Tied Between

by Kira Barker

  For just a moment, his beginning smile turned lopsided.

  “Always glad to hear that. But seriously, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t do all the things with and to you that you like, and that makes me feel a little inferior. Maybe it’s a guy thing, I don’t know. But on some level it would make sense if you’d be at least a little jealous of what he and I share.”

  “Because I don’t have a cock?” I suggested, then laughed when he gave a clearly uncomfortable half-nod. “I still have a vagina, and neither of you can one-up me there, so, sorry, no penis envy going on here. I’ve already told you that the first time you two were fooling around with each other. I’m really okay with it. I don’t have to be part of everything, and I dig that you can both get your rocks off together doing something I cannot actually be a part of.”

  I could tell that, for whatever reason, my words didn’t sit well with him.

  “Maybe you’re simply a better person than I am,” he admitted. “I don’t know. Maybe I want you to be jealous because I still feel like the third wheel with the two of you. As if you allow me to stay. If you felt the same way, I’d feel a little more as if we were…”

  “Equals?” I suggested.

  He shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “And we can’t be equals without being in direct competition with each other?”

  “Can we?”

  I had to admit, he had a point there. “I’m trying hard not to be too childish about things,” I explained. “I know things aren’t easy. And I’m sure that, however harmonic some weeks will be, we will fight, and we will hate each other, and being three rather than just two won’t make it any easier.”

  “At least you have someone to complain to who knows exactly what you’re talking about.”

  “Or you have two people against you who aren’t on speaking terms with each other at the moment. Last time it was mostly an all out open death match between us, even if Simon still feels like I took your side.”

  “You really think that?” Jack asked.

  “You did show up on my doorstep and we had sex after you pretty much tore his heart out and stomped on it,” I reminded him. As usual when I thought back to that day, I felt my stomach roil, but it was somewhat easier to talk about it now than weeks ago. And thinking about it again made another aspect of the entire screwup rise to the forefront of my mind. “Just hypothetically speaking, if I hadn’t forgiven you, would you have hooked up with Simon for good?”

  The silence spreading between us was deafening, and I couldn’t help but feel a little defiant as I speared a piece of chicken and chewed it aggressively. Jack held my challenging gaze, but then looked away.

  “I honestly don’t know,” he admitted. “Losing you… I’m not sure if I’d have just gotten over it like that.”

  “But would you have moved on with him? Without me?”

  “Does it matter?”

  I gave that some thought, but I really couldn’t say. “I feel like I should say no, but yeah, it kind of does. I don’t like feeling replaceable.”

  “You are irreplaceable.”

  His words made my bout of anger dissipate as quickly as it had formed, leaving me smiling wryly.

  “So maybe there’s a thread of jealousy going on there,” I admitted. “But it’s not about the sex. It’s more about all the time you spend together when I simply can’t be around.”

  “Vacation time might help with that,” Jack proposed.

  “Yeah, not going to happen any time soon.”

  Exhaling loudly, he shook his head, clearly deciding that this was not one of the battles he chose to fight. “Your loss, really.”

  “Considering the last month, I feel like you’ve pretty much outdone yourself making the best of what little time we have together,” I assured him.

  He was quick to share my smile. “And I fully intend to keep building on that. If you’ll let me.”

  “Always.”

  And with that out of the way, we settled in to wait for Simon’s return.

  Chapter 17

  Simon had been supposed to return early the next morning, but he must have caught an earlier flight, because he was suddenly standing in the kitchen just as I was about to hit the sack. I was so perplexed by finding him there that all my latent fretting about how things would have shifted now that things between Jack and me had turned a little tighter was pretty much forgotten. I hugged him, and kissed him, and grinned when he squeezed my ass, and then it was all about catching up and finally going to bed, and it was only in the morning when I dragged my sorry self out of bed that I remembered to worry. So much for that.

  I did get a chance to talk to him that following day at night while Jack was still at work—for once beating me where over-hours were concerned—but as I sat down with Simon to eat some microwaved lasagna, I didn’t really know how to start. Part of me also didn’t feel like I should have to dish about what had happened between Jack and me. Sure, we were sharing a lot more now than before, but I also didn’t tell Jack every little—or big—thing that happened in the playroom. This felt a lot more intimate and private than pretty much everything else in my life—and I kind of wanted to keep it to myself. Not a dirty little secret I had to be ashamed of, but a brightly shining sun deep inside my soul whose warmth I could wrap around myself when I needed comfort or solace. I was already sharing so much with Simon—let this part be shared just with Jack.

  Then there was work, and meeting Kara to go shopping, and getting spanked bent over the padded bench in the attic, and visiting the weekend market with Jack, and things just kept falling into place. I was sure that Simon could tell that we’d come to some kind of agreement—he wasn’t stupid, and for a week or two, at least, our incessant bickering slowed down somewhat before it picked up, likely a dead giveaway that something had, in fact, changed between Jack and me—but he never mentioned anything, and I wasn’t about to snitch.

  And then it was the evening before Labor Day weekend as I dragged my sorry carcass home and found Simon waiting for me, worry written across his forehead, and I knew that the time of not giving a shit about anything was over.

  “Your dad called. He told me to tell you that Emily wants to know when you’ll be coming home tomorrow.”

  Ah, right. That.

  Ever since I’d moved away from home for college, I had tried to minimize the contact I still had with my family. It wasn’t just that I didn’t particularly get along with my stepmother; I could have dealt with that. But with every consecutive visit, I realized just how far I’d moved on from the life I would have had if I’d stayed. At first, they were just small changes—going to a college that I had to pretty much sell my soul for instead of the local community college. Meeting people like Simon and Kara who’d grown up in a real city, not just some town that had a couple thousand inhabitants. Having sex with people who I hadn’t gone to kindergarten with—and watching them get hitched and have children while I could barely remember to water the one potted plant I had tried to keep for a while. It wasn’t like I felt I was missing out on something—and I was sure that Jack, in particular, thought that I considered my life choices superior to the alternative—but the distance was growing, and each and every time I felt one step closer to the day where I couldn’t bridge that gap anymore. I’d expected that to be something along the lines of opening my own practice, or some material goal that might be achieved if I’d ever manage to pay off my student loans.

  But for some reason, being in a steady relationship with two men at the same time sounded like a much more plausible point of no return.

  I knew that I couldn’t be the only one fretting about this, but so far the guys had been very inconspicuous about it. With Simon, that didn’t come as that much of a surprise, but I knew that Jack, at least, must have been thinking along similar lines.

  We’d only just embarked on our journey together. There were still more days where we either chose to tread lightly around each other, or random instances ended in fights th
at, albeit over as quick as they’d started, still screamed of issues not yet worked out that any new relationship came with. But there was also familiarity now where distance had been before—kisses, touches, smiles just a little too bright to be meant just between friends.

  The easiest solution would have been to just keep quiet, pretend that we were taking Simon home with us because he was our closest friend and his parents usually spent the weekend far, far away somewhere, and lie to everyone’s face.

  But I didn’t even need to voice that proposition to know that Simon wouldn’t be okay with it—and, as I considered my options, I realized that neither was I.

  “Did he say anything else?” Knowing my father, the answer would be no.

  Predictably, Simon shook his head. “That was his message, almost verbatim. He sounded surprised that anyone even picked up. No idea why he called our landline instead of your phone.”

  Likely because I was notorious about not calling him back, and he’d once professed believing that blinking, annoying lights on answering machines might do the trick that anything I could just swipe away wouldn’t.

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  Simon kept looking at me for a full ten seconds, then shook his head, a sardonic smile dawning on his face. “You didn’t tell him.”

  I wondered if playing dumb was an option here, but decided against it.

  “I haven’t really spoken to him that much over the summer. Didn’t really come up.”

  “But you did tell him that you moved, because obviously he had this number,” he pointed out.

  I shrugged, hating that I started to feel kind of cornered. “He had it for years. And he could have asked Jack’s mom for it, too. Wouldn’t have been the first time he tried to get to me through Jack.” Simon’s misgivings were obvious, and I hated why that made me uncomfortable, exactly. I could understand why he was kind of pissed about me trying to keep things under wraps, but it wasn’t like I was alone with this. “Last time I looked, Jack hadn’t told his mom, either.”

  “And the fact that I’m living with not just one coward, but two is making this better how?” Simon questioned.

  I wondered if offering a blow job to make up for my shortcomings was an option, but just then Jack walked in from the back hallway, looking slightly harassed. One look at me and he started grinning, but there was no humor in his eyes.

  “Ah, I see, now he’s chewing you out, too, not just me.”

  “I’m doing no such thing!” Simon protested, then snorted when both of us looked at him sharply. “So, maybe a little. You deserve it. I never made such a fuss about telling my parents.”

  “Well, first off, your parents are awesome,” Jack supplied. “And they’re the only ones who’ve actually seen us since way back when, you know? It’s different when you run into each other grocery shopping, or have to drive through half the night to even be in the same state.”

  “Which reminds me—when do you guys want to get up?” I interjected, mostly to derail the topic, but also because I hadn’t been home in almost two days and wasn’t quite up to date with the current plans.

  “About four, maybe four-thirty, so we can be there at around ten,” Jack supplied as he flashed me a quick grin. “You know, so that by the time there’ll be open fire on the barbecue, things have either calmed down enough that we won’t be in mortal peril, or something else has stolen the show and we can slink off to raid the apple pie.”

  “And I’m not letting you off the hook. Either of you,” Simon said, sounding just a little threatening.

  I was tempted to put up a fight, but, of course, he was right. I’d known for days that I would have to make this call, and of all the possible people to let my father know that I’d more or less officially broken my eternal spinsterhood, it would certainly be the lightest blow coming from me.

  And still.

  “I think we should eat dinner first,” I said, already turning toward the kitchen.

  “Yeah, sounds like an excellent plan,” Jack quickly agreed.

  “Stop. Right. Fucking. There,” Simon growled, then got up as we both turned to face him, chagrined. He looked first at me, then at Jack, and let out his breath slowly. “I get that this is scary. But trust me, tomorrow you’ll be glad that you called ahead. Your parents have an entire night to sleep on this, and everything will be a lot more normal by tomorrow. You’ll be returning home, the prodigal son or daughter respectively, which alone will give you a massive bonus because they finally have you around again—while I’ll be the asshole who seduced their precious little babies and made them do all manners of disgusting, perverted things.”

  Jack and I exchanged glances.

  “Nah,” I started, unable not to grin. “Malory’s so not buying that anyone made Jack do anything against his will, ever. She’s pretty realistic about her son’s devious nature. You act and look like a normal human being, and you’re already perfect in her eyes.”

  Jack’s snort came with a hint of a wince. “Yeah, and Richard is so going to flay both me and you,” he said, nodding to Simon, “alive, so it’s the same, anyway. I mean, there’s a reason why Erin never brought anyone home after she moved out, and that’s not because she loves to chew out any potential guys ahead of letting her dad have a go at them. Lucky us.”

  He got the glare that deserved, but I couldn’t help but feel like he was right in one thing—his mother would welcome us with open arms, even if she might have her reservations. My folks, though…

  “I also didn’t want my stepmom to hit on my boyfriend. That might have played into things a little, too,” I replied.

  “Don’t you think that after knowing her more than half your life, you could maybe act a little less like the shunned brat about her?” Simon asked. “I think I've only met her twice and barely had time to exchange greetings with her, but she can’t be as bad as you make her sound.”

  I opened my mouth to protest—loudly—but Jack beat me to it.

  “In some aspects, yes, but not in others. I’m the first to admit that Erin here isn’t the most charitable and amicable person around—“

  “Why, thank you!” I chirped, punching him in the ribs, just because. Jack didn’t even try to evade but took it with a bright smile.

  “But, seriously, Emily’s a nutcase. To you, she’ll likely be all nice and huggy and warm, but I was there when she moved in. I’ve heard some of the fights she and Erin had, and there’s some truth to the evil stepmother myth in this.”

  As usual, Jack having my back felt good, but I couldn’t help but feel like Simon didn’t quite buy my, admittedly, kind of exaggerated description of my dad’s new wife.

  “Just see for yourself. Outside, she’s all chipper and nice, but once she gets you where no one else sees you…”

  Simon let out his breath slowly, frustrated with us.

  “And not calling now will make any of that better how?”

  I shrugged. “I get another eighteen hours of not feeling like the Whore of Babylon? That’s something.”

  Simon’s lips pressed into a tight line, but he didn’t budge.

  “Call them. Both of you. You, your mom, and you, your dad. Right now, at the same time. Just get it over with. Then you can bemoan your fate, and they have at least one more person in the world to talk to. Even my mom needed a few minutes to process the news, and just last week she reminded me that she spoke with her therapist about us, too.”

  “Yeah, because finally you’ve done something that makes you look a little more like the artist and a little less like a sellout,” I huffed. When Simon narrowed his eyes at me, I opted for a fake, bright smile. “Oh, come on, you know that I’m right. You never did drugs, you went straight to college after high school, you got a job even before finishing that, and you’re pretty good at providing for yourself. You live in the suburbs. You drive a fucking soccer-mom car, if you drive at all and don’t use public transport like the good little eco-aware fiend that you are, and thanks to Jack, you’re on board with
every new diet fad out there.”

  “Hey, that’s no—“ Jack started, but I cut him off.

  “Shut up. In short, you’re boring as hell. But then—light at the end of the tunnel! Now you at least live in free, wild love with two other people, and thanks to Kara’s recount of our, ah, reunion, everyone who was at that garden party knows that all we do is have orgies that leave bodily fluids all over the house. You’ve finally embraced your inner free spirit, and she can rejoice!”

  My little speech there got both of the guys grimacing, and I thought I heard Jack mutter something under his breath about the fact that he’d checked that there weren’t any traces left anywhere. I was tempted to ask whether he kept a UV light somewhere to make sure, but really didn’t want to know the answer. It was bad enough that he’d admitted to keeping a giant magnet in his room to make sure to wipe all his hard drives, should that be necessary. “Conspiracy nut” was really not the tag I wanted to add to his character profile.

  Simon, on the other hand, eventually gave a single, curt nod.

  “So, maybe my parents are a little more relaxed about things. Certainly made for an interesting time growing up. But that doesn’t mean that yours will publicly shun you. Neither of you come from a strictly conventional or conservative family, and Pennsylvania isn’t Alabama.”

  Jack and I shared a long look, but neither of us seemed to feel like protesting. Even I had to admit that any further fit I had about this would just make me appear stupid and infantile.

  “Okay, I’ll do it. But if this goes even half as bad as I think it will, I’ll need a special kind of pick-me-up later.”

  Simon snorted. “Seriously? You want me to reward you with sex for telling your father that you’re in a happy relationship?”

  “Well, not sure I’ll be up to it after this,” Jack replied, got out his phone, and stared at it for a moment. “I’ll be in my room, scandalizing my dear old mother for the millionth time. Might as well put your first scratch in that post, too,” he advised, then ducked away after a quick peck on my cheek. I glared after him, but I knew that I was only stalling, and when Simon continued to stare at me blankly, I got out my own phone.