by Erin M. Leaf
“We’ll find it on our own,” Tabb said, stepping past the group and exchanging a fist bump with Dave. “I want to see if my drums are still in one piece.”
“Your drums are fine, moron,” Jon said, rolling his eyes. “You always worry about them and they’re always fine.” He waved at Duncan and Jake and disappeared into the building, Tabb close on his heels.
Dave laughed. “It’s always the same. Tabb freaks over his drums, and Jon makes fun of him.” He turned back to Duncan, a smile on his face as Lisa walked over and kissed him on the cheek. “Hey, honey.” He slung an arm around Lisa’s shoulder and she snuggled into his side.
They’ve been dating for a few months now, Jake thought to Emma, answering her unspoken question as she watched Lisa relax against the large man. They looked odd together—Lisa dressed in a tailored suit, briefcase in hand, and Dave in jeans and a T-shirt, tattoos crawling up his neck. Emma watched their auras flare into a bonding pattern and wondered if she was imagining things. Bonding pattern? How do I even know that?
Duncan grinned. “I know, I know. Tabb always thinks the crew is going to dent his snare drum or something. Anyway, this is Emma, a friend of mine and Jake’s.” He pulled Emma away from Jake and she smiled uneasily, hoping no one could tell she was staring at Dave’s aura.
“Pleased to meet you,” Dave said, holding out a hand. Emma shook it warily, trying not to disturb the big man’s light green glow, but as soon as she touched him, the color flared. His eyes widened and Lisa gasped. Emma glanced at the other woman and saw that her aura was strengthening into a darker orange. Emma wrinkled her nose, trying to tamp down the surge of energy she felt. She failed. Dave looked at Lisa and Emma watched as their auras released delicate tendrils toward each other. Suddenly, the threads tried to mesh and Dave and Lisa staggered. Emma let go of Dave’s hand. Duncan reached out to him but she grabbed his arm, afraid of what would happen if he interfered.
“What’s happening?” Jake asked, voice low.
“I think they’re going to bond. Or rather, they are bonding.” Emma said, stunned as she watched a few small tendrils of light green and orange thread together. Did I cause that? Shit. She looked at Duncan and Jake and realized that their auras were already completely woven together with her own. To her eyes, the pattern said, “bonded.”
“What? Right now?” Duncan asked, worried. Alarmingly, he was thinking about Dave and Lisa fucking their brains out in public. Emma would’ve grinned if she hadn’t been so worried that she’d somehow precipitated this.
Emma shook her head. “I think it takes more than just touching to cement a bond, but the initial lock is going to happen now.” As she spoke, two unfamiliar bonding tattoos flared on Lisa and Dave’s arms. The couple gasped, hanging onto each other tightly for a moment. Then Dave bent down to kiss the petite woman.
“Aw, fuck,” Jake muttered, sounding disgusted. “Paparazzi at two o’clock.” He gestured urgently to the left.
“We’ve got to get them out of here.” Duncan moved closer to the embracing couple, looking like he was going to shoo them inside.
“Wait!” Emma said, suddenly sure that if he touched them, bad things would happen. She could see his aura flaring, an incredible show of color that made Lisa and Dave’s auras seem dim. “Let me. If you touch them, I don’t know what will happen.”
Duncan froze, then nodded. Emma walked closer to the couple, unsure of how she was going to help.
“Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast, Emma!” Jake shoved Duncan towards the door. “You, get inside.” Duncan obeyed and Emma edged closer to Lisa.
“Lisa, you and Dave have to get inside, okay?” she said, tentatively. Neither paid her any attention. They’d stopped kissing, but Lisa’s head was tucked beneath Dave’s chin and his eyes were closed. Emma took a deep breath and reached out. As soon as she touched Lisa’s arm, the couple opened their eyes and stared at her. Emma shivered. They looked like they were sleepwalking. “You have to get inside,” she said again. They nodded and shuffled inside without breaking apart.
“Good job,” Jake said under his breath as he crowded Emma into the building and slammed the door. Emma stood blinking in the sudden dimness. Once her eyes adjusted, she realized that Lisa and Dave had broken apart. They stood there staring at each other for a moment, then Dave cleared his throat.
“What the fuck just happened?” The man looked shaken.
“I knew you were going to say that. How did I know you were going to say that?” Lisa asked, her voice shrill. Emma looked at Duncan. He grimaced as Lisa and Dave touched again, their bodies melting into each other.
“How are we going to put on a concert if they’re stuck to each other?” Jake muttered, running his hands through his hair. “Maybe we can let them have the dressing room. Or see if there’s a hotel they can stay in. I don’t want them to have to run around back here like this. I know how awful it feels.”
Emma watched the glow surround Dave and Lisa, her hands tingling. “I think I can help.” Duncan looked at Emma sharply. “I think I can help them bond without the initial attachment problem.”
“How can you do that? We couldn’t even get away from that,” Duncan said.
“I think I can manipulate the auras, the bonding,” Emma explained, flexing her fingers. “I can feel their bond, see the way it interacts on a physical level. It can’t hurt to try.”
Jake sighed. “Okay, let’s just figure out a better place for this than the hallway.”
A few minutes later Emma crouched down in front of Lisa and Dave who sat on a worn sofa in Duncan’s dressing room. Jake perched on the dressing table, ignoring the chair, while Duncan leaned against him, his hands playing in Jake’s hair. Neither Dave nor Lisa seemed to notice.
“I’m going to try and cement your bond quickly. That way you’ll be up and running instead of dealing with the initial week or so of disorientation that bonded couples usually experience.” Emma said. They both nodded and Emma shifted until she was kneeling on the floor. She winced as her muscles protested, sore from the previous night’s exertions.
“How do you know what’s wrong with us?” Lisa asked, apprehensive.
Emma took a deep breath. “I can sense your bond.” It was lucky Dave and Lisa had been dating before the bond suddenly kicked in today. She didn’t know how she would have explained bonding to two strangers meeting for the first time. This was already difficult.
Dave frowned. “I’m not sure I understand. I mean, bonding? I don’t even know what that is.”
“Do you remember a few weeks ago when there were a few news reports of people suddenly waking up with tattoos? Tattoos that matched?” Jake asked, hopping down from the dressing table and walking forward.
Lisa nodded uncertainly. “I think I saw one report on the internet, but I haven’t seen anything since last week.”
“We think the phenomenon is being suppressed, or at least news reports of it are. The bonding is still happening, though.” Duncan said, sitting in the chair next to the table and rubbing his face. “Look.” He held out his arms.
“I thought those were just new tattoos you got on your day off?” Lisa offered.
Duncan shook his head. “Jake, show her.”
Jake rolled up his sleeves and tilted his arms. Even under the harsh lighting the tattoos were beautiful, Emma thought. The colors swirled around the inky designs, almost moving, just like the auras she could see roiling around the people in the room.
“They look just like Duncan’s,” Lisa said. “Does that mean—”
“Yeah,” Jake interrupted. “Duncan and I are bonded. So is Emma.” Emma held out her arm and Jake gently pushed up the sleeve of her sweater. “See?”
Lisa leaned over, inspecting Emma’s tattoo. “It looks just like theirs. But I thought only couples bonded? This makes no sense!” Lisa’s voice rose.
Emma could tell she was confused and upset. “I don’t know of any other cases of a trio bonding,” she soothed as she reached out
with her mind, smoothing the agitated pattern of Lisa’s glow. The color calmed down under Emma’s ministrations. She concentrated more, pulling more tendrils of Dave’s aura over to Lisa, merging them, hooking them together. The harder she concentrated, the more she could feel Duncan and Jake in her mind, feeding her strength. Abruptly she stopped, sensing that Lisa and Dave’s bond had stabilized. Jake staggered to his feet and Emma felt his weariness. Had the energy she felt come from him?
“Yeah, I think so,” Duncan said, his voice tired.
Emma felt faint. “Are you okay?” she asked Duncan, then turned to Jake. “What about you?”
“I’m fine, just a little tired,” Jake answered, staggering over to Duncan and dropping down on the padded arm of the chair. He leaned into Duncan, accepting the other man’s steadying hand gratefully.
“Duncan has to do a show in a few hours.” Emma frowned and rubbed her hands over her tattoos. They itched. She got up, wincing at the way her knees creaked. She wobbled over to the empty end of the couch and sat down.
“It’s okay. I’ve performed when I felt a lot worse than this, sweetheart.” Duncan cracked open one of the bottles of water that sat on the dressing table. “I’ll be fine.”
Emma looked at him. If I’d known this was going to suck your energy, I would’ve waited. You could’ve managed the concert without them for a night, she thought.
Duncan smiled and swallowed his water. Don’t worry about it. He handed another bottle to Jake, sensing his bond-mate’s thirst. Jake sent a mental thank you to him and drank deeply.
“I feel a lot better,” Lisa said, breaking into their silent conversation.
Emma was happy she didn’t feel as wiped as Duncan and Jake, but that was probably because she’d drawn on their energy while working with Lisa and Dave. She sighed, pushing her misgivings aside. “Good, that’s what I was hoping would happen.”
“I do, too,” Dave said, sounding surprised. “I can feel you did something but I’m not sure what. And I can feel Lisa, a little bit—” He broke off, wrinkling his forehead. Lisa ran her hand down his back and he visibly relaxed. “It’s like I can sense her emotions, sort of. I can tell when she’s upset or happy. It’s stronger when she’s touching me.”
“Can you hear her thoughts?” Emma asked, curious. She wondered how far the process went with two people. Did the extra abilities only manifest when three people bonded?
Lisa concentrated, looking at the floor. “No. I can tell how he’s feeling a little bit, but I can’t hear him thinking. Why? Can you?”
Emma exchanged looks with Duncan and Jake. “Sort of,” she temporized. She didn’t want anyone to know the true extent of their bonding abilities. Duncan nodded at her, finishing off his water.
I don’t think we should tell people what we can do either, Jake thought.
Emma nodded, then reached for Lisa’s arm. “Can I see?”
Lisa held out her hand and Emma pushed up the other woman’s blouse. There was a clean design on her forearm, incongruous against the crisp silk of her blouse. Emma noted that the design was entirely black and much simpler than the bonding tattoo she shared with Jake and Duncan. There were no extra colors twining around the black, just a simple double slash intersected with what looked like an oval.
“It’s pretty,” Lisa said, her voice low. She turned her arm, admiring the tattoo.
“It looks good with my other tats.” Dave looked down at his arm, bemused. Then he glanced at Lisa and smiled. “I was going to wait until this weekend, but I think this will be okay.” He slid off the couch onto his knees and Emma tried not to laugh at the sense of shock she felt from Duncan and Jake.
Dave dug into his pocket and produced a small box. He took a deep breath and then opened it, revealing a small, perfect diamond that he held out to the Lisa. Emma leaned away, not wanting to interfere with the moment. Dave cleared his throat. “Lisa, I know we haven’t been dating very long, but I knew from the moment I first saw you that you were everything I wanted. Will you marry me?”
Lisa gasped and nodded, then smiled through the tears streaming down her face. She reached out for Dave and he put the ring on her finger. When they kissed, Emma stood up and walked over to Jake and Duncan. Both men were staring at Dave, identical looks of horror on their faces. She had to laugh.
“At least it’s unlikely they’ll freak out when we tell them the bonding is permanent,” Emma said, sitting on Duncan’s lap. Jake laughed as Emma leaned back, resting her face against Duncan’s warm cheek. Jake reached down and grabbed her hand, holding it in his tightly. She smiled, exhausted and happy. “What’s next? Do you need to do anything for the concert?”
Duncan sighed as he looked at the clock on the wall, ignoring the cuddling happening on the sofa across from them. “I have warm-ups in an hour. But I’m supposed to do some press before, in about a half hour. I have just enough time to get dressed.”
I’d rather undress you, Emma thought. Jake choked on his water and she laughed, enjoying the look of consternation on his face. She wished they had more time.
Chapter 7
Emma rubbed her eyes, wishing she’d gotten more sleep but not regretting her late night at the concert. She yawned, picking at her lunch. The lettuce seemed like a good idea that morning when she picked up a salad on her way to school, but now it just looked unappetizing. She wondered if it was because she knew Jake and Duncan were eating pizza. She wanted pizza too, dammit. She sighed and forced herself to take another bite. Maybe if she pretended it was pizza? She sensed Jake laughing at her in the back of her mind and mentally flipped him off. Duncan coughed, and Emma smiled. They might be several hundred miles away, but it felt like they were sitting right next to her. This was definitely one of the cooler things about bonding—never feeling lonely. The downside was that even though she wasn’t getting the headaches anymore, she felt the distance from her two men acutely. She could function, but there was a feeling of yearning that she couldn’t dispel. She knew Jake and Duncan felt it too. When they woke up this morning, they didn’t want to leave her bed and she didn’t want to let them, but they had more radio interviews and needed to drive back to New York. The distance was like an itch that couldn’t be scratched.
“Hey, Emma, you gotta turn on the TV!” Julie flopped down in the chair next to Emma’s desk and grabbed the remote.
“What’s going on?” Emma asked. Julie’s eyes were glued to the television as she flipped through the channels, finally stopping on the twenty-four-hour news station.
“Look. Your boyfriends are on TV,” Julie said.
“They’re not my boyfriends,” Emma said absently. She still hadn’t told Julie anything other than that she’d been sick the past few days but Julie wasn’t buying it. She’d been teasing Emma all morning. What could be happening that Duncan and Jake were on CNN? The last she knew they were taping an interview for a morning talk show and just a moment ago they were eating pizza. She focused and realized that both men had finished eating several minutes ago. She frowned, trying to figure out where they were. A hallway? No, a lobby. There was a huge crowd in front of them and she felt Jake’s irritation like a burr under her skin. What was going on? She concentrated on the TV.
“...now we’re live at Z100’s studio in New York where Duncan Green and Jake Mackenzie just finished a morning interview and lunch. Neither man realized they were being recorded while they ate and cameras caught tattoos on Jake’s arms that match the new tattoos on Duncan’s forearms. Fans have been talking about Duncan’s new tats for the past week. Apparently, the friends have bonded, though no one yet knows why the men have two tattoos instead of one. This is the first time any celebrities have bonded, and we believe it’s the first report of a same-sex bonding.”
“Holy shit, Emma, do you see that?” Julie pointed at the television where cameras were zooming in on Jake’s arms. He wore his customary leather cuffs, but the swirls of color and the black design of his bonding tattoos were visible above the upper edge of t
he bracelet. He wore the T-shirt she remembered him putting on that morning but his plaid button-down was missing. What had happened? Emma caught a vision of spilled coffee from Jake’s mind. Now that they no longer itched, he didn’t think about the tattoos when he took his outer shirt off. He didn’t realize the cuffs didn’t cover everything anymore. Ever since they’d completed their bonding, the colored swirls were visible just outside the edges of the bracelets. He looked angry, Emma thought, watching the screen. She sent soothing thoughts his way and watched his face relax minutely.
“Did you know?” Julie asked, her voice rising. “They bonded? That is so hot!”
Emma turned to her friend, wondering what she should say. Before she could think of anything, the reporter stopped talking and the camera focused on Duncan. He was answering questions, his voice flat with displeasure, but clear and steady. Emma made a shushing motion with her hand and Julie pursed her lips. Emma didn’t care. She wanted to know what the hell was happening. She tried to focus on Duncan and Jake’s thoughts but the connection was tenuous at this distance. At most, she could only receive or send emotional impressions and some visual cues. They’d already figured out that they needed to be at least within one hundred miles of each other to use their telepathy, but the empathic bonds stretched further. She picked up the remote, turning the volume on the television up a notch.
“...and when we realized what was happening, we decided to keep it under wraps for a little while as we got used to the bond,” Duncan said on the TV, obviously in response to a question. Emma frowned, wondering why this revelation had sparked such a frenzy. She felt Jake’s reminder that Duncan was insanely famous and she sighed. She kept forgetting.
“Isn’t Jake straight? How did the two of you end up bonding?” a small woman asked the men. Emma leaned forward, wondering how Duncan was going to answer this question. She was surprised to see Jake move to the microphone.
