Three

by Chloe Lynn Ellis

  He cuts me off with a dismissive noise, throwing his hand up. “There is no explanation. It is simply something that will not work. You cannot—”

  “But I do,” I snap, interrupting him. “I love them. It does work.”

  Fuck. I’m trying to keep my cool, but I’m getting close to a meltdown here.

  “Alright,” Nick says, still holding onto my dad. “Maybe we can all calm down? If the two of you talk this through, maybe you can—”

  “No,” my father says, cutting Nick off, too, since apparently he’s gotten too pigheaded to let anyone else get a fucking word in edgewise. “This thing you are doing, it is bad, mijo. It is a bad idea and bad for… for your hearts. You three are going to hurt one another. You will lose Johnny’s friendship. You will hurt this girl. Jealousy will grow between you. You will—”

  “Shut UP.”

  To my shock, he does. I want to keep shouting. Want to tell him that I put the time in to deal with my fucked-up feelings about his relationship. I worked through it. I realized that I was wrong. I apologized. I reached out and brought him back into my life and he has no right, after all of that, to say any of this shit to me.

  I want him to be there for me, for all three of us, the way I wasn’t for him.

  But I don’t say any of that, because it will come out ugly and twisted, I know it will. Instead, I just leave. And this time, when I slam the door behind me, there’s no question that this isn’t my home anymore. It hasn’t been for a long time, and despite my best efforts, it looks like it never will be again.

  This time, I’ve lost my father for good.

  25

  Johnny

  “Sorry, but we are severely short in the grocery department, princess,” I inform Eden, plopping down on the couch with the minuscule hoard of alcohol I managed to scrounge up. Not even really sure it counts, since the sum total is half a bottle of cooking sherry that she made us buy for one of her recipes last month and a single, solitary, warm beer that was in the back of the soup cupboard for some reason.

  “Does this mean we don’t have to watch the show?” she asks, looking entirely too hopeful.

  “Oh, hell no,” I say, putting an arm around her and tugging her close. “For real, Eden, how did you manage to make it this far in life without any Walking Dead?”

  She shudders, and I grin. This is gonna be fun, even if the drinking game I’d originally proposed looks like it may end up falling a bit short of my original intentions.

  “So remember,” I tell her. “You gotta drink anytime someone takes a headshot at a walker—”

  “How will I know which ones are walkers?”

  I ignore that question and continue, since hello, she’ll know.

  “And anytime Rick yells out ‘Carl!’ you gotta—”

  “Which one is Rick again?”

  I sigh and grab the remote, clicking it to restart the episode and then zooming ahead a bit until I can pause and show her.

  “That guy.”

  Eden squeals and hides her head against my chest.

  “Oh my God, that’s disgusting,” she says, all muffled-like. “How about we do another season of Orange Is the New Black instead? Or one of the superhero ones?”

  I groan, letting my head flop back against the couch. Although okay, not gonna lie, I did like The Flash when she made me watch it. She pops her head back up and looks at me like she’s been practicing Matty’s puppy eyes or something, and fuck if I can’t already tell that I’m going to cave… not without a fight, though.

  Or at least, you know, a negotiation.

  “Okay,” I say. “How about this. You pick the show, I pick the game.”

  She laughs. “Johnny, you know you’re predictable, right?”

  I’m about to defend myself, but then she’s gotta go and prove it.

  “No matter what show I pick, you’re going to find a way to turn watching it into the equivalent of strip poker, aren’t you?”

  “No,” I lie, picking her up and moving her across the couch so that there’s a good foot of empty space between us. I point to it as Exhibit A. “A little space, please? I’d like to point out that you’re the one all over me. Why you always gotta make everything about sex, Eden? Maybe I just want to enjoy a quiet evening of entertainment together, you know?”

  Her eyes are sparkling as she tries hard not to laugh, and she goes, “Mmhmm. Okay, Eugene.”

  I gasp. “Oh, no, you did not just call me that, Eden Evans.”

  She grins, looking proud of herself, so I reach over and grab her leg—bare and long and sexy as hell under another one of the short, flowery dresses she has about a billion of—and yank her toward me.

  “You wanna rethink that, princess?” I ask, getting her flat on her back and underneath me before she can stop laughing. “I can think of some other things you can call me.”

  She’s still giggling, and I was just teasing, but now that I’m laid out on top of her, I kinda don’t want to get off again.

  “I know,” I say, because I’m fucking brilliant at coming up with ways to pass the time, if I do say so myself. “How about we play how many times can I make you come before Matty gets home?”

  She laughs again, but I know her well enough to see it. Pupils already widening, that pretty flush to her cheeks… oh yeah, she’s definitely down with the idea.

  “I… I knew you’d make this about getting naked,” she says, starting to go all breathless like she does when she’s horny.

  I grin, because she’s right, but then I grin even bigger, because there are ways to get what I want and still not have to admit that she’s right.

  “Who said anything about naked, princess? Maybe I’m gonna see how many times I can make you come with your clothes on.”

  She laughs like she thinks I’m kidding, but what’s life without a little challenge? Besides, just because I said she could keep them on, doesn’t mean I can’t still play around underneath them.

  Loopholes for the win, yo.

  I’ve got my hand between her legs and pretty sure I’m more than halfway to getting my first win on the board when we hear the lock turn, and if you wanna know why I fucking love Eden—well, maybe not “why,” because not like it’s the one and only reason, but for sure it’s one of THE reasons, you know?—anyway, like I was saying, one of the reasons I adore this girl is what a little freak she is under all that genuine sweetness and her overall air of being such a good person, you know?

  Case in point on the freakiness? The minute she hears Matty coming in, does she—

  A) Give a sexy little squeaky gasp, like she’s suddenly gone shy?

  B) Blush and try to sort of hide underneath me?

  C) Bite that luscious lip of hers and get one of those “oh, I’ve been a bad, bad girl” looks on her face?

  Hell yeah, she does. In other words, the correct answer is D) All of the above—even though we’ve all three been going at it like porn stars for what, a couple of months now?—but since she is a sexy little freak, my and Matty’s sexy little freak, to be precise, the awesome part is that she also gets fifty shades of turned-on-even-more by him walking in on us, and without further ado, she comes hard, grinding up against my hand and sounding like that chick in the old eighties movie—you know, the one who faked it in the diner?

  So here we are, her all warm and soft and relaxed the way she always gets after round one and me hard and horny as fuck and getting even more turned on than I started with—since now, of course, I’m thinking that round two will include all three of us—but instead of Matty shucking off his clothes like he should and coming over to join us, he just mumbles something that might’ve been hello and then heads back to his room, barely even looking at us.

  “What the fuck?” I say, sitting up and staring after him.

  “Is he… is he okay, do you think?” Eden asks, pushing her hair out of her face as she scrambles up to her knees and leans over the back of the couch to look down the hall, too. “Just tired, maybe?”
r />   “No, he’s not tired,” I say, because why the fuck would he be tired?

  He had the whole day off and mentioned doing a few errands—not that I see any grocery bags having come inside with him, thank you very much—but definitely nothing that would tire him out. Besides, if he was tired, he’d be compelled to clean something before heading to his room, I know this for a fact.

  I frown, considering leaving him alone for a sum total of half a second, then hop to my feet, because let’s just be real, that’s not gonna happen. Something’s wrong or else Matty wouldn’t be acting weird, and I’m still a little scarred by that scare he gave me back before he jumped me in the firehouse that first time. You know, the whole withholding-important-brain-tumor-information-from-me thing? I mean, sure, turned out that he didn’t have one after all that time, thank fuck, but just sayin’… I’m not taking any chances.

  “I’m going to get him a cup of hot tea,” Eden says, because for one thing, she’s almost as much of a nester in her own way as Matty is and seems convinced that all things you might call cozy are cure-alls, and for another, even though she’s not gonna say it out loud, I know she wants to send me in as like, advance reconnaissance or whatnot. Use my vast knowledge of all things Matty to feel out the terrain before she comes in as reinforcements, you know?

  I’m down with that. Actually, I think we make a pretty good team, if you want to know the truth.

  So Eden heads off to the kitchen to do her tea thing and I tuck my overly hard dick up into my waistband—wouldn’t want it pointing out at Matty like some kind of divining rod when I go check on him and giving him the wrong idea of my intentions, you know?—and then I head back and knock on his bedroom door.

  His closed bedroom door.

  Closed and locked, which I find out when he doesn’t answer me immediately and so naturally I try to let myself in.

  “Matty, what the fuck?” I say, leaning against the door as visions of kidney transplants dance in my head. “Open up, bro. What’s going on? You okay? And shut up before you lie about that because I know you’re not, so just get it over with and let me see you already. Seriously, Matty, open the damn door. You know I’m not leaving until you—”

  “I know,” he says, finally opening the damn thing. He gives me a ghost of a smile, but I can see he’s trying not to laugh, at least a little. “Of course you’re not leaving. Jesus, Johnny, you ever think a locked door might mean something like, I don’t know, privacy, please, maybe?”

  “Uh, no,” I say, because hello. No. “Pretty sure it means I’m freaking out the two people who love me the most in the whole world but thank God I know Johnny won’t let me get away with that crap.”

  And Matty actually does laugh at that, which makes me hope that I might get to keep both my kidneys after all… but then not even a full second later, his face sort of crumples like I’ve only ever seen happen one time before ever, and I’ve got my arms around him before I even know what’s happening.

  “Matty,” I say, holding onto him so tight it’s like we’re one person. “Jesus, what happened?”

  “Nothing,” he says, which is so blatantly dumb that I ignore it.

  Matty is not a big crier, which is pretty much the understatement of the century, so while the last time he scared me the end result was pretty fucking epic, I can already tell that this time it’s gonna be something different.

  All thoughts of my dick disappear—well, okay maybe ninety-nine percent of dick-related thoughts, because I’m pretty sure the constant one percent is like, just baseline, you know?—and I manage to get us over to his bed and repositioned without letting go—me leaning up against his headboard and him in my arms. He’s sort of on my lap, too, but basically the two of us are in a big old tangle that almost scares me even more, given the way he’s legit clinging to me now.

  Hand to God, I’m starting to feel like I need to cry now. I don’t need to know the specifics of what’s wrong in order to know that when something is this wrong for him, it’s wrong for me, too, you know? On the plus side, I can tell that all his limbs are intact, and I know Eden’s not hurt—because hello, she’s here—so barring that brain-tumor diagnosis, I figure anything else is fixable. But still, knowing it will be okay isn’t the same as knowing how the hell to make him stop hurting right here and now.

  He’s lying half across me, head on my chest and hands digging into me hard enough that I’m pretty sure there will be bruises later, but I just try to wrap him up even tighter, pulling him against me, and let him be there.

  Kiss the top of his head.

  Smooth a hand down his back.

  Wish I had a relevant superpower—like maybe mind-reading, or one of those ones where you can go one hour into the future but not actually affect anything, but just kind of look around to help figure out what’s up and reassure yourself that it’ll turn out okay. Or wait, maybe it would be better to go one hour into the past? I mean, Matty wasn’t gone all that long, and there’s no way all this is about grocery shopping. The only other time I’ve seen him like this was when his dad came out.

  And… oh shit, now I’m wondering if Santi died or something.

  Before I start to freak out myself, though, I just shut that right down and hold onto him tighter. Clearly I’m gonna get nothing until he calms down, so I kiss the top of his head again and do my best to wrap myself around him so he knows he’s not alone, even though he’s not all that small, despite me teasing him about it sometimes.

  “Matty,” I say, which is all I got.

  Okay, maybe it’s not all, actually, because then I end up saying a whole bunch of other stuff that doesn’t really make sense, just sort of petting and holding him and telling him it’ll be all right in like a million ways, even though I have no idea whatsoever whether I’m lying or not, given that he’s not yet disclosed what’s got his heart breaking like this.

  At some point Eden comes in with the tea and sets it down on the nightstand and wraps herself around him, too, until the three of us get so tangled together that I’m not sure whose parts belong to whom, but that’s okay.

  Feels right.

  Feels necessary.

  And eventually, Matty gets all cried out and none of us want to move, because lying still and doing nothing but this is fucking exhausting, you know? So even though a part of me wants to press him for details and figure out how to go about fixing whatever the hell just happened, before I know it, we’re all asleep. But you know what? Even though me and Eden ended up doing basically nothing at all and Matty still hasn’t told us what was wrong in the first place, it kind of does feel like something got fixed, just us being together like this.

  Pretty sure as long as we hold onto that, nothing else can really be wrong, you know?

  26

  Eden

  It’s the third time I’ve woken up this morning, and just like the previous two, I sit up with a start, heart racing and filled with disbelief. Early morning sun fills my room, the kind that means the sun has barely made it over the horizon, and when I look at the clock on the bedside table, there’s just no way I can deny it.

  I’m awake.

  I’m alive.

  And it’s my birthday.

  “My” room is Matt’s guest room, the boys’ weight bench still in one corner and the few belongings I’ve accumulated since the fire neatly tucked away and not intruding on the space much. What was the point in spending much of the insurance money or really making myself at home here when I knew it wouldn’t be for long? Besides, most nights I sleep in one or the other of their bedrooms, with one or both of them.

  Not last night, though, despite how they pushed me a little. I just couldn’t bear the thought of them waking up next to me if I wasn’t going to wake up at all.

  But I did.

  I’m still here.

  I push the covers aside and stand up cautiously, a part of me still expecting something to happen. Some unforeseeable crazy accident to just end me, despite the fact that the room is peacef
ul and quiet and that I’ve never felt safer or more at home than here in this house. But as soon as I’m on my feet, all the hope that I’ve been doing my best to deny for the last few weeks wells up at once, filling me with something that feels like champagne bubbles.

  Like possibility.

  Like joy.

  I’ve always known that there wasn’t really a reason for me to die before twenty-five, not in the terminal-illness sense, but I’ve never—not once since I was sixteen—truly been able to believe I’d make it to this age. And now? I’ve done it. I’ve actually made it! Even if I walk out of this room and it all ends, I’m already older than generations of women in my family. It wasn’t my fate to die before my twenty-fifth birthday, and for the first time, it really, truly feels like I’ve got my whole life ahead of me.

  I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold in this feeling that fills me, but I can’t. It permeates every part of me, it overflows, it makes me feel like I’m sparkling. A smile spreads across my face that’s so wide I’m almost sure my cheeks aren’t big enough to contain it, and then I’m laughing, flinging my arms out and spinning around like a crazy person.

  I’m alive.

  And oh, Lord. There’s so much I want to do.

  I grab The List off the top of my dresser and flip it open. So many blank pages still to be filled.

  #101 - Fall in love!

  #102 - Apply to nursing school

  #103 -

  I put my pen down abruptly. I’ve already done #101, but I still wanted to write it down and be brave enough to claim it. The same with #102. I haven’t done it yet, but now I’ve got a future. Now I’m brave enough to try. And beyond that? Well, I can easily think of fifty more things to add to The List, but the truth is, I don’t want to spend my birthday planning for the future.

  I want to go out and live it.

  The boys are probably still asleep, but we’ve all three got the day off and I know they won’t mind me waking them up. My heart still breaks for the way Matt’s father treated him when he found out about us, but the sad truth is that we’ll probably always run into people who just don’t understand how what the three of us have can be real. If there’s any bright side to that rejection, though, it’s that the past couple of weeks have only made us closer.