Prime: A Bad Boy Romance

by Stephanie Brother

  “We’ll sit here for as long as you need to”, she says placidly. “Just tell me when you are ready to go.”

  “Ok”, I say, already feeling a million times better. “I only need a little while, just to get my thoughts in order.”

  “Rum might help”, Marcy suggests. “It usually helps me.”

  I shake my head. “I think i’m having a panic attack”, I say. “A sudden, violent, uncontrollable panic attack. I’m sorry, Marcy, I don’t think I can do this, I thought I could do this, but I don’t think I can do this after all.”

  “Just try and breathe slowly, or through your nose, or maybe into a paper bag”, Marcy says. “There’s no rush. You’ve only got like maybe thirty minutes until Donkey disappear again forever.”

  “Not helping”, I say.

  “Come on, I’m only kidding”, she adds.

  “I think my heart has stopped, seriously. I can’t feel my pulse, fuck, Marcy, my skin is going cold.”

  “Close your eyes”, Marcy suggests. “Just close your eyes and try to control your breathing.”

  I do as she suggests, close my eyes and try to control my breathing.

  “It’s only Donkey”, Marcy says. “You know them, you’ve known them all your life.”

  “I know”, I say.

  “Just pretend you’re going to see if they want to come and play, you know, not in like a super dirty sexual menage way but in an innocent neighborly friendly way.”

  “Without the deflowering?” I ask, my eyes still closed.

  “Exactly, no deflowering, no double penetration, no coming on your tits”, Marcy says.

  “Breasts, Marcy”, I correct her, between controlled breaths. “Let’s keep in classy remember.”

  “Breasts”, Marcy says. “No coming on your breasts.”

  I open my eyes at the end of a long exhale of breath. The band has finished their brief closing march, the cheerleaders have long cleared away and Marcy and I are almost the last two people left in the entire stadium. The fact that we haven’t moved at all has brought the attention of the camera, and on the big screen at the end of the field I notice ourselves in horrific close up detail.

  “Marcy”, I say, my voice barely more than a whisper.

  “Not only that”, she says, nodding to something outside my field of vision. “Look who’s coming to say hello.”

  I know who it is even before I turn to look, just the thought of D-day coming freezing me even further into my chair, nervous excitement binding my emotions together as one. I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, throw myself into their arms or throw myself with arms outstretched towards the field below us. I’d run if I trusted my legs to work, even though I know that escaping this is really the last thing I want to do.

  “You want me to stay?” Marcy asks.

  “Fuck yes”, I say, without hesitation.

  “Hey”, Jack says, climbing up the stadium steps to get to us. “Were you planning on sitting there all day or were you going to come and say hello?”

  “Hi Jack, hey Zach”, I say, surprised my voice still works. “I was going to come and say hello, I thought you might be busy with the team and celebrating and stuff.”

  “We can do that when we get back home”, Zach says. “It’s cool that you’re here, we weren’t sure if we’d get to see you or not.”

  “You know I’m a huge fan of football”, I lie. “I couldn’t miss the return of the prodigal sons.”

  “I guess we’ve got a lot to catch up on”, Jack says. “It’s been a weird couple of months.”

  “You can say that again”, I say. “Dad’s moved out, I guess you’ve heard?”

  “We don’t talk to Mom much after what happened”, Zach says, “It’s kind of a weird situation right now, for all of us.”

  “Right”, I say.

  “Not that weird”, Marcy says. “Plenty of weirder shit going on in the states right now.”

  I ignore her, even though she has a point.

  “How long are you staying for?” I ask, desperate to maximize the time they are here.

  “A few days”, Jack says. “Not long.”

  “You doing anything?” Zach asks enthusiastically.

  “Me? No”, I say, “I mean, I’ve got college but no, nothing planned.”

  “Listen”, Jack says. “I’m sorry we haven’t been in contact, it’s been kind of a hard couple of months adjusting to everything that’s happened.”

  “That’s okay”, I say. “It’s not like I’ve been in touch either.”

  “It’s just-”, Zach begins before stopping himself. “I don’t know, it would be really nice to catch up while we are here.”

  “Talk about stuff”, Jack adds, “you know?”

  “I’d like that”, I say, before taking a deep breath. “I’ve got some things I want to talk about too, that I wanted to say to you before you left.”

  “Are you free tonight?” Zach asks. “We could come over to the house.”

  “Ok”, I say, hardly believing what I’m hearing.

  “Just promise not to puke this time”, Jack adds.

  I can feel my face go red but the levity breaks the tension nicely. “I promise”, I say meekly. “I haven’t touched alcohol since that night.”

  “Nor have I, I swear”, Marcy says sarcastically, as she pulls her bag protectively into her lap.

  “We better get back to the team”, Jack says. “Landon Maddox wants us to give him his nickname back, he’s pissed that everyone’s chanting Donkey for us and not for him. It’s good to see you, Jenny.”

  “It’s good to see you too”, I say, still in shock.

  “See you tonight”, Zach says, before they both bound back down the stairs like excited dogs.

  I turn to Marcy, “So apparently acting as though everything is normal, is normal”, I say.

  “They didn’t look in my direction once, did you notice?” Marcy complains. “They probably don’t even remember my name.”

  “Was that as weird as I thought it was?” I say, ignoring her. “Did that just happen?”

  Marcy giggles. “What can I say? Maybe I was wrong about them after all, and you seriously are the luckiest girl in the world. You do realize that tonight you’ve got a date with Donkey, in your bedroom?”

  “As friends”, I say, my mind already racing. “Neighborly friends.”

  “Yeah, right”, Marcy says. “You just remember that later when you’re drooling all over them.”

  “They’re coming to my house”, I say, the notion sinking in bit by bit. “Donkey are coming to my house.”

  We sit in the stadium seats for about thirty minutes longer, until I finally feel like I can trust my legs to carry me back to the car, still unable to believe that after a whole summer without contact, Donkey suddenly want to spend time with me. I want to know what the fuck is going on, and whether it’s a good thing that’s going to make my body rock or a bad thing all the porch sitting and cigarette smoking in the world won’t be able to cure.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I clean my room, twice. I change outfit more times than I can even remember and I can’t fully admit that it’s actually happening until I see them arrive, walk casually up to the front door and ring the doorbell.

  By luck or because of fate, I am here alone. Mom has taken to spending time outside of the house as a way of forgetting about what’s going on, and Marcy, who was more than happy to stay and take notes, I’ve banished until further notice. There isn’t even anyone next door. Dad and Janice are somewhere in the city, and the new occupants haven’t competed on the purchase and moved themselves in yet. If what I want to happen actually happens, I can comfortably scream my head off and not rouse the neighbours.

  Donkey smile in unison as I open the door, and immediately I feel much more relaxed. Which is to say, although my stomach is turning over and my hands are shaking, I find that I still just about have the capacity to breathe.

  They look even more gorgeous than I remember, somehow more
mature.

  “Hey, Jenny”, Jack says. “You made it out of the stadium in the end then?”

  I smile. “Just about”, I say.

  “We weren’t sure if you were planning on staying there all night”, Zach jokes.

  “You know, it’s just, I was so stunned by the performance.”

  Zach raises his eyebrows. “My two touchdown catches, you mean?”

  “Or my two touchdown passes”, Jack corrects him.

  “Both”, I say quickly, “I couldn’t choose between them. I kept getting in trouble for cheering you on.”

  “I didn’t realize you were such a fan”, Jack says.

  “I actually went because I heard Landon Maddox was going to be there”, I joke. “I guess it’s just coincidence that you two decided to show up as well.”

  “A lucky coincidence”, Zach says, playing along.

  “Exactly”, I say.

  We make our way through to the living room where the twins melt into the couch and I perch on the edge of the armchair, far too excited to be any further away from them.

  “Thanks for coming over”, I say when we are settled. “I thought you’d disappeared permanently.”

  Jack and Zach look at each other before fixing their eyes back on me.

  “Like we said before”, Jack begins, “it’s been a weird couple of months. First Mom and Dad, then the scholarship and the move, then the end of year party.”

  “We wanted to come over and-”, Zach seems to change his mind half way through his sentence before he carries on. “We thought we owed you an explanation. We’ve been talking, Jack and I.”

  “An explanation?” I ask.

  Jack gives a furtive glance around. “Do you mind if we go up to your room?” he asks.

  Room, bed, undress, fuck, are the words that go through my mind, and not necessarily in that order.

  “We’re alone”, I say, “Mom’s not-.”

  “It’s kind of a delicate subject”, Zach says.

  The tension is palpable. If I knew better, I’d call this sexual tension as clear as the sea around a caribbean island and f Marcy were here her glasses would be steaming up. I ignore it as best as I can.

  “Ok”, I say innocently. “Let’s go.”

  I don’t need to give directions. Jack and Zach know exactly where my bedroom is, and if anything, I’m the one they lead there. Thank fuck I cleaned it, thank christ I tucked the notebook to the end of my panties drawer and put all of my one sex toy back in the shoebox at the bottom of my closet.

  “It’s been a while since we’ve all been in here together”, Zach says, testing the springs on the mattress like a bored husband might in the bed section at a large department store, while Jack takes to the armchair, sitting back deeply into it.

  That depends on whether you count the written word in that equation I think, my mind on the perverted section of my notebook. “Years”, I say instead. “I can’t even remember the last time.”

  September 22nd 2009, after football practice. It was raining outside and we played Operation while we waited for your Mom to get home from work and I wanted to kiss you both.

  “Are you ok, Jen?” Jack asks, perhaps seeing me lose myself in the memory, perhaps all too aware how nervous this situation is making me.

  “Sure”, I lie, deciding to stay on my feet even though it looks stupid. “I’m fine. Excited by what you want to tell me.”

  Jack and Zach look at each other again, the only way two twins have the capacity to do. It’s the telepathic glance that mere mortals can only manage with words and animated body gestures.

  My glance goes from one to the other, slowly as though watching a tennis ball cross that net at a fraction of the speed.

  Is this about to be a we read your notebook and we’ve called the police kind of confession? Am I about to hear some kind of step-brotherly advice on the precipice of our parents new arrangement? Or is it something completely different and I’m way off the mark reading the tension in here?

  I’m hot, that’s for damn sure, and I know for a fact we are nowhere near summer.

  “We should have said before”, Jack says. “But we just didn’t know how to.”

  “And with everything that’s happening now, we didn’t want to miss our chance”, Zach adds.

  “It’s harder with two of us, you know, we didn’t want to step on each other’s toes.”

  Jack looks like he has a million more things to say but falls quiet for the moment to allow his brother to continue talking. “We didn’t know how you were going to react, so we didn’t say anything, but now with Mom and Doug together, we felt like we couldn’t carry on.”

  “We didn’t want to miss out, even if it meant only one of us won”, Jack says.

  “Won what?” I say, horribly confused.

  “You know when you asked us if we were going to the prom?” Zach begins. “And we said it wasn’t really our kind of thing?”

  I nod.

  “We lied”, Jack says. “We just didn’t want you to have to choose.”

  “Choose?”

  “Jack or I”, Zach says. “We thought it would be better not to go at all, than for one of us to miss out.”

  My blood freezes cold, my heart leaps into my mouth and my palms go all clammy. Did I just hear what I think I heard, or am I dreaming?

  “What?” I stutter.

  Jack looks embarrassed. Zach looks ashamed. “I know, right?” Jack says. “Now with Mom and Doug we feel even more stupid.”

  “That’s why we’ve not been in touch all summer”, Zach says. “We thought if we tried to forget about it, it would go away. We’d meet someone else special and it wouldn’t matter.”

  “It didn’t go away”, Jack says. “I guess it’s not so easy to get rid of something that’s been going on for such a long time.”

  “Since we moved here”, Zach says. “For me, at least.”

  “For us both”, Jack adds. “So you can see, if one of us won, the other would feel like such a reject.”

  “Me?” I ask, unable to believe this is happening.

  “Stupid, huh?”, Jack says. “But we just figured if we can’t both be with you, better that none of us can. We look after each other like that. Zach’s a dick sometimes, but he’s my best friend.”

  “Oh, my, God”, I say, struggling to process this. “You, both, me, us, for, since you came here. All this time?”

  I’m barely making sense but Jack and Zach nod all the same.

  “And now?” I say.

  “We said when the schedule came out that it was now or never”, Zach says. “We had to know.”

  The thought suddenly occurs to me, and I nearly burst out laughing for the stupidity of it. “You didn’t read the notebook?” I ask.

  Donkey look confused for a moment. “Come on, Jenny”, Zach says, “We know how private you’ve always been about your writing, we wouldn’t do that to you. Why?”

  “Nothing”, I say, unable to get the smile off my face. “It’s, nothing. I just, I can’t believe what you’re saying.”

  “I know”, Zach says. “I can’t believe it either, but we couldn’t go on any longer. We miss you where we are. Forgetting about you doesn’t work like we thought it would. If anything, it just makes it worse. It’s affecting our game, our training, even our relationship with each other. Jack’s been pining over you like a little girl.”

  Jack throws a stuffed toy in his brother’s direction.

  “So”, Jack says. “That’s what we had to say. Before your Dad and our Mom do something stupid like get married and whatever possibility any of us ever had of getting together or whatever works out between us goes up in smoke.”

  “Ten years”, I say, not really thinking straight. “All that time and neither of you said anything.”

  “We couldn’t”, Zach says, “Because we knew you’d have to choose.”

  “And now?” I ask.

  “Now we don’t have a choice”, Jacks says.

  “And what
if I can’t choose?” I say gently, well aware I’m treading on delicate ground. “What if I’ve never been able to?”

  My eyes lift from the ground to each brother in turn.

  “Then we’d have to share”, the twins say in chorus, “and neither one of us would have to lose.”

  Not a story, even though it feels like it should be. Not a dream either, because the pinch I give myself actually hurts. I tip toe while they watch me approach, one foot placed delicately in front of the other, until the gap between us no longer exists and each one of them could reach out and touch me if I gave the order.

  “I have a confession as well”, I begin, my voice measured in careful cadence in case it leaps out of my body and takes everything else with it. “Something I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time.”

  Jack and Zach look up to me eagerly while my heart pounds so hard you can see my dress move, and for the first time in my life outside of my imagination I feel like the world is finally going the way I want it to.

  I don’t know how this has happened, but now it seems to be here, the last thing I’m going to do is fuck it up. If what Jack and Zach are saying to me is true, I’m going to make sure they show me they mean it as well. My pulse may be racing, my breath may be almost impossible to catch, but I’m not going to let it overwhelm me. If this is the moment that determines the path of the rest of my life, I’m not going to let it slip out of my control.

  “If you close your eyes”, I whisper, “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Like this?” Zach asks, shoulder to shoulder with his brother, standing in the middle of my room, eyes closed.

  “Like that”, I say, walking slowly round them both, making sure they’re not cheating. Getting this close makes my skin fizz and I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to hold on before giving in fully.

  “Simon says”, I begin.

  “Simon says?” Jack questions.

  “Uhuh”, I say.

  “This is your confession?” Zach adds.