by Sloan Parker
“Stupid fucking door.” I couldn’t remember it ever sticking before. Just my luck that it’d choose right then of all nights to do something like this. I tried again, giving the door handle a tug with both hands, and only then did I remember the door opened inward.
“Duh.” A laugh surged from my chest, a series of low giggles I couldn’t control as I pushed the door in and stumbled inside the house.
Even with the hall light on to guide my way, my foot caught on the edge of the carpet runner, and I pitched forward, ramming my gut into the hall table. I managed to keep the table upright, my hands clasped on each side of it. If only the two sets of keys lying on top weren’t sliding across the surface. I scrambled to catch them, but I was too late. They clattered to the floor, making a racket.
I held still, lying over the table in the silence that followed.
There was no way Richard and Luke had missed all that noise I’d made coming into the house. And then there was the annoying chirping sound behind me. What the hell was that? Had some kind of big-ass bird gotten inside? The chirping was getting louder. I covered my ears and glanced around, spotting no bird or other wildlife on the loose.
“What is that?”
A red flashing light caught my eye.
Oh, right. The house alarm.
I probably only had a minute left to get the dang code entered.
I slipped my backpack off my shoulders, swung the front door shut, and approached the control panel. Without giving it too much thought, I punched in numbers on the keypad, hoping muscle memory would do the trick. It must’ve. The red light turned green, and the chirping halted.
Thank God.
The tiny green light on the panel seemed to glow more vibrant the longer I focused on it, growing brighter and brighter in the darkened house. I felt dizzy again, nauseated.
Then the giggling returned. I hated the way it made me sound. Who giggled when they were feeling sick?
Who giggled at all?
No men I knew. Richard sure didn’t. His deep, sensual laugh was sexy as hell. That sound alone always drove me crazy. So did his toned, tanned body. Every inch of him was masculine and strong. A man’s man. So was Luke. Just the opposite of how I looked and sounded.
I shook my head and spoke to the alarm’s display panel. “What do they even see in me?”
The glowing green light didn’t answer.
I closed my eyes and dropped my head forward until I had my forehead pressed to the wall beside the alarm. Something wet nuzzled my hand at my side. Without opening my eyes, I said, “Hey, baby girl. Did I wake you?”
Trixie licked my fingers, and I laughed again.
No, giggled.
“Matthew?” That deep voice cut through the humor like a shot. Even with my eyes closed, I could tell lights were turning on, could hear two sets of footsteps on the stairs. Then a hand slid across my upper back. “Are you sick?” Richard asked.
“Maybe. I don’t feel right.” There was no missing the slur of my words. I opened my eyes in time to see Luke lift a hand to my forehead.
“You catch that flu going around?”
I swiped his arm away. “No.” I laughed again. Why the hell couldn’t I stop laughing? Then I got a good look at them, and the amusement was gone. They were serious as hell, wearing only their underwear and two concerned, confused expressions.
“I’m sorry I woke you guys up.” I pushed away from the wall. Only I didn’t come to a stop soon enough. I started to pitch backward. “Whoa.” I tried to catch myself but found nothing to grab on to. My arms weren’t cooperating anyway.
“Hey.” Richard caught me with one hand around my forearm and his other at my back, steadying me. “You okay?”
“Matthew,” Luke said in an incredulous tone. “Are you drunk?”
I understood his surprise. I never drank. Never. I usually hated being around anyone who did. I had major trust issues after the way my father hit me every time he tried to find whatever he’d been missing in life at the bottom of a bottle.
With a hold on my upper arms, Richard turned me to him. He searched my face, his eyes wide.
I stared back. “Your eyes are so beautiful. I wish I had green eyes.” I shook my head. “No. I like that we all have different colored eyes. That’s probably silly.” Something a stupid kid would say. The dizziness was back. I dropped my head forward to his chest. “I don’t feel so good.”
A rush of breath hit the back of my neck as he let out a long, uneven exhale. “You going to be sick?”
“I don’t think so.”
“All right. Come on.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and got us moving for the stairs. “You’re getting in bed.”
That brought the giggling fit back. I laid a hand on his chest and leaned into his side. “I like our bed.” I tripped on the first step.
“Jesus,” Luke said.
“I got him.” Richard swooped me up into his arms.
I laid my head against his shoulder as he started up the stairs. “You’re so strong.”
Once in the bedroom, I thought he’d deposit me on the bed, but he kept us moving into the bathroom. He set me down on my feet and held me by the upper arms again as I swayed. “Hang on.” He shifted me backward, and there was Luke behind me, holding me up.
“I got ya,” he whispered against my ear.
Richard went to start the shower. I turned my head so I could see Luke. Those sharp blue eyes were intently watching me. I smiled at him. “I love you so much.” He opened his mouth, but I raised a finger to his lips to stop him. “It’s okay. I know you really don’t like to say it all the time.”
His forehead scrunched up, and he reached for my hand, moving it away from his mouth. “You think I don’t like telling you that I love you? You think I don’t say it enough?”
I turned my whole body to face him and slipped my arms around his waist, burying my face in his neck. “It’s okay. I know how you feel. I know you love me.”
“Hey.” That was Richard. I thought he was talking to me until I opened my eyes and found him standing beside us, his gaze fixated on Luke, the palm of his hand splayed across Luke’s nape. “You don’t need to change anything about yourself. We know how you feel about us, every time you touch us.”
I nodded. “Uh-huh. That’s what saying I am.” I reached up to pat the side of Luke’s face but miscalculated and caught Richard’s cheek instead.
“Great,” Luke said. “We’ll be lucky if we can understand him in a few minutes. What the hell is going on?”
Richard started tugging my T-shirt over my head. “Let’s get him in the shower first.”
When the shirt was off and Richard had a hold of me again, Luke crouched down and worked my pants and underwear off my legs. “I can’t believe he drank, let alone got drunk.” He was talking so low I could barely hear him over the running water.
I wrinkled up my nose. “I don’t like the taste of beer.”
Richard opened the shower door. “Good. Get in.” He guided me inside. Then he slipped off his underwear and followed me in. He gripped me by the biceps and turned me so the steady spray of water pounded my shoulders and upper back.
I yelped. “It’s hot.”
“Uh-huh.” He reached for the bottle of shampoo. “And when we get out, you’re drinking a glass of water and taking some aspirin. You’ll thank me in the morning.”
I closed my eyes as he wet my hair and lathered it with shampoo.
“You’re so good to me.”
He just grunted in response as he rinsed the shampoo from my head, his fingers working through the strands of my hair in tender sweeps.
I heard Luke moving around, opening cabinet doors. “Got towels and the water and pills,” he called out from behind the shower door.
Richard shifted us around so his back was to the water as he went for the shower gel on the shelf beside us. He ran his large soapy hands all over my body, working in slow, careful swipes across my chest, my back and shoulders, along
my arms, and down over my hips.
I pulled him in close. “I love the way your hands feel on me. Thank you for touching me like this again.” I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his neck. With the steam trapped in the shower stall and the hot water warming our skin, I felt like we had slipped into a private oasis. The heat of his solid, muscular chest against mine was electric, sending desire surging through me. I couldn’t stop myself from shifting against him in a seductive slide of wet body over body.
I pressed another kiss to his neck, adding a swipe of my tongue. “Tell Luke to come in here.”
“We’re not having sex when you’re drunk.”
A low whine came barreling out of me.
Luke chuckled as he entered the shower behind me. The space was tight for three people, but that was okay. It kept us all close. He pressed into my back. “Was he trying to make out with you?”
“Pretty much.”
“I am not.” I reached back with one hand and gripped Luke’s ass, tugging him closer so his groin was smashed against my lower back.
That had Luke laughing again. “Who knew he could get more affectionate?”
But Richard wasn’t laughing. “Stop.” He held my face in his wet, soapy hands. They smelled of my fresh-mint shower gel. His voice was hard, somber. “You’re going to get some sleep, and then you’re going to tell us what happened tonight and why you got drunk.”
I rolled my eyes. “We were just celebrating my friend’s new job. Sheesh.”
“Don’t sheesh this. Drinking is not that simple for you. It never will be.”
I shoved at his chest and then pushed Luke backward with my elbows. “Let me out of here.” I flung the shower door open and stumbled out, grabbing a towel on my way by the sink and wrapping it around my waist. “I’m not a fucking child.”
Suddenly feeling sober and alert, I stormed out of the bathroom, water dripping from my hair onto my shoulders and back. I heard the shower cut off, then the two of them getting out. I stopped in the center of our room, three feet from the foot of the bed. I wanted to take off, head downstairs to get the bottle I’d brought home with me. It was tucked away in my backpack. But I didn’t want to look at it again until I understood why I’d purchased the damn thing in the first place.
Richard spoke but didn’t approach. “I didn’t mean to treat you like a child.”
“I know.” I couldn’t face them. I shivered, despite the warmth from the water that lingered on my skin.
Richard asked Luke, “Can you get him something to wear?”
“Yeah, sure.”
But Luke must not have moved.
“Luke.” There was a long pause. Then Richard added, “It’s going to be all right.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Luke as he went to the dresser we shared. He dug through one of my drawers.
I felt Richard’s presence behind me before his arms came around my chest. “Come to bed with us.”
Unable to say anything, to do anything else, I leaned into him.
He walked me to Luke’s side of the bed, and Luke brought me a pair of underwear and pajama pants.
I took them from him. “I don’t feel so good.”
Luke ran a hand down my arm. “You gonna be sick?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
He toweled me dry, then helped me with my clothes while Richard returned to the bathroom. When Richard came back with the glass of water and aspirin, I sat on the edge of the bed and took the pills.
Luke peeled back the sheet and comforter, and I crawled in. He followed me down, tucked the blankets over me, and spooned me along my back. Richard got dressed in a pair of his sweatpants and then climbed into the bed on his side.
He didn’t say anything. He slid close to me, one arm tucked under his head as he scanned my face. Without moving my lower half away from Luke, I rested my forehead against Richard’s chest, taking in the faint scent of my shower gel combined with his own woodsy cologne that lingered on his skin. He petted the back of my head.
My body started to relax, the adrenaline fading.
“I just want it to stop.”
“Want what to stop?” Richard asked.
“The thoughts. The dreams. I just want to move on. I just want to stop falling.”
“Falling?”
“Down that stupid hill.”
Chapter Eleven
I awoke in the middle of the night with two warm bodies pressed against mine, two arms wrapped around me, two men holding me close.
Despite their comforting touch, I couldn’t shake the lingering feel of every branch and clump of dirt digging into my back, the sound of my dad’s panicked voice as he called out for me. There was compassion and worry and love in those cries.
Why couldn’t I stop reliving that day?
I slid out from under their arms and then the blankets so I could work my way to the foot of the bed. Sitting on the edge of the mattress beside Trixie, I bent forward, clutching my spinning head until my stomach decided it was done holding on to its contents.
I dashed for the bathroom, swung the door shut behind me, and dropped to my knees before the toilet. The vomiting didn’t stop until long after my stomach was empty and I was left dry-heaving.
I sank back against the wall opposite the toilet. The tile floor, chilly even through the pants I wore, felt like heaven against my heated skin. A part of me wanted to lie down right there and press my cheek to that enticingly cool surface. Instead I forced myself to get up.
When I had my face washed, teeth brushed, and mouth rinsed with mouthwash, I felt slightly better. At least physically. I studied my reflection in the mirror. No matter what anyone said, I knew the truth. My hair did make me look young. Too young. Like I was still in high school.
Just a stupid kid.
I dug in the bottom left drawer of the vanity and removed the electric shaver. It didn’t take long before my head was covered in dark fuzz instead of the wavy hair I’d had all my life. The sink and most of the countertop were obscured by my curly strands.
I stared at myself in the mirror again. I looked different.
A lot different.
“Oh God.” What did I just do?
Tears welled in my eyes.
I shook my head and forced myself to stop. I was not going to cry or get upset. Not about my hair, the internship, or my father.
Swallowing down the tears, I stared at myself again, hoping I at least looked older. I wasn’t so sure. I sort of looked like I was going into the military.
Like a man.
With a nod, I said, “Okay.” Then I undressed and climbed into the shower. I was rinsing the stray hairs off my shoulders when I heard the bathroom door open. My stomach churned.
A second later the shower door cranked open. A very audible gasp followed. “Matthew!”
Luke.
“Kid, what did you do to your hair?”
Oh God. Oh God. I looked stupid. My body started to shake, despite the warm water cascading over me. I covered my face with my hands, but that did little to muffle the strangled squeak that escaped my chest.
Luke stepped in behind me and tugged me around, pulling me against his chest. He wore a pair of underwear. The fabric was quickly soaked through. He didn’t seem to care. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
“I thought maybe I’d look older, more responsible, if… Oh God.” I wrapped my arms around his waist. “Richard’s going to hate it.”
“What are you talking about? Your hair?”
“He’s going to hate it like this.” I stepped back and held the top of my head in both hands. “He loves to run his hands through my hair when I’m sucking him off.” They both did, actually, but saying it about Richard to Luke seemed easier.
“Matthew, he’s not going to give a shit about your goddamn hair. He’s going to be worried because you’re this upset.”
“I’m not upset!” I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. I w
as not going to cry.
I. Was. Not.
I heard the bathroom door open, then the shower door, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at either of them. “I’m fine.” I shoved at Luke and turned away from him toward the spray of water. “I’m fucking fine!” The shouted words bounced off the shower walls and rang in my ears, leaving behind an unbearable, painful silence.
“Matthew.” The nervous sound of Luke’s voice was a new one for him.
I couldn’t stop the frustration and despair racing through me. “Just leave me alone. Please. I just want to be alone.”
I wasn’t sure if I expected Luke to step out of the shower or Richard to get in. Then a moment later, Richard was there with us.
I thought he’d try to get me to talk the way Luke had done, but he didn’t. He maneuvered his way under the spray of water to stand in front of me. He held me by the hip with one hand and ran the other over the top of my head. A slow smile spread across his lips. “You look hot.”
“You don’t hate it?”
He shook his head. “Not at all.” He swept his palms all over my cropped hair. When he let up, he held my face with his hands and stepped in closer so we touched along our bare lengths, his thumbs repeatedly sweeping over my skin. He bent and kissed my right cheek, then my left, and finally my lips. “It’s not your hair that makes you so damn sexy.”
I sucked in a sharp breath and held on to him.
He offered another tender kiss. Then another.
I wanted more, but the water was growing cold.
He took my hand in his. “Come back to bed with us.”
“Okay.”
He held my hand as we stepped out of the shower. Luke didn’t follow. He just stood there under the tepid water, his mouth hanging open. He gestured to me. “You’re not going to make him talk about this?”
“Not now. He needs something else right now.”
I drew in another deep breath and nodded. I wanted it so badly. I needed to feel them, needed to know everything in my life wasn’t completely fucked up, that what we’d been working to fix between us was okay. I wanted—needed—to feel something other than the anxiety and disappointment and aggravation surging through me.
