THE DIRTY ONES

by JA Huss

  A giggle makes me whirl around, and then there’s a flash of disappearing nightgown around a corner.

  “Who’s there?” I ask. Then I roll my eyes at myself. I sound like a dumb girl in a horror movie. “Whoever the fuck that is—”

  “Connor!” Hayes called.

  “Dude!” I yell back. “I’m lost!” And then I laugh, too loud.

  “I’m in the conservatory!”

  Another laugh burbles up. Because I think of Camille and her stupid Clue references last night. I’m pretty sure people get killed with a candlestick in the conservatory.

  Or is that the observatory? I’m not sure.

  Another giggle behind me, but this time when I whirl around there’s a girl.

  “Emily,” I breathe out. “Shit, you fucking scared me.” And then I say, “This house is creepy as fuck, don’t you think?” Because I don’t know what to do.

  This girl tried to kill me ten years ago. She put a bullet through Kiera’s shoulder.

  “I didn’t do it,” she says.

  “Connor!” Hayes yells. Closer now. “Where the fuck are you?”

  I look around, spy a billiards room, then hate Camille for her stupid Clue game references.

  Emily did it with the pool stick in the billiards room.

  “I’m by the pool table!” I yell back.

  “Which one?” He’s closer, but not close enough to save me from this moment with Emily.

  Jesus Christ. This isn’t happening.

  I clear my throat and speak to Emily. “Um… what now?”

  “I didn’t shoot her.”

  “Yes, you did, Emily. I mean, you actually tried to shoot me, but you missed. Or rather, Kiera threw herself in front of the bullet to save me. So yeah, you absolutely did shoot her. I had blood all over me. I went with her to the hospital. Stayed with her all night.”

  “No, you didn’t,” she says softly, shaking her head of wild hair no.

  “Yes, I did! For fuck’s sake, why are you still here? What do you want?”

  “You need to know the truth,” she says.

  “Connor!” Hayes yells. And he’s very close now.

  I turn and call, “In here!” And when I turn back, Emily is gone. “Where the fuck—”

  “Dude.” Hayes laughs. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Emily,” I say.

  “She’s gone. They found her a few hours ago and took her back to the hospital.”

  “What?” I turn to look at the empty place where Emily was just standing.

  “Yeah, crazy bitch. The dogs found her hiding inside a dumbwaiter. She’s a mess.”

  “But—”

  “Are the girls up?”

  Shit. And now I remember why I was coming to find him. “No. Not yet. But just… you know, last night…” He waits for me to say more, so I do. “Um… well, just thanks, man. I appreciate it.”

  “Hey,” he says, coming up to squeeze my shoulder. “That’s what friends are for.”

  I smile, laugh a little, then turn with him and start walking back to the front of the house.

  But I swear to God, I think I hear the ghost of Emily behind me.

  Laughing.

  Back upstairs the girls are still sleeping, so I gather up my clothes and get dressed in the library. Acutely aware of Hayes, sitting in what I now think of as his chair, watching me with thoughtful consideration.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “No,” I say, tucking in my shirt, trying to pull myself together while wearing the same suit for the third fucking day in a row. “Well, maybe. I’m gonna go home and change.” I laugh a little as I say it, because I know what he’s talking about and my deliberate avoidance is pissing him off.

  “Do you enjoy it?” he asks.

  “Enjoy what?” I ask back, buckling my belt and reaching for my suit coat.

  “This thing you have for being… ambiguous.” He sighs, then says, “No. That’s too mild of a word. You have a problem with commitment, Connor. And it worries me. Because it’s like a disease. If you don’t confront it it will fester and take over.”

  “Look, I said I’d get out of it, OK? And I will.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.”

  I sit down on the chair opposite him and start putting on my shoes, trying not to meet his intense gaze. “I mean… what do you want me to say? I’m just not a good decision-maker. I’m never gonna choose.” I shrug as I stand up, dressed, but certainly not put back together.

  “I can choose for you,” he offers.

  I roll my eyes. “I already know who you’d choose.”

  “Who?”

  “Kiera.”

  “Now why would I do that, Connor? Why the hell would I choose the girl you love? And anyway, Kiera and I have a good friendship. I wouldn’t want to put a strain on it like that.”

  “Like what?” I look around for my coat, then shoulder into it.

  “Singular expectations.”

  I point my finger at him. “See, you’ve got the same disease.”

  He shrugs. “I’ve always wanted Sofia.”

  I stare at him for a second, my head filled with so many things right now. Where I’m at, where I’m supposed to be, the days of work I’ve missed, sex with Kiera, sex with Sofia, sex with Hayes… “Well, is that what you’re gonna do, or what?”

  “No.”

  I wait for more, but whatever he’s really planning stays locked inside that weird head of his. I sigh. Loudly. “Look, can we talk about this later? I gotta go.”

  “Here’s where we’re different,” Hayes says. “You’re only looking for satisfaction. You’re looking for the easier way to make things simple. Do I want Kiera? Or do I want Sofia? When, in actuality, you want both. But both is complicated. Both is a lot of work. Never mind the logistics of getting a girl who lives in Vermont to move to the city, there’s also someone standing in your way. Me. I don’t want the simple, direct route to happiness. If I did, I’d have gone on pretending that book didn’t exist. If I did, I wouldn’t have offered to take your decisions away last night and brought Sofia to your bed. If I did,” he says, kinda angry now, “I wouldn’t have joined the three of you last night. I’m not afraid of complicated, Connor. I welcome it. Crave it. I want everything and that’s where I stand.”

  I… just… blink at him. “Everything?” I say, like a dumbass.

  “Everything we had and lost,” he says. “I want it all back. That’s why I’m here, that’s why you’re here, that’s why we’re all here.”

  There is a lifetime of eternal silence as I internalize what he just said. A lifetime of good sex, and weird days, and exciting adventures in that eternal silence as well.

  “Not like that, asshole.”

  “What?” I say, so thoroughly fucking confused.

  “I want us, man. You know. Normal shit. We can put this all behind us now, Connor. And that’s a beautiful thing, don’t you think?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He sighs. Rubbing a finger along the top of his eyebrow as he shakes his head. “We didn’t even finish the book. How did my perfect plan go so sideways?”

  I glance down at the book, still sitting on the small side table. “Who cares about the book? We know how it ends.”

  “Do we?” Hayes asks. “I mean, I do. I read it. Very carefully.”

  “What?” I say, so off balance at how this morning—hell, this whole week—has just gone completely sideways. “So you knew about it?”

  He nods. “I was thinking I’d just take care of it myself”—he looks away, out the window at the view of the water—“but then you saw it in the airport. I figured it would do its thing, maybe stay on the list a week or two, at most. And be forgotten. Just like everything else that happened back in senior year. And I could wrap this shit up without bringing the rest of you into it. Let you go on with your lives. But…” He shakes his head. Looks me in the eyes. “Now I ca
n’t.”

  For some reason I feel hot. And my heart starts beating too fast.

  “Because you saw it and called Bennett, and he called me, and he told the girls before I could do damage control…” He throws up his hands. “So here we are.”

  “You wrote that book.”

  He shakes his head. “I absolutely did not write that book. We all know who wrote the fucking book, Connor. It was Kiera, remember? We were all there when she wrote it. Hell, we helped. How do you not remember?”

  “I remember. I was there,” I say, echoing what he just said, but getting a weird feeling about it. He opens his mouth to say more, but in that exact instant, my phone dings a text.

  I pull it out of my pocket and stare at the screen.

  “Who is it?”

  “My father,” I say, looking back at Hayes. “He’s pissed. I gotta go.”

  “How long are you gonna let this go on?”

  “I’ll take care of it, OK? I’m fine with telling him I don’t want to run.”

  “And what about all the other stuff, Connor?”

  “What other stuff?”

  “Jesus Christ,” he says, running his fingers through his messed up hair. It’s only then that I notice him. I mean like… really notice him. See him. He’s wearing yesterday’s suit as well. No jacket, just his two-thousand-dollar once starched flat, white button-down shirt that is now rumpled. Half tucked in, half pulled out. His jaw has a shadow across it, which looks good and accentuates his hard features. Maybe even softens them a little, in a masculine way. If that makes sense.

  “What other stuff?” I ask. “You mean the book? I’m not gonna bring that book up to my father.”

  “Why not?” His eyes are blue, I notice. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed that before. Blue. Which contrasts sharply with his nearly-black hair. They hold my gaze and we stare at each other for a long time. Seconds that seem like years. “Maybe you should take the book with you and plop it down on his desk. Ask him what the fuck?”

  “Why the hell would I do that?”

  Hayes huffs out a little breath of air. “Why the hell wouldn’t you is the better question.” He pauses, rakes his fingers through his already tousled hair, and says, “It’s not fair, Connor. To keep her as a mistress. She deserves better after all she’s been through. Either love her whole or set her free.”

  My phone dings again.

  “I gotta go,” I say for like the hundredth time. Only this time there’s no urgency in it. No frustration. No defensiveness.

  “So leave.” And his words come out the same way. No anger. No blame. No expectations.

  “I’ll be back. Where you guys gonna be?”

  “I don’t know, Con. I have no idea.”

  “Call me then, OK? And let me know.”

  But he just stares at me.

  “Can I take one of your cars?” I ask. Because I just realized I have no way home.

  “The helicopter is waiting,” he says, waving a hand at nothing in particular. “I’ll text the pilot and let him know you’re coming.”

  “Thanks,” I say, meaning it. “For, you know… everything.”

  He shakes his head as I walk out the library’s large double doors, calling, “I’ll see you guys later,” over my shoulder.

  I’m sitting in the cold seat of the helicopter, halfway to the city, when I remember Emily.

  Did he lie about her?

  Or did someone lie to him?

  Maybe I made her up? Maybe she was never there? Maybe I’m going crazy? Because I feel like I’m going crazy. This book, and Kiera, and how yesterday turned into last night, and the memories… it’s all very insane-asylum crazy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY - KIERA

  When I open my eyes Sofia is staring at me, her hands tucked under her cheek, light brown eyes catching the light filtering through a pair of sheer drapes so it illuminates those little rings of yellow in her irises.

  “Hey,” she says, smiling at me.

  “Hey.” I smile back. “What time is it?”

  She turns over to peek at a clock. Which I can see without moving, but I don’t care. I like the way her neck looks when she stretches it like that. “Almost two-thirty.”

  “Is Connor still here?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, turning back to me.

  “Hayes?”

  “Haven’t seen him. But I haven’t been up yet, either. So no clue.”

  “How long have you been awake?”

  She shrugs. “Twenty minutes, maybe? Half hour? I dunno.”

  “So… you’ve just been lying here, looking at me this whole time.”

  She smiles again. “Give it a minute, Kiera. Let last night sink in. Then tell me you don’t need thirty minutes to process.”

  “Point,” I say. I turn over on my back to stare at the ceiling, thinking back on what happened last night. “Did I fuck Hayes?”

  We both laugh.

  “Yes,” she says through a building fit of giggles. “Did you like it?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” I mumble, thinking I’m gonna need more than thirty minutes to process.

  “You’re not mad at me?”

  “For what?” I ask, turning my head to see her.

  “Being with Connor.”

  I shrug. “He’s half yours, Sofia. Always has been.”

  “I know, but it felt like things changed yesterday. You two were pretty attached to each other.”

  “Yeah,” I admit. Then I turn all the way back over onto my side so I can see her properly. “But that’s just because we forgot.”

  She blushes. Closes her eyes for an extended second. And when she finally opens them again she says, “I forgot too. But Hayes reminded me. I figured he and I would be together, for the most part, anyway. But then Connor—”

  “We’d finished,” I say in way of explanation. “It was just your turn. That’s all.”

  She nods. Silent. Then says, “Do you think this is weird?”

  I nod back, then whisper, “Yes.”

  “Do you think it’ll work?”

  “I dunno, Sofia.” Then I sigh. “But I’ve been sharing him with you for as long as we’ve been friends. I just want to know my place, that’s all. And if I made you jealous that last night Connor and I were alone together in the tower, then I’m sorry. I didn’t want him to myself to keep you away. I just wanted to know what it felt like to be the only one.”

  She stares at me for a few silent seconds. “Did you like it?”

  I nod. “I did. But I think I like what we did last night better.”

  “You mean… with Hayes?”

  I nod again. “It feels good to be back together. Do you think that makes me a bad person? You know, because of how it all started?”

  “No. Just a normal one. I like being with you guys too.”

  “Hey,” Hayes says.

  We both sit up and find him standing in the doorway looking like a man who’s been fucking three people at the same time.

  Hayes and I have been friends for a long time and never once has he even tried to kiss me outside of senior year when we were all together. Not once. I don’t know how I feel about him, or Sofia, or even Connor, for that matter. I just know I want them with me. Always. Every day. Every night. I never want to go home. I never want to go back to that sad, solitary existence again.

  “Where’s Con?” Sofia asks.

  “Work,” Hayes says. And it comes out kinda angry.

  “Oh,” Sofia and I say in the same breath.

  We have no work to go to.

  Well, that’s not true. We’re just stay-at-home workers with no set schedule.

  Also not true. We have deadlines. Especially me, since I publish a lot more than she does. But they are my deadlines, not anyone else’s. And I don’t have to meet them if I don’t want to.

  The point is, we don’t wake up and go to work. Not like Connor and Bennett do. I have no clue what Hayes does with his days. Not even one. So whether he’s used to lounging around all day
on a Thursday, I have no idea.

  “Well, I need to go home and shower. You wanna come with me?”

  At first I think she’s talking to me, but then I realize she’s looking at Hayes. And then… it hits me that she’s talking to both of us.

  “Yes,” he says. “Get dressed, ladies. We have a lot to do today.”

  He turns away and disappears.

  “What was that about?” Sofia asks.

  “I dunno. The book? Maybe?”

  “Shit, that stupid fucking book. I’d forgotten all about it. I wish it would just disappear. Just leave us alone.”

  I stare at her for a moment because I’d forgotten about her sadness. Which is the kind of sadness that permeates a person. That wraps itself around a person like a blanket. And she has always been a girl who snuggled up to sadness.

  But in these few minutes since waking she was someone else. Someone unfamiliar to sadness. Someone happy and content who didn’t need that blanket emotion to hold on to.

  Sofia throws her legs out from under the covers and swings them over the side of the bed. She sits there for a moment, her back to me, long, dark hair hanging almost to her waist.

  I reach out and touch it and she looks over her shoulder. Hunching them a little. And if I were in front of her, instead of behind, I’d see how that movement pushed her breasts together.

  She has nice breasts. They’re a little bit bigger than mine. Very round and firm.

  She smiles at me, then stands up. I let her hair fall away from my fingertips and study her shape. The curve of her hips and the length of her legs. She bends over, flashing her pussy at me, and picks something up.

  My nightgown, I realize.

  Then she slips it over herself, shoots me a smile over her shoulder, and walks out of the room.

  Fucking Sofia… isn’t bad, I decide.

  But all of this seems like something from the past. Like I’m still caught in a dream. Or a web of… of what?

  The first word that comes to mind is lies.

  But that’s not true. It can’t be true. We were nothing if not truthful. I made sure of it. I wrote it all down in the book.

  I lie there for a little while—a few minutes, maybe—processing. Wondering about the past and trying to imagine the future.