by Jade West
Jack’s a dirty sonofabitch. It’s one of the reasons he’s chronically single.
Jack knows what he likes, and he likes pretty much everything.
He goes for what he wants, and he wants Carrie Wells.
I think he even wants her as much as I do.
It’s a relief to stride through the high street and arrive on my own doorstep. Pam’s light is on downstairs and I see the curtain twitch as I turn my key in the lock.
She knows Carrie is staying with Jack now. She knows I knew about it, too.
Fuck knows what questions I’m going to have to answer at work on Monday, but I’ve got bigger fish to fry right now.
I’ve got tomorrow night to get through yet.
And Carrie may well have a decision to make which doesn’t go my way.
The thought doesn’t bear thinking about, but the fucker won’t leave me alone.
Jack
She’s not quick enough to dart away from view when I head through to the living room with a fresh cold beer from the fridge. Call it instinct, but I used to do it when I was a kid and my parents were arguing – sit myself down on the top stair and hope people would be too caught up in their row to notice me.
I prop myself against the bottom bannister and call up to her.
“You can come down if you want. Michael’s gone.”
She pokes her head around the top rail. “I wasn’t–” she begins, but I shake my head.
“Don’t even think about lying to me, you’ve been there since we sent you out.”
She shrugs. “It’s not eavesdropping if the conversation is about you. It’s called not being a stupid fucking idiot.”
“It’s called poking your pixie nose in where it’s not fucking wanted. What Mike and I talk about is for our ears and not yours.”
She folds her arms as she heads back downstairs. Good manners seem to fade awfully fucking easily with this girl.
“Even if the shit you’re talking about revolves around me?”
“Especially if the shit we’re talking about revolves around you.”
“He’s freaked out,” she says and it isn’t a question.
“Mike takes things hard. He’s very considered.” I pause. “Usually very considered.”
A flash of insecurity shows in her eyes. “I guess I’m messing things up for him a little, right?”
I have the strangest urge to pull the girl into my arms and hold her tight. I saw one of those sickly sweet graphics on the internet once. It said one day someone’s going to come along who’ll hug you so tight that all of your broken pieces will fit back together again.
It made me roll my eyes at the time, and yet here I am years later considering whether maybe it’s not quite so grotesque an idea after all. If I could hug Carrie Wells that tight I would.
I’d love to feel her broken pieces fitting back together again. Hell knows there’s enough of them. The girl has a list of issues a mile long.
“My ass hurts,” she says and I can’t help but smile.
“That’s the idea. I trust you’ll think twice next time you get the urge to drink tequila with a coke-dealing loser.”
She shrugs, and there’s that devilment in her eyes again. “Maybe.”
“Maybe you won’t be able to sit down for a week if you do it again. I’d count yourself lucky.”
I head back through to the kitchen and she follows me, arms wrapped around herself as her feet pad softly across the floor tiles. I get her a coffee, not a beer, and she doesn’t argue.
She looks thoughtful, pensive even. It’s not an expression I usually see on her.
“Why did you let me stay here?” she asks, and the question takes me aback.
“You needed somewhere to sleep. Mike would lose his job if he took you to his.”
“But the hotel. Mike said he’d take me to a hotel.”
“And I had a spare bedroom.”
Her eyes meet mine for just a second before she stares down at her coffee. “I’m glad you let me stay,” she says.
“So am I,” I tell her. “Even if you are a pain in the fucking ass.” I smile to let her know I’m joking, and she smiles too.
“Can’t help it. Born that way.”
“We’ll knock the spiky edges off you, young lady. Just give it time.”
Time. It’s only been a week, but it feels so much longer. It feels like Carrie Wells has been a whirlwind in our lives for an eternity already.
I finish up my beer as she finishes up her coffee and I’m done for the night.
Exhausted enough to sleep for a week, even if my balls are still tight enough to blow.
“Goodnight, Carrie,” I tell her. “I’ll see you in the morning. Tomorrow night is movie night. Me, you, Mike and some popcorn.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I don’t like movies. I don’t even like TV.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to make an exception, won’t you?” I smirk. “You can choose since you’re likely to be the awkward whiny one.”
She groans like I’ve just told her she has to shovel shit for a week and I’m smiling as I make my way upstairs.
Life feels strange in this house all of a sudden. Strange but not unpleasant, far from it. Even if I’m in some absurd triangle with my best friend and his runaway gypsy girl.
I finish myself off in the shower and it’s one of the best hand jobs I’ve ever had the pleasure of giving myself.
I put that down to the Carrie Wells effect, just like everything else this week.
I’m beginning to feel glad it was contagious after all.
Carrie
I can’t get settled in this squeaky bed. My belly is filled up with nerves, and I hate that. I hate the fear of losing people, so I’ve learned that the best way of going through life is not to get attached in the first place. It’s lonely but it’s safe. But this time is different. This time I’m already in deep.
I pushed them and they didn’t walk away. I made them mad and they don’t hate me for it. At least I hope they don’t.
Finding Michael was a lucky break I never thought I’d stumble into. Finding Jack too is more than I ever hoped for. Having both of them in my life is a crazy dream beyond anything I’ve ever dared dream before. Losing them? Well, that would be more than I could bear.
I toss and turn until I’m sticky and uncomfortable, thinking about what happened, wondering what happens now.
What if Michael doesn’t come back? What if he’s really had enough of me now?
What if Jack is in the room next door regretting ever offering me a place to stay?
I know my heart is playing tricks on me, making me doubt all the kindness they’ve shown. I know the thrum of nerves in my belly is just the end result of pushing people away over and over again and still crying when they finally give up on me. I know I brought a lot of this on myself. I know I always do.
But for the first time in my life, I’m daring to hope that this road leads somewhere else. Somewhere good.
And maybe, just maybe, in this house with these two men who’ve given me so much time already, I’ll find something for keeps.
When I was still a little girl being passed from one home to another, I’d get nightmares so bad they’d wake me up. I’d tiptoe out of my bedroom in the middle of the night with my heart racing and tears streaming down my face, and hover outside the bedroom of whichever new parents I had that month, and I’d want to knock so badly. I’d want to tap on that door and ask them to make the nightmares go away, just to feel someone there. Just to have someone’s arms around me and tell me I wasn’t alone.
But I never did knock on that door, not with anyone. I’d take a couple of deep breaths and remind myself that I was all alone in this world, and I’d pull my big girl panties up and go back to bed without a word.
I take a deep breath in the darkness tonight, and it feels different somehow. Everything here feels different.
And maybe I’m different, too.
Maybe tonight’s the nigh
t I can finally knock on that door and reach out. Maybe tonight’s the night someone will actually be there.
My heart is in my mouth as I slip out of bed. The springs creak as I leave, and I wonder if Jack’s been able to hear me tossing and turning through the wall every night this week. I’m really quiet as I turn the door handle, steps light as I tiptoe along to his room.
I press my ear to the door and listen. There’s no light showing around the edges, and I can’t hear any movement in there.
I don’t know whether I can really do this, not knowing if he’s going to freak out and order me back to my own room. Maybe he’ll think I’m coming for sex, which I’m not.
It’s weird to find that I’m not, but I’m really not.
I press my forehead to the door, frustrated that my fingers are shaking and I’m not brave enough to knock. I think of all the times we’ve sat together with a beer in the evening. All the times he’s seemed pleased to have me around.
What’s the worst that can happen?
It can’t be any worse than Michael blowing me out with some bullshit friends only excuse, right? Right?
So I knock.
I knock loud but only once, and then I step back, recoiling as though my fist is on fire. My muscles are wired and ready to bolt back to bed, skin clammy at the thought of reaching out where I’m unwanted. I’m about to bolt when the door swings open, and my eyes are wide as they meet Jack’s sleepy ones. He’s naked. Stark bollock naked. But he isn’t shy and he shouldn’t be. He looks amazing.
He’s broader than I pictured him under his clothes. Solid and muscular with a dark line of hair under his belly button leading down to a…
A really big dick.
Really big.
“You okay?” he asks and I nod like a dumbass.
“Yeah, I’m just…” I dither for words, suddenly so aware I’m in knickers and a vest top and nothing else. “Sometimes I can’t get to sleep…”
I feel like he’s staring right inside me. His eyes are thoughtful and kind and they make my stomach do weird flips.
“You wanted some company?”
“Yes,” I blurt, and then panic, in case he thinks I’m a slut looking for a ride, but I’m not and I tell him so. I tell him so fast that my words are garbled, and then I close my eyes and take a breath. “Sorry,” I say, “I’m crap at this stuff.”
“You think you’re crap at a lot of things,” he says. “But you’re not nearly so crap as you think you are.”
“You think?”
He nods. “I know.”
“Thanks,” I say and I wonder what happens now. I feel like a tit stood here outside his bedroom door begging for someone to talk to me. To hold me.
“I’m tired,” he says. “But if you want some company you’re welcome in here.”
“Please,” I reply before he thinks better of it.
He steps to the side to let me through and I brush past him into a room that smells of him. I love the way it smells. The lamp is on at the far side of his big bed, so I guess that’s his side, if he has a side. I slip into the other and hug my knees to my chest, heart racing at being in someone else’s personal space.
He slips into bed on the other side and flicks off the lamp. I can hear him breathing.
“That stuff earlier,” he begins and I feel him move closer. “You know that it’s because we give a shit, right?”
I nod, then realise he probably can’t see me in the dark. “Yeah, I know.”
“Good,” he says. “We give one hell of a shit about you, Carrie. Both of us.”
My heart pangs when I think of Michael walking away. “Do you think he’s okay?”
“He’ll be fine. He just needs to work things out.”
I roll to face him in the darkness. “You think he’ll be back?”
He laughs a little. “I know he’ll be back. He can’t stay away. The guy’s besotted with you.”
A ripple of shock runs from my head to my toes. “He’s what?”
He laughs again. “He’s crazy about you. Always has been.”
“But he said…”
“He said what he thought he should say. He’s being noble because he thinks that’s what a better man would do.”
“There is no better man,” I whisper and I hear him take a breath.
“I know. He’s my best friend,” he says. I feel the heat from him even though he feels a million miles away. The space between us feels like a gulf. “I guess he’s the man you want, right?” he asks and I’ve never heard him sound nervous before, but there’s something there. Just a little something.
“The man I want?”
“Of the two of us. It’s about him, right?”
My heart flutters. “You mean my favourite?”
He sighs. “Yeah, your favourite.”
“I don’t have one,” I reply honestly. The silence is heavy. It makes me fidget, like I’ve said something wrong. “I don’t have to have a favourite, right? Why do I have to choose? I can’t choose. I don’t want to.”
His voice is low but warm. “Well, that’s uh, kinda how things work, no? You meet a guy, you hook up, it becomes a thing…”
“You want me to choose one of you?”
He sighs. “Fuck, this isn’t how this conversation was supposed to go.”
“But you do, right? You want me to choose?” I hug my knees tighter, because I can’t. I always wanted someone to give a shit, and now there are two and I can’t lose them. Not either of them. “I’m not choosing,” I tell him. “You’ll have to work it out between you. I love you both.”
I suck in breath as I realise what I’ve just said, every muscle wired as I wait for him to freak out. But he doesn’t. He really doesn’t.
“You mean that?”
My body is on fire with nerves. “Yeah. I mean that.”
And then he touches me. I flinch as a warm solid arm reaches out for me and pulls me close, but it feels good. It feels amazing. My body presses to his and his legs wrap around mine, my head fitting so perfectly against his shoulder.
“And we love you, both of us. We’re both fucking crazy about you, Carrie Wells, you little shit.”
I smile against his skin, and I could cry. I could really cry.
His cock is hard, I can feel it pressing against my leg, but he makes no move to fix that and I make no move to fix that either. I wrap my arms around him and hold him tight and he holds me.
“Sleep now,” he whispers. “We’ll sort this crap out another day.”
I nod. Yawn.
And eventually I fall asleep happy.
Chapter Eighteen
Carrie
Jack tries to act super normal next morning, even though I wake in his arms with my hair all over his pillow. He gives me a smile and disentangles himself and heads off for a shower like this is just any other day.
But it isn’t.
Now I’ve slept in his bed I don’t want to sleep alone again.
It felt too good to feel someone’s body against mine. It felt too good to have someone hold me for the first proper time in my life.
Now I know how it feels to be safe and warm in someone’s arms I can’t let it go, and I won’t.
But I can’t choose, either.
I can’t choose either man over the other, they both mean too much to me.
When I was being passed around foster homes like a bad smell, all I ever wanted was one person to give a shit about me. Now there’s the chance I have two. Two men who care enough to give me a chance. And they love me, he said so, and Jack isn’t the kind to lie.
I’m eating a bowl of cereal when he joins me in the kitchen. He pours himself one and takes a seat opposite, smelling ocean fresh with a navy-blue t-shirt over jeans.
“You don’t have many clothes, do you?” he asks, but it’s not a dig. I look down at the top I’m wearing, another basic cami, and one he’s seen already this past week.
“How many do I need? I can’t wear them all at once.”
&
nbsp; He smiles. “It was an observation. Most girls I’ve ever met love clothes, can’t get enough of them.”
“I’m not most girls.”
“You got that right.”
He digs his wallet from his jeans and I put down my spoon as he counts out a load of notes. He slides them across the table at me. “What’s that?” I ask.
“For you,” he tells me. “I was thinking of buying you some things, clothes, boots, whatever, but you earned the money, you should spend it on whatever you want.”
Nobody has ever given me cash before. Gifts, but not cash. Nobody trusts me with cash.
“I don’t want it,” I tell him all the same. “I won’t be bought.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You think I’m trying to buy you for a hundred quid? Please. I’m hardly that much of a miser. I’m paying you for your work on the fence.”
“But I don’t want it,” I tell him. “I did it for me, not you.”
“Then I’m paying you for our fence, Carrie. Take the money please. A good job is a good job and worth paying for.”
I stare at the notes like they could bite me. “That’s too much.”
“Hardly. It’s not even minimum wage.”
“But what if I spend it all?” My eyes are so guarded when they meet his.
“I hope that you do. You need some new boots if you’re going to be trekking through fields every day, those old things are a health hazard.”
Slowly, so slowly I reach out and take the money. “Thanks,” I say, trying to play down how touched I am. Not just for the money, but because he trusts me enough to have it.
“I can take you into Gloucester if you like? Take you shopping?”
I shake my head quickly, much too quickly. “I’ll get the bus.”
He nods. “Okay, suit yourself. Be back in time for movie night though, yes? I’m getting in the popcorn.”
I turn the notes over and over in my fingers. One hundred pounds. A whole hundred pounds.
I think of the things I could buy. New underwear and boots and maybe a pack of cigarettes of my own, to smoke in the fields after a hard day of fencing. Maybe I could buy a new hairbrush and a lipstick. I’ve only got one lipstick, not that I ever wear the stuff.
