Caught in the Middle

by Kira Barker

  That led me to clue number three—the almost affectionate way they were talking with each other, stealing glances and pausing to offer a smile or wink. Over the years, I’d had plenty of opportunity to observe them in their native habitat—this very house—and while they were usually friendly around each other, they didn’t really interact a lot unless they had something to talk about. Jack often complained that Simon barely got out five words before midday on a bad day, and more than one of our morning sessions had been preceded by him and me both reading in silence while I waited for him to finish his coffee.

  Maybe I should have been glad about that change, but what it did was make my internal alarm bells go off. That only grew worse as I stepped farther into the room so the guys noticed me. Simon looked positively guilty before a smile spread on his face. Jack looked smug.

  “Hi, guys,” I said in what must have been the lamest greeting ever.

  “Not that I’m complaining, but what are you doing here?” Simon replied, while Jack left it at a nod before he came around the breakfast bar to investigate the contents of the box I was only too ready to foist at him.

  “I thought I’d drop by, see if anybody’s home. And I did come bearing gifts.”

  The whole thing reminded me of the day Simon and I had had our first session together. I half expected Jack to start reaming me for this being my routine bootie call performance, but he didn’t. Maybe that should have been a pointer, too, but right then I was caught up in trying to decide what to make of Simon’s behavior. He didn’t act exactly withdrawn, but he wasn’t as open as I’d gotten used to, and for once that wasn’t due to any kind of distraction that I could tell.

  Free of my burden, I made a beeline for the coffee pot that had only just finished collecting liquid ambrosia. My hand shook slightly as I poured myself a cup, and I tried to tell myself that I was just being paranoid. That didn’t help, though, when I turned around and found both guys still watching me, a hint of awkward caution in the air.

  “Do you mind if I use your bathroom?” I asked, already feeling stupid about it. Asking, and needing to go back there, because it wasn’t actually nature’s call that made me run for the back hallway.

  There were no exercise clothes anywhere, not in the washing machine, nor the health hazard that Simon used as a hamper.

  My heart sank as I traipsed back into the kitchen, and for a moment I contemplated just tucking my tail between my legs and fleeing.

  Whatever was going on, I didn’t need to find out right now. It could wait another day. Or at least until tonight, when we were in public at the stupid book party, and I couldn’t very well make a scene in front of a room of strangers.

  Immediately, what Jack had said about Simon’s previous subs echoed through my mind.

  Shit.

  By then it must have become apparent that I was behaving like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, but I tried to play it cool as I returned. Tried, but likely failed, because I couldn’t even keep my arms by my sides but felt the need to hug myself, and crossing them over my chest seemed like the only viable compromise. Jack followed my every move with his eyes while he kept munching his yogurt, but Simon had assumed a much less blasé attitude in the meantime. There was tension in the lines of his body, and he fidgeted uselessly with a towel resting on the counter in front of him, his half-eaten sandwich forgotten.

  There was no way to breach the subject carefully, and considering the buildup that had been happening over the past two weeks, bluntness was likely not the worst option out there.

  “Are you two screwing each other?”

  I already had my answer when Jack snorted and held my gaze, challenge in his eyes, but it was Simon’s reaction that surprised me—and not in a good way.

  “Do you care? Because, quite frankly, you don’t seem to give a shit about anything lately.”

  I wasn’t so far into hypocrisy territory that I got really upset about the fact that the guys I’d had two threesomes with had narrowed things down to activities between them, but the hostility in his voice was like a slap in my face.

  “Of course I care!” I bit out, definitely on the defensive, but of a mind to get pissed off myself. “I do understand that we didn’t exactly set up a contract or agree on exclusivity, but how can you accuse me of not caring? After all, I’m your—”

  I hesitated for a moment, not sure how to end that sentence, and Simon used that mercilessly to keep driving that verbal blade he was wielding home.

  “What exactly are you to me? Ever since our last scene, you’ve been avoiding me like the plague, and it was rather obvious just how deep Jack’s accusation cut you. Are you still my sub? I don’t know! It should be easy to answer if you were. And should I even dare use the term ‘girlfriend,’ when you can’t even bring yourself to kiss me in front of our closest friends, and act as if we never even had sex when we’re in public? I don’t think so, either. So what exactly are you to me, Erin?”

  He kept glaring at me, not even blinking once, and his words left me speechless. Not just because they made me feel like he’d just cut out my heart, but because they were true. Not in the sense that I agreed with his conclusions, but he perfectly described my actions, and if I knew anyone who judged people by that, then it was Simon.

  “Don’t be too hard on her. You know she just pretty much lost her job,” Jack helpfully supplied. If I hadn’t been stunned by Simon’s words, I might have felt like punching him for it, but right now, just sorting my emotions out in my head was hard enough.

  Simon didn’t leave me any time to do so, anyway.

  “Yeah, right. How could I forget about that? Your residency ends in a couple of months and you’re left without any follow-up employment, and you don’t even see the need to tell me? Are we even still friends?”

  That left my mind reeling even more, but this time Simon didn’t go on steam-rolling over me, but waited every painful second it took me to find my voice again.

  “It’s not like that,” I started, but then had to stop, because I really didn’t know how to explain the turmoil that had been going on inside of me for the past weeks.

  “Then how is it?”

  The tension between us was thick enough to cut, and when I didn’t reply, he pushed away from the counter to walk around it, coming face to face with me. From up close, it was even more obvious how angry he was, but that wasn’t what made me grow cold inside. No, it was the utter disappointment in his eyes that slayed me.

  “I get that our agreement was basically set up as a means for both of us to satisfy our urges. And for the most part, I did get my rocks off while it lasted, but that last scene? I did that just for you and got nothing out of it myself. It wasn’t a selfless act on my part, we both know that, but I thought I was doing you a favor in obliging you. In letting you push yourself past the brink, because I thought you’d gathered enough experience to handle a scene like that. To pretty much let you use me to satisfy your needs. And how did you repay me? You shut me out, completely, on all levels. You don’t want to talk about what happened, fine. Maybe you have doubts, maybe you’re a little afraid of yourself, maybe even of me—it happens. That’s to be expected, and while I hate that it happened, it’s part of the process, sometimes. But that’s not why you’ve broken off contact, is it? It’s because for whatever fucked-up reason you believed his bullshit, and suddenly you’re the poor girl and I’m some kind of despicable, violent Neanderthal that you only deal with if you absolutely have to. Did our last time together really disappoint you so much that you couldn’t even call afterward, although you promised? Didn’t I fuck you hard enough, or did the fact that I let you cry on my shoulder twice in one week emasculate me?”

  If his voice had been laced with venom, his words might have been bearable, but he sounded calm and mostly composed, with only a note of pain coming through here and there. The only hint I had that he was really upset was the fact that halfway through he’d started to ramble, but that didn’t take away from the
fact that I could understand how he jumped to all those conclusions, wrong as they were.

  Still I didn’t know how to respond, and for a moment, his composure cracked.

  “Fucking say something, Erin!”

  I felt him slip away, mentally withdraw, and I realized that if I didn’t turn this ship around right now, it would sail off without me and likely never return, so I said the only thing that I could.

  “I love you.”

  I had no clue what he had expected, but that wasn’t it. Simon looked as if I’d slapped him or maybe kicked him in the junk. For just a moment, hope flickered alive inside of me. It was the truth, and it was the explanation to all the wrong decisions I’d taken over the past weeks, and for a few seconds I hoped that it was enough.

  But then Simon blinked and took a step back, and something died inside of me.

  “You love me.”

  Simon said the words as if he was testing them, and the utter lack of enthusiasm in his voice made my throat tighten up.

  “I told you that this wasn’t going to end any other way,” Jack pointed out, and in that moment, something clicked inside of my mind.

  Turning my head slowly, I looked at him, really looked at him, and for the first time in my life I wondered if I even still knew the guy who had been my best friend growing up. What was his agenda? Was he actively working against me? Because that was the only conclusion I could draw from the pieces that were all falling into place now.

  Jack held my gaze for a second but then had to look away, making him at least human.

  Life slowly returned to my limbs, and I swept my gaze back to Simon, finding him still looking at me with a borderline quizzical expression on his face.

  “That can’t be that much of a surprise to you?” I asked, still feeling like my life was bleeding out through the ruin of my heart, but somehow managed to keep my voice level. “And even if it is, I don’t see what the big issue is about it? I don’t expect you to feel the same way about me.”

  Maybe that had been a little nasty, but keeping my calm when I was this upset with someone had never been my forte.

  “It’s not—” Simon started, but Jack interrupted him, drawing our collective attention back to him.

  “That’s all it takes for you to back down? Sheesh, you’re hopeless.”

  Simon ducked his head, and I didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t the anger in his eyes when he turned to face Jack rather than me.

  “Remind me again where what is going on between Erin and me is any of your business? You expressly told me you wanted to keep out of it, so shut the fuck up and let me think.”

  Now it was Jack’s turn to be irritated.

  “I don’t give a fuck about what you do up there, but it does concern me when you two go toe to toe with each other and start driving each other insane. Remember what we talked about?”

  I really would have loved to know what exactly Jack had told him, but it didn’t really matter. I guessed this was what I got for not dealing with shit—it bit me in the ass at the worst possible moment. Before Simon could reply, I got right in his face.

  “Why do you even listen to him? He’s the one who called you an abusive asshole, and now you act as if he’s your external conscience?”

  “At least he is still talking to me,” Simon started, but I didn’t let him go on.

  “Yeah, I get that. It’s all my fault that shit turned sour. Boo hoo. The last couple of weeks haven’t been easy for me, or fun. Sure, now it’s obvious that I should have opened up to you from the start, but have you never been insecure about something that was incredibly overwhelming, and you tried so hard not to jeopardize or ruin it?”

  I really didn’t like the sidelong glance he shot at Jack, but before I could lose him, I went into the offense.

  “Seeing as Jack has been so chatty, has he also told you that he came on to me at the restaurant last week? No? So he didn’t share that he thinks he’s a better and more reliable match for me than you are? Wake up, Simon. He’s using the fact that we’re both emotionally stunted asshats sometimes, and he’s playing us against each other. Don’t ask me for whatever fucked up reason, but don’t you see that?”

  If I hadn’t been so fucking hurt by his rejection, I could have felt pity for the look of doubt and pain that settled on Simon’s face, but right now that was not in the narrowing range of emotions my mind was capable of. At least my revelation shut him up for the moment, leaving me free to deal with what I started to see as the real problem.

  Turning to fully face Jack, I fixed him with the coldest glare I was capable of.

  “Exactly what do you hope to gain by ruining what we have going on? I know that you think this will just blow over like any other fight we’ve had in the past, but you fucking disgust me with all this lying and scheming.”

  “I’m not lying,” he started, but shut up when I took a couple of steps toward him, halving the distance between us.

  “Oh, yes, you are. You’re a sneaky, conniving piece of shit, that’s what you are! First you try to demonize Simon so I run, then you play my insecurity against me when you try to convince him of, I don’t know, my impending insanity? What’s the matter with you? Can’t you stand us not being totally codependent on you?”

  It was barely more than a wild guess, and half-assed at that, but when I saw Jack’s jaw tremble as his eyes got just a little wild, I realized that I’d hit straight on. Simon’s ignorance might hurt, but this—this was far worse.

  “You got to be fucking kidding me!” I screamed, my voice breaking when it went up an entire octave at the end. “Are you fucking insane? Are you seriously telling me that you’ve started tearing apart our friendship just because there is someone else in my life that I’m close to? You put me through hell because you’re fucking jealous?”

  Maybe that was a little melodramatic, but with the stress of the past weeks bearing down on me, I didn’t have it in me to be diplomatic anymore.

  “I am not jealous!” Jack ground out, the anger in his tone laced with just enough petulance to turn that claim into a lie.

  I shot a glance at Simon, but he didn’t seem ready to stand with me in this. In fact, he looked downright shell-shocked—or like someone had just wrenched his heart out of his chest and was shredding it to pieces.

  Oh, this was just getting better and better.

  The realization that I wasn’t the only one who was ready to curl up in a corner and die doused some of my rage, but the mix of desperation and just plain old pain that was left made me feel like shit. Turning back to Jack, I found him still breathing heavily with anger, but there was something in his eyes that made me look away.

  “I’m not jealous,” he repeated more evenly, the words grating along my soul. “But how do you think it makes me feel when the two people I care about the most, the two people who define me, suddenly don’t need me anymore? And don’t look so fucking surprised. You wouldn’t even be screwing each other if not for me—you wouldn’t even know each other! For fucking forever you’ve always run to me with every single stupid thing that went wrong in your lives, begging me to fix it. Did Simon ever tell you that he’s been wanting to fuck you for years but never quite worked up the courage to have that talk with you? That he needed you drunk and blundering about, and, most of all, he needed my help to set things in motion? Guess it must really suck for you that now that he finally got you, he’s much more into another shiny new toy he picked up along the way.”

  The satisfaction in Jack’s tone was enough to make anger flare through the uneasy guilt that his words had brought up inside of me, but he only paused long enough to let what I’d already realized settle in as confirmed before he went on, his voice hardening.

  “You two both do nothing but look down at me, day in, day out. I’m your eternally funny, slow-witted sidekick, because, guess what, not everyone can have a genius-level intellect! But you’re both so fucking stupid and naive in your own ways, it almost feels like beating a child w
hen I give you that overdue, well-deserved shove that makes you stumble! You two are so fucking pathetic, it’s laughable. And it didn’t take more than two conversations of telling you exactly what you already know to make you fall flat on your own face.”

  His malice shut me up, leaving me gulping like a fish caught on land, but now it was Simon’s turn to regain his composure—and lose it within the first few words that came out of his mouth.

  “You make me doubt myself, you make her, your oldest, closest friend, break down because you cut her off from her support net, and for what? For your own vanity? No one fucking thinks that they’re superior to you! I don’t, and I doubt that Erin does, either!”

  I nodded, even though neither of them was more than glancing at me.

  “But you sure know how to act like superior assholes for people who are supposedly so humble!” Jack cried, still not calming down. “Do you ever stop for a second and think what you’re doing to me? You moan and bitch and complain about how things are so bad when I would die to share with you what you find insufficient in others, and, obviously, me too? I was the driving force that got you together, first as friends, then as lovers. I set this up, and what do you do? First chance you get, you cut me out completely, and then get in my face when I do what you always have depended on me to do and tell you that you’re idiots?”

  His eyes were frantic as they shifted between us, and suddenly he was on his feet, coming toward us, fast enough that I almost cringed away from him. Glaring at me first, then at Simon, he pulled himself up to his not unimpressive height and glared at us.

  “You know what? I’m done. With both of you. It’s just like you to band together against me now. Just look how you do without me. Have fun picking up the pieces of the relationship you both were incapable of building. I’m out.”