events and sipped whiskey from the comfort of VIP lounges, and his name appeared in Boston's gossip and society pages alongside socialites and local celebrities. And yet I knew he was more insecure than most tween girls.

  Shannon turned toward me with a grin. "I'm reprioritizing. Want to go shopping? No, better idea: let's shop and then hit Bin 26 for wine. I've been lusting over a new white blend."

  "I am not interested in any of that," he muttered.

  I tugged my scarf over my chest at the memory of Matthew's teeth on my breasts early this morning, his voice hoarse after hours of growling when he said, "Nick and I are biking to the Vermont border and back, and I want to see you tonight. I want you in this bed, all naked and fuckable, all night. Tell me you'll be right here when I get home."

  I glanced up at Shannon. "Maybe for a bit. I have some work to do, and I have plans with Matthew."

  Of course I agreed to his demands. Growly, bitey Matthew was irresistible, and despite my attempts at moderation, at taking care of me, at focusing on work, we always ended up together, night after night.

  "Why do you call him that?" Sam asked. "Matthew. We only call him that when he's in trouble."

  "Well…" I started, rewinding to those first moments we shared. I'd always called him Matthew. I didn't think much about the structure and definition of us, but calling him Matthew was part of our foundation. It went hand-in-hand with my obscene requests and his cavemanning, and it wasn't something we could explain to anyone else. "I like it, and so does he."

  Sam shrugged, considering my response for a moment, and then returned to the latest edition of Dwell.

  Things were changing, that I knew. The days were shorter, air crisper, trees barer, but it wasn't only the slide of autumn into winter. There was something inside me—something elemental—and it was shifting at a pace I couldn't comprehend. At first I thought it was immediate, and quite possibly attributable to hiring Drew the Dean and off-loading a chunk of my overdue action items to him. I then realized it was most likely a gradual change, quiet yet invasive, like vines crawling around the slats of a fence, twisting and knotting and spreading until the two were indistinguishable, inseparable, indivisible.

  I didn't know whether I was the vine or the fence.


  In the hushed moments when his head was nestled between my breasts or on my belly or just a breath from my center, we revealed softly spoken truths about everything before us. He seemed glee-filled to know I could count my lovers on one hand, not including the thumb or pinkie. It was his brand of cavemanish pride, something tangled up with possession and purity, and I accepted it without further analysis. He nudged me for some explanation of why my number was so low, but I offered few details and he didn't push further.

  I harbored a spoonful of silly triumph after discovering Matthew's past relationships were cut from the friends-with-benefits cloth. When I pried, he mentioned never liking anyone enough to want more than basic fucking. He also referenced how, ahem, vocal I was in the bedroom, saying, "The minute I saw you, I thought 'naughty schoolteacher.' Turns out, I really dig the naughty part."

  We called it casual, we told our friends and families it was casual, we carried on with our lives as if it was casual, but it was powerful—magnetic—and the language necessary to describe what was happening to us hadn't been invented yet.

  And I wanted Matthew. I wanted to claim the notches and grooves around his collarbones and throat as my private hideaway, and I wanted the growls, bites, and sweat, and the tender heart he so diligently worked at hiding. But as much as I wanted to tell him everything, those words didn't flow like my obscene demands. The only adequate method of communication was rough, profane sex, and I had to believe he knew what I was thinking and feeling.

  We huddled against the bone-chilling wind, too cold to talk, hurrying through the narrow Boston streets, our shopping bags slapping against our legs, until we arrived at the wine bar. We settled into a narrow table looking out onto Boston Common, and a waiter delivered menus and a small bowl of olives.

  "There's a bottle I really want to try. Is that okay with you?" Shannon asked.

  "I do not discriminate. You know what I like, and you know the wine in my glass is my favorite kind."

  Shannon ordered an Australian white blend, and it wasn't long before it was empty and we were sampling something new.

  "So I invited Matt's friend Nick to dinner next week," Shannon said. "Those eyes. Swoons. I'd like to bite his ass. At least lick it."

  I wanted to ask why the Walshes were such biters, but exploring that path with Shannon seemed unwise. My brothers' sex lives were not one of my preferred discussion topics, and I had to believe Shannon shared that position. "Does he know that?"

  "I've been forthcoming with those interests. He's less excited about the ass biting than I am."

  "You're sure I can't bring anything?"

  I was looking forward to Thanksgiving at Shannon's next week. It was a new chapter for me, and I liked hanging out with the Walshes. I doubted I'd encounter any vegan green bean casseroles with this crew, but I was excited about the butternut squash pie. A strange new sentimental part of me recognized this as my first coupled holiday, and that knowledge filled me with a twinge of giddy anxiety.

  This wasn't how I expected things to happen for me, but I kept reminding myself to embrace the controlled chaos. It wasn't the polite series of dates leading to precise relationship milestones, and that left my rule-following good girl rather twitchy.

  My holiday enthusiasm didn't transfer to drinks with Elsie and Kent. Her cheerful email last week reminded me that I promised an appearance at her champagne luncheon, and Steph and Amanda insisted via group text that a pop-in wouldn't kill me.

  It took them two days to respond to my original text ("would it be wrong for me to tell her I have malaria and skip?"), and in those two days, I devised several ways to break the news of my malaria to Elsie. They didn't respond to my follow-up ("would it be wrong to send fancy champagne and skip? seems like a win for all…?"), and I found that more unpleasant the prospect of brunch with Elsie.

  Rather than waiting for approval from my friends, I sent champagne and a quick note omitting all mention of malaria. With my karmic luck, she'd organize a mosquito net benefit event in my honor, and then I'd be screwed. Yeah, it would be a win for malaria prevention, but I couldn't handle that much time in Elsie's company.

  I expected geography would alter my relationships with Steph and Amanda, but I was stunned how quickly our old patterns faded. Where we once maintained a religious adherence to group texts on Monday mornings, we rarely shared inspiring memes, amusing weekend stories, or photos of heinously-expensive-yet-necessary-for-survival shoes anymore. Most weeks, it was like talking to an empty room, usually waiting hours and sometimes days for a standard "omg we have to talk soon! heart you" response.

  Steph was pregnant, and surprised didn't begin to capture my reaction. I couldn't imagine her going through that again—the bed rest, the c-section, the post-partum anxiety—and I had only watched from the sidelines when she was pregnant with Madison. But she and Dan wanted a big family, and they wanted their kids close in age, and this time around she didn't even mention they had been trying until after she missed her period.

  Amanda had been promoted to managing partner at her finance firm, and was busy interviewing candidates for the squadron of nannies and housekeepers she would need when the baby arrived this spring. She wanted my opinions on gender neutral toys and intentionally diverse storybooks, and when she realized I knew plenty about schoolchildren but nothing about babies, she announced she needed a nursery consultant, and advised me to start planning the birth of my yet-to-be-conceived child while I had the time.

  Their lives were different now, I understood that, but things with Matthew were too intricate to manage alone. And after nearly ten years of sharing most major decisions in my life with Steph and Amanda, they weren't available when I needed them. Realizing the relationships that served us through college and our twenties were dwindling away hurt. I knew we'd always have memories of Williams College and The Dungeon, but it was another form of chaos I wasn't prepared to navigate.

  None of my other friends knew enough about my inner workings—my hot mess, my control freak, my crazy Commodore Halsted stories, my good girl, my rebel with good causes—to serve as proper sounding boards, and I didn't want to start from scratch with them.

  My mother offered some well-intentioned advice about following my heart, but bringing her in required intensive editing because Mom and I did not talk about sexytimes. In the end, my mother realized what I was doing, and her all-knowing chuckle gave it away.

  "All right, Lolo," she laughed. "I don't need the whole story. But you have a lot of love to give, and you should let yourself give it."

  When I stepped back to think about my relationship with Matthew, every turning point was inextricably linked to those sexytimes. We communicated through dirty talk and touch and need, and every time I tried to convince myself that was crazy, I realized it was also perfectly right. Everything I needed to know and everything I needed to say were offered between the sheets—and against walls, in showers, and on the desk in his office—and nothing more was necessary. Not now, not yet.

  Shannon and I were tight, and though we often talked about everything and nothing, she was altogether too close to this situation. We weren't talking about biting and we weren't talking about whether I was falling for her brother.

  I was on my own with this one, fumbling around in the dark.

  "Don't worry about Thanksgiving, Lauren. I order the meal from an organic farm, cooked and everything, and my assistant, Tom, will drive out to Boxboro to pick it all up on Wednesday. Less of a salmonella risk that way." Shannon rolled her eyes. "Besides, it's not like the boys ever bring anything."

  "Exactly. So what I can do? Wine? Flowers?"

  She leveled a serious gaze at me. "This is not a classy event, Lauren. The Walsh children do not do classy. My brothers are well-educated, well-dressed brutes, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I'll be happy if the cranberry sauce stays out of the rugs. Did Matt ever tell you how this all started? The 'let's raid Shan's place on Thanksgiving' tradition?"

  I refilled our glasses
and shook my head.

  Shannon dropped her gaze. "We basically stopped doing holidays when my mother died. Sometimes my father's sisters would have us over, but not always, and my father turned it into a shit show. He does that a lot."

  Where Matthew never mentioned his father, Shannon and Sam often talked around the issues with him, and his tenuous role in the business, and I knew things were getting worse. The bruise on Matthew's face was the work of his father, though the exact turn of events was still unclear. Matthew wouldn't discuss it, and Sam struggled to talk about the most recent incident without lapsing into incoherent swearing rampages. It all made the Commodore's quirks that much more tolerable.

  "Thanksgiving at my place started the year Patrick finished college. The rest of the tribe was either still in school or at home with my father." She paused to sample the olives, and turned back to me. "Erin had a huge fight with my father and the situation was shambles—which is how she leaves most things—so she was staying with me. Somehow everyone else ended up camping in my five hundred square foot apartment. Patrick and his stiff upper lip convinced me that we needed a family holiday. Just once I'd like to see these events in his pristine apartment."

  I nibbled an olive, waiting for Shannon to continue. I couldn't imagine a childhood without holiday celebrations and the traditional trappings of family. Mine might be scattered and engaged in our own pursuits now, but my best memories and everything I knew about family came from holidays and trips.

  "Riley convinced me to cook, and there are more exaggerated stories about me giving everyone food poisoning that year than I care to recount. But it was the first time we actually had Thanksgiving together since my mom died. And aside from everyone puking all over my apartment, it was nice."

  I covered my face with my hands and leaned away from the table, trying and failing to conceal my laughter. "That's a terrible story, Shannon! 'Aside from the puking it was nice'? Oh my friend, what are we going to do with you?"