Heartless Few Box Set

by MV Ellis

  “And your shirt.” Although I would have my back to him most of the time, I didn’t want to miss even the slightest chance to catch a glimpse of his glorious chest. The man was beyond perfect.

  While he put the condom on, I scooted up a few more steps so that we didn’t waste any time getting the angle right. I wanted him deep and hard. No need for foreplay.

  “Brace yourself, Marns, this isn’t going to be slow or gentle.” The words were music to my ears, and as he pushed inside me, his movements wrote a song on my heart, one I sang back to him as I came, like a promised I would.

  “Luke, Luke, Luke, Luke!”

  Forty-One

  Luke

  Over the following few weeks, the three of us found our rhythm in our daily routine. Well, Marnie and I had a routine. Ronnie’s contribution to our domestic bliss was to do Ronnie, aka whatever the fuck she liked, much to our endless amusement.

  With the album finished and premiered at the secret gig, this would normally be a time of manic promotion—phone, TV, radio, FaceTime, podcast, newspaper, magazine, and online interviews, more live performances, competitions, meet and greets. The whole nine yards. Life would be a whir of cars, studios, planes, more studios, hair and makeup chairs, green rooms, wardrobe fittings, lunches, dinners, drinks, and more bullshit besides.

  However, as Arlo’s bid to lure London back from Sydney had paid off—because… Arlo—and they were holed up in unwedded bliss, or as close to bliss as a couple with as much turmoil in their lives as those two had could get, we were doing no such thing. Arlo was playing daddy-to-be and concentrating more on his “day job”—his two businesses: the night club where we played the secret gig, and a tattoo parlor.

  Being Arlo and London, drama was never far away. Not the least of which being that in one of the routine scans, the couple had been informed that London was pregnant with twins. Given our own fractious relationship growing up, and still to this day, I couldn’t help but feel slightly sorry for Arlo and the world of parenting pain that awaited him. On the other hand, I had to give karma a round of applause—that was some well-played shit. I laughed at the irony every time I thought of it.

  The other guys seemed to be laying low, no doubt relieved to have survived the whirlwind of the previous few weeks relatively unscathed and not to have witnessed the two of us kill each other. Each had retreated to the peace and calm of their own home and their own drama-free lives. Everyone except Jake. His life was far from drama-free. With kids and Kris to go home to, I sometimes thought he looked forward to touring for some quiet time.

  As for us, the nearest we got to high drama was in toilet training Ronnie, and I liked it that way—not the pee and poop all over the place part, that sucked, but the zero human drama part was pretty fucking glorious. It seemed to be good for my creative brain too. I had already written at least enough good songs for an EP, but over those few weeks, not only did the words come more easily, but they were also different in tone—lighter and more optimistic than my previous songs.

  Maybe back in the day they would have been what they called a B-side to the album, or maybe a double album’s worth. I liked the way we did things now much better. I could pretty much include as many songs as I wanted, and people could choose to listen to just one, or all of them.

  Despite being in a band pretty much my entire life, I was still more of a morning person than a nocturnal rock pig. It was an occupational hazard that I was often awake way into the small hours and therefore up later in the day. While the band was on its unofficial hiatus, I went back to my early rising roots and got a jump on the day early on. I used the time before Marnie and Ronnie woke to work on new songs and refine some of the existing ones while the house was still quiet. Once Ronnie woke up, she was like a whirlwind blowing through the place, and Marnie wasn’t much better, truth be told.

  However, Marnie was also made for the model life. That girl could sleep the day way if the mood took her. When she finally dragged her ass out of bed and joined me, we’d eat breakfast, or more accurately, brunch, which would inevitably lead to feasting on each other. Before we knew it, it would be after midday and almost time for lunch. After a bite to eat and maybe a little afternoon delight, I didn’t feel bad about frittering away the rest of the day admiring the “view” while Marnie tended to the garden.

  I’d never had even the slightest interest in horticulture, plants, or nature of any kind, but Marnie had a way with all things green that she said she’d inherited from Mia, and I suddenly couldn’t get enough of it, or of her. Every day she seemed to blossom. She was so much calmer and more relaxed than I’d really ever seen her. The smiles she used to guard so jealously were now given freely and with ease, and they always reached her eyes.

  I felt as though only now, after all these years of knowing her, had I finally found the true Marnie behind the mask she presented to the world, and every day I loved her more for it. I knew she loved me too, but I never pushed the issue. I wanted her to work through it in her own time and in her own way, not to back her into a corner. I knew our current state of blissful ease couldn’t last forever, and that at some point we’d have to get back to our lives in the real world, but I was determined for that point not to be a minute sooner than it had to be.

  Sadly, Marnie had other ideas. One afternoon after a lazy lunch and even lazier sex on a picnic rug in the backyard, we were basking naked in the sun, lying on our backs looking at the sky. Marnie had her head nestled in the crook of my arm, and I was stroking her hair absentmindedly, thinking about just how fucking lucky I was.

  “Luke?”

  “Hmmm.” I was winding strands of her thick straight hair around my index finger, then releasing it, over and over, fascinated by the way it reverted to straight immediately.

  “We need to talk.”

  Uh-oh. Those words could only ever mean bad news.

  “No, we don’t. We need to nap or fuck. In fact, we need to do both. Fuck. Then nap. No time for talking.”

  “I’m serious. Quit playing around.”

  I pushed up onto one elbow and looked across at her. She seemed serious. Too serious for my liking.

  “Okay. Sure. No… wait. Do I need pants for this? I feel like I need pants.”

  “You don’t need pants. You just need to shut up and let me speak. Where’s shy, nervous Luke when I need him?”

  Ouch. I had no idea why, but I could see that sharp-tongued, feisty Marnie had re-entered the building with a vengeance.

  “Okay. Sorry. Shoot.”

  “Thank you.” She rolled her eyes dramatically. Yep, take no prisoners Marnie in the house. “Umm… so I’ve been working up to telling you this for a little while now, but I’ve been stalling because I’m scared of what you’ll think, or what you’ll say.”

  What? Why the fuck would he be scared of my reaction?

  “I love… this vibe we have going on here, the three of us. The way we’ve been hanging out, just chillin’ has been so blissful—like a vacay from life. For me at least, this stress- and drama-free time was just what the doctor ordered. Except there was no doctor, but you know what I mean. You know, if it wasn’t for me coming out here and you finding me, I don’t know where the fuck I’d be right now, but I know that it wouldn’t have been pretty.

  “However, as much as I’d love to carry on living in our little bubble like this, I think we both know we can’t camp out here and hide away from all of our shit indefinitely. I, for one, need a plan now that modeling is no longer a thing. The stupid thing is that I always knew it wasn’t a forever career—I mean, apart from the supers, when is it ever? Still, I got sucked into the vortex of the industry and lost sight of the rest of my life, so I kind of forgot to have a plan B. Then plan A went to shit….” I had literally no idea where she was going with all of this, but I knew I needed to just hear her out.

  “Since then, I’ve been taking the time to think about what is really important to me and what I want to do with the next fifty or so years of my li
fe.”

  She looked out across the garden wistfully, and I could tell I had lost her for a moment. I waited for her to come back.

  “I’ve decided I want to be here. I mean, not here on this mat, although that’s nice too, but I want to stay here on the island. I don’t want to live in Manhattan again. I can’t.” She had been like a different person since arriving here, so it made total sense to me that she wanted to retain that feeling. On the other hand, I really couldn’t picture her living the quiet suburban life forever—surely she’d need something to occupy her mind.

  “I’m going to train to be a florist.”

  Wow.

  “Really? Wow… that’s…”

  “Stupid?”

  “Of course I wasn’t about to say stupid. I’ve been watching you these past few weeks and seen just how happy you’ve been out here in the garden, tending the plants and flowers. It’s perfect. That’s what I was going to say.”

  She beamed a smile of pure joy my way and stole yet another piece of my heart.

  “I’m so happy and proud of you, Marns. And I’m really glad you stopped me from putting on pants.” I motioned toward my dick, standing proud and ready for action.

  “Hey! Can you keep your mind above the imaginary belt for a little longer, please? I’m not done explaining my plans.”

  “Okay, but it’s going to be hard, no pun intended, when you don’t have pants on either. Or a shirt. Or a bra. Or panties. See, already my mind is wandering.” I circled one of her nipples with my index finger, and although it hardened to my touch, she swatted me away like a fly.

  “Luke. Would you listen!”

  “Okay, okay! I’m all ears. And blue balls.”

  “So I want to make this place my base, rather than just camping out here like I have been. The course I want to do is in the city, so when I need to be in for class, I’ll probably just crash at the apartment, but other than that, I’m going to be calling this place home. So I was wondering….” She cast a sideline glance my way but hesitated, leaving the end of her sentence hanging in the gentle summer breeze. She bit her bottom lip nervously but didn’t finish.

  “Come on, Marnie, spit it out. You were wondering what?”

  “Well… you said Arlo is relocating back here from LA to be with London, and you’ve been practically living with him, and then…”

  “And then you,” I finished for her. “And loving every fucking second of it.”

  “So…,” she ventured.

  “So I am wherever you are. The city, the island, the moon. If you’re asking me to move in with you, which it kind of feels like you are, count me in.” Again with that smile. It was so sweet I almost couldn’t cope.

  “I am, and you’re already in. So totally in.”

  “Is that a promise? Because I have a hard-on right here that really wants in.” I bent my leg and drew it across her body.

  “Get your mind out of my underwear for just a few minutes. You know that’s not what I meant. But then again, I guess my nipples are a little hard, and I am a little wet.” She didn’t need to say another word. I was up and straddling her as she lay on her back on the rug before she had the chance. I pinned her arms to the ground at the side of her head and stared into her big, coal-black eyes.

  “You don’t need to ask me twice. I love you.”

  She nodded her understanding, and I lowered my mouth to hers. As desperate as I was to be inside her, I also wanted to take things slow, to savor the feeling of knowing we were going to be together indefinitely.

  As we lay naked on the mat together, still drunk on our postcoital high, both staring into the clouds, lost in our own thoughts, she spoke again,

  “Luke?” I heard the concern in her voice right away.

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s something else.”

  I turned to look at her to find her watching me and nibbling on her bottom lip nervously.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s about Arlo and the video.” She searched my eyes, looking for what, I didn’t know. Anger? Rejection? I hoped that the only thing she saw was what I felt: Love.

  “See, the night you came home with Ronnie, I didn’t tell you, but I received a call earlier that day, before I went into the attic. It was the FBI agent who was handling the investigation of my phone hacking. He told me there was nothing they could do. Actually, that’s not quite right; he told me that there was nothing they would do. There has been no apparent theft apart from the video, no identity theft or other fraud, no blackmail, no other linked cases so far. I can’t even prove that my phone was tampered with or that I didn’t willingly give that file to someone, so they aren’t prepared to devote the time or manpower to investigate it.

  “On the other hand, the very small silver lining to the shittiest of dark clouds is that nor are they interested in prosecuting me, which is a relief, because apparently, with the new revenge porn laws in place in the state, they potentially could. Basically, reading between the lines, the case isn’t high stakes enough for them to care about.” She sucked in a large breath, as though needing to steel herself for the next part of the conversation. I held my breath, fearing the worst.

  “So that only leaves Arlo and his civil case. I’m sorry, but I really think I need to get lawyered up. It’s dumb of me to just sit back and wait for Arlo to ruin my life with this thing, all over an innocent mistake. I’ve got plans, and for the first time in a long time, I’m optimistic about the future. I can’t let Arlo shit all over that before it’s even begun. I can’t go back to feeling and behaving how I was the last few months before I came here. I need to take control of my life. I know this could get incredibly ugly, and it puts you in a difficult position, but the more I think about it, the more I think it’s the right thing. In fact, I should have done this sooner, but I just haven’t been able to see the woods for the trees, let along think straight, until now. I’ll understand if—”

  “Don’t even go there, Marns.” I squeezed her hand hoping she’d take it the way it was meant—as a small sign of solidarity and support. “I totally understand everything you’ve just said, but…”

  She visibly deflated, her head lowering toward her lap and her grip on my hand slackening. It physically hurt me that she was so quick to assume and accept the worst, especially of me.

  “…but I can’t let you burn through your savings hiring a lawyer to fight my brother. Going head-to-head with him, you’ll run out of cash pretty fast with no work and classes to pay for. He’s like a dog with a bone over this. He’s not going to go down without a fight. And you’re right, we should have acted on this sooner. I should have done something. I’m sorry, but I’m determined to make up for that failing now.”

  Marnie’s head snapped toward me so fast, I was surprised she didn’t get whiplash.

  “I want to cover your legal fees. Not only is it the least I can do, but I also want to take care of you, whatever you’re going through. Always.” Her eyes held the telltale gleam of imminent tears, and love.

  “But I can’t—”

  “What you can’t do is talk me out of doing this. You can accept a helping hand from the man who loves you, and always has.”

  Hours later and we were in bed at Marnie’s apartment. She wanted to collect some more of her belongings and start the moving process. I needed to grab some clothes from Arlo’s place and work out how the fuck I was going to deal with my darling brother. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be pretty, but I knew it was like a Band-Aid that needed to be ripped off sooner rather than later.

  We’d decided to crash at the apartment instead of heading back to Long Island for the night so that I could tackle the situation fresh in the morning. I lay awake staring at the ceiling and hoping for some kind of divine intervention while Marnie snored lightly in my arms. How the fuck she could make snoring sexy I didn’t know, but she did. Titanium-strength hard-on sexy, to be exact.

  I smirked to myself at the hormone-crazed teenage-boy level of hornines
s Marnie brought out in me now that I was able to publicly express my love and attraction for her. I honestly couldn’t fathom how I’d kept it under wraps for as long as I had, but now that it was out, I couldn’t seem to help myself, and right then, I couldn’t seem to sleep either. Instead, I was content just watch Marnie in the residual light of the Manhattan skyline and contemplate the road ahead and our future together.

  The phone rang on the nightstand, and without even looking, I knew who was calling. I reached over to pick up the handset, confirming my gut feeling. Arlo. I didn’t hesitate to pick up.

  “Hi.” I heard the weariness in my own voice.

  “I need you.” Three words I never thought I’d hear from my big little brother.

  Forty-Two

  Marnie

  I was woken by Luke gently but urgently shaking me awake, and I knew right away that something was wrong. Very wrong. It was still dark, but even in the gloom and through sleep-addled eyes, I could see the worry etched on his face.

  “Baby, wake up. I have to go. There’s something wrong with London and maybe the babies. Arlo needs me at the hospital.” I went from half asleep to wide-awake in a nanosecond, jumping out of bed immediately.

  “Oh no. Oh shit. Okay. Let me put some clothes on real quick.” It was then that I noted that Luke was already dressed.

  “No, it’s okay. You don’t have to do anything. I just wanted to let you know where I was going, so you didn’t wonder in the morning when you woke up.”

  “What? Luke, of course I’m coming. Wait. One. Second.” I was dressed in literal seconds. All those years of modeling had their uses. Quick changes were officially my specialized skill. We made our way out of the building and onto the street, running to the curb to hail a cab. I was thankful that it was late and that the sidewalk was relatively clear of passing foot traffic. The last thing Luke needed was to be papped or have a fan asking for an autograph.