Hopefully, I hid my horror at the predicament. It would’ve been rude not to because Elisha seemed nice and totally oblivious.
She continued chattering away. “You’ll never need to feel lonely or unsafe, for that matter. It seems like there’s always someone here, day and night. And if you ever need a man for anything or a bit of muscle, then my brothers live next door. They won’t mind you calling on them.”
“I'm living with guys right now.” Before I drew breath in to say more, Elisha was talking again. I was beginning to suspect Elisha was more of a talker than a listener.
“Ha, yeah. I understand why you want to move now. Share with girlfriends and not a house full of men.” She nodded in sympathy.
“They’re not just any men.” I sounded kind of defensive, which was how I felt about my men. “They’re my stepbrothers.”
Her eyes lit up. “Stepbrothers? That’s interesting. So do you want to move to carve out your own life away from your family?” She asked a question but didn’t seem to want an answer. She nodded toward the wall. “And would you believe you and I have so much in common? The boys next door, they’re actually my stepbrothers too. And they’re twins.”
“No! You have got to be joking! That’s an amazing coincidence and for more reasons than you realize.” As we discussed the coincidences in our lives, the conversation was dangerously close to spiraling into one-upmanship. “My stepbrothers are triplets.”
Her eyes widened. “I really should ask this, um…”
“Obviously, you can’t leave it there, Elisha; you’ve gotta tell me what your thinking.”
“As I’ve started dating a guy, I probably shouldn’t ask, but are your triplet stepbrothers hot?”
“Oh.” I let out a little scream and giggled. I hadn’t expected that. “You first, are yours? Wait. They must be, or you wouldn’t have asked.”
“Look, let me show you the rest of the house, and we’ll talk as we go.” She stepped outside the small room.
“And you’ll tell me?” I followed her out of the room and walked passed her to stand in the open doorway to the bathroom. It wasn’t massive or luxurious, but it was clean and adequate. It took seconds for me to take it all in and step back out. “Well, are they hot?”
“Yes, I’ll tell you, and yes, they’re hot. I guess so as they seem to have an entourage of girls around them at all times. And I’ve found myself surprisingly popular when girls find out they’re my brothers. Just using me as a way to get an introduction, you know.”
Did she sound jealous of all these girls her brothers dated or was that just me projecting?
“I can’t blame the women attracted to good looking twins, after all. I’ve started dating one of their friends. My boyfriend Darren is also a twin. Not all twins look the same, of course, but when they do and you’re dating one of them… well, it quite catches my breath to see there are two who look the same.”
“I can imagine.” I could do more than just imagine. The physical attraction and confusion I felt toward all three of my stepbrothers gave me some insight. But at least Elisha was legitimately dating one guy who was not even vaguely part of her family.
“Your turn, now Sophie,” Elisha said over her shoulder as she led us back down the stairs.
“Yes, they’re definitely hot.”
“So you get a stream of girls staying over. I can see why you want to move out.”
“No, actually they don’t.” I realized that sounded weird. “I mean, they’re not monks, but they’re all working really hard. I think they probably did all the playing last year and the year before.”
And I completely did not want to think about it. Not them with girls before me or after I moved out, Not any of them. We’d arrived in the kitchen and I’d accepted Elisha’s offer of a drink. The room certainly tempted me even though everything about this place was not as good as where I was living now. But I enjoyed talking to Elisha. Well, mostly listening.
“So the room is free right now. We’ll get the pile of shoes removed. You can move in today as far as I'm concerned and the other girls will be fine. I’ll vouch for you. You’ll fit in here. You just need to fill in all the paperwork and get checked out. It’s all managed by the student accommodation office. It should only take a couple of days.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CARL
The pleasant smell of food in the apartment made my stomach rumble when I arrived home, but there was no obvious sign of Sophie. It was her turn to cook, and she apparently had the job underway. She could’ve gone out, or she could’ve been in her room, where I didn’t like to intrude as she had her door shut.
I went into my bedroom to relax a while, leaving my door open. That was how we did things. If anyone was home or when my bros arrived back they could stick their heads in through my open doorway and say hello.
As brothers, we were used to walking in and out of each other’s rooms, only shutting the door when privacy was required. A closed door more or less guaranteed no interruptions unless there was a fire.
The apartment was spacious enough to live an entire life in just one room. Our bedrooms felt like our unique private domains, and they weren’t so small that we’d go stir crazy in them.
Sophie’s door was always closed. She was a girl, of course, hadn’t grown up with us, and liked her privacy.
I kicked my shoes off and laid on the bed to browse social media and relax for a little while.
Sure enough, it wasn’t too long before I heard the door open and voices. Adam and Ben arrived together. They called out greetings, and I replied as they both disappeared straight into their rooms to dump bags, change clothes, shower, or whatever.
I decided it was time to traipse through to the kitchen and investigate the smell more thoroughly as I’d only popped my head into the communal area earlier just enough to see nobody was there.
In the kitchen, there were two pots on the stove with the heat turned off. The contents were still warm. They had obviously been freshly cooked and were the source of the lovely aroma. As I moved toward the pans to investigate, I noticed a note sitting on the countertop.
When I picked it up and started to read, I heard footsteps coming toward me. I looked up as Ben entered the room.
“What’s for dinner?” he asked, still approaching, looking at me, and then down at the slip of paper in my hand. “What’ve you got there?”
Before I could answer either question Adam had joined us. “Is it nearly ready? It smells nice.”
I didn’t have answers. Instead, I looked again at the notes. “It’s Sophie’s turn to cook, and she’s left us a note.” And I began to read it. “Hi guys, help yourselves to dinner. I’ve gone out for the evening, staying over at Nathan’s, so don’t worry about me. See you soon.”
“Who the fuck is Nathan?” Adam didn’t look at happy about.
“Her pal at college. And I don’t know if he’s more to her than that.” My tone sounded as grim as I felt and that was pretty damn grim.
“More than that. What do you mean?” Adam’s tone said he was tuned to the channel my thoughts were on.
“Well, she talks about him a lot,” I replied. I could feel my whole body tensing up with each word. “He seems to be one of her closest friends, and I don’t know whether she has a crush on him, but I met him today.”
I went on to tell the guys about what happened at school. How surprised she was to see me and not surprised in a delighted way, but not at all happy. I recounted our conversation, as best as I could remember it. And I told them how she bolted at the end of the class, so I had no chance to talk to her further.
“I don’t understand why you never told her you to do that nude modeling gig. You had plenty of opportunities.” Ben pulled his phone out of his pocket and placed in on the dining table while he spoke. “Especially when we joked about it so much after she told us she’d be sketching nudes.” He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.
“It’s art. Life modeling. You make it sound smutty. And I
don’t know why I didn’t tell her either. But that’s how it went and it seriously backfired. It looks like she’s avoiding me,” I replied.
“Or all of us. She has a reason to avoid all of us.” Adam looked despondent. “I wonder if this my fault?” He pulled a chair out from the table and sat down near Ben.
“Why? What did you do?” Ben asked.
“It turned out the romantic dinner suggestion worked well. Better than expected, actually, and one thing led to another.” Adam glanced at me. I’d kind of seen the evidence and put it together. “We got extra friendly on the sofa and had some fun.”
Ben blinked and blinked again. “I want to say, no way and good for you, both at the same time.”
Adam didn’t look as smug as he might have done under different circumstance. “Stick with ‘no fucking way, jackass’ because she ain’t here now and I haven’t heard anything from her all day, so it looks like I screwed up.”
It seemed as if I was doing dinner by default just because I was closest, but I made no move to start. “Looks like we all did,” I mumbled.
“How did it end with you and Sophie?” Ben asked.
“You two came home. We slept apart. I sent a few flirty texts last night. She responded. I thought she was okay with it. But then maybe she wasn't, judging by the way she reacted to you, Carl. And I haven’t heard anything from her today.”
“It was only a couple of nights ago she was with me. She seemed perfectly happy about the whole thing at the time, and then the next day she ran away from me in the morning and by nighttime she’s making out with you.”
“And today in the art class she told me she thought we were all, um, handsome, I think that was the word she used.”
Chewing on his lip, Ben nodded. “Bros, it seems to me she really must like us.” He waved a hand around pointing at all three of us. “Or else she wouldn’t mess about with two of us, one night after another, and then freak out when she sees Carl’s junk. She as good as told Carl she likes us. I guess she might be freaking out because there’s three of us and she thinks she has to choose.” He looked at his phone on the table and tapped the screen.
We all remained still and silent for a while, each man lost in his thoughts.
“Either that or she can’t believe her good luck,” Ben said suddenly. “Because we’re awesome.”
Trust Ben to break the tension. We all laughed a little.
“She might be avoiding us because she thinks we’ll get jealous or something.” Adam looked at Ben as he spoke.
“You’ve got a point.” I turned the heat on under the pans, took the lids off, and stirred the food. “You know guys, we’ve talked among ourselves, but maybe we need to be honest with Sophie and tell her straight that we all like her.”
“Agreed,” said Ben. “It’s all very well trying to seduce her, and she obviously does like us, but if she likes all three of us maybe that’s what worrying her.”
“So what’s this Nathan guy like?” Adam asked.
“I’ve met him when I dropped her at school a few times,” said Ben. “He looks like a skinny young art student. A few years younger than us. What more is there to say? I'm not really into dudes, so I’ve never paid much attention.”
“It doesn’t matter what we think of him. She likes him.” I got the plates ready on the countertop. The food wasn’t cold to start with so reheating wouldn’t take long.
“I’ve never met the dude, but I can’t help feeling I don’t like him. I guess he’s our competition and I hope he keeps his hands off our Sophie.” Grim Adam was back in the room.
I felt myself nodding in agreement I knew exactly what Adam meant. “Look, she’s just out for the night. Maybe they’ve gone to see a band or movie or something. It’s not as if she’s moved out. She hasn’t dumped us to move in with him.”
What a terrible thought. We all remained quiet for a while after that. I didn’t know what my bros were thinking, but I was stuck on the thought of her moving out as I started to dish up.
Adam stood up and got the cutlery. “What if she did decide to move out? That would be awful.”
I took the three full plates to the table. “I’ve liked having her here.”
It was as if she completed something that had been missing in recent years.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SOPHIE
I met Nathan a short distance from the next viewing appointment, and as we were a little early, I had time to tell him about the house I looked at earlier. “I quite liked it. It wasn’t my dream home, but I could live there.”
“Even with just the one shower to giving you a chance of a taste of how the other half lives?”
“I didn’t come from a rich family, Nathan,” I protested. “I know how the other half lives. My mom only married Mr. Cooper less than a year ago. And being very religious and traditional she didn’t live with him beforehand. She’s old-fashioned that way. Mom was a hard-working single mother for years after Dad died; big luxurious homes and spare money is all new to me.”
“Fine. Still, if I lived in a big luxury apartment, I'm not sure I’d be eager to step down from having a private bathroom to slumming it.”
“I don’t want to either. But I can’t face living with the boys.”
We were outside the next place. It was a shared apartment.
“I’ve been thinking about that.” He came to a halt, and I realized we were standing outside the building. “We’ll talk after.”
We didn’t say much as we looked at my new prospective home. The lady who showed us around was about my age, and unlike Elisha, she wasn’t chatty. Nathan came in to check the place out with me.
“This is my friend, Nathan,” I said. And when she eyed him coldly I added, “He’s not my boyfriend, just a friend.” Just in case she thought he’d be staying over every night.
“I didn’t think he was,” she replied. I wondered if she was referring to the fact that he didn’t look like he’d be any woman’s boyfriend. He was so flamboyant that I thought most people assumed he was gay, which he was, of course.
I’d only be living with this one woman, and she wasn’t nearly as friendly as Elisha. At least I’d only share a bathroom and the communal area with one person instead of four strangers plus all of their boyfriends.
I would have more space, quiet, and privacy in this apartment but Elisha’s house might offer more fun, it was closer to college and in an altogether nicer part of town. The thought of walking though these streets after dark didn’t appeal and driving a car everywhere didn’t appeal either.
This apartment had many positive features.
I didn’t make a firm commitment there and then. I had to weigh up the pros and cons. She said someone else was coming to look at the room the next day. I thought that might be a bluff and I wasn’t going to be pressured into making a big decision.
We agreed to talk on the phone the next day when I’d let her know one way or the other. And, of course, she might reject me too. Because in this apartment she had the last word.
After ten minutes and no offer of a drink, we were on our way to Nathan’s home.
“So, what’s your plan?” he said
“I don’t know. I do need to think it over. But my gut reaction is to go with the other place. I’m going to stay at your place tonight, and toss a coin in the morning over which room to take. I’ll sort it out from there.”
“So, you’re dead set on moving out?”
“Didn’t we have this conversation? Yes, I’m moving out. I think it’s for the best. In fact, I don’t think I’ve much choice after seeing all of their dicks over the course of three days.”
“It’ll take a few days for them to do checks, transfer money, sort out contracts. You can stay at my place while that’s happening if you want to.”
“Thanks, Nathan, if you didn’t offer I was going to invite myself anyway.”
“I had a funny feeling about that.”
We both giggled.
“Thing is, I j
ust can’t face them.”
“I gave Carl my number. I’m still hoping he’ll do some modeling for me. He seemed enthusiastic, I thought. You could come along too and sketch him. It’ll add to your portfolio, and we can double up on studio time and split the model fee. Hell, he might even give us a friends and family discount. It’s a total win-win. What do you say?”
When he’d started talking about Carl modeling, I thought he was serious. Realizing he was winding me up, I laughed and slipped my arm through his. “I say you are the devil, Nathan. And I don’t know why I'm friends with you,” I joked. “I do not want to spend any more time in a room with those naked men.”
“Oh sweetie, I don’t know how you could possibly say that.”
The next day I still hadn’t one hundred percent decided which room to accept. They both had positive and negative sides to consider. And neither of them was as good an option as living with my stepbrothers.
Damn it, if only it weren’t for the fact of them being my stepbrothers and that I liked every one of them.
The next day, I turned up outside the accommodation office ready to toss a coin; I didn’t know which to choose. Not just heads or tails. The house with many people to share the bathroom or the apartment with one person. But whether to move away from the three boys or stay with them.
Nathan had given me quite a talk.
He was shocked when I first told him I was working my way through my stepbrothers, but when he’d had time to let the idea sink in, he came out with a very modern perspective on things.
Let’s say, he suggested I tap into bohemian art history and follow the examples of many twentieth-century artists who experimented with alternative relationships. Failing that, I should have a second stab at a platonic friendship with them because they were good guys and they were family.
Pacing up and down along the corridor outside the accommodation office, I thought about how up until then I’d always had Mom around to help with the big things in life. Moving away from home was a significant decision to make on my own without discussing it with my mom. I’d never done anything like this before, but it wasn’t as if I could just phone her and admit to what had happened with the guys.
Triplet Time: A Reverse Harem Stepbrother Romance Page 9