The Iris Boys Series

by Smoke, Lucy

  The professor walked in, laying her supplies on the table at the front of the room. I didn't know what we went over, and I didn't know what we were supposed to have read—not anymore. I drowned out the professor's words and began doodling on my notebook when I felt the familiar sensation of my phone vibrating in my pocket.

  As inconspicuously as possible, I slipped the cell out and checked the screen.

  Grayson: House meeting. 15 min.

  I didn't know what it was about, but I doubted Grayson had spent the night resting like I told him to. And if that was the case, then he had found something. Without second guessing myself, I quickly stood and gathered my things to quietly make my way to the door.

  "Harlow?" I froze at the door at the sound of Dr. C's tone. I had hoped she wouldn't notice my departure. "Is everything okay?" she asked.

  Pasting on a smile, I turned back. "Yeah," I professed. "I'm sorry, I'm just not feeling well." For a change, my inability to hide a tight smile or act like I wasn't exhausted when I was came in handy.

  She looked me over and frowned before nodding. "Alright dear, be sure to get the class assignment from the website and gather any notes before next class," she said.

  I nodded back. "Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry for interrupting class."

  Dr. C shook her head and offered me a sympathetic look. "Feel better," she called as I made my escape.

  The moment I was out of the building, I booked it to the duplex. Even as the rain came down harder, I flicked up the hood of my slicker and stomped my converse through the wet puddles on the sidewalk. My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my pocket wondering if it was Grayson hurrying me along. Once again, though, it was just an unknown number. I ignored the call and shoved my phone back in my pocket. So distracted by the rain and the phone call, I didn't even notice the sound of tires over wet pavement. Perhaps because they were small, thin bicycle tires. I just assumed that a bicyclist would see me and move out of the way, but when I realized how close it was—just behind me—and how no one had called out, I looked up. My eyes widened as a figure in dark clothing barreled towards me.

  Whoever it was didn't swerve. Their face was covered by a hood and scarf tugged up, I assume to block the rain. Perhaps it was for that reason, that they were heading straight at me. I didn't even manage a scream before I was knocked off my feet. My back hit the concrete sidewalk and dots danced in front of my face. I felt wet pellets of raindrops slap my cheeks before all of the dots grew gradually larger and then encompassed my entire field of vision. I fell into a gray world of oblivion.

  * * *

  There was an incessant beeping noise just to the side of my head and the constant barrage was like little nails burrowing holes in my skull. Every beep was a giant crater that dug its way into my brain and rattled around. I made a half-strangled groan at the painful feeling. As soon as I made a noise, there were several footsteps and shuffling across from me. I peeked my eyes open.

  "Sweetheart?" Bellamy's face hovered to the side of mine and I blinked at him stupidly, confused.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked. Then something else occurred to me as I looked around the room—a hospital room, I realized, by the white barren walls and fluorescent lights. I closed my eyes, reminded of my mom. "Why am I here?"

  "Little Bit." Knix's deep timbre came from my other side and my eyes flicked back open. "Do you not remember anything?"

  I thought back. I remembered...rain, Grayson's text message, leaving class, and... "Was I hit by a bike?" I asked.

  "Is that what happened?" This time it was Texas squeezing up next to Bellamy beside my hospital bed.

  I nodded. "I think so." That beeping was still going on. I looked over and slapped a hand out towards the heart monitor. "Can you please turn that thing off, it's hurting my head," I said.

  "Sure." I blinked as Marv stepped in through the doorway, holding two cups of coffee with Grayson right behind him, who also had steaming cups of coffee in both hands. When had they gotten so chummy? Marv handed a cup to Knix and then passed one over to Bellamy before he moved to the monitor. Instead of searching for the right button, he simply reached down and pulled the plug on the monitor. The monitor started going haywire, but as soon as it was out of the wall the screen went dark, and beautiful, blissful silence greeted my ears.

  I groaned in relief.

  Marv moved back and retrieved one of the cups from Grayson and then, as a unit they moved towards the end of my bed. While I was no longer surrounded by that incessant beeping, I was now surrounded by five imposing figures.

  “Uh…” I looked around the bed. “So…why am I in the hospital again?” I asked.

  “You hit your head when you got knocked down,” Knix answered. “Luckily, you had your ID card on you and when whoever found you called the ambulance, they called your mom to let her know what happened, but all of her calls get rerouted to me for the time being and once we found out why you never showed up to the house, we got here as fast as we could.”

  A warm hand on the top of my foot made me jump and I peeled my gaze from Knix’s face and turned to the end of the bed. Marv’s hand was clenched tight around his coffee cup while his other one held the top of my foot. His face was a mask of pain and concern. “We were really worried about you, Sunshine.”

  Something must have triggered me. What it was, I couldn’t say. Maybe it was a combination of his facial expression, their nearness, or the head injury, but when the nickname rolled off his tongue, my mouth opened, and words just tumbled out. Like falling, head first, down a long dark rabbit hole. I might have had a concussion. Brain damage. Too much pain medication. Maybe I just had filled my own head with all of these expectations—real or imagined—and they were finally bursting free. Maybe it was fate.

  “So, you just came running?”

  Marv blinked, surprised. Actually, they all looked pretty surprised. Wow, I was really getting good at shocking them. Even Grayson frowned with confusion. He was the one that stepped closer to the end of the bed—right next to Marv, I noticed. “Of course we came running,” he said gruffly. “You were hurt. You’re important to us.”

  “Individually?” I asked. “Or all together?”

  “What?”

  “I’m important to you individually or I’m important to you all the same way?” I asked.

  “Little Bit, that doesn’t make any sense,” Knix said, leaning down. “What are you trying to say?”

  I shook my head hard, feeling like my brain was still rattling around up there. “You.” I nodded at Knix then turned my head to Bellamy. “You.” I turned to Texas. “And you.” And finally, to Marv and Grayson. “And definitely you two.” I twisted my neck to look back at Knix again. “You want me to choose, but you all care about me—you just said so—so how fair is that? How should I choose when only one of you won’t get hurt? Me too—I’ll get hurt, no matter who I choose. Why should I choose? It’s not fair. You don’t just love one person for the rest of your life, right?”

  I nodded to myself, assured in my logic. “No,” I continued, “sometimes, you love someone, get married, get divorced, fall in love again. Wouldn’t it make sense that sometimes you can fall in love at the same time?”

  “With two people?” Bellamy was the one asking, so I flipped my gaze to him.

  “With five,” I said.

  Silence reigned. And this time, it wasn’t the beautiful, blissful kind.

  “Harlow, are you saying…that you love all of us?” Marv sounded shocked.

  I whipped my head around so fast, I almost careened out of the bed. Bellamy and Texas saved me from toppling over onto them by reaching out and catching me, pushing me back upright. “Is that so hard to believe?” I asked. “You’re all freaking amazing. I mean, you have your downsides—you’re so freaking stubborn and you boss me around and keep things from me sometimes.” I paused and frowned, remembering how we first met. When I raised my head to glare at them, Texas backed up, hands out.

  “Hey, don’t look
at me like that, we eventually opened up!” he said.

  “Yeah,” I snapped, perturbed. “Eventually.” But it was nearly impossible to stay angry at that face of his forever—or any of theirs really. I sighed. “But y’all are amazing. You’re nice and you care about me and you protect me and even though some of you are assholes—” I glanced pointedly between Marv and Grayson who both had the nerve to look sheepish. “You look out for me and I mean, what girl wouldn’t be attracted to that?”

  “Attracted?” Texas moved back in, leaning over the side of the bed once more.

  I rolled my eyes and my head lolled to the side as I did. “Well, duh.” Reaching up, my hand smacked my forehead. “Big red truck—of course I’m attracted to you!” Knix snagged my hand and gently lowered it to my lap. “Do you think I kissed you all because I was trying you guys out? What? Do I look like the kinda girl who takes Ferrari’s for a test drive?”

  “Why is she talking about cars?” I wasn’t sure which one had whispered it, but it didn’t matter. I was on a roll.

  My neck was hurting so I leaned back. The bed was raised up slightly, so I didn’t have to go very far. But still, it felt like I was stretched out on a cushy table with all of the guys surrounding me, watching me. I sniffled. “It’s just not fair,” I said, looking up at them. “You want me to choose, but I can’t.” I turned to Knix as tears flooded my eyes. “I can’t, Knix.” His face was strained, his lips tightening into a slant. He leaned down and brushed tendrils of hair out of my eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Little Bit,” he whispered. “I didn’t realize we were pressuring you so hard—or that you took it that way.”

  “What other way could I take it?” I asked, sniffling harder.

  “We’ll make it better, Sweetheart.” Bellamy leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead. I liked that. It made me feel warm and gooey inside.

  “How?” I pushed despite my melty middle.

  Several eyes looked up and glanced around. Surprisingly, though, it was Grayson who leaned over the end of the bed and placed his hands on my legs over the blankets. “We’ll figure it out, Babydoll,” he assured me—blue eyes locked with mine.

  “Promise?” My head was swimming and exhaustion was tugging at me once more.

  The same as before, they all looked at each other before Grayson spoke again. Quietly, almost too low for me to hear as my eyelids slid shut. “We promise,” he said.

  I was drifting. Almost, but not quite asleep when I heard them. “How much medication did they give her?” someone asked.

  “They just came in before she woke up,” someone replied. “I thought that was supposed to make her sleep harder, not…well, not that.”

  “Do you think she meant it?” I recognized that voice. Texas. He sounded unsure, worried, but not angry. Were the others angry with me?

  “Of course she meant it. That stuff is like alcohol—truth juice,” Grayson’s low tone replied. “She meant it.”

  “Is that why you promised her?” Knix’s deep, sexy timbre rolled over my ears like liquid chocolate. I wanted to curl closer to it, dive into the richness of it, but my limbs were weighed down.

  There was a quiet moment where I wasn’t quite sure if I had managed to fall deeper into sleep and it was just my consciousness that was drifting in the dark warmth of my own mind. But then shockingly, the voices came back. Just a brief moment. A spotlight before it all went out once more.

  “I promised her because I love her.”

  * * *

  The next time I woke, I was alone. The room was empty, and my head pounded. The door opened and the soft sounds of shuffling feet and monitors beeping in the distance reached my ears. I turned to the side, skipping over the blonde woman in light blue-green scrubs and looked up. My own monitor was black.

  "How are you feeling?" The nurse reached my bedside and I switched my gaze to her.

  I sat up slowly. "Fine," I said. "Did I have—um..." I trailed off, looking at the door, wondering where the guys were.

  "Visitors?" she supplied. I nodded and received a smile in return. "Oh yes, quite a few male friends you have there." Her smile flipped, and she frowned when she noticed that the monitor was black. "Huh, someone must have accidentally pulled this out of the wall." She leaned down plugging it back in. I frowned, grimacing at the noise.

  "Do you know where they went?" I asked.

  She smiled once more. "Oh yes, I do believe a couple went to get your paperwork. You're being released."

  "I am?"

  "Yes, we only held you overnight. We had someone come in and wake you up every hour or so. Do you not recall?" I shook my head. "Well, no worries. You woke up, answered questions, and went right back to sleep. We gave you some pain medication not long after you first arrived, but we were informed that the first time you woke up, you acted a bit strangely—not uncommon—but we just wanted to be sure that no ill effects would take place afterwards and you didn't seem to need it much after the initial examination."

  "Oh." I reached back and touched the back of my head. Sure enough, there was a small lump the size of a quarter on the back of my head. I looked down my arms when I stretched them out in front of me and noticed some bruising and scraping.

  The nurse busied herself around the room, retrieving the clipboard at the end of my bed and then gesturing to the small stand to the side of me, on the other side—away from the monitors. "They did bring you some clothes to change into. Do you think you'll need some help?"

  I shook my head and flung the bed sheets to the side. I slid my legs over and then gently pulled the heart monitor wires and stickies away from my skin. The monitor started going haywire and the nurse sighed before reaching up and turning it off for me. I grimaced at the gross residue the stickies left behind on my skin. I'd have to see if I could scrub it off in the bathroom while I changed.

  The nurse set the clipboard down on my bed, alongside my legs and tipped my arm to the side, revealing where they had inserted the needle for the IV they had given me. She quickly and gently removed it, checked the rest of me and made sure I could stand without vomiting or passing out. She snatched up the clipboard once more and then left. I moved around the side of the bed and reached for the small pile of clothes one of the guys had left for me—probably Bellamy, I decided. He knew how much I loved the yoga pants I had started wearing for our workouts and self-defense training and my favorite pair sat on top.

  I moved to the bathroom, closing the door behind me, and paused to take a look at myself across the room in the mirror. There were dark circles under my eyes. My arms felt sore and achy as I set the clothes on the sink and then reached up to untie the strings holding the hospital gown closed at the back. I grimaced and stretched awkwardly as I let the material slide to the floor.

  I shuffled through the clothes but when I didn’t find any panties, I sighed. The yoga pants went on sans underwear and I reached for the sports bra and tank top next. When I tried the light jacket, I realized that the tank top was really a much better option than longer sleeves—the fabric over the scrapes along my arms made me wince in pain. I slid the jacket back off and held it in my hands.

  Looking up, my gaze met my reflection once more. Bruises and scratches lined my elbows and the sides of my arms. I touched one finger to a long, red scrape. It hurt. My body ached. But my mind wasn’t on the accident. It was on the vague memories of what had happened—what I had said the first time I woke up.

  What had I done?

  I jerked my gaze back up to my face. There were lines around the corners of my lips, redness under my eyes—joining the dark marks of exhaustion despite how long I had apparently slept. Overnight, the nurse had said. An entire night where the guys had been given the chance to think about my stupid admission. I gulped back on a tight feeling in my throat.

  What had they thought about me?

  Even now, they were out there checking me out of the hospital. Was that because they were willing to stick around and find out if they could wo
rk something out or were they just good people? Did they just want to make sure I was okay, and then they would come in here and calmly explain why, after this job, we should all go our separate ways? I would have to move out of the only place where I felt truly and honestly happy and safe.

  Was it all over?

  My bare feet on the cold tile slid backwards and my back hit the door. Something sinister slithered up through my soles, crawling into my veins, up to my heart—squeezing the organ in my chest. My throat closed. I gasped and gasped again. Tears popped and slid down my cheeks into the hollows of my neck and over my collarbone. The tracks burned like fire racing across my skin.

  I sobbed and slapped a hand over my mouth, trying to stifle the noise. My knees hit the floor hard. Nails bit into the flesh of my arms as I gasped for air. My chest squeezed—cutting me off. My heart thundered in my ears, screaming loud enough that I had to close my eyes against the pain it caused.

  We could have been fine. Why did I have to ruin it?

  If I looked inside myself—looked at all the people in my life that I loved—I’d see ties to friends and family. Worn and gray ties. Ties that had died off. Ties that might die off. But then I’d see the five golden threads that tied me to five important people. Those ties were beautiful, painful, impossible, but mine. All mine. If I reached for a pair of scissors and cut one of them—a piece of myself would die off. What would it mean to cut away all five of them? Would I even survive?

  The sound of my gasping breath and the sobs that could no longer be choked back, no matter how hard I tried, hurt my ears. It resounded. Repeated. And it destroyed me. So focused on the tiny, broken shards sliding up through my skin and littering the floor of the hospital bathroom, I didn’t even notice when the door behind me opened or when shoes squeaked against the bathroom tile until strong arms wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me up against an equally strong chest.