by Ophelia Bell
His torso flexes as he buries himself inside me again and again, the morning light playing across his tattooed muscles. Nearly every inch is covered with inked designs, mostly black with some splashes of color here and there. The heart in the center of his chest is intricately detailed to the point of hyperrealism, a stark contrast to many of the simpler designs he sports. It suits him, that tattoo, because he loves so openly. Every time we’ve been around each other, he’s been free with his affection for his brother, for Toni, and for her little brothers. Even for Elena. He’s more reserved around my father, but so is everyone else. Despite that reservation extending to me, I think I’ve known for a long time that he loves me, and his fight a few weeks ago with Gustavo only proved it.
When I pull away with a breathless gasp from another rough thrust, I leave my palm against his cheek for a second, recalling how Maddox’s cheek felt so similar only hours ago when I threw myself at him in the shower. I know what that tortured look in his eyes meant now though. The pleasure swelling large inside me is cast even brighter by the surge of deeper love I feel for the man who pushed me into Leo’s arms.
“Celeste, fuck,” Leo groans and arches beneath me. The deepening push of his cock sends me over the edge, and I brace my hands on his chest, eyes fixed on his as pleasure rockets through me. His pulsing spasms match the rhythm of my clenching muscles, and I bite my lip to hold back a sob of pure, overwhelming emotion.
“Come here, ángel,” he rumbles, reaching for me when our movements finally ebb. With a sigh, I fall against him, and he wraps his good arm around my shoulders and nuzzles my hair.
Catching my breath, I stare blindly into the distance, only half registering the neatness of this dusty space. Paint peels off the walls, and the windows that separate the loft from the garage below are grimy with old dirt, but the interior is clean and tidy. I catch a shadow of movement beyond the windowed door leading out into the garage and stiffen, rising up to look, but if it was Maddox, he’s already gone.
The light brightens, and I hear the hum of a motor down below, followed by a clanking rumble. Not the lift, but louder. The garage doors opening, then closing again a minute later. An engine revs loud somewhere outside, then gradually fades into the distance. Maddox had a motorcycle parked down there—he must have taken it out. If he felt the need to run, I hope I haven’t made a terrible mistake following through with his wish.
Letting out a sigh, I slide off Leo’s chest and lie on my side facing him. His brows are furled and he’s frowning hard.
“Are you okay?” I ask. “It’s too soon for another pill.”
“I’m feeling no pain, ángel, trust me.” He chuckles and looks at me. “But you caught me by surprise, and I wasn’t exactly thinking straight. My man Mad Dog’s bound to have condoms around here somewhere, but I didn’t even think to look. We should’ve though.”
“Is that all it is? I think we’re fine. I’ve been on the pill ever since I got my first period. Not because I was sexually active,” I hurriedly add. “I’ll spare you the details, but I needed help regulating my cycle.”
He relaxes a little and peers at me. “You’re not worried you’ll catch something from a filthy gangbanger like me?”
“Should I be?” I ask, raising both eyebrows. “You don’t exactly look riddled with disease. You spend all your time with your brother doing whatever the hell Papá or Gustavo asks. I’d have heard if you were sleeping around.”
The clench of his jaw makes me wince at what I just said. His expression softens and he squeezes my shoulder. “I’m no saint, but sleeping around has never been my thing.” He goes quiet, his eyes on me as his fingers graze the top of my shoulder and toy with my hair.
I rest my chin on my hand and give him a sad smile. “You should rest.”
“I don’t want to stop looking at you. I’m afraid if I close my eyes, you’ll disappear like a dream. I keep asking myself how I can be so damn happy right now after what happened. Something’s gotta give. But I guess if Papá decides to put me out of my misery, I can die a happy man and spend eternity with Manny.”
My eyes widen in horror. “No! I will not let Papá touch you. You have my promise.”
He chuckles and squeezes me harder. “It’s okay. I’ll take whatever happens. The way I figure, nothing can touch me after today. I’ve endured the worst thing that could happen, and the best, and I’m still alive. Anything after this? Psh. Bring it on.”
The panic doesn’t subside though. My mind is racing over ways to convince Papá that he shouldn’t hurt Leo for touching me. Eventually, Leo’s eyelids drift closed and his breathing evens out. I slip out of his arms and put my borrowed clothes back on, then find my phone.
18
Maddox
I ride up PCH through a chilly marine layer, grateful for the bite of cold to help numb me to what I’ve done. I left without a jacket, like an idiot, but I don’t care. I need this distraction.
After photographing Sequoia and James countless times, I should be desensitized to the sight of two people fucking in my bed. I don’t know what I was thinking, walking up to my loft by the back steps. I suppose I thought I would spare the two of them the unholy racket of my lift’s ancient motor and slip in while they were sleeping. Of the two doors on the landing that lead into the place, only the one closest to the bedroom opens. The other one is blocked by my photography set furniture.
Leo and Celeste together were nothing like Sequoia and James though. The way he touched her, reached for her. The way she looked at him. I only caught them for a minute, but that minute drove home how lost I am over the two of them.
How the fuck did this happen? Only a few weeks ago, I was content enough to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel of grief I’ve lived in for almost two years since Zag’s death. Enjoying Leo’s friendship was the first sign that my life might not be as fucked up as I believed during my recovery.
I had hope. Maybe not for a relationship with anyone—even I’m not so stupid to believe that’s a possibility yet—but a normal life that doesn’t revolve around forcing myself to get out of bed each day. It’s been like pulling teeth for months, and I count my blessings every day I wake up eager to get to work because there’s someone in it I genuinely look forward to talking to.
That old, familiar darkness settled in around me again the second I saw them together, Celeste’s supple body naked and astride Leo, moving like every cell of her being was invested in both his sensations and her own.
I never forgot the day she did the same to me. Even later, when I was with Zag, that memory of my first time was still number one in the vast catalog of spank material I mentally flipped through when I needed a quick release. Not a single experience has ever measured up in quite the same way. When I confessed to Zag that I sometimes thought of a woman when we fucked, he took it in stride. “Our first times always stick with us,” he said. “Besides, I have a good feeling she didn’t let you nail her ass the way I let you do me.”
Naturally, that only made me expand my Celeste fantasies to include anal sex. We only had sex the one time, and we didn’t have the opportunity to explore, but in my fantasies, we tried everything. At one point, after Zag and I had been together for a while, I slipped and called myself “a gay man” during a conversation. He caught me and grilled me, asking if I still had the same kinky fantasies about that girl who’d popped my cherry. When I reluctantly confessed that I did, he said, “Then you aren’t gay, Mad Dog. I don’t care how committed you are to me, you’re bi. Own it.”
I still didn’t really embrace it until recently. Starting the photography side business and meeting Sequoia and James helped drive it home. I love women as much as men. Every photo session with them made it more and more apparent, and after I finally gave in and joined them for the first time, I realized this really was key to my identity. That was when I gave myself the crescent moon tattoo.
But craving sex with two people and actually loving two people are vastly different thin
gs. Seeing Celeste and Leo making love is tearing me apart because I can’t reconcile any of it inside myself. I don’t know if I can go home now, knowing they’re there. That Celeste has done exactly what I pushed her to do, though I would never have predicted they’d move so goddamn fast.
That was another stupid miscalculation on my part, of course. After the night we’ve all had, and the way she jumped me in the shower, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they both needed that level of intimacy.
I need to be okay with it. I need to move the fuck on. Her dad would never in a million years accept me anyway. Leo has a much better chance of winning the old man over, especially if the twins’ recounting of events from last night is true. And Leo isn’t bi, or even close, as far as I can tell, so I have less than a snowball’s chance in hell of ever being with him.
Therefore, this is probably the best and only outcome for the two of them. They get each other, and I get the satisfaction of knowing I helped facilitate their happiness, even though I just paved my own road to hell.
The sign for Leo Carrillo State Park blurs past, the name pinging against my awareness. I suddenly realize how far I’ve driven without even checking the gas level in my tank. I turn off into the parking lot and head back the other direction. I have enough fuel to get me back, but I have another destination in mind to help me clear my head before I face them again.
It’s early in the day yet when I pull up to the curb outside Zarya’s shop in Santa Monica. She’s open though, and it appears I’m the first customer of the day because she hasn’t even turned all the lights on yet. Her shop smells like coffee, and I inhale, trying not to think about how the taste of the stuff clung to Celeste’s lips when she kissed me this morning.
“Mad Dog! Fancy seeing you all the way out here today,” Zarya says in her husky voice. She’s a knockout with olive skin and icy blue eyes. She added a blue stripe to her jet-black hair, which shines when she pulls it back into a ponytail. She is covered in tattoos of marine creatures over most of her exposed flesh. Only the one manta ray that graces her breastbone is my work, though—a design I did in trade for her work on me. She flips a switch to illuminate her tattooing chair and pats it as if she knows already why I’m here. “Ready to add to your ink? Let’s see how those scars are looking.”
“You know me well,” I say, pulling off my shirt for one of the few people who have seen the extent of the damage that covers my torso. Ever the pro, she puts on her gloves before even making skin-to-skin contact and is already giving me a clinical once-over as I settle in the chair.
“I don’t know you at all, sweetie, but I know your skin. It’s been a few months since the last round, so it looks like you’re ready for more. Where should I start?”
“Doesn’t matter. I just need to feel the needles for a while.”
She merely nods and sets up her cart, and with the efficiency of a master, she’s working ink into my left pectoral within minutes of me walking in the door.
The rhythmic buzz of her machine calms me. Sometimes we talk, but today she senses that all I need is silent company and the steady, constant sting of the tattoo needles as she covers up my scars. She’s an expert at this particular task, which is why I sought her out to begin with when I returned to Los Angeles. Unfortunately, not all my scars were healed enough to be covered, so it’s been a long ordeal to get the work done.
After about an hour, I have a swath of fresh ink across my chest. More tribal whorls that form part of the head of the creature that’s gradually taking shape over my entire left side. When it’s finished, it will be a hellhound made of hundreds of interlinking tribal thorns. My arm is already covered in ink that obscures the scars there, the black designs a pack of wild dogs fighting their way out from beneath my skin.
“My door’s always open,” I tell her when I pick up my helmet and get ready to head out.
She nods and smiles. “I intend to take you up on it. You take care, Maddox.”
My head is much clearer when I head back into the city, and this time when I tiptoe up my back steps and enter the apartment, Leo and Celeste are sound asleep. I fall onto my sofa in a boneless heap and am unconscious within seconds.
After I wake up, Celeste gives me the good news that her father agreed to let Leo continue his recovery at the Flores estate. Arturo owes the man for saving his daughter’s life and is also giving Manny a funeral befitting a hero for diving in front of the bullet himself.
They leave the next day.
On his way out, Leo makes a joke about letting me have my bed back. He hints that I ought to bring my lovers upstairs and not keep banging them in the back of my mother’s studio like the Lothario I am. There’s no way he can know that I spent a good bit of time fantasizing about getting him into my bed before it actually happened, or that the only girl I ever had in the back of Mom’s studio is the woman he’s leaving with.
He seems to be back to his usual shit-talking taunts despite an undercurrent of grief, as if it’s all a mask he’s put in place just to hold it together. He clings to Celeste as hard as she clings to him, and I find what comfort I can in the knowledge that they’ll get to stay together.
Even though I’m empty once they’re finally gone.
19
Leo
I’m logy from the drugs when Arturo’s driver delivers us to his estate in Los Feliz late in the afternoon, but Celeste hasn’t released my hand during the entire drive, so I feel stronger than I have any business being. She leads me around the side of the house rather than through the front door, and we walk down a stepped path through a terraced garden that borders the vast patio overlooking the LA skyline.
When I see the pool, I say, “You’re planning to drown me and put me out of my misery, aren’t you?”
She side-eyes me and tugs me toward the set of french doors that face the pool. “No. We’re sneaking you into my room before Elena sees us and takes you to a guest room. If you’re already asleep in my bed, she can’t make you get up and leave.”
My mood picks up at the idea of falling asleep in Celeste’s bed. I’ve never seen it, but I imagine it feels like heaven.
The aroma of pot tickles my nose, and I turn toward the origin. A figure huddles on a chaise at the far end of the terrace. My heart thuds with a violent beat as I pull away from Celeste and move in that direction, ignoring her confused protest, but she soon sees what I see and rushes to catch up.
“Oh God, Toni,” she whispers.
Toni is seated on the chaise, bundled in a dark, worn-out hoodie that’s several sizes too big, her knees drawn up to her chest. My throat seizes—it’s one of Manny’s old hoodies, and I falter. She doesn’t react when we come into view though. She’s facing the sun, with enormous dark shades on and a joint held between her lips. She takes a puff and the end lights up, then she sets it in the ashtray on the small table at her side.
Tilting her face toward us, she nods at the table and exhales while speaking in a tight voice. “Decided to hold a mini wake. He used to joke that if he took a bullet he didn’t get up from, all he wanted was for us to get high and drink expensive tequila in his memory. You’re welcome to join me.”
The plume of smoke surrounds me, and I lean down to pick up the joint, noting the ornate and vaguely phallic bottle of Clase Azul tequila that rests beside it. Celeste climbs onto the chaise beside Toni and wraps her arms around her. Toni falls against her, boneless, and shakes with sobs almost immediately, as if she held it all back until this moment.
I sit dumbly at the end of the chaise and puff on the joint, holding it between my lips as I rest my hand on Toni’s ankle and squeeze. The two of them are wrapped in each other’s arms, crying, and when I put the joint back down, I reach for the bottle. I glance at the sky and lift it up.
“A quien Dios ama, le llama.”
Then I tilt the bottle to my lips and take a long swallow.
“Manny probably never even got to taste tequila this good,” I remark when I lower the bottle and l
ook at it. It’s a heavy ceramic thing with what looks like hand-painted designs on it. The alcohol is already seeping into my blood along with the pot, and the edge of pain that my pain pills hadn’t touched softens into nothing.
“Come here, Leo,” Toni says, reaching for me.
I turn and crawl between the two of them, having only just enough presence of mind to face Celeste to get comfortable and avoid lying on my bad shoulder. They both hook their arms and legs around me, and then it’s my turn to lose my shit, the combination of tequila and pot finally melting away the tight control I had over my grief until now. I bury my face against Celeste’s breasts and cry. She combs her fingers through my hair and kisses my forehead, whispering gentle words of comfort while Toni holds me from behind.
I must doze for a little while because I open my eyes to a setting sun and an empty space where Celeste lay what seems like seconds ago. I reach for her and mumble her name. A soft, sad chuckle puffs at my back, and Toni’s fingertips comb through the hair at my temple in a gentle stroke. She’s still behind me, with my torso cradled against hers and my head beneath her chin.
“It all balances out in the end, doesn’t it?” Toni says. “Lose a brother, gain a lover. I’d say I lost a lover, gained a brother, but I always had you, so I’m not exactly breaking even here, am I?”
She sighs and snuggles lower, tightening her arm around my middle. Her nose mashes against my spine and she sniffles, then in a thick voice she says, “I’m lost without him, Leo. Lost.”
I almost admit that I am too, but stop myself. Despite how fucked up the last few days have been, I’ve managed to reclaim something I thought I’d lost. Mad Dog and I didn’t exactly talk while I was at his place, but his presence reminded me how good a friend he is. More than a friend—a brother. Someone who took us in despite the risk and took care of us both. I thought I dreamed him sitting at the bedside holding my hand, but now I’m sure it was real—that the kiss he laid on my forehead actually happened. I’m not sure how to feel, but I owe the man some credit at the very least. I probably owe him my fucking life.