The Corner House: A Reverse Harem

by Daisy Jane

  “Yeah, I mean, I know you’ve been doing this since you were sixteen years old and I remember you’d said they only got bad like this in the last year or so.”

  “Yeah, that’s, yeah,” I so eloquently say, shock filling me. I don’t think Brynn has even looked into environmental triggers for migraines. Seriously. What an, um, nice guy.

  “I found this article that spoke to the evolving hormone levels in women and what happens in their bodies around your age,” he says matter of fact. “Are you on birth control?”

  I nod.

  “Well, there are certain kind of pills that over long periods of use, permanently mess with your hormone levels. That with the harsh chemicals, well, it kind of builds and by the time it hinders you, so much is built up that until you remove a trigger, you’re kind of locked in.”

  “Wow.”

  “What pill are you on? It’s the amount of progestin and estrogen. The ratio. All oral birth control has small amounts, but some have more, and in different proportions. I made a list on my phone of the ones that make headaches, migraines worse.” He takes a breath. “I didn’t mean to say headache. I know the difference between a migraine and a headache.”

  “Wow,” I say again. Then damn it if my eyes don’t go fuzzy. I wish it was fuzzy with pain because I’d have a not-humiliating reason to be crying.

  Eli pulls me into him before I’ve even wiped my tears and cradles my face against the valley between his pecs. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been talking about all this. It’s your biggest source of stress. I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. Don’t cry.”

  I am ready to push against him and tell him that it’s not the topic, it’s that in the year I’ve gone through this, no one has ever put that much thought and time into it but me. Not even my parents, who were convinced I needed to “go outside more” and “eat more bananas” because “potassium deficiency can make you achy.” Achy. Fucking hell.

  Before I can say anything, Bodhi’s in the door way, steam drifting up from a bowl in his hands.

  “Hey cuddle bugs, come eat. Oh, and hey Eli, some girl came by the house, left something for you on the porch. Saw it on the Ring.”

  Some girl came by for you.

  Some girl came by for you.

  Some girl came by for you.

  It chants in my brain, sing-songs sickly in my veins, crashes down on my foolish and hopeful heart. I pull myself from his embrace and muster the most real smile I can, flashing it to Bodhi. I can feel Eli watching me as he sits up. I glance back at him once to give him a smile, and turn back to Bodhi. “Piggy back?”

  He grins and Eli makes a noise of displeasure. “Probably need clothes but yes, jump on.”

  I open a drawer, and hear Eli shuffling around me but I don’t look back. I can’t look back.

  He was just being a good friend looking up your stupid migraines. He doesn’t like you. Quit being weird.

  I tug an over-sized Oakcreek High t-shirt on and pull on a clean pair of panties—this time, they’re black and lacey—and climb up Bodhi as he’s lowered himself to the floor. He reaches behind himself and slaps my ass with the hand that isn’t holding the bowl of vegan mac.

  I let out a wild giggle in response, not turning back to Eli.

  Some girl came by for you.

  “Feed me a bite of your mac,” I say to Bodhi in a throaty voice at the top of the stairs. He forks a bite and passes it back to me. “Good!” I say with surprise.

  Some girl came by for you.

  “Super good,” I force out. Why do I even care if some girl came by? Seriously?

  We make our way downstairs, Bodhi setting me on the island where I swing my bare feet childlike from the counter. Bastian turns from the stove where he’s steaming veggies and grilling chicken breast. Shoving his hand through his hair, his blue eyes twinkle through the dimly lit kitchen. Only the light above the range is on now. He presses his lips to my forehead.

  “Hey Sloane, how you feeling?” He asks casually.

  “Hey Officer Anal, I’m good,” I bite my lip and wait for his reaction. Spinning back to face me, Bastian grins and puts his hands on my knees as Bodhi drifts by to refill his bowl.

  “That is so going to be by cop-stripper name when the real cop thing doesn’t work out.” We all have a good laugh at that.

  “Dude, you couldn’t be a stripper,” Bodhi says with a mouthful.

  “Whaat?” Bastian reels back, clutching his pearls. “Dude, you know I’m handsome and sweet.”

  “Clark Kent.” I say quietly. Bodhi laughs hard. Bastian smiles so hard that he flushes.

  “What?” he balks, slightly shy. I cock an eyebrow and look to Bodhi whose arms are folded against his pecs, waiting for this.

  “Okay so when we first met, I called you Clark Kent because you’re a hero, a cop is a hero, and you saved me and, well, come on, you’re you,” I say, waving a hand over his face and torso, hesitating, then over his groin area too. That last motion is met with laughter all around.

  “They don’t know about perfect dick when I pull them over though,” he winks.

  “But you get it, right? You’re like the real Clark Kent.” I take a drink of the water I left out a few hours back. It’s warm but still feels cool because my body is still hot from being close to Eli.

  Bodhi laughs hard and teases Bastian. “That’s good, you could use that, Clark.”

  I turn my gaze to Bodhi and narrow my eyes, then look back to Bastian. “That’s a compliment coming from Thor.”

  Bastian erupts with laughter and silently I thank these guys for having this insane ability to make me laugh and lighten the mood whenever. Even when it feels less than likely.

  “Muscles,” Bastian counts off on one finger, “hair—”

  Bodhi cuts in. “General badassery.”

  Bastian nods. “Yes, you know what,” he tilts his head and sizes up his friend. “You are like a tattooed, gentle Thor.”

  “Gentle?” Bodhi snorts, filling his voice with toughness.

  Bastian empties the pot into the strainer over the sink, sending a thick cloud of steam into the air. “You know you’re a teddy bear, Bod.”

  “You are,” I add, feeling like I know them enough to be able to add to this.

  “So, who is Eli?” Bodhi asks as Eli comes back in from the foyer, a bag in his hand.

  “I’m Eli,” he says, confused, setting the bag on the back counter where the guys put the mail. It’s interesting because that’s a place we put things we don’t want to think about. Bills. Weird items that go in the junk drawer. And now, the bag that the girl dropped off for him.

  I give my big shut the hell up eyes to Bodhi, who’s vaguely aware that I have a small crush on Eli at this point. But he doesn’t relent.

  “Sloane gave us superhero identities when she met us. Bas is Clark Kent and I’m Thor.”

  Eli turns to me and I take a sip of the seemingly now freezing cold water.

  “And who am I?” his arms flex across his chest and I hate that he’s now wearing a t-shirt and athletic pants. I loved how his naked body looked and felt against me.

  “Captain America. I told you earlier. Before.”

  This time, Bodhi doesn’t laugh and neither does Bastian. Silence settles in the kitchen for a moment and I wonder if Eli has a vendetta against Chris Evans or if Captain America his least favorite superhero or something?

  “That’s who I am for Halloween.” Eli says. “Every year. Since before Chris fucking Evans made it a deal.”

  “Seriously? You dress up every year? Do you guys have like, a big Halloween party here?” I scan their faces excitedly. Bastian hovers a hand over the top of his head, looking at me.

  “Law enforcement officer,” he says, and I wince.

  “Oh yeah, I guess Officer Anal can’t throw parties, huh?”

  Eli clears his throat and moves through the kitchen filling a glass of water and drinking all of it quickly.

  “He’s been dressing up like that since he was in
high school,” Bodhi says, finishing his meal. “Hold onto your ovaries, he goes to the hospital and hangs out with the sick kids.” Bodhi pushes his bowl across the counter. “It’s how I knew he was the one for me. My friend soul mate,” he says, batting his eyelashes playfully.

  “Hey,” Bastian interrupts with a dejected look on his face. “What am I? Chopped liver?”

  “Three-way soul mates?” Bodhi proposes while Eli remains silent with his back to me. What’s in the bag that the girl brought? Freaking men. They don’t think to ask things like that. And I can’t ask. It would be weird. Or is just weird to me because I know how much I obsessively want to know, but to everyone else it’s just a friend asking a friend a question?

  “Why not?” Bastian shrugs, walking to Bodhi, his hand up awaiting a high five. “We’re three way everything else am I right?” They erupt in laughter and high five. Eli sits next to me on the counter, putting his back to the other two.

  “It was a four way, dipshits,” he points to me, “four.”

  “Oh shit. He’s right.” Bastian says.

  “You didn’t even smoke,” Bodhi laughs.

  “I think I got second hand high,” Bastian declares and we all laugh. He passes Eli and I a bowl, each with grilled chicken and broccoli. “Friends don’t let friends eat trash when they have the munchies.”

  Eli drapes a hand over his chest and squeezes his eyes shut dramatically. “And it fits in my macros. I love you, Sir.”

  He’s saying it to Bastian. He’s saying it playfully. Still, I stare at his perfect stubbled jaw and wonder, what would it sound like if he said those words to me?

  Then I see the gift bag on the counter. He won’t say those words to me. We’re just friends.

  Chapter 19

  “I still feel super cheated that we aren’t having girls’ night at your new house,” Kayla scoffs, a stemless wineglass full of red in one hand, a massive wedge of watermelon in her other hand. “Wine and watermelon together is pretty disgusting,” she notes, taking another big bite of the juicy fruit, chasing it with the cheap red she’d brought. Like I said, teachers don’t make a lot of money.

  “We can’t,” I remind her as I pour a ladle of waffle mix onto the maker grill, closing it after.

  It’s W night for girls’ night because Kayla wanted wine, Abbie wanted breakfast (pancakes or waffles, she’d specified), Brynn had to have salad and I was coming off a headache from a few days ago so I knew water would be my friend. One thing all of our wants had in common was the kindergarten theme of a single letter. So, W night was born.

  At Brynn’s house, we hung out in the kitchen and dining room since Bryan and his friends are in the living room doing something that required the TV and “the best internet connection”, and I think it had something to do with some sports fantasy draft.

  I made waffles for Abbie, who had just had her second date with fellow teacher Mr. Devers, and was still shy to share. I didn’t blame her. Typically, sharing your date-happiness with your girlfriends turns into a lovely little game of “analyzing what could go wrong with your potential boyfriend”. With our group, though, I don’t think that would happen. Devers had really put the long-game work in and who didn’t respect that? He’d brought her coffee in the mornings, gone to the track meets just to watch her coach, and even recommended books and places to her that he encountered that reminded him of her. We all knew everything he’d done, not so much from Abbie sharing as much it was for Kayla reporting back. But still, we all knew how slow-moving he’d been, carefully crafting a friendship and then in turn showing her why he’d be a good man to have a relationship with. It’s exactly Abbie’s style and pace—and he did it without knowing that. Something told me they had plenty of happy times ahead.

  Forking the last waffle from the iron, I drape it over the stack and survey our spread. Brynn’s salad (Waldorf with Walnuts because women follow rules), watermelon, wings (Kayla brought them with her wine), wine (red and white), Nilla Wafers and an assortment of whipped creams (I refuse to ask Brynn why she and Bryan own so much whipped cream).

  Looking over the random food, I take a sip of my water. “I think I’d get IBS if I hate any variety of these together,” I admit, glad I’m not starving.

  I didn’t really have much of an appetite today, which is strange for me. Usually, day three or four post-migraine, my strength needs a hefty dose of food and caffeine in order to rebound. But my mind had been preoccupied. When I came downstairs the morning after our ahem, group sexual experience, the gift bag on the counter was gone. Eli had taken it up to his room. I mean, of course he did.

  It didn’t surprise me but stupidly, it disappointed me.

  I’m embarrassed to say I checked the garbage can in the kitchen and was supremely disappointed it wasn’t in there, covered in a “fuck off, I’m with Sloane now” loogie. Okay, that’s obviously a bit much but still, you get the idea.

  I’d managed to get out of telling Brynn every last detail of the event, as the girls were now referring to it, because our schedules had been a bit chaotic the last three days. Brynn was doing hair and makeup for some local news anchors for a charity event and I was in the salon, taking walk-ins with a smile, trying to regain some of my clientele base.

  Eli’s words bounced around my brain every time I opened a bottle of toner or mixed color. I could be doing this to myself with my environment. The realization made my stomach turn sour. What else would I do? What else would I be good at doing?

  “Fuck, finally,” Brynn said, huffing into the kitchen from the backdoor. “I’ve been trying to tell this bride that it’s a bad idea to try and go from chocolate to platinum in one month. I told her she’ll be bald in two months if she does it that way. I told her.” She shakes her head and pinches a walnut from the salad, dropping it into her mouth.

  “She finally give up?” I ask.

  “Yes, I sent her that chart of Khloe Kardashian. The one that shows even rich people take time to go from one drastic color to the next. That it’s not a money thing. It’s time. Time if you want it to look good,” she says, with an irritated eye roll.

  We settle into our chairs around the bar in her kitchen, Kayla and Abbie on the ends, leaning forward to see one another. “What first?” Brynn asks, looking between Abbie and myself.

  “Hey, jerks, what if I met a super-hot guy that left me notes and had his dick pierced?”

  Brynn’s shoulders lift and she nods. “You did?”

  Kayla shakes her head without energy. “No, but damn it if I don’t want to.”

  Laughing, Brynn reaches out and taps Kayla’s hand. “Soon, soon girl,” she says, as Kayla slumps into her bowl of watermelon chunks. “I hope,” Kayla says, shoving a chunk of fruit into her mouth.

  “You go,” I say to Abbie, whose cheeks are already flush.

  Her long hair is down, straight, and I haven’t seen it straightened and styled that way in a while.

  “Your hair,” Brynn smooths her hand over her sister’s head and I still can’t believe they’re sisters. I see it when I look at their eyes, the shape and the laugh lines, but one fiery red head and one blonde. It’s interesting. Then I wonder, for some reason, what Eli’s parents look like. And what his sister looks like crosses my mind, too.

  “It’s fancy,” Brynn finishes after she pets her sister a few times. Abbie swats Brynn away, flushing. Abbie is a lot like Brynn in terms of personality. Not shy, straightforward but reserved when the moment calls for it. The fact that she’s clamming up about Devers makes my lips curl up on the end. She really likes him. The way I think of…

  There I go, wondering about Eli again.

  “Our first date,” she starts right in, and that tells me that Devers is probably the only thing on her mind. “He took me to Top Golf,” she smiles and turns her head to face us and rests it lazily in her palm, elbow to table.

  “Oh, where’s that?” Brynn scrunches her nose. As much as she and her sister are alike, sports are not a huge priority for Brynn. Ru
nning and doing her workouts is where her athletic interest begins and ends.

  “Sacramento,” Abbie says, “a little over two hours from here.” Then her face goes really, really red.

  Kayla slaps her arm. “Just tell them, why are you acting all innocent and shy, we know you’re not a virgin,” she huffs, tossing her wine back, finishing it. She and I are the last single ones in this foursome and it seems like tonight, it’s bugging her.

  “Tell us what?” I nudge her and she covers her face with her hands.

  “I gave him a hand job while he was driving us home.” She doesn’t pull her face from her hands even though Brynn reaches across and tries desperately to tear her sisters’ hands away.

  “Oh my god, Abigail Lynn,” she screams while also trying to control her volume for Bryan’s fantasy whateverthefuck.

  Kayla picks up a waffle and eats it with her bare hands, like it’s toast. “Tell them everything,” she says.

  I tap Brynn’s thigh and turn to her, giving her the code for be cool because Abbie’s embarrassed and Brynn gives me an eyeroll. “I’m in a relationship. It’s not that exciting anymore. I need to live through these butterflies.”

  Kayla tosses the waffle back on the stack and grabs the bottle of wine, tipping it into her glass. “It’s only been a year. Shouldn’t you guys still have butterflies? It seems like it’s too soon to not have butterflies.”

  “There’s more to a healthy relationship than exciting excitement!” Brynn says defensively, and I make a mental note to check in on her later. She doesn’t talk about Bryan as much as she used to and with that reaction, I have to wonder if something is wrong.

  “Okay,” I hold out a bargaining hand. “Back to Abbie.”

  Abbie smiles a thank you at me and continues, pushing her hair over her shoulders, down her back.

  “Well, as you guys know, Mike has been really sweet. We’ve been having lunches together at school and he comes to the track meets. We’ve read a few books at the same time and Face Timed in the evenings to discuss them. He’s shared with me a lot about his life.”

  Brynn rolls her hand forward, as in, get to it, and I slap her hand.