Okay, not really. That was full-on sarcasm. As it was, I still wasn’t sure whether dating my neighbors was a good idea. Would they not get jealous of each other? Were Ace and Brock not jealous of the fact that Kent slept with me first? None of them had outright said anything about it, except Kent, but still. I knew how a guy’s mind usually worked, or at least I thought I did.
“I am…don’t tell anyone I’m saying this, but kind of jealous. You, girl, have somehow stumbled into the perfect scenario.” Sofia waited a moment before adding, “Multiple dicks, girl. You got yourself multiple dicks. I honestly didn’t know you had it in you.”
“I didn’t know I had it in me, either,” I muttered, frowning to myself. “Am I making a mistake?”
“Only time will tell for that,” she said. “And unfortunately for the both of us, I’m not psychic. I can’t tell the future.”
I let out a groan of frustration. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I mean, I knew they were nice-looking guys this whole time, but until a few days ago, I never looked at them twice, and then all of a sudden I start dreaming about them and dating them and wanting to see them more—”
Sofia laughed on the other line. “Take it from someone who’s heard every complaint you’ve ever had about those guys: you’ve always crushed on them. It’s only now that you’re realizing you like them.”
I couldn’t believe what she was telling me. “You’re saying I’ve always liked them and just didn’t know it yet?” The possibility sounded so outlandish to me, and yet it was the only explanation that made sense. Something in the air or the damned coffee in that Jewels Cafe—that was too superstitious for me. Too…too magical, and magic didn’t exist, as sad as it made my vampire-loving teenage self.
“I’m saying exactly that. Now, the question is, can you do it, Opal? Can you date three men at the same time and keep your sanity intact? I, myself, wonder, because ever since you left, I’ve been wanting to strangle Chris something fierce.”
A laugh bubbled up my throat. “Chris is a good guy, though.”
Her tone softened, “Yeah, he is. I just want something like that for you, you know. I don’t want you to get caught dating jerks until you’re forty and then you realize you’ve wasted the good years of your life on them. I want you to be happy, girl, and if that means multiple boyfriends, well, I guess you don’t have a choice. Multiple dicks it is—” I heard Chris’s masculine voice say something; he must’ve followed Sofia into the hall, and then she quickly said, “No, no, honey. I didn’t say multiple dicks…I said, uh, multiple picks. Opal’s going to be like the Bachelorette and choose between three guys who are vying for her heart.”
I rolled my eyes at her explanation. What was even sadder was that I knew what she was talking about. All of those Bachelorette and Bachelor shows—those were my guilty pleasures. I loved the drama and the fighting. That was good TV right there.
Chris must’ve not wanted to hear anymore, because Sofia told him she’d be right there, adding into the phone quietly, “I was joking, bitch. You better not pick one. You better keep this whole reverse harem situation going until I come visit you.”
“And then what?” I asked. “If you like one better, you’ll be okay with me choosing?” Even as I said it, I knew that wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to play eenie, meanie, minie, mo when it came to Ace, Kent, and Brock. I wanted to sweep the whole board and keep them all for myself, no choosing necessary.
“Maybe. We’ll figure it out when we get there, okay?”
I chuckled, missing having her around constantly. “Okay. Just let me know when you’re coming so I can tell the guys to be on their best behavior.”
“Fuck that. I want to see them at their worst. I want to see them as they really are—it’s the only way I’ll be able to know whether or not they’ll be able to take care of you,” Sofia said, quickly adding, “but I do have to go. Chris is adamant that we eat dinner together like civilized people, the freak.”
I let out another laugh before telling her goodbye and hanging up, staring at the blank TV screen across from me. I had the feeling my life had just gotten a thousand times more complicated.
Three boyfriends. Could I really manage that while juggling my writing deadline?
I guess we’d all find out.
Chapter 10
The next day I sat in front of my laptop bright and early, wearing a hoodie and some leggings, my legs curled under my backside as I wrote. A few more sexy scenes, and then I’d have to go through and add more chemistry. I knew what my editor meant now; before, my characters were like cardboard cutouts, just doing things because they needed to do those things to move the plot along. Now, it was like I was actually seeing them as living, breathing people. People with their own needs, their own desires, their own sexual tension.
Yeah, that last part I understood more than I wanted to.
What was even better, what helped me focus on my work that morning was the fact that I actually got sleep last night. No music playing on repeat, no sad voice filling the walls with its haunting melody. I was actually able to close my eyes and fall asleep, get a full eight hours—and this time, no sex-filled dream, thank God. Just a normal night’s sleep, and honestly I was thankful for it. I couldn’t remember the last night I got a normal night’s sleep in this house.
Silver Springs was…a weird town. I didn’t know it too well yet, since my head had always been stuck in my computer, but once my edits were done and I was waiting to hear back from the editor, I’d venture out a bit. Maybe go on more dates with my three boyfriends.
Three boyfriends. The two words still felt a little weird when I put them together.
I was knee-deep in a sex scene—or should I say balls-deep or tits-deep—when my doorbell rang. My gut immediately warmed, and I had to be careful. I would start to associate that sound with my guys.
My guys. Hah. I had guys. As in plural. Frigging weird, right?
I heaved myself away from my computer, going to the door. I looked a hot mess, my brown hair in a bun, wearing my comfy clothes, as I answered the door and found that it was Ace. A shaven, clean Ace who looked, for the first time in a long while, not down in the dumps.
Hopeful. He looked hopeful, and seeing him look so hopeful caused my heart to swell and gain three sizes.
“Ace,” I said. “What are you doing here?” I noticed that something large was strung across his back.
A guitar?
“I know you’re busy with…writing stuff,” Ace spoke cautiously, “but I was hoping to spend some time with you today. I have something to show you. Well, tell you, really.” He ran a hand through his blonde hair, and I noticed that it was freshly cut, too. He must’ve either done some grooming last night or woken up early and went to a barbershop.
He looked even better now than he did before. Less like a sexy man caught in a deep depression and more like a ridiculously hot guy who was trying to impress the woman he liked.
Me. He was trying to impress me.
“Um, sure,” I said. “Come in.” I didn’t think Ace would take all day, and I could use a break from my book anyway. Writers literally looked for every excuse they could to not work on the shit they had to work on. It was a universal thing, I’m telling you. Procrastination was a deadly, tempting beast, and houses suddenly looked a million times dirtier when you sat down to write or edit. Facts of the world.
“I brought one of my guitars,” Ace said, moving to the couch as he swung an arm and grabbed the guitar hanging off his back. An acoustic one, one that didn’t need to be plugged into an amp to work. I didn’t know much about guitars, but I knew that much.
I also knew I sucked at every musical instrument known to mankind, and all those that had yet to be invented yet, but that was just me. Luckily, not everyone in the world was as tone-deaf as I was.
“Okay,” I said, sitting on the corner of the couch with my legs tucked under me. I watched as Ace sat near me, his guitar on his lap. “So… you’re goin
g to sing to me or something?” I never swooned over any bands growing up, never had an emo phase where I adored the good-looking singers in the popular punk bands like Sofia, but now was as good a time as any to swoon over a singer, as long as that singer was Ace.
“I’m sure you’ve heard me at night,” Ace said. “I never tried to be quiet about it. My room is right beside yours, I think.”
The singing that I’d been trying to ignore, that catchy melody that I hated myself for knowing, it was all him? I blinked, shocked. “And Brock and Kent never tell you to keep it down?”
“They’re too nice to me,” Ace said. “I was…going through a lot.”
“Kent told me you were dating someone,” I muttered, not wanting to think of him with anyone else, as selfish as it was. And it was totally selfish, because I’d been with other guys before, too. We all had histories. It was part of being human.
Ace nodded. He set the guitar aside as he shrugged off his jacket, tossing it onto the empty cushion to his left before grabbing the guitar again. “I’d been dating this girl for six months, so it was pretty serious. I thought we were serious, I mean. I don’t know how serious you can be with someone when you cheat on them.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”
“And this…thing between us, between me, Kent, Brock and you,” I started, wanting to make sure this wouldn’t hurt Ace at all, “won’t make you feel like that?” He was only now starting to get better; I didn’t want him to spiral again. No more midnight songfests, thank you.
Ace was quiet for a while, lost in his thoughts. He wore a cute, pensive expression that made me want to lean over and plant a kiss on those lips, but I stopped myself. I wouldn’t push him, wouldn’t make him do anything he didn’t want to do.
“It’s different with them,” Ace spoke. “Kent is my brother, and Brock is my best friend. I trust them. And judging from the conversations we’ve had about you, none of us are willing to be the one to step aside and give you up.” His shoulders shrugged, and I saw the corner of a black tattoo poking out at the base of his neck. “I guess you’ll have to put up with us for as long as you can, then.” He gave me a slow smile.
This was just nuts. How fast things had changed. But maybe Sofia was right. Maybe the line between love and hate was so thin, so blurry, we’d all crossed it a while back and never realized it.
“I’ll try my best,” I told him, feeling a grin grow on my own lips. Staring at Ace, it was impossible not to feel jittery and giddy, like a schoolgirl with her first crush. It was the strangest feeling, but the more I felt it, the more I liked it. Being with my neighbors might not be so bad after all.
“I know you’ve heard me singing at night, but…that’s a song I don’t want to keep playing,” he explained, and I knew why. It was a song about her, his ex. It only served to remind him of his past and the pain he’d suffered from her careless actions. “Last night I wrote some new lyrics. I’m still fiddling with the right guitar chord, so if it doesn’t sound that good, just pretend it does.”
I giggled. “Okay.” A new song. This should be good. I couldn’t help but grow excited as I turned my body to face his on the couch.
Ace sat with his guitar on his lap, his fingers finding the right spots to start at. A look of pure concentration crossed his face, and I was momentarily amazed. Anyone with eyes could tell he loved his music. If he didn’t have Brock, I was certain his guitar would be his best friend. Hell, it probably was up there now anyways.
And then he started playing. Then he began to strum along on that guitar, his fingers plucking the strings in a slow, acoustic melody that made goosebumps rise on my arms and a chill sweep down my spine. Before he even started to sing, I knew: this song was about me. These new lyrics were both for me and about me, and he was sharing an intimate part of himself by singing it to me.
As his voice began to sing, I closed my eyes and surrendered myself to the melody. A slow song, one whose feelings you could hear in every single word, words that were all about the girl next door and how crazy she drove him. The first part was about how I bickered, how I glared, how I frowned, which led into the chorus about the girl next door being the opposite of perfect.
I knew better than to get annoyed though, and my patience paid off. It was during the second part when the lyrics changed. Instead of being about the bickering and fighting, it was about the laughter and the smiles. My smiles and how crazy they drove him, and this time the chorus was about how perfect I was, and he wouldn’t change a thing.
It was a song that changed as it continued, and I absolutely loved it. If I heard it a thousand times like I’d heard the other one through the walls, I didn’t doubt that it would get stuck in my head, too.
Ace’s voice drifted off, and once he stopped singing, he gave me a sheepish smile. Still holding onto his guitar, he asked, “Did you like it?”
Did I like it? What kind of question was that? If he wasn’t holding onto that guitar, I’d freaking jump his bones and show him just how much I did indeed like it. Like I said before: smoothness, I had none.
I managed to nod. “It was nice. I liked how you included our neighborly fighting.”
Ace chuckled. “I’m calling it The Girl Next Door.” He went to set his guitar on the coffee table before us, leaning back on the couch as he looked at me, the emotion plain in his eyes. “I know I said some really shitty things to you before.”
Nodding, I said, “You called me a shitty writer. That was just mean, and totally uncalled for, since you’ve never even read any of my stuff.” I didn’t take his words to heart; I knew better than to do something stupid like that. Plus, you know, I was an adult and I didn’t care what other people thought.
“Can I?” Ace asked, his voice soft, almost as tentative as it had been when he first started singing that song about me. “Can I read some of it?”
I wanted to say no, because my writing was my baby and showing Ace seemed like I was inviting ridicule, but if he was sincere about apologizing for everything he’d said to me, I suppose there was no harm in doing so. “Wait here,” I told him before getting up and heading to my room.
I only returned once I had my laptop tucked under my arm, sitting beside Ace and slowly opening it. It was on the same scene I was writing before Ace had interrupted my morning writing fest. I didn’t feel like scrolling through the entire document and finding my favorite parts—and let’s be honest, lately my favorite parts had been the sex scenes anyway—so I simply handed him the laptop without doing any scrolling.
So, I handed him a sex scene straight out of my imagination, basically.
My eyes were heavy on Ace as I watched him read it, as I looked for any hints of disgust or shock. To my surprise, I didn’t see any. I merely watched a guy read something he was genuinely interested in, though I swear I did see his cheeks flush just a bit when he got to the good stuff, and by good stuff I meant penis in vagina.
Oh, yeah. I was super descriptive on that particular part.
Once Ace was done, and by that I meant once he finished the half-written sex scene, he closed the laptop before sliding it onto the coffee table, right next to his guitar. “Wow,” he whispered, glancing at me. “That was…you’re very good at those scenes, aren’t you?”
“Believe it or not, it’s a newfound talent,” I said, feeling my heart skip a beat as he looked at me.
“Is it?” Ace asked, leaning closer to me, inch by inch until his chest practically leaned against mine, his breath hot on my face. “Is it weird that reading that made me a little horny?”
I held in a laugh, because if I was honest, it made me feel the same. Ever since taking myself to that coffee shop, Jewels Cafe, I’d been feeling extra frisky all the time, and it definitely showed in my writing. To hear that it made him feel the same, just by reading it—and it wasn’t even a finished scene—made me thrilled. It meant my writing was doing something right.
Plus, you know, if Ace f
elt horny, maybe I’d reap the benefits.
“No,” I answered him, feeling my breath catch when his nose brushed against mine. Ace was so close, and God, I wanted him closer.
He must’ve had the same idea, because in the next moment, his hands moved to hold the sides of my face, angling my mouth toward his. Our lips crashed together in a display of pure passion, pure lust and desire, our feelings way over the limit. This kiss, and everything that would happen after, felt like a long time coming, and I was here for it one hundred percent.
I grabbed his shirt, fisting it, leaning back to bring us both down on the couch. Just like my dream, with him pinning me down, only this time, it wasn’t a dream—and he wouldn’t suddenly turn into Brock.
No, this time it was just Ace and me, and I shivered when I realized this.
Would he be as big as his brother? There was only one way to find out.
With one hand fisting his shirt, my other ran its fingers through his hair, tugging on its blonde lengths gently. Ace let out a low moan into my mouth, and I ate up the sound greedily. There was something so downright sensual about a man’s groans; I could listen to them all day and never get tired of them.
Our mouths separated only so Ace could pull off his shirt. He wasn’t as wide as Kent, but he was lean and well-defined in the places that mattered. A flat stomach, abs that were to die for. A bulge sat in his crotch, but he made no moves to take off his pants just yet. A tribal tattoo made of lines and stars—and music notes, of course—sat on his left shoulder. Once his shirt was off, he returned to me, this time showering my neck with pleading, hungry kisses.
His mouth was like a connoisseur, knowing exactly how to kiss me to make me shiver all over, to make me bite my lower lip to stop myself from crying out. Ace’s hands roamed my body, kneading my breasts and causing a heated ache to rise deep within me. His hips ground down on mine, and I swore I could stay like this forever and be in utter bliss.
Alas, Ace had other things in mind. His mouth moved from my neck, and it was now his turn to help me out of my clothes. All of them. He helped me out of all of them. My hoodie, shirt and bra first, and he paused to run his palms over my breasts, hardening my nipples instantly. The next thing that came off was my leggings, and he instantly found that I wore nothing under them.
Opal: A Contemporary Reverse Harem Romance (Jewels Cafe Book 4) Page 7