by Kallysten
A few times, when Leo said ‘we,’ Virginia guessed that he meant Lisa and him, but he never said her name, or Brett’s. She wished she had dared ask what was going on with them, and why they had both been so distant at the club, but she couldn’t imagine any answer that would have made her feel better, so she didn’t ask.
It was close to two in the morning when Leo said it was time for him to leave. Anando shook his hand. Virginia kissed his cheek and thanked him. His visit hadn’t solved anything, but she did feel better now than she had earlier.
CHAPTER 13
The laptop keys clicked under Brett’s fingers, but the sound was nowhere near loud enough to cover the burst of music coming from the first floor when the door at the bottom of the staircase opened then closed again. Brett only had time to wonder who was coming up, Leo or Lisa, before Leo stepped in the door.
Brett glanced up at him over the back of the couch, then returned his attention to his work. He could feel a muscle twitch in his cheek from clenching his teeth so hard. He’d tried to calm down, but as the hours passed he’d grown more upset.
He reached for the beer on the coffee table and took a small sip before he set it down again. The words and numbers on the screen were beginning to blur, and he saved his work before closing the program. He kept the laptop on his knees, shifting to the video feeds from the club.
“Hey,” Leo said. “Where’s Lisa?”
“Dancing, I suppose,” Brett replied, taking care to keep his voice clear of the mess of emotions he felt. “I was looking for you earlier.”
He didn’t ask where Leo had been. He didn’t think he could hang on to his calm if he did. He looked at Leo from the corner of his eye, watching him kick his shoes off and hang his leather jacket in the foyer closet.
“I went out,” Leo said as he came over to the living room area. He plopped himself onto the sofa opposite Brett.
Brett met his gaze flatly. “So I assumed when I saw your bike was gone. Again.”
In the past month or so, it had happened every few days—every time Leo had the night off, in fact. At first, Brett had thought nothing of it. Ever since he’d given Leo the bike as a birthday present, Leo had taken long rides once in a while.
Brett had accompanied him a couple times, holding on tight as Leo drove on and on, going fast down the highway for hours, then turning around and coming back home. Leo had confided that, when he didn’t have a passenger, he drove much faster, and a couple of speeding tickets confirmed that.
The same night Brett had given the bike to Leo, they’d struck a deal. Leo was free to spend a few hours with other people—but only with Brett’s prior approval. Brett could count on his fingers the number of times when he had said no, usually when he’d had plans for Leo and him on a given night. The simple fact that he had a say in it made him feel closer to Leo somehow.
It had been months since Leo had asked, however. In fact, Brett couldn’t even recall the last time. And now Leo was running off every few nights…
He closed the laptop abruptly and set it on the coffee table.
“Is our arrangement over, then?” he asked. “It’d be nice for you to tell me that it is.”
Leo’s expression remained smooth. He crossed one ankle over his knee and said, “I went to visit some friends. I didn’t realize I needed permission for that.”
“Friends?” Brett repeated, taken aback.
“Friends. I do have friends, you know. Not many of them, but they’re that much more precious to me because of it.”
It didn’t occur to Brett to question Leo. Lies and half-truths didn’t belong in their relationship. He felt ashamed for assuming the worst.
“I’m sorry.” With a sigh, he rose from the armchair and joined Leo on the sofa, sitting next to him so that they touched from knee to hip to shoulder. He took Leo’s hand in his and brought it to his lips for a quick kiss. “I shouldn’t have assumed… I’m an asshole.”
Leo shook his head and pressed his temple to Brett’s. “I can think of a couple ways you can make it up to me.”
Brett laughed. “Yeah, me too.” He caressed the inside of Leo’s wrist, where Brett knew he was so sensitive. “So who are these friends, then? Do I know them?”
“As a matter of fact, you do.” Leo paused for a second or two before he finished in the same quiet, cool tone. “I went to see Virginia and Anando.”
Surprise surged through Brett as painful and unexpected as a jolt of electricity. He moved back a little so he could see Leo better when he asked, “You did? Why?”
Leo raised an eyebrow at him and asked, “Why not?”
Brett bit his tongue rather than saying Lisa’s name, but his eyes flicked to the door, betraying him. Leo smiled and shook his head.
“She knows,” he said. “She can’t not know. She must have smelled them on me every time I went to visit. She’ll smell them on me tonight again. And you know what? She hasn’t said a damn thing about it, and she’ll continue to not say a word.”
But Brett didn’t want to talk about what Lisa might or might not say—not when he was so scared of what she might do instead. He tried to shift the topic back to Leo and couldn’t suppress a small edge of reproach.
“Why would you smell like them if all you did was visit friends?”
Brett didn’t expect this quiet chuckle from Leo. He watched, taken aback, as Leo stood and walked over to the cabinet in which they kept a few bottles. He poured two drinks as he answered Brett’s question.
“Because I hugged her,” he said, glancing back at Brett over his shoulder. “Because I sat next to them to watch movies. Because I put my ear to her belly and listened to the tiniest heartbeat I’ve ever heard.” He turned back, a glass in each hand, and brought one to Brett. “It doesn’t take sex for smells to transfer,” he continued, then took a sip from his glass. “I don’t go there for sex.”
Brett looked at the two fingers of liquid fire Leo had poured for him. He raised the glass, took a whiff of the strong alcohol, but didn’t drink. He needed all his brain power to have this conversation, especially since he had no idea where it was going.
“Why do you go there, then?” he asked, meeting Leo’s eyes again.
Leo perched himself on the coffee table in front of Brett and leaned in close to answer.
“Because it’s your child growing inside her. One of these days, you’re going to regret trying to forget that. And when you do, the way back won’t be completely closed off because I didn’t forget they’re my friends.”
Part of Brett was grateful that Leo would think that far ahead, that he would cultivate that friendship when Brett himself couldn’t. But at the same time, he was taunting Lisa. Brett couldn’t do the same. He couldn’t risk alienating her.
“I can’t,” he said, taking a sip from his drink. It burned his throat, but left his guilt intact. He hated that he had been forced to make a choice, but he had made that choice and he would live with it. “Lisa…”
Leo set his glass down on the table next to him and took Brett’s free hand between both of his.
“Let me tell you something about Lisa.”
His voice was stronger now. Flames burned in his gaze.
“I love her. I’ve loved her for longer than you’ve been alive. I know her better than I know anyone else in the world, better than anyone else knows her. Better than you know her, I’m sorry but it’s true. And because of that, I can say this: right now she’s being selfish, self-centered, and a complete coward.”
He looked up above Brett’s shoulder and straight toward the front door. It clicked open as he finished, and Brett’s heart tightened painfully when he realized Lisa was there. Hope flashed through him—maybe she hadn’t heard anything—but that hope faded right away. Of course she had heard.
Of course she’d be mad.
Maybe if Leo apologized…
But Leo wouldn’t apologize, Brett realized. Not when the next words out of his mouth were, “And I don’t give a damn if she knows
that’s what I think.”
* * * *
For the past few moments, Lisa had stood behind the door, her eyes fixed unseeingly on the doorknob she held in one tight hand. Then she shook herself and walked in.
“If that’s what you think, why don’t you say it to my face?”
She hated how much her voice trembled and that she had to cross her arms or risk her hands shaking, too. But her gaze, at least, was steady as she stared at Leo.
He came to her. His eyes were burning with a fire she was more used to seeing in the bedroom. It wasn’t lust lighting the dark depths now, though she wasn’t sure what she would have called it. He didn’t smell angry. He was even smiling a little when he said, “Which part? That I love you?”
Lisa tightened her arms around herself and clenched her teeth rather than saying anything. Leo came closer still until he was standing toe to toe with her.
“I do,” he said, more quietly, but his words that much more intense for it. “You know I do. You’ve known for a long time. And no, I’m not scared to say it anymore, because this?”
He reached for her left hand, tugging it free from where she had tucked it in under her arm. He slid his fingers over hers until he could hold her ring and make it turn on her finger.
“This doesn’t only link you and Brett. I’m part of it.”
He paused, then, giving her the chance to object. Lisa said nothing. She couldn’t have spoken if she had tried.
“And I’m telling you, you’re hurting him.”
He didn’t say Brett’s name. He didn’t need to. Even without looking at Brett, Lisa was suddenly hyperaware of his presence, of his heart thundering mere feet away, of the sheer, raw fear coming off of him. The fear of losing her, she knew that, too.
“Leo, don’t,” Brett whispered.
If Leo heard that plea, he gave no sign of it.
“You’re hurting the man you love,” he continued. “And for what? Fear that he’ll leave us for her? You know that’s never going to happen.”
Did she? As soon as she asked herself the question, she knew. Of course she knew. Of course Brett wouldn’t leave her and Leo.
“Jealousy that she’s giving him something you can’t? Has he ever asked you for a child? Has he ever mentioned a child before?”
He hadn’t. That didn’t mean he’d never thought about it, or that he didn’t feel regret when his friends started families. Lisa was all too aware of that. She didn’t say it aloud, but Leo seemed to guess her objection.
“He knows what we are.” He raised her hand to eye level, his fingers still touching her ring. “He knew it when he gave us these. This pregnancy, it’s just something that happened. It will continue to happen even if he never sees that child. He’ll know he or she is out there. And so will you. And your fear, your jealousy is never going to go away. Not until you face them.”
Lisa wanted to pull her hand free. She wanted to protest, tell him he knew nothing, that he didn’t understand a thing about her, and that he had no right to talk to her like this. She couldn’t move, though, and still couldn’t form a word.
Leo did know her. He did understand. His words struck true, each and every one of them. And they all hurt worse than knife wounds to the heart. When he crossed the few inches between them to lay a simple kiss on her mouth, she was still too shocked to do more than blink.
“And there’s something else,” he added, still very quiet. “That child. It’s Virginia’s because she’s carrying it. It’s Anando’s because he loves her. It’s Brett’s because it wouldn’t exist without him. It’s mine because I love Brett. All you have to do is say the word and it’ll be yours, too.”
Brett had come closer while Leo talked, and now he stood by Leo’s shoulder. Lisa could feel his eyes on her, and she struggled to look up and meet his gaze. As she did, the ‘no’ that had been rising to her lips died in her throat.
Brett wanted what Leo was talking about. He didn’t merely want to be that child’s accidental genitor. He wanted to be involved in his or her life. And he’d been squashing that desire for her, because she had asked him to.
She was lightheaded. Her eyes were burning. She turned away and reached for the door.
“Lisa?”
If she’d had any doubt about how scared Brett was at that moment, she would only have needed to hear that simple word fall from his lips. She’d done that. After sixteen years spent in his life, almost six of those wearing his ring, she’d changed something. He still loved her, but that love was caged where before it’d been free.
She turned back to him—to them—and tried to smile. They were little more than blurred shapes through a curtain of tears that weren’t falling quite yet; tears she wouldn’t let fall.
“I just… I need some space, okay?” she said in a rough, shaky voice.
“Lisa…”
For the first time that night, Leo sounded unsure.
“I’ll be back,” Lisa said. “I just need some fresh air.”
The door, when it closed behind her, made more noise than either of them. She went down to the club, passing the bar, customers who laughed and talked, and music pounding like a heartbeat from the lower level. She spent her evenings at the club. It was her hunting grounds, her lair. This was where she felt at home.
Tonight, she couldn’t leave fast enough.
She took the car with no destination in mind and was almost startled, when she shut off the engine twenty minutes later, to find herself in that improvised parking spot by the side of the road above the cliff where they liked to picnic under the stars, sometimes.
It was strange to be there on her own, but she got out of the car and climbed down the short-but-steep hill behind the scrawny bushes.
The bedrock beyond that was flat. She sat there, her arms around her legs and her chin on her knees, her gaze on the ocean, although she saw little of the rough waves. A cool wind blew her hair into her face.
The last night she, Brett, and Leo had come here, a couple of weeks before his birthday, the air had been warm, without a hint of wind. Even with all those thoughts swirling through her mind, all those emotions choking her, the memory made her smile.
The three of them fit so well together. That was why she had taken his blood, at long last. That was why she and Leo had bought that ring for him—the ring she still hadn’t given Brett.
Why hadn’t she? What was still holding her back? Why did she feel so threatened by this pregnancy?
You’re hurting him, Leo had said. You’re hurting the man you love.
He was right.
He was right about both things.
She had never wanted to love Brett or anyone else again. Love only hurt, and she was going to live too long to endure that kind of pain over and over whenever she grew too close to someone and lost them. But the truth was there, plain and inescapable.
They had started as nothing more than bedmates, like she and Leo had once been. But they had grown beyond it as time passed. They were more than that now, the three of them. She had put everything in jeopardy… And for what?
Leo didn’t use the words selfish or coward lightly. She was those things. She didn’t like it, but at least she could admit it to herself. She’d let her fears rule her. She’d allowed herself to forget years of trust and love.
How was she going to fix any of it?
CHAPTER 14
“It’s not fair.”
Although Anando didn’t reply, Virginia would have sworn she could hear him smile. And never mind that there was nothing to hear or that a smile didn’t sound like anything. She could, and that was all there was to it.
She waited a few more seconds, making sure that there was nothing left in her stomach that wanted to come up, and pushed herself to her feet, flushing the toilet as she did. At once, Anando’s right hand supported her, the left one offering her a wet washcloth. She glared at him.
“It’s not fair, and it’s not funny.”
“I never thought it was either,”
Anando assured her. “If I could be nauseous instead of you—”
She interrupted him with a huff and pushed him out of the bathroom, both hands flat on his bare chest. She closed the door behind him so she could clean up in private.
“You’re supposed to say that,” she mumbled. “All men do and don’t mean a word of it. And morning sickness is supposed to happen in the morning, not the middle of the night.”
There was no answer from the other side of the door. Virginia frowned and brushed her teeth more vigorously still, imagining Anando laughing. She knew he wasn’t, but she was tired, and cranky, and she still felt a little sick, so she was allowed to be unreasonable, damn it!
She rinsed her mouth again. When she shut off the water, the doorbell rang and she frowned. It was almost four in the morning. Who could be visiting at this hour?
She slipped on a bathrobe over her nightie and tied the belt before leaving the bathroom. She peeked into the foyer as Anando opened the front door, wearing nothing more than pajama pants. She froze when she saw Lisa standing on the threshold.
“What are you doing here?” Anando asked in his coldest voice. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
Even from where she stood across the length of the foyer and living room, Virginia could tell that Lisa was upset. Her eyes were haunted, and while at the club she always looked perfect, tonight her hair was wild and windswept.
“I need to talk to Virginia. Please.”
“Come back at a decent hour,” Anando said, biting out each and every word.
He started to close the door, but glanced at Virginia when she said his name quietly.
“Let her in,” Virginia said, holding the robe tighter over her chest.
He didn’t finish closing the door, but didn’t open it again, either, at least not yet.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his eyes studying her. “You don’t have to talk to her. And you certainly don’t have to do it now.”