Deliciously Obedient

by Julia Kent

  And being was fairly new to him.

  Too bad he had to be alone.

  The alcove he’d found last week beckoned to him now, a place to pull up to shore and just sit and watch the ocean. Sometimes he’d run aground and rest on an exposed tree root, staring at the tiny waves as the ocean’s pattern changed. Other times he just paused here, the trees grown out and over the little inlet, giving the spot the feel of a canopied treasure, tucked away for fairies and gnomes. Such childhood thoughts were so foreign to him, but they came easily here at the campground.

  So much came easily.

  And, this morning, it appeared someone was coming quite easily, for as Mike turned the small corner to the left to go into the little lagoon-like formation, he was greeted by the sight of two lovers going at it at the water’s edge, a smattering of tiny pine saplings their only cover.

  Whoa.

  He started to paddle backwards; why begrudge anyone their privacy for an intimate moment? The woman’s fluid, sensual movements as she rode her guy were entrancing, and Mike felt himself responding to the scene unfolding before him. If he hesitated for a few seconds before extracting himself from the intimacy of it all, would that be such a sin? After all, nature in all its forms should be appreciated, right?

  The woman’s back was to him, long, flowing hair matted with brown and yellow leaves, her shoulders broad and strong, covered in the ubiquitous flannel shirts that everyone in Maine wore this time of year. A quick glance down at his own chest made him chuckle. He’d joined them.

  “Bespoke or be naked”—that guy didn’t exist any more. Thank God.

  Her arms reached down to the very lucky man she was fucking, joints catlike and appreciative. A rush of heat took him over—much needed in the chilly fall air, but forging an ache in parts below as he thought of Lydia.

  Lydia.

  Lydia? With a turn of her head and a moan he swore he’d recognize anywhere, he thought he must be deceiving himself. You’re out of your fucking mind, Mike, he chided.

  But it’s her parents’ campground.

  “Oh, Jeremy,” the woman’s voice said, choking with passion.

  Holy shit.

  Nope. Not deceiving himself.

  He was watching the woman he loved make love to his best friend.

  Other men would have turned away the second he came upon the scene. Yet other men would turn away this very moment. Still more men would rush to shore, storm up the small beach, rip her off Jeremy and beat the ever-loving shit out of his best friend with his own ripped-off cock.

  And while Mike had a fleeting moment of feeling like all of those men, the man he truly was simply watched.

  And learned.

  And appreciated.

  Watching Jeremy make love to a woman he himself had made love to wasn’t exactly new. There’d been Dana most recently, and there was a flowing sense of reasonableness and knowing in all their intimate relations. The rush of watching Dana receive pleasure from both of them, of knowing she was thoroughly and openly given whatever she needed, was something he couldn’t explain in words. It just was. Having Jeremy as the third—that the two men would find one woman not to share, but to please—was as much a part of his sexuality as having a cock and balls.

  He was just that way.

  Jealousy was saved for men who stepped in and tried to take what was his. Lydia wasn’t his—and never really had been. One bad decision had led to a domino topple of unimaginable proportions, and he’d asked Jeremy to look out for Lydia in Iceland, knowing full well the implications of what that might mean.

  Now it was staring him in the face.

  Or, rather, he was staring at its back and legs, hearing the groans of release and Lydia’s restrained screams as she bucked against Jeremy, his legs pulled up and used as leverage to thrust up into her, the sight of the two of them so electrifying and grounding that he could only watch.

  Not react.

  As they finished and hurried to pull their clothes back on, giggling as lovers do, he paddled backward enough to hide. Lydia’s face was animated and radiant, while Jeremy was joking and tender. Their interactions were natural and loving. If he didn’t know how new their relationship was, he’d have assumed they had been a couple for a long time, more settled than they were.

  Watching them make love hadn’t upset him.

  That thought did, though. Jeremy was finding something with Lydia that Mike had touched, but never had the opportunity to explore. And now…

  What now?

  A strong wave set Mike’s kayak up in a rhythmic pattern in the choppy waters, giving him a choice: fight the waves, or steel his core and go with the flow until the wave subsided. The Michael Bournham of the past ten years was a fighter.

  But now?

  Which Mike was he?

  Chapter Three

  Lydia watched her third consecutive episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway? with her father on one side of her, snuggled into Jeremy’s side under a quilt her great-grandma had made, her sides aching from laughing so hard. The morning’s wild sex—twice in an hour—was a glowing memory, and after two lattes made on her dad’s new machine, they’d settled in to watch the show at Pete’s urging.

  “This one! This is the skit I think you two should lead for the talent show,” he said, pointing to some interaction involving invented superheroes, requiring the improv actor to continue a skit in the character of ridiculous, made-up superheroes.

  “Overcaffeinated Man!” Lydia shouted.

  “The Stamplicking Kid,” Pete added.

  “No one licks stamps any more,” Jeremy said, perplexed. “They’re all stickers.”

  “He’s got a point, Dad,” Lydia said in response to Pete’s sad face.

  “Okay, how about the Amish Buggy Whipmaker Kid?” Pete grunted.

  “Captain Barnraiser!” Jeremy took a Superman pose and stroked an imaginary beard. That got her dad to laugh, and gave Lydia a second to pause and take it all in.

  Life was good.

  Mike. Every time she felt comfortable with Jeremy, or pushed away the chaos of the last month or two, his name popped into her head. It used to be Matt, her subconscious still at work sorting the deception out. Now, though, her brain seemed to have finally integrated that Mike was Matt.

  Mike.

  Self-sabotage was never fun. Just as she shifted into a world of acceptance, and just as she and Jeremy were forging a new level of their relationship, Mike had to come along and interrupt, inserting himself where he wasn’t wanted.

  Or was he?

  Wanted, that is.

  “Hello?” Pete waved a hand in front of her face. “Earth to Oblivious Woman.” He and Jeremy stared at her expectantly.

  “How about Wonder Woman?” Jeremy kissed the top of her head and she stretched out, careful to keep her cold feet under the blanket. Damn, the man was so tall. No part of her was left without a piece of him to keep her warm.

  Except for her feet.

  In bed, naked, she could slip them between his thighs, always yielding the expected yelp of surprise, then yielding so much more…

  Rein it in, Lydia. Dad’s perplexed look made her libido disappear.

  “Awkward Family Photos Man!” she blurted out.

  “Good one,” Pete muttered. “See? You two are good at this.”

  “I am not performing,” Lydia said flatly.

  “Why not?” Jeremy caught her eye, the question friendly and curious. He actually cared. Really seemed to want to know. Her relationship—whatever you called it—with Mike had been so charged, so clipped and constrained by so many rules and distractions that she’d never been given the opportunity to just hang out like this. Getting to know Mike was an exercise in corporate politics, in violating the norm, in making up rules and breaking them.

  Jeremy? With Jeremy it just flowed. He was a sport for coming here and being awesome and tolerating all her family’s quirks.

  So far.

  It hadn’t been quite twenty-four hours. Giv
e it time. “Fish and houseguests—both start to smell after three days,” her mother always said. Which was odd for a woman who ran a campground, and Lydia told her so.

  “Paying guests are different from houseguests, Lydia,” Sandy had sniffed. “Besides, family isn’t the same. Family is always welcome. But that doesn’t mean they don’t turn rotten after a while.”

  Was Jeremy morphing from houseguest to family before her eyes?

  What about her heart?

  “I’ll tell you why Lydia doesn’t want to perform,” Miles said, walking into the Charles’ living room and plunking down in a leather recliner. “It goes all the way back to, what—’95? ’96?”

  “Shut up,” she barked at him, the old, uncomfortable feeling at the memory stirring inside her.

  “Good thing we didn’t have YouTube back then,” Miles added, his voice with just enough edge to make her widen her eyes and give him a death glare. Don’t you dare, that look said.

  Don’t you fucking dare.

  Jeremy cleared his throat and stood, peeling his awesome warmth off of her, leaving her cold and, now, on guard with Miles and her dad. “Want a drink? I’m getting more water, and…”

  Both men looked at him with neutral eyes.

  “Anyone?”

  “I’m good,” the three said in unison. Jeremy nodded and walked out of the room.

  “He’s nice,” Pete whispered.

  “I’ll rip your balls off,” Lydia started, eyes glued to Miles.

  “Lydia!” her dad barked.

  “Miles is threatening to tell my talent show story!” she whined, hearing her nine-year-old self emerging.

  “It’s a cute story,” Pete said in a nostalgic voice, eyes softening, chest starting to buck with muted laughter. Lydia hoped they’d see reason and not say a word to Jeremy, who returned with a full glass of water and inserted himself right back on the couch. Curling up against him, she shot her dad and Miles daggers.

  Don’t you dare.

  “I want to hear about Lydia’s talent,” Jeremy said.

  “You know my talents,” she stage-whispered in his ear.

  All three men turned a lovely shade of pink, her dad looking a bit sickly. Miles snickered, and Jeremy stared straight ahead, eyebrows raised.

  “Until you set the cat’s tail on fire, you were doing so well,” Pete blurted out.

  “Dad!”

  “And then it ran up that tree. You’re lucky Madge was here, because if she hadn’t thrown that rock with such precision—”

  “Madge?” Jeremy asked.

  “Grandma has perfect aim,” Lydia said in a dead voice.

  “—the cat would never have fallen out. But then it ran for the outhouse and fell in—”

  “And started the outhouse fire,” Miles added.

  “Five fire departments!” Pete exclaimed. “You don’t see that out here in rural Maine! We had some trucks come from nearly two hours away.”

  “Fire was still burning when they got here,” Miles crowed. “We were allowed to stay up all night that night. And that was the first time I ever saw Mom get drunk.”

  Lydia buried her head under the blanket as Jeremy pivoted between the two men, seeming to take it all in. Her old nickname “Lydia Chlamydia” was not nearly as bad as this.

  “We learned not to store propane tanks that close to outhouses,” Pete said.

  “Yeah, not when you have a kid who twirls flaming batons, Dad,” Miles said.

  “And some of the fire departments now have the Lydia Protocol,” Pete explained to Jeremy.

  He gave her a squeeze as she refused to come out from under the blanket. “The Lydia Protocol?” Jeremy asked politely.

  Miles’ voice shifted to that of an announcer, a grandiose sound that made Lydia want to punch him in the neck. “Never assume that a fire extinguisher and two buckets of water on stage is enough to mitigate the possible fire that can result from letting a child twirl a flaming baton.”

  “You were really good, honey,” Pete said, his face sympathetic, though his eyes danced with mirth.

  “I hate you all,” she muttered.

  “You’re good at setting things on fire,” Jeremy said, poking his head under the blanket.

  “Including a large volume of shit,” Miles chimed in.

  “Maybe I should set you on fire, then.”

  And with that, Miles took off, calling back over his shoulder as Lydia poked her head out. “Hide the cat if Lydia’s in the talent show!”

  “You thinking of twirling again?” Sandy had walked into the room just as Miles left. She carried a pile of receipts and a cup of coffee. Her face was neutral. Decidedly too neutral.

  “Only if Miles in nearby and wearing a tail.”

  Sandy made a sour face. “He’s just teasing you.”

  “You all tease me.”

  “I’d tease you, too, with that story,” Jeremy said.

  She whacked his ribs. “Traitor!”

  “It was funny in a horrible kind of way. Except the entire campground smelled like burning…feces,” Sandy said, halting herself from using an expletive. “For a very long time. And the poor cat.” She shook her head sadly.

  “What happened to the cat?” Jeremy asked. Lydia cringed.

  “Well,” Sandy said slowly, her eyes cutting between Lydia and Jeremy, “After it fell in the outhouse and set the shit, er…feces on fire, it scrambled out and ran to the ocean. My mom found it the next day, bruised in the eye from the rock she’d thrown at it, tail burnt down like a wizard’s wand, and the vet we took her to didn’t even charge us for treating her. Said it was the best story he’d heard in his thirty-year career.”

  Jeremy looked at Lydia, then Sandy.

  “I have a question.”

  “What?” Lydia whined.

  “Was the cat’s name Lucky?”

  Both women groaned. “Actually, yes,” Sandy said, laughing.

  And that was the moment when Lydia realized she’d fallen a little bit in love with him.

  More than a little bit.

  Mike crouched down on a fallen log at the very end of a long trail on the side across from the campground, waiting for something.

  He didn’t know what.

  A ten mile hike, walking at the fastest clip he could push himself to achieve, had only made his hamstrings scream, and left him sweaty and dehydrated. The rotting log looked safe enough, and as it was on the edge of the trail, he decided to sit and contemplate for a bit.

  Driving his body hard was old hat to him.

  Driving his mind to stop thinking about the implications of Lydia’s homecoming was all too fresh and novel.

  And then there was Jeremy…

  Once Lydia and Jeremy saw him, the entire charade would be over. Outed again. When the hell did he become some sort of man in disguise, like a spy with really low stakes? Being part of Meet the Hidden Boss had seemed so strategic, a tactic that was supposed to pay off—and pay off big.

  Instead, it shattered his world and nearly destroyed Lydia’s. The only person who had come out remotely ahead in this crazy game was Diane, who was supposedly in talks with FX to have her own reality TV show.

  Everyone else was walking wounded.

  Maybe not Lydia, though. Her enjoyment with Jeremy was evident. She seemed happy enough. Back home in the fold with her wonderful, nurturing parents, getting to know Jeremy, getting over Mike…maybe that was exactly how he should leave it.

  Everything in him screamed no.

  Leaving wasn’t in his nature. Walking away wasn’t what he did. The past month or two of his life was the exception—not the rule. The rule in Michael Bournham’s life was to pick a goal and achieve it.

  Losing Lydia had been soul crushing—not only because he’d lost someone he’d come to love, but simply because he’d lost.

  Michael Bournham didn’t lose.

  Michael Bournham didn’t walk away.

  Ironic, though, that this was exactly what he’d done this morning, paddling of
f as Jeremy and Lydia walked back to camp, carefully avoiding them and her family as he’d grabbed a backpack for the long kayak and hike through the uninhabited island. Being around no one except himself was what he needed, to clear his mind and figure out what to do next.

  Ten miles later, he had no more of a plan than when he’d started.

  How could he be left so confused by her? Nothing about Lydia made sense. No strategy he normally used to navigate life worked with her. She was confounding and mysterious, feisty and incorrigible, exciting and passionate, and now he had none of that.

  While Jeremy had it all.

  Weary legs pushed him up, the slow walk home fueled by urgency that built in him step by step. The big reveal had been taken completely out of his hands when he had been Matt.

  Now he had a new reveal, and it would be done on his terms.

  And his terms alone.

  Jeremy checked his phone, alone in his cabin and without Lydia for a few hours. Pete had invited him to come over to drink beer, shoot the shit and pretend to repair stuff in his little work shed, but Jeremy had demurred, citing a handful of work matters. His little MacBook Air was all he needed to check investments, but what he really wanted was time to try to track Mike down.

  He’d gone completely underground for weeks now, and aside from being told by Mike’s mom that he was fine and in contact with her by phone every week, Jeremy had no fucking clue what had happened.

  Mike didn’t do this. Disappearing off the face of the earth wasn’t his thing.

  That was Jeremy’s thing, actually. Swapping places felt unreal.

  As he opened his email, answered a few urgent questions about some micro-loan programs he’d invested in and checked his brokerage accounts, he found a trend in Bitcoin that made him log in and perform some trades. Virtual currency was an enigma that he wished he understood better. Programmers who were hungrier and less financially settled could take it and run with it. He had cash. That was his contribution to the crypto-currency movement. And so far, with some basic analytics and a few investment protocols tweaked by hunch and good timing, he’d made a killing.