Dirty Princes: A Standalone MMF Romantic Comedy

by Jo Raven

  The doc says it will pass and gives me more painkillers. They make for some interesting psychedelic dreams where Brylee is cooking rainbows and Riddick is fishing storm clouds.

  We eat the rainbows and clouds together. They taste of hope. Brylee gives some to her cat and the cat starts to float on the air. I laugh.

  I miss them. And they’re walking away from me.

  It’s getting colder.

  “No, wait, Bry,” I whisper. “Rid? Don’t go.”

  My hands are clenched in the sheets. There’s coolness on my cheeks. I don’t know what the fuck is going on. Am I still asleep?

  “We’re not going anywhere,” a voice says.

  “Cold.” My teeth are chattering.

  “You just need to rest.”

  Someone is stroking my hair. It feels good. I decide it’s probably a dream and let myself sink down once more.

  Even the dead have fallen quiet.

  But maybe that’s a good sign.

  ***

  I blink, conscious of warmth seeping through the covers, into my aching bones. The lights are low, the monitors beeping quietly away.

  There is a weight on my legs, on my hips.

  Arms are draped over me. Two heads come up when I make a noise, trying to speak.

  “Water,” she says, and he gets up, broad shoulders straining his blue sweater, pale eyes intent as he lifts a cup with a straw to my mouth.

  “You’re awake,” he says, and smiles.

  I’m so focused on the smile, so joyful, so wide, that I almost choke on the water.

  “Easy,” he says. “That’s enough.” He takes the glass away.

  “Ryan?” She gets up, too, and comes to sit by my head. “How do you feel?”

  “Like a truck ran me over,” I rasp and wince at the sound of my cracked voice. “Repeatedly.”

  “Don’t worry,” Riddick says. “We got the license plate down.”

  I snort, and even that little motion jolts something in my chest, turning it into bright, hot pain. “Ow. Dammit.”

  “Sorry, man.” He takes away the cup, frowning. “I didn’t think—”

  “I’m okay.” Coming through gritted teeth, it doesn’t sound too convincing, but hey, I can’t do more.

  He flashes me a quick smile and the weight on my chest lightens.

  Brylee’s hand brushes over my forehead, strokes back my hair. I recognize her touch and her voice from my dreams. Her pretty eyes are sad.

  “Hey, I really am fine,” I insist, and it comes out as a frog’s dying croak. “Bry…”

  “You know us,” she says, choked up, and I stare at her in incomprehension. “Your eyes were open before, but you didn’t recognize us,” she explains. “You ran a high fever for two days. Worried the doctor. But you’re much better now.”

  High fever could explain the weird dreams. Maybe it wasn’t all due to the drugs.

  Something else is bothering me, though, and I can’t put my finger on it. It itches at the back of my mind worse than the IV needle stuck in my arm.

  “You’re here.” Yeah, this is it. “Why are you here? You weren’t supposed to know, you weren’t supposed to…”

  To care.

  I swallow back the words, and it’s hard because there’s a lump in my throat. Maybe it’s my heart, trying to beat its way out my chest.

  On cue, the monitor starts beeping louder.

  “Shit. Call the doctor.” Brylee starts to get up, but I catch her hand and pull her back down. “We should call her.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Don’t...” Her voice wobbles. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  I blink, not sure what she means.

  “Don’t ever hide from us that you’re sick again,” Riddick clarifies, pale eyes flashing in my direction.

  Oh, that. “I didn’t think I’d make it.”

  “Asshole.” Somehow said affectionately. “You don’t get to choose the truth for us. Swear never to keep such secrets from us.”

  It seems so important to them. “All right.” I try to gather my thoughts. It’s not easy. “Why… are you here?”

  “A nurse here told us we could visit you,” Riddick says, and I nod automatically.

  I feel strangely… disappointed.

  No fucking idea why.

  “She told us you had had surgery,” Brylee says, her face drawn with what looks like fatigue and worry. “She got us in to see you. You’d just come out of the operating room. You were…”

  Her voice catches and she bites her lip.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her, and I mean it, I’m sorry for everything, and I want to explain, but my energy is fading fast. “So sorry. I am…”

  My lids are heavy, too heavy.

  “We’re here because of you,” Brylee says, waking me up. “Because you’re ours.”

  Her words swirl in the black hole that is my mind right now. What does she mean?

  “And we’re yours,” Riddick says, sitting on my other side.

  His words sink in faster and I blink. Wait…is he really saying what I think he’s saying?

  “But what the hell was that stunt you pulled with your will?” he goes on blithely, unaware of my confusion. “You’re changing it back the way it was the moment you’re out of the hospital.”

  I don’t even ask how they know about my will. “I am?” I say faintly.

  “Rid!” Brylee is making hushing noises. “Not now. He’s tired. And it was sweet of him.”

  “Whatever. I don’t want no sugar daddy,” Riddick says, and unexpectedly leans in to kiss my cheek. “I want a boyfriend. I want you, man. Just you. No bells and whistles.”

  “Just remember I saw him first,” Brylee says and sticks out her tongue at him.

  No idea what the fuck they’re talking about but my mouth twitches, and hell, it’s been a while since I last smiled.

  “Funny,” I whisper, still smiling, and drift back into sleep.

  ***

  “I want you. Just you.”

  And then, “Remember I saw him first.”

  Christ. Did that really happen? That part of the conversation?

  Frowning at the far wall—since I was finally allowed this morning to a half-sitting position and given funky green Jell-O via the mouth, yeah, talk about oral pleasures—I try to decide whether those words were part of a dream.

  They have to be, right?

  I mean, we’ve established that I fucked up royally this time with Brylee and Riddick. It’s a wonder they still speak to me, to be honest.

  Man, I look forward to the drug-free day when I’ll be able to tell reality apart from dream again. It will be a fucking relief.

  Being able to tell my feelings apart will be an improvement, too. Though, I know what I feel. This isn’t friendship. It isn’t camaraderie. It certainly isn’t a crush.

  No, it’s more. So much more it scares me. And if they don’t want me in their lives anymore…

  I clench my hands helplessly on the covers, twisting the thin blanket.

  Let’s go over this again, Ryan. Why would they want you in their lives? You acted like a selfish prick, you pushed them away repeatedly, you weren’t there for them. You basically threw them together and gave them your blessing.

  They’re happier together, without you.

  And then there’s the matter of lust.

  I lift a shaky hand, place it over the extensive bandages covering me from navel to clavicle. I haven’t seen the incision yet, but I bet it’ll leave a nasty scar.

  Behold Frankenstein’s Monster. Who’d want to see this while having sex?

  Nobody in their right mind, that’s for sure.

  I’m still gathering the pieces of this past week. The days after the surgery were hazy at best, the infection I developed and the high fever throwing me out of the loop even more. Today my thoughts finally seem clear. It’s as if someone took off my brain’s glasses, cleaned the lenses and put them back on, so that I can see and hear and think.

&
nbsp; Small mercies. Small victories.

  Also, the nurses and doctors stopped running inside whenever the heart monitor went off for whatever reason—a bad dream, an emotional thought…

  I got a lot of those. Both bad dreams and emotional thoughts. Apparently it’s the drugs. But not only.

  And yeah, I am thankful.

  But I also feel… lost. Without direction. Not having the energy to lift the spoonful of wobbly Jell-O to my mouth sure isn’t helping things, but it’s more than that.

  I’ve always been a confident guy. Apart from spending half my life with the certainty I could die at any moment from my faulty heart, I never thought twice about hooking up with chicks and boys, even if just for the night. Never questioned their attraction.

  Never questioned my general lack of involvement, or the fact I wasn’t after anything more. Because I was here temporarily. On lease. Because it was just a night of pleasure, nothing more. Because I didn’t have to search any deeper inside me.

  I can’t hide anymore. I’d give anything to get Brylee and Riddick back. But stuck here, I don’t know how to fight for them. How to win them back. Breathing on my own and eating Jell-O isn’t much of a win in the battle toward regaining their trust.

  This sucks balls. It feels like, I don’t know… Like knowing all your life Santa doesn’t exist, then you find out he does exist but you told him to fuck off one time too many.

  Yeah, this is definitely the drugs talking.

  Or else I’ve gone off the deep end already.

  My father comes and goes, and I’m too distracted to pay attention to half of what he says. The doctor comes to check me up and the only thing I want to know is whether Brylee and Riddick are coming to visit today.

  But they’re not. The first day that I’m really lucid, and they don’t make it.

  Or maybe now I’m past the danger of checking out of this mortal plane, and they don’t feel they have to visit anymore. They’ve done their duty as friends to the prickly son-of-a-bitch and now they are done, and who can blame them?

  Not me, that’s for sure.

  I’m not angry. I have no fucking right to be. Or sad. I’m happy for them, I really am. Instead I try to focus enough to read a book I brought with me—“try” being the operative word, as I can’t manage more than a paragraph at a time before falling asleep.

  Having your body carved open and your heart cut and sewn together again takes a lot out of a guy. Seriously. I don’t recommend it. Not fun at all.

  I read, I sleep, I slurp my tasteless soup, I nod when my father speaks when he drops by the next day, and I don’t mope.

  Not at all. I’m a grown man and I won’t panic and won’t fall apart, drugs or not.

  It’s a struggle though, as the hours pass, and they don’t show up. Maybe I dreamed it all up, their smiles, their warm arms around me, their concern.

  Or maybe I misread it.

  It keeps coming back to that. I saw what I wanted to see, and being stoned helps with that. Just because they were kind enough to drop by a few times doesn’t mean…anything.

  Right.

  But the thing is, knowing I’m not going to kiss this world goodbye just yet has changed the game. Changed how I see life.

  Until now I wasn’t living. I realize that. What do I do about it, though? How do I get the two people I need back?

  Is there a way?

  The doctor comes to tell me I’ll be discharged today, asks if I have someone to drive me home and help me out.

  Feed me my Jell-O and change my diapers until I can do it on my own, she means. I smile grimly and tell her I do.

  I’ll call a cab. Not a big deal, and she doesn’t need to know, or she’ll tell my father. Last thing I need is my father coming to pick me up and fussing over me, as much as my father would.

  He’d probably drop me off at the door and ask if he needs to hire a nurse for me.

  No, thanks. I’ll fucking take care of myself. Part of being a grown-up man and all.

  So I’m all prepared and shit, mentally, psychologically, my defenses in place, my plan made up about how to get out, call that cab, how to do this on my own.

  I’ve got this. Everything’s fine. I don’t need anyone to babysit me, after all. Much better this way.

  Like I told Riddick: I don’t need anyone.

  Such a fucking lie.

  When the nurse comes in with a wheelchair to tell me it’s time, I swing my legs off the bed, manage to swallow a gasp at the pain in my chest, and nod to let her know I’m ready.

  As ready as I’ll ever be.

  She helps me out of the weird-ass hospital gown, makes a tsk sound at the sight of all the bandages, and gives me a small lecture on all the things I need to do to avoid returning here.

  I know. The list is branded in my memory. I’m getting impatient for her to finish tying up my shoelaces so that I can get out of here, even if it means doing so in a fucking wheelchair, my whole body already shaking with exhaustion.

  I can do this, though. I can damn well do it.

  There is no other way.

  Shaking and dizzy with the tiredness, with the mixture of the drugs and pure adrenaline in my blood, I don’t immediately realize who else has just stepped into my room.

  And when I do, when I see them…Goddammit, all those carefully reconstructed defenses crumple away like dry leaves.

  I stare at them, not finding the words to ask why they’re there.

  “He’s coming home with us,” Brylee tells the nurse who hesitates, then nods and bids me goodbye before leaving.

  I swallow hard. “Home?” I manage, willing my eyes to stay dry.

  “Where else?” Riddick says with a wink. “Unless the declarations of love you made to us while zoned out were all happy drug talk and not what you feel.”

  I blame that wink for breaking me. That, and the possibility of them thinking I don’t feel anything for them.

  “I love you.” The words are out before I can stop them. “So fucking much. Both of you.”

  Yeah, that’s what shatters me. Baring myself completely. Admitting how I feel. Giving in to hope. I just didn’t think there was a chance of it ever happening, and now…

  When they come over to me and put their arms around me, I hide my face in their necks, fall into their hold, and stop trying to be strong.

  Love isn’t about being strong.

  Love is about allowing yourself to rely on others. Trusting them. Believing in them. Wanting them by your side. Being there for them.

  Love is everything. You only realize when you think you’ve lost it forever and it comes back—to save you.

  I see it now. Starting to understand. I had a beacon in the dark while I battled to survive. I had a reason to come back. Their voices, their touch brought me back, I’m sure of it.

  Now there’s hope, and it burns bright.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Epilogue: Cookies with Nut Filling

  Brylee

  We have Ryan back.

  I can’t believe how happy I am. How relieved I am. I was so frigging afraid back there for a while. The surgery went well, but a minor infection was enough to keep him in intensive care two days longer. Seeing him lost in nightmares, even when his eyes were open, scared the crap out of me.

  Almost broke my heart.

  It definitely broke my heart that he tried to spare us the pain of losing him by withdrawing. I now know that was the reason he kept me, us, at a distance for so long. I know that he’s been so lonely and hopeless. That he thought he had no future to plan for.

  Riddick and I talked about this. It’s time to start making plans, with him. Gently forcing him to accept the fact he’s going to live. And live a full life. With all the perks, including love, and sex.

  Yeah, sex.

  I repeat the word in my head and I don’t care if I’m blushing. I need my guys. I need them around me, inside me, to become part of me.

  Though they already are part of me.

 
When did this happen? It crept up on me, in small, light steps. I can’t remember realizing when I went from desperately chasing after Ryan and pushing Riddick away to wanting them and loving them both.

  Knowing they want me and love me back is like walking among unicorn rainbows. In golden, late afternoon sunshine. Along a moonlight path on the sea at night.

  They stood by me, fought to be with me and each other. Easing their pain and making them laugh makes me happy. I love my guys so much.

  My guys. Wait until I tell Mom how things turned out. She won’t believe me.

  Plus, I won’t deny that knowing they don’t care about my housekeeping skills and cooking is a relief.

  In fact, Ryan said he doesn’t want a cook, he wants a girlfriend, which made Riddick snicker.

  And Riddick said all he wants is my pussy, so I told him Fluff is all his.

  I still laugh when Fluff jumps into his lap. He has to feed her, too.

  Okay, afterward he said something else. He said, I don’t care about food, I don’t care about anything if I get to be with you.

  Rid says such beautiful things. For a tattooed, rough boy, he’s such a poet at heart.

  It turns out the heart has so many different beats and paths and meanings. I’d never realized until Ryan’s almost gave out. His patched heart.

  His heart of gold.

  And he says it’s ours.

  ***

  Ryan refused to change his will. He says the lake house is ours. That it belongs to the three of us. His father agreed.

  And asked to have lunch with us.

  Ryan says it’s the first time his father has asked to meet his boyfriend or girlfriend. Of course he also says he never had any serious relationship before us.

  Cue instant blushing.

  I swear, someday I’ll get blisters from it, but aww. We are the first ever serious relationship he’s ever had. Isn’t that so sweet? It’s the first serious one for me, too, and for Riddick as well.

  And Ryan’s father seems nice. A bit stern but kind, and so supportive of his son. So concerned about him. We walked into Ryan’s room more than once to find his father holding his hand and talking to him during those scary days when Ryan was so sick he was incoherent.

  Not to forget, he never batted an eye at our relationship with Ryan, and he’s a military man. In those circles, it’s not always easy to keep an open mind.