Broken Compass

by Jo Raven

  Where do I start?

  How does it end?

  Before I manage to text or call, I fall asleep on the bus, forehead pressed to the cool glass of the window. I end up missing my fucking stop, so I have to double back a mile. By the time I get home, I’m so beat I can barely walk straight. I make my way upstairs and stand in the empty living room, listening to the familiar hum of the apartment.

  Our apartment.

  Nothing sinister here. Nothing incomprehensible, like the words I overheard that keep bubbling up to the surface of my thoughts, words I’m trying real hard not to think about right now—about West and his grandfather, or whoever that old guy is.

  Not tonight.

  As I pass by Nate’s room, I glance inside the half-open door, and I see him curled up with Syd beside him. I linger for a few moments, itching to join them. Curl up in a bed with them, not alone, to feel their warmth, their presence.

  I’ve never seen them asleep together. Did she wake up and go look for him? Did he call out for her in his sleep? Did he find a way to overcome his instinctive reaction and sleep with her, kiss her, fuck her?

  Hugging the doorframe, I imagine them together, moving and sliding against each other, her red hair and his dark mop, her pale curves and his muscular back, and desire streaks through me, getting my dick hard and heavy.

  Desire and bitterness. I’d been afraid of talking to Syd tonight, but I’d also been dying to see her, be with her, hold her and now she is in Nate’s arms.

  Does this mean she made her choice?

  Sleep is calling me, even if my mind is buzzing. I make my slow way to bed and drop on top of the mattress, clothes and boots and all, kicking the bunched-up covers off, to the floor.

  Blackness draws me under fast. One moment I’m staring at the faint light coming through the slats, and the next I’m falling over a cliff and down a black pit, a ravine, tumbling head over feet, unable to find purchase, terror chasing me.

  Chandeliers are swinging.

  Strong wind is blowing.

  Blood rises in a crimson tide, filling up the pit and I sink down, drowning, dying, not breathing.

  Nobody’s breathing. Bodies. Corpses. Death.

  I can’t fucking breathe. Hands are grabbing at me, dragging me down to the bottom, and I’m dying, too. I’m dying—

  Gasping, I jerk and roll on my side, away from the grasping hands. “Kto tam?”

  My voice’s so shot to hell, hoarse and threadbare, it doesn’t even sound like mine.

  “Kash.” Green eyes so close to mine, a sweet small face, and I reach for her because I know she’s mine, that she’s good for me, before I even place her. “Was it a nightmare?”

  “Ah-huh.” I slide my hand up her shoulder to her neck, to her face. Her silky cheek is soft and full under my palm, and she smells like roses. And then her face clicks, and I tug her toward me. “Syd.”

  She crawls on the bed beside me, puts her arms around me without a fight, without an argument, without any sharp edges or bleeding wounds.

  I wrap myself around her, burying my face in her neck.

  Maybe it’s the lingering sickness, the exhaustion, the uncertainty, the guy trailing me, or what I witnessed at West’s apartment.

  Maybe it’s the nightmare, the dead faces that used to be so dear.

  Whatever it is, it’s cracked me open. I can’t stand the loneliness anymore. The emptiness. I miss my former life, miss my family too damn much. The empty hole in my chest is aching like the old wound it is, the hole where my love for them used to be. I’m incomplete. I’m cut off from everyone and everything I once knew, and Sydney’s touch, her grip on me is such a fucking relief.

  No, more than that. It’s a pleasure unlike any I’ve ever known.

  A creak at the door has me tensing, and I lift my head, but then Nate steps in, letting in a strip of light.

  For some reason, when I see him, the tension seeps away again.

  “I thought I heard something,” he says, his gaze on me. He leans back against the wall, dressed in low-slung pajama bottoms, a soft gray cotton, his chest bare. “You okay?”

  I eye him, cataloguing the signs of fatigue in his face and posture, the hard line of his mouth. “You couldn’t sleep, either?”

  He looks away, cheeks coloring, eyes glittering, and folds his bare arms over his chest.

  “Want to join us?” Sydney asks, and I start, my hold around her tightening, as her words sink in. I remember them curled up together in his bed earlier, how they looked, pale bodies and slack faces, breathing in tandem.

  What would it be like to have in my bed not only Syd, but also Nate, his strong arms around us, his long body stretched out beside us?

  The question rolls about in my mind like a dark gem, smooth and enchanting. And I discover that I don’t mind the thought. Not as much as I thought I would, anyway.

  But he shakes his head, dark hair flying. “I should let you guys sleep.” Whiskey-colored eyes peek out from under long lashes. “If that’s what you’re planning on doing.”

  He steps out, leaving that hanging in the air, and heat curls around my neck and shoots down my back.

  Damn.

  “You wanted to talk,” I whisper in Sydney’s ear. “What did you wanna tell me?”

  “It’s late. Get some sleep.”

  “Are you upset, Syd?”

  “What? With you?”

  “Yeah. About last night.”

  “Why would I be? I wanted it. Wanted you.”

  Relief swamps me. “But you want Nate and West.”

  “And you, too. God, Kash, haven’t you figured it out yet?”

  “Figure out what?” Her body, her smell, her face, her hair, it’s all distracting me.

  “I want all three of you.”

  This can’t be right. What does she mean? “So you haven’t chosen yet.”

  “No. I don’t want to choose.”

  I say nothing. I’m not sure what to say.

  “I just… Listen, this is what I wanted to tell you. I…” She sighs. “I slept with West, too. Well, not exactly. We made out. I touched him, and he touched me.”

  She looks up at me, her eyes defiant, her face flushed. Expecting my judgment, my anger. I should feel jealous, right? Angry and betrayed and possessive. I should be beating my chest like Tarzan and dragging her to my lair, marking her as mine.

  And I do want her to be mine. But… I think of her with West, and I think of her with Nate, and the same desire wraps around me, making my ass clench and my dick harden.

  I don’t even fucking understand myself.

  “What about Nate?” My mouth’s dry. “Have you slept with him?”

  “Nate… is more complicated. I told you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “That the guys need you. Nate and West.”

  “And you? What about you?”

  “I…. I need you too,” I admit.

  She nods, her arms around me, her body pressed to mine. She’s warm and soft, and the wisps of the nightmare are fading. I’m tired and sleepy and content.

  “I love you all,” she whispers, and a twinge of bittersweet pain goes through my chest, like a needle prick. “You all have a place in my heart. I’m not sure my heart would be whole without you all.”

  I blink in the half-darkness. “So you want all of us? Like, on separate nights, like now?”

  “No, I want all of you, together. No lies. No secrets. Is it possible?”

  I dunno. Never thought it could be possible. Or desirable.

  But despite the twinge of unease at the thought of her with West, the thought of all of us, together, in this bed is… damn exciting.

  It feels right.

  “I’m probably fucking nuts, girl, but I told you, I’d give anything for this.” I press my lips to her forehead, close my eyes, curled around her. “All this. Being with you. Having what you have with the guys. I expected nothing. This is so much more. I’ll take it.
”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  West

  “I can’t,” Nate is saying, his jaw clenched, eyes stormy. “I just can’t fucking do it. This sucks ass.”

  “You don’t give up after the first try, man.”

  His sneakers are trailing dirt all over the carpet, and I itch to ask him to take them off, to go and bring the broom and gather it all up, but not while he’s sitting here, opening his heart to me.

  Even if it has to do with Syd.

  “I freaked out, West. You weren’t there. I was kissing her, and I totally lost it.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I dunno. I can’t even remember, but afterward she looked scared.” He huffs and sits down beside me. “I fucking scared her. Again. I have to find a way to get over this shit. Kash is making his move. I’m gonna lose her, West.”

  “Again? This happened before?”

  He shrugs.

  Okay. So I’m supposed to help Nate win Syd over Kash. Jesus fucking Christ.

  I mean, I did say I’d root for him. He’s been my best friend for ages, even if Kash saved his ass.

  Okay then. Think, West. What can you do?

  We’re sitting in my bedroom, on the carpet with our backs to my bed, facing the open window. It’s a warm afternoon. Nate has some time before work at the gym and like he often does these days, he checked his folks were out and slipped in to see me. We’ve even sparred a few times, and even gone running once, like old times.

  It feels so damn good to have him back in my life.

  And now he’s looking at me like I have the answers to all the questions in the world, and the only thing I know is that I can’t let him down.

  Not again. The guilt of not following him when he ran away is still fresh and itchy like a scab.

  Nate lets out a deep breath and rubs at the back of his neck. “Fuck, I’m sorry. Dunno why I’m telling you this.”

  “Because we’re friends?”

  He shoots me a faint smile.

  “I’m gonna help you,” I say.

  “How?”

  “Dunno yet. What about… What about trying with me?”

  “Come again? Trying what?”

  I forge on before my rational mind catches up and slaps me upside the head. “Pretend I’m Syd. You feel safe with me, right? You said so the other day.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

  “Then let’s give it a try.”

  “Wait, wait. Just one sec. What are you saying? Are you…” He’s staring at me. “You want me to kiss you?”

  “It’s practice, dude. That’s all. Experimentation. See what sets you off.”

  “I dunno.” He lifts both brows at me. “Trying it with you because I feel safe with you means the results of the experiment will be skewed.

  “… are you fucking with me?” I growl. “So not funny, dude.”

  He grins.

  “The thing is, don’t you feel safe with Syd, too?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” His grin fades. “I feel safe with Kash, Syd and you. But I shoved her away when she was kissing me, man. Feeling safe isn’t enough.”

  I swallow hard. He was kissing Syd when he freaked out. Do I tell him I kissed Syd, too, and that we made out, that I had my fingers inside her, that I made her come?

  It feels like a betrayal of our friendship that I haven’t told him, when I’m offering to help him make out with her.

  Christ, this is so fucking complicated.

  No it’s not, West. Just tell him. Confess.

  “Sure,” he says and I blink at him, confused.

  “Sure, what?”

  “I’ll try with you. Nothing to lose, right?”

  Right…

  Well, apart from the fact I want Syd for myself, and now I’m helping my best friend get her. Oh, what about the fact that I’m weirdly attracted to said best friend, maybe to Kash, too, but otherwise… yeah, no problem. I mean, it was my suggestion.

  Go me.

  “Okay,” Nate says and rubs a hand over his mouth. “Come here.”

  Uh.

  It finally sinks in, what I offered to do. What I’m about to do with my best friend, who happens to be a guy.

  He’s smiling a faint smile, the dimple in his left cheek barely there, his gaze uncertain, those long dark lashes lowering as he glances from my eyes to my mouth. “Come on, West. Give it to me.”

  A nervous snicker escapes me, my palms sweating. No big deal, right? I mean guys even blow each other in the showers sometimes just to get off, or to see what it’s like. Kissing? Pff. This is nothing. I’m just helping my friend get over his fear—and I don’t wanna think of the source of that fear, the reason for it.

  I just hope he’ll tell me everything one day.

  And I still hesitate to touch him.

  “This is awkward,” he says, and rakes a hand through his dark hair. It’s grown way too long, hanging over his ears and forehead, falling in his eyes, curling a little at the back of his neck. “Maybe it’s a bad idea.”

  His mouth is wide and always mobile, smiling, talking, pursing, thinning. His lower lip is slightly fuller, something I noticed years ago. It was funny then.

  It’s hot now. “No,” I say. “It’s not a bad idea.”

  I curl my hand around the back of his neck and drag him closer. It’s to help him, I tell myself, to show him he can do it. That’s all there is to it, nothing more.

  I’m not curious to kiss him, taste his mouth. See if it’s different from kissing Syd. See if I can make him kiss me back.

  What the hell. But I’m already pressing my lips to his, my hand holding him in place when he jerks back.

  It’s just that, lips against lips, soft, warm, and I don’t dare try more in case I spook him. He’s already panting, eyes comically wide.

  Not funny, though. When he said he freaked out with Syd, I didn’t think much of it. But there’s real fear in his gaze. He’s shaking. He grabs my shoulder and shoves at me.

  Goddammit. I release him and draw back, oddly disappointed, probably as much for not magically fixing what ails him as for not deepening the kiss, not finding out what it’s really like to kiss Nate.

  He has a hand in his hair again, tugging, his cheeks flushed. “Fuck.”

  “Sorry, dude. This isn’t working.” He was right. It’s damn awkward. I start to get up. “You were right. It was a bad idea.”

  “Just…” His hand clamps around my wrist, keeping me down. “Shit, man, gimme a goddamn minute.”

  For what? I want to ask, slumping back down, leaning against the bed. The experiment failed, skewed results or not. He was right. Feeling safe wasn’t enough.

  Or is it because I’m a guy?

  “Let me,” he says. I have no idea what he’s talking about, until he grabs the back of my neck and drags me in for a kiss that blasts through me like a blaze of fire.

  It’s aggressive. Violent. Hard. The motherfucker bites my lower lip, licks at my mouth, thrusts his tongue between my lips.

  Holy motherfucking hell.

  He’s kissing me. Nate’s kissing the fuck out of me, his big hand cradling the back of my head, his other gripping my shoulder as he takes over, turning me on like nobody’s business.

  And no sign of freaking out—at least on his part. As for me, I’m not sure how I feel about this. I’m shaken, throttled, hollowed out and burning with want.

  So what does that mean?

  “It means giving up control freaks me out,” Nate says a bit later, not addressing the real matter.

  Not addressing the fact that he kissed a guy, properly and thoroughly. That he kissed me, all teeth and tongue and violent lips.

  I’d think I was the only one affected, but the tent in his pants tells me otherwise.

  “The moment I took control, I was okay,” he goes on, knees drawn up, hands dangling between them. “Yeah, that’s it. That’s the answer.”

  Is it, though? I study his face, more familiar to me than my own. Despite the boner, he’
s still pale, and his hands are trembling. “You sure?”

  “It worked, man. That’s the only thing that matters.”

  Yeah, looks like we’re not addressing that kiss. Which shouldn’t fucking matter to me at all.

  “Nate, look, about what we did—”

  “No offense, man, but I like girls better.”

  “Same.” I sigh. “Same, dude. Anyway… glad this helped. Go get her, tiger.”

  He elbows me, and I grin at him. We’re good. It doesn’t matter if I want Syd for myself, if I also want more with Nate.

  I’ll see him happy even if it breaks my fucking heart.

  Long after he leaves to work, I wander around the apartment in a daze. I pick up the brush and bleach, put them back down.

  I don’t know what to do with myself, and as anxiety fills me, the tics get worse. I don’t have nearly as many as I had while Nate kept away from me, but my mind is knotting up into loops and twists until I’m about to howl.

  So I slam the apartment door behind me and walk away, no destination in mind. I wind through narrow streets and shady lanes, avenues and alleys.

  If Nate dates Sydney… what does it mean for my friendship with her, and him, and Kash? Will Kash leave? Will Sydney still come over?

  Will I never hold her and kiss her again?

  Fuck. It’s all sinking in, and my heart keeps racing. It won’t slow down. It’s realized what I’m starting to absorb: things are about to change. And I don’t deal well with change.

  I also don’t fucking deal well with the prospect of seeing the guys—and Syd, goddammit—less, not being as close to them as I thought we were growing to be. Somehow I thought… I thought we’d be together.

  All of you? A snide voice in the back of my head asks. It sounds like Grandpa’s. You’re a goddamn fucking loser, Weston. You’re worthless, and you deserve nothing, so why did you even consider you could get your wish?

  Yeah. All this.

  By the time I stop walking and look for a way back home, dark is falling, and nothing has changed. My heart is still racing. My mind is still twisted up.

  And when I get home, it’s still the same mess it was when I left.

  But no, wait. I’m actually totally wrong on this one.