Three, Two, One (321) Read online

  I have no idea who this girl is. I have no idea what I’m going to do about it. I don’t know if I want to kick JD’s ass and lock that girl up in my own bedroom, or kick them both out and pretend my whole world isn’t about to flip upside down.

  I sit there for a long time, just staring at the photos. I wait for JD to come back so we can work this out, but he never does. I wait for my feelings for this girl to manifest so I can come to terms, but they don’t. So eventually I go into the kitchen and make a sandwich, then eat it sitting on the couch staring at the TV.

  Finally I have to accept the obvious.

  They don’t need me to understand each other’s anguish. They don’t need me to fuck away the sadness. They don’t need me to give them permission to abuse themselves with pain.

  Because they have each other.

  And I have no one.

  Eventually I make my way into my bedroom, slip out of my clothes, and fall into bed alone.

  But sleep eludes me. Questions run through my mind for hours. Questions and regrets. Anger at being discarded. Frustration at being confused.

  I finally get up and make my way into the office to grab my camera, and then I walk down the hallway to JD’s room. The door is unlocked and partly ajar. So unlike him before this girl came. The bedside light is still on, flooding them both in a hazy light. Blue is uncovered from the chest up and JD has kicked off all the covers. His leg is tossed over her thigh in a possessive gesture that makes me jealous. And her hand rests on his leg, just over his hip.

  He’s hard for her, even in his sleep.

  I adjust the shutter time for the low light and begin shooting.

  JD stirs with the clicking of the camera, and then his eyes open.

  I wasn’t sure how he’d react, but I was not counting on that grin. “About time you came to your senses, asshole.” And then he turns over and hugs her close. Too close, because she whimpers in her sleep when he touches her wounds.

  But then, like it’s already second nature, he slips his hand under the covers and begins to play with her. The whimpers take on a new tone. One of pleasure.

  “Put that fucking camera down and just get in bed, Ark. You know you want to.”

  He lifts the cover up, revealing the fact that he’s got two fingers inside her.

  There’s no way I’m putting this camera down.

  “You always like to watch,” JD says, matter-of-factly. “Never want to participate. Just observe and record. But listen to me, brother.” JD stops what he’s doing to Blue and looks straight in my camera. “You’re gonna lose her if you don’t give in.”

  “Give in to what?”

  “Us. The three of us, Ark. This is how it’s meant to be. You knew it the minute we found her.”

  “I found her.”

  “We found her, asshole. A one-second headstart does not give you the right to call her yours. Because she’s ours, Ark. So you have two choices. Get in bed and be a part of it. Or take that camera and get the fuck out of our room.”

  “You’d choose her over me, just like that?”

  “I’m inviting you in. If you say no, don’t blame your loss on me.”

  “What if I don’t want to share her? What if I want her all to myself?”

  He shrugs. “Too late. She’s ours. She wants to be ours. She wants you and me. Deal with it or don’t. But it’s not going to change.”

  “I don’t want to sleep with you, JD.”

  “Yeah?” he laughs. “Well, since you’re standing in my room naked, with a hard-on, and holding a camera taking dirty pictures of Blue and me, I’m gonna have to call you a liar.”

  “I want her, not you.” I snap a picture of him as he kisses Blue on the head and she snuggles into his chest.

  “Just get in the bed, asshole. I’m tired.” And then he turns out the light.

  I walk out the door and go back to my room. My dick is so fucking hard as I lie back down in my own bed.

  Fuck that.

  I’m not having a ménage relationship with my best friend and this girl.

  Fuck. That.

  “Blue,” JD whispers in my ear.

  “Hmmm,” I say, relaxed, naked, and enjoying the way he twists my nipple as he kisses my neck. I reach for his dick and get a fistful of denim. “You’re dressed already?” Is it even light outside? I open my eyes. It’s not.

  “I gotta go. I’ll be back tonight.” And then, before I can gather my senses, he’s gone.

  The coldness of being alone washes over me immediately. I swing my feet out of the bed just as the front door closes. And even though I run my fastest, my feet slapping on the hard concrete floor, when I open the door to see if he’s waiting for the elevator, I get more emptiness.

  I close it back up and stand there, my back pressed against the door, my thoughts wild.

  Am I alone? I hate being alone. I can’t tolerate it anymore. Not after constantly being in the company of others for the past year and a half.

  Ark, my mind says. Go find Ark.

  But I heard that conversation last night when they thought I was asleep. JD extended an invitation and Ark refused.

  I try anyway. He said he wanted me, so maybe if JD isn’t here, he will let me in his bed.

  I tiptoe down the hallway opposite the one that leads to JD’s room and stop at Ark’s door. It’s open a crack, which is the same invitation JD left him last night.

  I accept it and walk in. My naked body is shivering from the cold already, my sex throbbing with the need for release.

  Ark is naked and uncovered.

  I walk around to the empty side of the bed and kneel down on the mattress, waiting to see if he wakes. But he’s still. So I slip in next to him and close my eyes. Just this is enough to warm me back up. Just the fact that he’s within inches of me is enough to put a damper on my sexual frustration and calm me down.

  I can wait for him, I tell myself. I can wait for him to want me. My fingers slip down between my legs and glide past my slit where the wetness of my arousal is waiting.

  “I’m awake, you know,” Ark says next to me. “And if you think you can hop between us and get what you want each time, you’re wrong.” He turns over to look at me. “I’m a possessive asshole.”

  I look for the humor in that, but he’s serious.

  “So if you want to be fucked by me and him, you’re gonna wait a long time.”

  “You already did it once,” I remind him. “What’s the big deal?”

  “Number one, I don’t want to share. And neither do you.”

  “I’m here.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  I search his dark eyes for a moment until the realization hits me. “You want information about me.”

  “And you seem to be a sex addict.”

  “So…”

  “So?”

  “So you’ll give in if I do?”

  “What will you give me?” he asks.

  I huff out a long breath of air. Why won’t he just take what I’m already offering?

  “I’ll spell it out, then. I want to know where you came from. Who were you with the day you ran away?”

  I bite my lip and weigh how much I can say.

  “Let’s play a game, Blue.”

  I look over at him, confused. What kind of man turns down a naked girl in his bed? And he’s not gay, he made it pretty clear he was not interested in JD.

  “Twenty Questions. Ever play that game?”

  “Of course.”

  “Let’s play now. Think of your first kiss. Picture it in your head. Picture where it was, who it was with, and how it felt. Now tell me about it.”

  “That’s not how you play the game. I think of something and you guess by asking questions. You get twenty in all. That’s why it’s called Twenty Questions.”

  He’s shaking his head the whole time I’m talking. “No, sorry. The game we’re playing, also called Twenty Questions, is played by me asking you twenty questions and you giving truthful answers.�
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  I laugh at him. “That’s stupid. It’s not a game, it’s an interrogation.”

  He shrugs that off. “Maybe it is, but let’s play anyway. Question one, what was your first kiss like?”

  I open my mouth to protest, but his finger is suddenly there, tracing my lips. My heart beats faster at his touch. God, I need it. And then he slips it inside and my lips wrap around it automatically.

  The throbbing between my legs is back and I’m just about to start masturbating when he withdraws his finger and drags it over my chin, down my neck, and then rides the crest of my breast until he stops on my nipple.

  He squeezes it very hard and I arch my back a little.

  “You talk, I’ll get you off.”

  I look him in the eyes to see what this is about, but he’s stoic. Why is he so closed up? “Why do you want to know that stuff?”

  “Because we’re going to start from the beginning, Blue. So long as you keep talking, I’ll keep touching. And if your story rings true, if you tell me real things, I’ll give you what you want.”

  I swallow hard again. “How do you know what I want?”

  “I sell sex, Blue. I can recognize a masochist when I meet one.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You are.” He says it definitively, like he knows this to be true. “Maybe you’re just realizing it. Maybe you’ve known it for a long time. But I’m stating the obvious. And I’m gonna go ahead and give you a little warning about JD. He’s a lot better at dishing it out than you might expect.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means he can get carried away.”

  “But not you, right?” I glare at him. “Not Ark, the man in control, right?”

  “Not me. You described me perfectly. The man in control.”

  I let out a long breath and turn away from him. “I want more than a release. If I tell you true things about my past, then I want you to be invested.”

  “Invested?” He laughs. “You’re in my house. You’re on the run. You want me and my best friend to give you what you need.” I start to protest, but his hand cups my mouth. “Shh,” he commands. “You want more than sex, I get it. You want protection. You want a place to hide. You want a place to decompress and understand whatever happened to you. Maybe you want allies?” He stops to watch my face after that declaration. “And we’re willing. JD might give it away, but I don’t. JD doesn’t know what’s good for him. I do. So I’m going to take control of this situation and put things in order right the fuck now. You have no idea who he is. You have no idea what he’s doing when he leaves here.”

  I slap Ark’s hand from my mouth. “And neither do you, from the sound of it. You didn’t know where JD was yesterday.”

  “You’re right,” Ark snaps back. “I didn’t know where JD was. But I certainly know what he was doing.”

  The silence hangs there for a few moments.

  “And you don’t have any idea what you’ve walked into here with us, Blue. No idea at all.”

  “So tell me.”

  “Oh,” he laughs. “Now you want answers and sex. Well, that’s gonna cost you a little bit more than you have right now. So let’s just stick to the sex.”

  I sit up, ready to bolt back to JD’s room and get away from this asshole, but he grabs my tit and squeezes. I fall back against the pillow and moan.

  And then, just to prove he’s got what I need, he flips me over, drags the covers off my bare bottom, and smacks me hard, right across the bruises left over from a few days earlier.

  I cry out at that one, but even though I’m ashamed to admit it, my clit is begging for more.

  “Start talking. Your first kiss happened when you were how old?”

  She’s in, I can tell. She might hate me right now, but she’s in. She needs a release and for some reason, she wants it from me.

  “Blue,” I prod.

  She turns those eyes up at me and blinks. “Seventeen.”

  My laugh surprises both of us. “What’s that about? You were religious? Your teen years consisted of promise rings and youth group?”

  “No,” she snarls. “I was just picky.”

  “But now you’re not?”

  “Who says I’m not?’

  “You’re living with two strangers trying to negotiate with you, using sex as payment.”

  “JD doesn’t want sex as payment. You do. And you have me all wrong anyway. I’m not only after sex.”

  “Then what else?”

  She turns her body towards me slightly. Her hands are tucked under the pillow and it makes her look so innocent. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was just lost and confused. But I know my way around a lost girl. I know my way around an abused girl, too. We work with all kinds of girls, and let me tell you, none of them are in a good place. You don’t suck cock for money if you’re in a good place.

  No. Blue is not like those girls. I can’t put my finger on it, but something is very familiar about her.

  “I’m not addicted to sex. And I don’t enjoy pain. I just like it… a little bit rough.”

  “Is that how you got your ass beat?” It’s a low blow, and her soft expression is immediately hard again. “Is that why your body is so battered right now, you can’t even put on clothes?”

  “I’m not talking about that. You asked about my first kiss.”

  “So talk. Where was it?”

  “In the back seat of Jimmy Laslos’ car.”

  “Were you coming home from youth group?” I don’t smile, but she gets the sarcasm.

  “No. I told you, that wasn’t why I waited so long.”

  “Then why did you wait?”

  “My best friend was… a bad example. The things she did scared me, so I was afraid to follow in her footsteps.”

  “Hmm,” I say, looking at her closely to make sure she’s not lying.

  “But Jimmy L, he was very cute. And my dad liked him. And he wasn’t a player, like most of the boys in my school. He was loyal. And sweet.”

  “So what did you see in him?”

  She laughs at that. “You think I like the bad ones?”

  “You like JD. He’s as bad as they come.”

  “You’re his best friend. So what’s that say about you?”

  “I’m so much worse than him, it’s not even fair to compare us.”

  She huffs out a breath at that admission. “You’re trying to scare me by talking bad about yourself.”

  “Was Jimmy L a good kisser?”

  “Yes.” She says this with a smile and I know it’s true. She liked him.

  “So why did you break up?”

  “We didn’t.”

  “What?”

  Suddenly her demeanor changes and her smile falters. She turns her back to me. “I’m tired of playing.”

  “You didn’t answer all twenty questions, so no playtime.”

  “I’m over it.” And then she sits up like she’s gonna get out of the bed.

  “Hey,” I say, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her back onto the mattress. “You’re staying here and you’re answering that question.”

  She closes her eyes and ignores me.

  “I tell you what. I’ll let you off with only seven if you tell me what happened to you and Jimmy.”

  “Why do you want to know that?” She turns her head to me, giving me a sideways glance. “So you can make fun of me? So you can use it to control me? Why?”

  “So I can begin to figure you out.”

  “There’s no mystery to solve, Ark. I’m just…” She lets out a long breath of air. “I’m just…”

  She doesn’t finish. And I’m not gonna push. I got a good enough start. “Come here,” I say, slipping my hand under her waist and pulling her up to my chest. “You earned this at least. I’m not gonna smack you around to make you come, but I’ll keep you warm.” She’s quiet and still in my arms. I count the seconds and as they tick off, I begin to regret prying into her past. “Good enough for you?”
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  “He died.”

  Fuck.

  “That’s what happened to us. He died of some weird blood disease. I’m not even sure what it was. Something exotic that could be fixed if they caught it in time. But they didn’t. We were on spring break our senior year. We had this public service requirement for graduation, so we were in this small town in Arkansas with no hospital. And by the time they realized he needed a real emergency room, it was too late. He died in the ambulance on the way. I was holding his hand when it happened.”

  I wait for her tears, but they don’t come. She’s cried twice when JD’s fucked her. But admitting that her first boyfriend died holding her hand gets me nothing.

  Why? I need to know. I need to know what she’s thinking.

  She tries to get up but I hold her tight and she gives in, settling back against my chest. I count her breaths and they are even and deep.

  Was it a lie?

  I don’t think so. No, that’s not why she’s calm. That’s not why there are no tears. She’s just turned it off. She’s a good little liar, but it’s not me she’s lying to. It’s herself.

  “You can ask me a question,” I whisper. “If you want.”

  She’s silent for so long, I take that as disinterest. And I’m just about to close my eyes and try to fall back asleep when it finally comes.

  “Who is the person you love most in this world?”

  “That’s easy,” I tell her. “JD.”

  “Why?” She turns her body so she can look at me. “Why do you love him if he’s a bad guy?”

  I shrug. “Because you gotta love someone.”

  “And he was just there?”

  “Yeah, he was just there.”

  “But now he’s more than just there.”

  “Now he’s the only person in this world I can trust. He’s the only person in this world worth saving when the shit goes down. He’s the only person in this world who won’t fuck me over.”

  “How do you know that, though? How do you know he won’t?”

  “Because he loves me.”

  “But you’re not gay?”

  “Blue, please. It’s not the same kind of love.”

  “Maybe so. But you could try.”

  “Try what?”

  “Try loving us together.”

  “Why do you need two men?” I ask. “Why isn’t he enough?”