Dirty Princes: A Standalone MMF Romantic Comedy

by Jo Raven

  This is turning out to be the longest one-hour drive of my life.

  ***

  They drop me off first, and I hesitate with Fluff’s crate in my hands and my bag resting on the sidewalk beside me. Not sure this was the best idea, letting them go off without me. I hope they won’t come to blows again.

  They never explained why they punched each other the other day in the first place. I mean… Ryan said they were fighting over me, but that can’t be true, right?

  “This sucks,” I inform Fluff as I let myself into my apartment. “It really sucks.”

  I feel beaten, in every sense. Achy. Exhausted. Unable to concentrate. I set my bag down right inside the door and drop on the couch.

  What we did this morning might not affect asshole Ryan, but the evidence of what he did to me aches dully inside me. Like an imprint of his cock, a burn from the friction.

  I wish I could erase the sensation, the ghostly feel of him in me. Scrub myself clean.

  Start over.

  The tears come. I thought they never would.

  It took me long enough to realize how important it is to me to find a man who’ll see me, want me… love me. Not just a man to catch in my nets and haul home like a prize.

  And that’s Riddick. Probably. If he doesn’t change his mind, too.

  Certainly not Ryan.

  I was mistaken. In many ways. I have to accept it. My quest has turned out to be an old wreck that’s hiding no treasure.

  There is no gold. Only rust.

  Part III

  Prince Ryan refused to listen to his heart and abandoned Brylee and Riddick.

  So Brylee wept and grew her hair long, binge-watched teenage dramas and bought the cat a climbing pole—and herself a similar toy, FYI—but to no avail:

  Winter came to Brylee country. She baked cookies and cupcakes, and buttered muffins, without any double meaning whatsoever. She tried to forget Ryan.

  At least she had Riddick. Together they’d weather the winter, with lots of sex to keep them warm. Together they’d try to move on and stop thinking of Ryan, to accept he was gone from their lives.

  But as it turns out, stopping love is not that simple…

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Upside Down Muffs

  Riddick

  Ryan parks the car in front of my building, and pulls on the handbrake. Rain is pelting the windshield, liquid sheets of glass.

  “If all you wanted was a fuck,” I say calmly, way too calmly, “you could have said so. Maybe that’s all I wanted, too.”

  He flinches, a tiny jerk. The only reason I see it is because I’m looking at him so intently. “Go to hell, Rid.”

  “It’s no big deal. I fuck guys all the time. It was nothing special to me.”

  A lie.

  “What do you want from me?” Low. Pained.

  He doesn’t get to play that role anymore. “You know what I want. What I wanted. I’m not so sure I do anymore.”

  I’m trying to hurt him. Like he hurt me.

  His face contorts. Maybe it’s working, or maybe he’s just annoyed I’m not out of his car yet. “Whatever, man.”

  “If it was such a big deal to you, if it freaked you out so fucking bad…yeah, not like you’re talking about it, is it? Like if you’d never taken it up the ass before…”

  This time I don’t expect the flinch and it twists something inside me.

  Wait a fucking minute… what if he really hadn’t done it before? “Ryan—”

  “It wasn’t a big deal to me, either.”

  Jesus fucking Christ. “Of course not. I can tell.” I open the car door and jump out, groaning when my back screams agony at me. “Fuck.”

  “Rid.” He climbs out of the car, too, in the rain, staring at me, the water running over his face. “You okay?”

  “Shut up.” I lean against the car, clutching the back of my thigh, gritting my teeth.

  Ryan’s face is pale, his eyes wide, emotion shifting behind the mask for the first time in hours. “Riddick—”

  “Oh, fuck off.” Wrenching the backseat door open, I haul my duffel bag out and start limping around the car, pain making me stagger. “I don’t need your fucking help. I don’t need anybody’s help.”

  I’m so damn angry.

  So damn disappointed and sad.

  “You should go out with Brylee,” he says after me, and I almost stumble and fall on my face. “She loves you. I told you.”

  I’m bent over, breathing through the pain in my body, in my soul.

  “You know what?” I grind out. “Maybe I will. Know something else? Whether I do or not is none of your fucking business. Not anymore. So you can go fuck yourself.”

  He doesn’t seem to listen. “And you should give up smoking. It’s bad for your health. You should take care of yourself, Rid.”

  Yeah, yeah.

  He’s saying something else, but I’m already moving away, out of earshot, across the sidewalk and into the building. I keep going, dragging my leg, my teeth grinding, my thoughts fuzzy.

  Fuck you, Ryan Dawson.

  No lover has ever made me cry. You won’t be the first. I won’t let you.

  Not when there’s so much more that’s worth my goddamn tears.

  ***

  Popping some painkillers, I head straight to bed. I don’t care if it’s still midday. I hurt, and I don’t wanna face the world—the gray skies, my empty apartment, the reality that keeps crashing back into my life.

  Ryan’s cold expression.

  When I next wake up in the late evening, I’m drenched in sweat and panting with pain. In my dreams I was running from a skeletal hand that was raking its burning claws down my spine and into my leg.

  Coincidence? I don’t think so.

  Fuck this shit. I need stronger painkillers, but I don’t keep anything like that at home. Nothing that could get me addicted. That’s how Mom got hooked.

  Xavier, too, maybe.

  Fuck, no. I can take it. My pain threshold is sky-high. At least that’s what I thought until today.

  It’s like the crack in my chest is echoed in my body, tearing me apart.

  I swallow the last of my over-the-counter painkillers and roll back into bed. Sleep cures many things, I’m told.

  So do your thing, Sleep.

  If nothing else, it’s an escape.

  I wake up again in the early morning hours of Monday, groaning, my back on fire, my leg numb. What the hell.

  Another loader, Dan, had to have surgery in his back after he ruptured a disk from lifting heavy weights. Always a risk in this job.

  No. This can’t happen to me. I’m much younger than Dan. I’ve never had back problems. And I’ve got work to do.

  Limping around the house like a hundred-year-old, cursing with every step, I struggle to put some breakfast together—and then I sit and stare at it, feeling sick.

  Not good.

  I manage a hot shower, and that helps a bit, but by the time I sit on my bed to get dressed for work, I’m feeling faint from the pain.

  Yeah, this isn’t looking good at all.

  Don’t be such a baby, Rid. Get up. On your feet.

  A few agony-infused moments later, I find myself hanging from the edge of the bed, the room dim and my head too light.

  When I struggle to get up, the pain hits me like a sledgehammer. The room dims again as I fight for breath past my gritting teeth.

  Fuck, I need to call Jet.

  I fish my cell out of my pocket and fumble with the buttons, cursing. The display informs me I’m calling someone, but that’s not Jet’s number.

  I hit disconnect and lie facedown on the bed, trying to catch my breath. I think I’m just gonna lie here for a bit. Just to get my breath back. It’s still early.

  Time slips away in fits and bursts, the pain a constant presence, until an insistent noise catches my attention.

  My phone.

  Fuck. I bring it to my ear and press Connect. “Mfm.”

  “Rid?” A pa
use. “Rid. Can you hear me?”

  “Ugh.” I try my dry lips. “Bry?”

  “Rid, what’s going on?”

  I try to move and gasp. “Nothing.”

  “You sound all wrong. Are you sick?”

  “Just… my back.”

  “Hold on.” She sounds like she’s moving. “What happened? How bad is it?”

  I try to roll over and swallow a sob when I move my leg. “Dunno.”

  “You need to see a doctor,” she’s saying.

  Fuck that. “I’m okay,” I say stubbornly, as if denying it will fix the issue.

  “You need to rest, take days off work,” she says, and I hang my head.

  “I can’t take days off work.”

  “Tell me you can walk. Tell me you can work.”

  I say nothing. Not sure I can. Can I stand up? Can I walk? Can I lift heavy boxes? How the hell am I gonna work?

  This sucks. This is… so fucking bad. I manage to sit up, sweating. My jaw hurts, it’s clenched so tight. “Why did you call me? How did you know?”

  “Ryan said you called him and hung up.”

  “Fuck. I thought I was dialing Jet.” I frown. “Sorry, Princess. I bet your Prince was pissed off I woke him so early in the morning.”

  She hesitates. “Actually he sounded concerned. Asked if your back was okay.”

  “Yeah. Bullshit.” I drag myself to the edge of the bed, the pain returning, slicing through my back and leg like a knife. “Fuck.”

  “I’m coming to pick you up. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

  “No way. I need to get to work—”

  “See you in five.”

  I huff, closing my eyes, and throw the phone on the bed. “Love you, girl,” I say into the silence.

  So fucking much.

  I just wish… I wish I could figure Ryan out. Figure out myself, why I still want him, and how to erase him from my mind.

  ***

  “It looks like a pinched nerve,” the doctor says, a gray sixty-something guy with a goatee and a soothing voice. “What we call sciatica.”

  “Awesome.” I lick my dry lips. “Am I getting surgery?”

  “We don’t operate unless there’s no other way,” he says, and I relax marginally. “Take the anti-inflammatories, lie down and rest. If it’s not better in a few days, we’ll have to see what other options we have.”

  Fuck. More days off work. At this rate, I’ll be on the street in no time. Cardboard box house, here I come.

  “You may want to think about finding a different job,” the doctor goes on, helping me to sit up on the examination table. “Lifting weights with your back problems will only aggravate them, and may cause permanent damage. As it is, I believe the anti-inflammatories will be enough, but next time…”

  I’m shaking as I sit there, gripping the edge of the table and hanging my head. Another job? What other job can I do? I’ve been a warehouse loader ever since I finished school.

  I just can’t catch a break, can I?

  “Thank you,” Brylee tells the doctor, her face serious. “I’ll make sure he takes the pills. And to use the compresses.”

  I wanna joke with her about rubbing my back and my ass, but the memory of the weekend hits me square in the chest, and I say nothing.

  I get a shot of strong painkillers, and we’re done.

  She helps me up and into a wheel chair, then rolls me out of the doctor’s office, through the hospital, down elevators and through hallways.

  I let her, lost, clutching the prescription and patient care instructions in my hands, unable to see a way out—out of here, out of the financial problems, out of the mess inside my head.

  “Your friend not with you today?” the reception nurse asks as we head out, and Brylee stops.

  “My friend?”

  “Mr. Dawson. He was looking for you the other day.”

  Brylee’s mouth tightens. “Right. No, he’s not with us today. How do you even know his name?”

  “Oh, I know Ryan. I know all of you.” She smiles.

  I recognize her, too. She’s been around the last couple of times Mom ODed. But why would she know Ryan?

  Before I get a chance to ask, Brylee pushes me past the desk and outside, into the cold morning. We’re silent as we reach her car and she helps me out of the wheelchair and into the passenger seat.

  She’s surprisingly strong.

  She helps me buckle on the safety belt and strokes my face.

  “Bry…” I whisper, not sure why my lungs feel crushed, not sure what I need.

  But she knows. She hugs me, and I bury my face in her neck, shaking, holding on tight.

  “What am I gonna do?” I whisper. “What the fuck am I gonna do?”

  “Shh.” She rocks me like a child, and I grip her tighter. “We’ll be okay. I’m here. We’ll do this together. I promise.”

  Slowly, gently, she wraps me up in words and kisses, in promises of a way out of the dead-end I’ve found myself in. In her warmth and strength, I let myself believe and relax my hold at last, letting her up.

  “I love you,” I whisper before she ducks out of the car.

  She stills. Smiles, her eyes lighting up. “I love you, too, Rid.”

  Just like that. So easily.

  She closes the door, and I laugh quietly to myself, not because she’s funny, but because she makes me happy.

  This girl…

  ***

  The doorbell is ringing.

  I’m dozing on the sofa, where Brylee left me earlier this morning, after rubbing heating gel into my back and making sure I took my pills and ate breakfast. Day Two of my convalescence, Day Two of my sick leave.

  Good news is, the pain is more manageable, so I have hopes of avoiding surgery.

  Bad news is that I still can’t go back to work. And according to the doctor, I should start looking for a desk job. No idea how to get one just with my GED and no job experience in that area.

  How to find another job that will net me enough money to live on.

  The doorbell rings again and I groan, sitting up. “Who the hell is it?”

  Couldn’t they call me on the phone? I blink blearily around, but my phone is a no-show. Probably forgot it in the bedroom or the bathroom last night.

  The memory of sleeping beside Brylee all night long has me grinning—until I stand up and the pain hits again. Muted, sure, but still pretty bad.

  “Coming!” I growl when the annoying ring shrills through the apartment. “Fuck, I’m on my way.”

  I limp across the living room and unlock the door, throw it open, and blink.

  A disheveled, pale Ryan is standing on my doorstep. He’s unshaven, and his shirt is wrinkled. He looks terrible.

  And it doesn’t make me feel any better seeing him like this.

  “What do you want?” I get out.

  “I just…” He frowns. “Are you all right, Rid? Shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “Is this why you’re here?”

  “I tried calling, but you didn’t pick up. I got worried.”

  A bitter snort escapes me. “You can shove your worry up your ass, R.”

  “Wait.” He puts out a hand as I start to close the door. “I have news from your brother.”

  I freeze. Suddenly my knees are weak, and I have to lean against the doorframe for support. “Where is he?”

  “He’s well. He’s safe.”

  Holy shit. I’d slide down all the way to the floor, but my back jolts me and I wince, straightening as best I can. “Where?”

  “You shouldn’t be up,” he says, brows knitted, and takes my arm.

  I jerk it free, stumbling away from him, and curse out loud at the pain.

  Ryan rubs both hands over his face. “Jesus, Rid. I just want to help you back to bed.”

  I contain my anger with an effort. He did this for me, found my brother. I shouldn’t spoil it by punching his lights out. “Where. Is. He?”

  Ryan pulls out his phone. “I’ll give you the num
ber of the rehab center.”

  “He’s… in rehab?”

  Ryan nods. “He was staying with a girl at first, but then decided to sign himself into a state-run rehab center.” He looks up, his green eyes wary. “I talked to him. He says he didn’t want to come back before he was clean. He looks up to you, Rid.”

  I snort derisively and stagger to the sofa, lower myself down before my legs give out for good. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” I lean back, rubbing my back and grimacing. “You talked to him.”

  He steps inside, cell phone in hand. “Here is the number. I’ll send it to you. Call and ask for him.”

  I nod. “Send me the fee of the PI, too. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”

  My voice cracks on the last word, and I swallow hard.

  He puts his phone away and shoves his hands into the pockets of his tailored pants. He has a deep crease between his brows and dark smudges under his eyes. “There’s no need.”

  “No, there’s every fucking need.” Just like that, I’m angry again. “I don’t wanna owe you.”

  He winces. “You don’t. I promise.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  He opens his mouth, then seems to think better of it. He looks away. “Brylee been taking care of you?”

  I shut my mouth and clench my jaw against the words that want out.

  “She’s good for you. She’s—”

  “You’re a bastard, R.” I try to get up and fall back down on the cushions. “She loves you. I love you. How do you think…?” I shake my head, struggle for calm. “Get the hell out.”

  His breath comes out in a grunt, and he actually takes a step back and presses a hand to his chest, as if I punched him.

  Good. I wish I could punch him right now.

  “Rid…”

  “Get out, now.”

  His gaze meets mine, and the shine of unshed tears in his eyes stuns me for a moment. What the hell is going on?

  Then he turns around and walks out, closing the door behind him, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Bittersweet Licorice Sticks

  Ryan

  I stagger out of the building and head toward my car, gripping my chest. The pain has worsened today.