Denial

by R. M. Walker

  “Yeah, okay,” he agreed. “We’ll meet you downstairs. We need to talk to you.”

  His words crashed over her. The knowledge that someone had been in the room last night had made her forget he’d seen the twins kissing her. Her face burnt as she fled into the bathroom, not looking back.

  ~*~*~*~

  She took long as she could, but eventually she had to leave the safety of the bathroom. The corridor was empty when she stepped out, so she went downstairs, taking her time on the stairs. As she neared the bottom, she heard June talking on the phone in the hallway. She went into the kitchen to give her some privacy. There was no one else in there, so she sat at the breakfast bar, nervously tapping her fingers on the surface. She looked over at the door that led outside. She could sneak out before anyone knew, just get up and go. It would only delay the inevitable though, and Nate would probably just follow her anyway.

  Matt came in, and all hope of escaping was gone. His feet were bare under jeans that hung low on his hips. His t-shirt fitted him perfectly and announced he was ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ She doubted it greatly.

  “You should have helped yourself,” he said, crossing to the fridge and taking out two cartons of orange juice. “Orange juice or coffee?”

  “Oh god, both,” Josh announced, coming in with Jake and Nate right behind him. They were all dressed in jeans and t-shirts, hair wet from showers.

  “I wasn’t asking you. You can help yourself, you usually do.” Matt sneered, pouring a glass of orange juice.

  Josh flipped him off and slumped onto a seat, burying his face in his folded arms on the table. Matt wasn’t just annoyed with her, he was annoyed with the twins and that made it so much worse. She couldn’t be the reason they argued. She couldn’t come between them.

  Matt offered her the glass, and she shook her head.

  “Nothing for me, thanks,” she said, certain her knotted stomach wouldn’t cope with anything.

  Matt put the glass of orange juice in front of Josh and ruffled his hair. His action belied his words, and it confused her.

  “You have to eat something,” Nate said, pushing bread into the chrome toaster on the side. “Kickstarts your metabolism.”

  “At least have some juice.” Matt put a glass in front of her.

  “Harold is coming straight back.” June came into the room. “They look lovely on you, dear,” she said to Lily.

  “Thank you for letting me borrow them.” Lily looked down at the mint coloured A-line skirt and white blouse.

  “Isn’t he in Parliament this morning?” Matt asked and set a glass of juice in front of Lily. He handed his mother another one.

  “Thank you, dear,” she murmured. “He was, but apparently, there’s been a spate of homes belonging to politicians being broken into. Seems it won’t just be the police coming down, but some detectives as well. Your father is talking about putting an electric gate onto the drive.”

  “What good will that do?” Matt asked. “We’re not walled in here; anyone can come through the woods.”

  “I said the same, Matthew.” She sighed. “He said it would stop vans or cars from getting onto the property. He’s having the security inside upgraded as well.”

  “What are they looking for?” Lily sipped her juice, but it tasted sour in her mouth.

  “Mostly valuables, paintings, anything they can sell. I’ll be glad when he retires.”

  “He’ll drive you mad if he’s home all day,” Matt pointed out.

  “I’ll send him golfing when he gets annoying,” she replied. The doorbell had her jumping to her feet and leaving the kitchen, followed by Matt.

  Nate set a plate of toast onto the table along with the butter dish. “Eat, Lily May,” he ordered her, but she didn’t have the stomach for food.

  Two men came into the kitchen with June and Matt, and Lily knew it was the police.

  “These are my nephews: Nate Cohen”—she indicated him—“the twins are Josh and Jake Nethercott, and this is Matthew’s girlfriend, Lily Adair.”

  Lily blushed hard at the term, unable to look at any of them.

  “Okay, folks, we understand it’s a school day, and we’ll try to get this done quickly. I’m Detective Henry, and this is my partner, Detective Johns,” the younger one spoke first.

  “It was your room, Lily, so why don’t you kick us off,” Detective Johns said as they sat down opposite her.

  She took another sip of juice to wet her dry mouth. She nodded and began to tell them what had happened.

  ~*~*~*~

  For the next hour, they took all of their statements, but Lily noticed they paid particular attention to what she’d heard and why she’d left the room. They asked her the same questions several times but each time worded differently, and Lily realised they were looking for discrepancies in her story. When they questioned the boys, she noticed they did the same thing. But they kept coming back to Lily, and it worried her.

  “And you’re sure there was someone under the bed?” Detective Henry asked her for what seemed like the tenth time.

  “Yes, at the time, I would have sworn it was coming from under the bed,” she replied.

  “At the time. You don’t think that anymore, then?” Detective Johns asked.

  “Matt showed me the bottom of the bed. Nothing could get under it.”

  He drained the coffee June had given him earlier, making no comment on what she’d said. He put his cup down, and without even looking at his partner, they both got to their feet.

  “Okay, folks. Well, thanks for your time,” Detective Henry said. “And for the coffee.”

  “Oh, one thing before we go,” Detective Johns said, making it sound like an afterthought. “Where did you say you were before here, Lily?”

  “Brighton,” she replied, her hands clenched tighter.

  “Not Portsmouth?” he queried, taking a glance at his notes.

  “We were in Portsmouth before coming here, but only for a couple of weeks,” she replied.

  “And before that?”

  “Durham.”

  “You aren’t from there though, are you?” he said. “I can’t pick up an accent at all.”

  “No, we move around a lot.”

  “Is this relevant?” Nate asked suddenly, making June tut and Lily jump.

  “We don’t know yet,” Detective Henry said and smiled at him. They suspected her, or at least they suspected she was fishy in some way.

  “You think I had something to do with this?” she asked, unable to hide how upset it made her.

  “Did you?” Detective Johns asked her bluntly.

  “No!” she shot out. “We’ve always moved around. My mother paints, and she likes to be in new places every so often.”

  “And what exactly brings your mother to Trenance?”

  “We did,” June said, her hands clasped together on the table. “We’ve bought a few of Lynda’s pieces already and love them. We’ve commissioned her to paint Crowder Manor. A friend of ours commissioned her a few years ago and highly recommended her. Harold had Lynda checked before we got in touch with her.”

  “And this friend, where do they live?”

  “Surrey. We’ve seen the piece. It was simply stunning.”

  “Where in Surrey was that?” he asked.

  “Do you think Mum had something to do with this?” Lily couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “Lily,” Josh spoke softly while June told them where the friend lived. “We know she doesn’t have anything to do with this, but they don’t. They have to follow every lead they get. It’s their job.”

  She understood the logic behind it, but it was still unsettling. “My mum is in London at the gallery this weekend. It’s why I’m staying here. I can give you their number and her mobile number,” Lily said.

  “Thank you.” Detective Henry nodded.

  “If you do contact her, please, can you tell her that I’m fine and not to come back before
she’s ready. She worries.”

  “Lily has epilepsy,” June said. “It’s not safe for her to stay on her own, so she’s staying here until Lynda comes back.”

  “We understand. Can you give us the addresses of where you’ve stayed previously? Just so we can rule you both out and concentrate on catching who it was.”

  “It’s probably easier if you give me some paper and I can write them down for you. We move on average once a year.”

  “You move once a year?” he repeated her words, surprised. “How do you manage with schooling?”

  “Okay.” She shrugged, taking the pen and paper Detective Johns handed her. She scribbled down the addresses she could remember and slid the paper back to him. “Those are the last ten places we’ve been in. I’ve listed the towns before that as I can’t remember them all. The older ones might not be in the right order either.”

  “I don’t think your feet have touched the ground in seventeen years,” June said sadly, looking at the list on the paper.

  “We stayed till the end of the academic year usually,” Lily said, a little defensively.

  “And the times you didn’t?” the detective asked. “What prompted a move then?”

  There’d been a few reasons, one of which was her seizures changing, but she knew he wouldn’t understand that, so she gave him the answer she always gave. “She wasn’t ‘feeling it’ wherever we were and couldn’t paint.”

  “Well, thank you, I think we have all we need for now. We’ll be in touch. Forensics will let you know when they’re finished with the room. If anything else occurs to you, you can contact either of us on these numbers.” He put several business cards on the table. “Don’t hesitate to ring, no matter how small you may think it is.”

  “I’ll see you out, detective, Harold is on his way back...” June’s voice faded out as she showed the two men out of the kitchen.

  “It’s nearly lunchtime,” Josh said, looking at his watch. “We’re all for writing off the rest of the day and hanging out here or at ours.”

  “Yeah, there’s no point going in now,” Jake agreed, turning the card over between his fingers.

  “I think I should go home and change,” Lily said, unable to look at any of them now they were on their own again.

  “We’ll take you there,” Matt said.

  She stood up, taking her glass to the side. There was no escaping now.

  “We’re going to make it work.”

  She spent the drive to her place going over the morning’s events in an attempt to try to avoid thinking about what the boys were going to say.

  “He thinks Mum has something to do with it, doesn’t he?” She broke the silence in the car. None of them had spoken at all since leaving the manor.

  “Probably,” Nate said from the back seat. “They have to check her out, it’s their job. I think the moving around caught their attention. We don’t think it, though. None of us do.”

  “She has itchy feet. She wanted to move from here,” Jake said.

  “I think it was staying here for the year that scared her,” she said. “She’s never been commissioned for so long before. She’s always known she can up and leave if she wants to. She’s been fine since then though.”

  Matt locked the Land Rover and they walked the short distance to her cottage in silence.

  “Change into some jeans,” Nate said, shutting the front door behind him. “We’ll wait for you.”

  “Can I look at it yet?” Jake asked, going into the kitchen.

  “No!” Lily realised he was by the canvas that her mother had covered with a sheet. “She doesn’t let anyone see it before it’s finished. Bad luck, she says.”

  “Not even you?” Matt asked in surprise.

  “I don’t count, I don’t think,” she said, heading towards the staircase. “It’d be hard to hide it from me. Make yourselves at home. There’s food in the fridge.”

  “We’ll make some sandwiches,” Josh called out, and she heard the fridge door open. Nothing had been said so far and that was almost as disturbing as Matt calling her out on it. Maybe he didn’t care as much as she thought he did. Maybe he didn’t care enough to worry about it at all. Maybe friends with benefits was what they wanted from her. Depression settled heavily over her.

  ~*~*~*~

  When she came down several minutes later, they were standing in the middle of her living room in a huddle, whispering. They stopped as she reached the bottom step, but she didn’t look at them.

  “We need to talk, Lily May.”

  She knew straight away what it was about, and she didn’t know what to say. How could she explain how she felt? If they were going to suggest keeping it as friends with benefits, she wasn’t going to be able to handle it.

  “Lily, it’s quite simple. Well, we think it’s simple,” Josh said. “But it all depends on you.”

  “What does?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Her heart hammered in her chest, and her palms were sweaty.

  “My mum thinks you’re my girlfriend. So does yours,” Matt said.

  “They can go on thinking that,” Jake said. “We don’t really care.”

  Lily knew then that it hadn’t meant anything to them past a physical reaction. And judging by Matt and Nate’s lack of anger at the twins kissing her, they didn’t care either. She turned away from them. She’d made a fool of herself, and there was little she could do to salvage her dignity. But she’d damn well try.

  “Fine, okay, shall we go then?” she asked, moving to the door.

  Matt caught her arm, spun her around, and backed her against the wall. Before she could say anything, his lips were on hers, and it wasn’t a friendly kiss. His tongue demanded an entrance that her mouth willingly gave as her brain struggled to catch up. He lifted her on her toes, pressing against her as he kissed her so deeply she forgot everything except him. His hands went into her hair, and he tilted her head for better access. She gripped his waist, trying to anchor herself as he took every thought from her head and destroyed them with his mouth.

  “Matt, you’re trying to prove a point, not eat her alive,” Nate drawled.

  She pulled away from Matt, her hand coming up to press against her mouth in horror.

  Was he staking a claim? Nate looked grossed out, and the twins were glaring at him. “I can’t... I don’t... I shouldn’t have—”

  “Listen, for two minutes. Just listen,” Matt pleaded. He took her hand and led her back to the sofa. He tried to get her to sit down, but she shook her head. She saw the others come closer.

  “This is going to sound super weird—” Matt began, but Lily cut him off with a snort.

  “I don’t think things can get any weirder. You’re fairies for flip’s sake. And I’ve kissed all of you!” She blurted it out. “I shouldn’t have done that, and now you think that I’m easy; that I’m okay with a friends with benefits thing, but I’m really not, and I shouldn’t have let you kiss me. I’ve ruined our friendship.” She thrust her hands into her hair.

  “Fae. I’m fae,” Nate muttered under his breath.

  “Not now, Nate!” Josh snapped.

  “You haven’t ruined anything. We don’t think you’re easy, and we’re not into the friends with benefits thing either. We’ve all kissed you, we know that, but it’s fine. We all want you, Lily,” Matt said.

  “You all want me? I don’t—”

  “What we’re trying to say”—Josh cut her off quickly—“is that we all want you to be our girlfriend.”

  The ground tipped beneath her feet, but Jake was talking now. “We want you to be our girl.”

  “I want you to be my girl,” Matt said.

  “And so do I,” Nate said.

  They all liked her. They all wanted to date her. She’d made a horrendous mess of this. Her eyes closed in sorrow, and her heart clenched. It was what she wanted, a relationship with them, to be their girlfriend. Only now they were asking her to choose one of them ove
r the others, and she couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t do that. She was going to lose them all.

  “I can’t...” Her voice broke, and tears filled her eyes.

  “Bugger, we’ve made her cry.” Jake reared back, grabbing Josh’s shoulder. “Fix it, Joshua!”

  “You don’t like us like that?” Nate asked, his voice slightly strained.

  Matt grabbed the box of tissues from the coffee table and gave her one. “You don’t want to be our girl?” His voice was flat, no emotion in it at all.

  “I do. I do like you. More than I should, but I can’t choose between you! I like you all! Can’t we just be friends? I don’t want to lose you.”

  For several seconds there was silence, and Lily buried her face in the tissue, knowing she’d ruined it all.

  “Bloody hell.” Jake sighed. “You worried me there, Lily.”

  She looked up in confusion.

  “You don’t have to choose. You won’t lose us,” Nate said. “We know it’s not normal, but would it really matter? We wouldn’t be doing anyone any harm. Your mum and Aunt June can carry on thinking you’re dating Matt if you want, but we all want to date you. We’re your friends, but we want more than that.”

  Lily frowned, his words not making any sense. “You mean... What do you mean?” she muttered, screwing up the tissue in her hands.

  “It’s got a name,” Jake said. “Lots of people do it, actually. It’s called polyamory.”

  “Huh?” She knew she sounded dumb, but it was all she could manage.

  “Polyamory,” Nate said and pushed his glasses up. “It’s a multi-partner relationship.”

  She struggled to get to grips with what he meant. “You mean, like one man with several wives?” she asked doubtfully.

  “No, that’s bigamy, and results in prison time,” Josh said. “Polyamory is where they aren’t married, they’re just in a relationship together. So it’d be all of us and you.”

  Her heart missed a beat as the implication of what he was saying sank in. She dropped onto the sofa, and they crouched around her.

  “You’d date me, but you’d also date them,” Matt explained.

  “We like you a lot. We all want you to be our girl. Unless,” he hesitated slightly. “Unless, you like one of us more than the rest? Do you want to choose one of us over—”