The Art of Three

by Racheline Maltese

  THEY MADE THE MOST of every moment they had with the three of them in the house together. On Jamie’s last day before he flew back to London they pulled themselves out of bed long enough for him to pack for real this time. Callum spent most of that afternoon in Jamie’s room and then trailing after him whenever he had to venture downstairs to find some book or article of clothing. From what Nerea could overhear whenever they appeared, Callum was giving Jamie advice about his auditions and the two of them were comparing their schedules and making dates. Their plans surely encroached on her schedule, but she didn’t mind and would double-check everything later.

  On the morning Callum was due to drive Jamie to the airport, Nerea asked Jamie to take a walk with her behind the house. She brought him into the wild area that started at the edge of the vegetable garden. The paths may have been overgrown and in some places visible only to Nerea, but they were still there. Jamie gave her his hand instinctively, as the trees and vines closed off the light pouring down over the hills.

  “You have to know,” she said, “I don’t want you to go.”

  “You have Callum,” Jamie said quietly.

  “Don’t start with that again.”

  “I just mean that he’ll take care of you, when you’re sad.”

  “But who is going to take care of you?” she asked.

  “London, I guess. You’ll be back soon enough. For your big show and everything.”

  Nerea took a deep breath. And everything. Jamie had helped her think about it less, but as it drew closer the idea was becoming overwhelming.

  “Do you remember when I told you I was afraid I was going to wake up and this would all be over?” he asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Here is what you should have told me,” Jamie said, stopping in the path and turning to face her. “That you can’t know if you are dreaming if you don’t wake up once in a while. So I’ll be fine. And you will too.” He laughed softly to himself. “Hell, even Callum will probably be fine.”

  Later, as Callum and Jamie drove away, Nerea caught herself watching down the road where the car had disappeared. She shook herself. Being in love with Jamie — who was too young, too eager, and needed too much approval — was complicated enough without worrying at the wound of his absence.

  The house was terribly quiet. Nerea tried to keep herself busy, but again and again she found herself watching the road and waiting for Callum’s return. For the next two weeks they would lose themselves in each other and the isolation of this house. As much as Nerea was looking forward to seeing Jamie again in London — and oh how she was — these hibernations in Spain with Callum were always some of the best weeks of their lives.

  Chapter 19 - Jamie does his research

  Jamie had never particularly considered London home — that was Dublin and his parents’ house — but it had never felt so strange and alien as it did when he returned from a month in Spain. Being surrounded by his own language was suddenly odd, the air had an unseasonable chill for the end of September, and his flat was dark and cold. As he dumped the contents of his suitcase on the bed, Jamie found it hard to believe that he’d been packing his last things at Callum and Nerea’s house a few short hours before. Spain already seemed like a lifetime ago.

  For a few days he didn’t hear much from Callum and Nerea, other than affectionate texts here and there and the occasional business email from Callum connecting him with a producer or director. Mostly, Jamie tried not to worry. They’d warned him that these two weeks were for the time they needed together away from the world. Jamie had found that easy to accept in theory, especially when they had already given him so much. But in practice, he missed them desperately.

  He still had the keys to their flat and even thought about going there under the pretext of making sure everything was in order. He didn’t, though; there was a vast difference between having a key and being told to make himself at home. If his own flat felt odd, he couldn’t imagine how dismal and lonely theirs would seem.

  Thankfully, his schedule kept him busy enough that he didn’t have much time to mope. He had auditions to go to and, thanks to Callum, meetings to attend. When Jamie had protested — he hadn’t started sleeping with Callum because of what he could do for him professionally — Callum had shaken his head and gone about setting up meetings for him anyway. Even his evenings weren’t empty. He finally met up with his drama school friends and even got together once or twice with the Irish kids from Butterflies to have a pint and talk over politics at home.

  In all, the two weeks passed faster than Jamie expected. The day before Callum and Nerea returned, he let himself into their flat. He’d brought a bouquet of wildflowers from Borough Market — sunflowers, Jersey lilies, and anemones, along with other blooms he didn’t know the names of — a card, and some basics for the refrigerator.

  Having finally given into the temptation he’d been so nobly resisting, Jamie felt vaguely guilty. But as he found a vase for the flowers and cut the stems, he told himself that he had reasonable cause. He left the flowers on the table, scrawled a note on the card, and turned on the lamp next to the bed. It would hardly do for them to come home to a dark flat.

  Jamie had appointments all the next day and so only knew that Callum and Nerea had arrived safely when Callum texted him a gorgeous picture of Nerea standing at the table in the flat, her dark hair curtaining her face, leaning forward with her nose buried in the flowers he had left.

  Thank you from both of us, Callum texted. Especially for the provisions. Now get over here.

  To Jamie’s dismay, he didn’t get there until nearly nine. His last meeting ran late, the Bakerloo line was out for planned work while the Hammersmith & City just wasn’t cooperating, and that was before he got stuck between stations on the Circle line for twenty minutes. By the time he emerged onto the street again it was raining viciously. Sometimes he hated London.

  He was sopping and uncomfortable by the time he sprinted up the steps of Callum and Nerea’s building and banged on the door of their flat, laughing with happiness and relief. Cold and wet didn’t matter now that he didn’t have to wait to see them any longer.

  Nerea pulled open the door to reveal a room full of light and warmth. She took one look at him and reached a hand out to pull him inside. The curtain was pushed back and Callum was lounging in his underwear on the bed, his tablet propped in one hand.

  “Undress. Now.” Nerea ordered.

  “You could say hello first,” Jamie teased even as he unzipped his jacket.

  “That wasn’t about your body. That was about you dripping all over my floor. Callum, he’s as bad as you.”

  “You say that like you didn’t know,” Callum said languidly, not looking up from his tablet.

  “Why don’t you have pants on?” Jamie asked. Under the force of Nerea’s gaze he hung his jacket on the back of the door and toed off his squelching shoes.

  Callum looked down at himself. “Oh. We got soaked coming home too. And then it was too much bother to get dressed again.”

  “So the romance is over?” Jamie asked.

  Callum swiped past something on his tablet. “You’ve spent the last month in my bed with my wife and you let yourself into our building with your keys,” he said, distracted. Jamie wondered what book he was reading. Maybe he could be coaxed into sharing or, better yet, reading aloud to Jamie as he drifted off to sleep. “While both of those things mean we have many obligations to you,” Callum went on, “neither of them mean I have to get dressed when you come over.”

  Jamie turned to Nerea. “How is he so charming even when he’s a bastard?”

  AND SO, JAMIE EMBARKED on his Adventures of Leading a Somewhat Organized Polyamorous Life. They made a schedule that Callum dutifully punched into his mobile, Nerea wrote in her beautiful looping cursive in her leather-bound day book, and Jamie scrawled on whatever scrap of paper he had at hand. To Nerea’s delight — and Jamie’s no small amusement at her delight — they stuck to the schedule. If two of t
he three of them had a night marked off for themselves that was exactly what happened. If Jamie and Callum went out, Nerea worked on her Tate show, visited with Leigh and Sam or Piper, or just relaxed. If Jamie and Nerea were together, Callum visited the girls or stayed in and read. And when Callum and Nerea went out together, Jamie sprawled across his own bed for a nap and enjoyed having enough room for once.

  Jamie savored his one-on-one time with each of them. Those date nights invariably wound up back at his own place. His flat still wasn’t glamorous but he’d finally managed to clean and organize it. There was something wonderful about having Nerea spread out on his own sheets in the middle of the afternoon or lounging about naked with Callum watching rugby on his laptop after he’d pounded him into the mattress.

  But as special as all that was, Jamie’s favorites were the nights that hadn’t been claimed by any pair of them. Those invariably turned into the three of them at Callum and Nerea’s. Jamie was welcome and expected there — in their flat, in their bed, and in their lives. If he thought about it too hard, it was overwhelming.

  “I got a book,” Jamie blurted one such night. Nerea, in the middle of pressing kisses all the way down Callum’s body, turned her head to stare at him. Callum made a disgruntled noise.

  “A book about what?” Nerea asked, somewhere between surprised and amused. Callum shifted his hips in a clear attempt to get her to continue, but she ignored him.

  “About polyamory.”

  Now Callum stared at him too. “Why?”

  He might have been asking about the book. He also might have been asking why Jamie was blurting ridiculous things during sex. But it probably wasn’t that. In the last few months Jamie had learned that people definitely blurted ridiculous things during sex, even when sex was a hot threesome and everyone involved was a celebrity.

  “’Cause I wanted to get it right with you.”

  “That’s why he’s so bloody good at relationships,” Callum said to Nerea. “He’s cheating.”

  “I’m not cheating. It’s research.”

  Nerea burst out laughing and buried her face against Callum’s stomach.

  Callum, after a moment, started laughing too. “You really got a book?” he asked through the feathery breath of his mirth.

  Jamie gathered the blankets up around himself to hide the fact he was blushing.

  “Oh come here, darling.” Callum reached out one of his big hands and wrapped it around the back of Jamie’s neck. “We’re not laughing at you.”

  “Yes we are,” Nerea said.

  “Okay, yes, maybe you are. And we appreciate the effort you’re putting into this,” Callum said. Jamie opened his mouth to protest, but Callum pressed his fingers over his lips. “But please shut up now so I can kiss you.”

  Chapter 20 - Callum realizes there are some conversations they should have had sooner

  The day of Nerea’s Tate show opening dawned cold and gloomy, the worst of London in November. It was the sort of ominous, depressing day that made Callum wonder if the sun had even risen behind the sheets of gray cloud that scudded across the sky.

  This evening was going to be an experiment of sorts. Callum was happy to ignore random noises in tabloids and on the internet about his private life. But if the three of them were going to continue together in any capacity they needed to get used to being together in public and responding to whatever the result of that might be.

  At Callum’s insistence — and over Jamie’s own objections that he’d be in the way — Jamie got ready for the evening at Callum and Nerea’s flat. Nerea, despite having far more to do to than Callum or Jamie to prepare for the evening, was ready first. She wore a sleeveless emerald green gown. Her hair was piled high on her head and long gold teardrops dangled from her ears. She spent the rest of the afternoon fluttering around the flat, handing Callum his cufflinks when he was sure he’d misplaced them and doing Jamie’s tie for him when he couldn’t quite manage the full Windsor she demanded.

  “Is she normally this worried before these sorts of things?” Jamie muttered under his breath, as he surreptitiously tried to loosen his tie.

  “She’s never had a show this high profile before,” Callum whispered back. “Most artists only get shows like this when they’re dead. Let her fuss.”

  NERVOUS AS NEREA MIGHT have been back in the flat, Callum marveled when he handed her out of the car outside the Tate. She exuded nothing but calm and poise. When she turned a dazzling smile on Callum and wrapped her hand around his arm, he lost his breath. What on earth had he done to deserve such a rare and remarkable woman?

  As she greeted photographers along the step and repeat banner and answered questions from arts reporters, he felt as awed as he had the first time he met her. She was all sly steel and warm confidence, her smile never faltering, even as she knew some of the media attention was simply a product of who she was married to. Callum expected she would curse to — or at — him about that later.

  Jamie hung back, discreet but close at hand. Callum admired the way he was handling tonight. If their places had been reversed, Callum was sure he would have made a hash of it himself. But as the two of them waited on the sidelines for Nerea to catch them up, Jamie was charming the reporters. Each time they asked him too many questions about his own work, Callum watched admiringly as he deftly redirected their attention back to Nerea.

  The three of them entered the part of the Tate hosting the show side-by-side. Callum had been to dozens of his wife’s exhibits before, but to see her work hung here was breathtaking. She may have been nervous earlier but he had no idea how she was so calm beside him now. He was grateful he got to enjoy his triumphs sitting down in the dark.

  She looked up at the walls and walked in a small circle to take the moment in, and then looked at him with a smile, giddy and young. “Thank you for being here with me,” she said.

  “Always.” He kissed her briefly, and she squeezed his arm.

  Then she turned to Jamie. “There’s some people I’d like to introduce you to,” she said. “If you’re interested?”

  Jamie beamed and offered Nerea his arm. Callum was sure Jamie would be interested in anything, so long as it involved Nerea. Callum smiled to himself and turned to pursue his own required networking.

  Half an hour later he finally escaped an immensely dull conversation and nearly tripped over his best friend.

  “Thom! How good to see you. I wasn’t sure you would make it.”

  Thom took a gulp from a flute of champagne Callum suspected was not his first. “Neither was I. Give Nerea my regards, will you?”

  “Tell her yourself, she’s around here somewhere.” He grabbed Thom by the elbow in hopes of steering him towards her, wherever she might have gone.

  “Oh.” Thom stopped in his tracks. “There she is.”

  And there Nerea was, standing in a little cluster of people. Jamie was at her elbow, looking charming and attentive. Piper was there too, as were Leigh and Sam. And, laughing at something Sam had just said, was Katherine, an artist herself, Nerea's friend, and Thom’s ex-wife.

  “Ah,” Callum said. Perhaps this was not the best moment for them to join that particular conversation.

  Piper glanced in their direction. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of them. Nerea had no doubt filled her in on the drama. Or perhaps Katherine had herself.

  “I’ll catch up with you later?” Thom was ready to bolt.

  “Yeah,” Callum said, dropping Thom’s arm. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

  AN HOUR LATER CALLUM, Jamie, and Nerea huddled together in a corner. Nerea popped an hors d’oeuvre in her mouth from the plate Jamie had filled for them all. She still looked radiant, but Callum could see that the public performance of the event was wearing on her and Jamie both. Before he could say anything about it or ask what he could do to help, a man invaded their space. His suit was expensive but ill-fitting, and there was a sour expression on his face. He was a critic Callum vaguely recognized because Nerea had complained about hi
m once. Too prone to gossip, she had said sharply. Nerea didn’t mind it about the movies, but she felt it was ridiculous regarding fine art.

  “I didn’t know you had a son,” the man said, glancing between the three of them.

  Unlike previous questions about his presence which Jamie had been able to answer vaguely, this was different. Unlike when it had happened at the airport, here, it required a correction, and it was going to be tricky.

  “He’s not my son,” Nerea said easily.

  The critic turned to Callum. “Is he yours?”

  Callum was equal parts horrified and amused. “Ah, no. All three of my daughters are also all three of her daughters. Jamie is....”

  The moment of truth had arrived, as clear as it was unexpected.

  “My date,” Nerea said calmly.

  Well, then. Forward we go.

  The reporter’s eyebrows went up. So did Jamie’s. Callum smiled into his drink. As much as the three of them should have had more of a plan going into this evening, Nerea shocking people was always a delight.

  A moment later, though, he wasn’t smiling and nobody was amused. Callum missed what, exactly, the critic had said. He just knew that Jamie’s face had darkened and Nerea looked alarmed.

  “Would you have asked that question if she were a man?” Jamie asked. “Come to think of it, would you have asked Callum that if he said I was his date?”

  The critic mumbled something, only somewhat abashed, but Jamie had just started to work himself into a full fury. Callum had never seen him like this. Maybe he should have intervened, but he was too entranced by Jamie's more than justifiable anger.