24. Abuzz
Chapter 24
Abuzz
CALLIE
I was dying.
When I’d agreed to stay at Marco’s—not that I had much choice—I’d assumed Freddy and Cole would pop in occasionally. I hadn’t even expected the nightly dinners to continue. I sure as hell hadn’t guessed that they’d move in, too.
But they had.
Just as when I’d been in the hospital, they seemed to have rearranged their schedules so at least one of them was with me at all times. And if I’d thought they were overbearing there, it was nothing compared to how they acted in private.
Cole had taken over my medicine, scheduled follow-ups with Dr. Pierce, and arranged a new primary care doctor.
Or, technically, my first primary care doctor.
He never mentioned the Daddy thing again, and neither did I.
But I thought about it.
A lot.
Too much.
Basically every time I looked at him.
I wouldn’t be so obsessed—or at least less obsessed—if I knew why he’d said it. Was it a slip of the tongue? Force of habit? Had he cut himself off so suddenly because he hadn’t intended to say those words to me?
Most importantly, why did that last one bother me so much?
Beyond that, I couldn’t stop thinking about what he was into. Whether it was a pet name or an ego stroke and nothing more. Or maybe he backed it up with his stern voice and gentle care.
I had no clue, and he wasn’t volunteering any answers.
Marco wasn’t much better. He might not have called himself a Daddy, but he acted like one. He was bossy and stubborn and hardheaded.
And sweet and tender and shockingly intuitive.
He always seemed to know when I needed something—usually before I did. My water cup was never empty, he made the perfect cup of coffee, and I barely sat before he was covering me with a blanket and handing me the remote.
Then there was the hair braiding that’d become a daily thing after I showered.
He never even seemed irritated when I accidentally made a mess of his pristine house—like leaving my slippers in the walkway of two rooms or my little collection of half-empty drinks on the side table. I was trying to keep my clutter under control, but it was easier said than done.
Freddy was… Freddy. He flirted. He called me chéri to get a rise out of me, little steak to make me laugh, and whatever the other one was to make me swoon. I had no clue what it meant, and all attempts to google it had been unsuccessful. For all I knew, it was one of his cooking techniques, and it translated into lightly sear or something.
But spoken in his quiet, accented voice with his dark blue eyes staring into mine, I still melted.
The fact that he paid attention as well as the other two also helped. After my joke at the hospital, he made me lobster thermidor and creamed spinach. He’d claimed it wasn’t as fancy as I’d been led to believe, but I disagreed. He followed it up the next night with steak and duchess potatoes. If everything he cooked was already amazing, those potatoes were on the next level.
I wanted to be buried surrounded by them.
Them and his homemade rice pudding that made every other kind seem like plastic toy food.
All of that was already more than any mortal woman could survive, but the men weren’t done.
They’d also added touching to my torture.
Little grazes. Large hands against my lower back as they passed. Fingers toying with my braid or tucking a loose, errant curl behind my ear. Strong arms around my shoulders or waist.
And the tormenting brush of their lips against the corner of mine at the end of the night or before they left.
That was what was killing me. Three full days of their attention and affection.
It was death by consideration.
And horniness.
I’d hoped time with them would bring me clarity. That I’d be able to sort out which of them I liked.
Or maybe that one of them would finally ask me out and win by default.
Which was a messed-up way to decide my love life, but I was out of other ideas.
Instead, they seemed content to keep going in the weird arrangement we’d formed. Hovering in limbo.
Sitting on the back balcony—where the double doors in Marco’s room led—I tried to scroll stupid videos on my phone. When that didn’t work, I swapped to my games. They were a fail, too. Since the short videos had been too long for my distracted brain, I didn’t bother trying a show. I ignored a beeping notification and let my thoughts go where they wanted.
To the men. To how whatever was happening needed to end. I just wasn’t sure how.
Or if I was strong enough to make it happen.
Because a big part of me—and not just the part controlled by my hormones—was content, too.
No.
I was happy .
And that was only going to make the inevitable pain that much worse.
My phone beeped for a second time, but before I could check it, movement caught my eye. I let out a happy gasp.
“What is it, goddess?”
I hadn’t heard Cole come out onto the balcony. I had no clue how long he’d even been there. I wanted to turn to glare at him, but I didn’t want to tear my focus away.
Glaring wouldn’t do a lot of good anyway.
I still voiced my displeasure. “Don’t call me that.”
And then I moved my mouth to mimic his immediate, “Tell me why.” He tugged my braid. “I saw that.”
“I wasn’t hiding it.”
My phone sounded yet again, but I didn’t pay attention. Not to what the notification was or when the device was slipped from my hold.
“This why you’re smiling, Calliope Meadows?”
At the use of my full name and his tone, I pulled my head out of the flowers to see what he was talking about.
God, he’s hot.
And pissed.
But mostly hot.
I rarely saw him out of a suit—or at least the slacks and dress shirt part. It was what he’d been wearing when he left for work that morning, but he must’ve showered whenever he’d gotten home. His brown hair was mussed, and he was in a pair of loose track pants and a tee that seemed to be testing the strength of its fibers as it stretched across his broad shoulders, chest, and muscular arms.
His handsome face was tense, his clenched teeth making his already chiseled jaw sharp enough to cut. He turned my phone in his hold so I could see the notifications.
Texts from Alex.
The men might’ve been shockingly nonchalant about our situation, but that chill only applied to the three of them.
When the driver who delivered our lunch the day before had been a smidge too friendly, Marco and Freddy had stormed over to stand behind me like my own personal security team.
It’d been followed up by Marco lecturing me about answering the door in the first place.
Alex was another sore subject. Whenever he messaged—which wasn’t often—it was like Cole’s spidey sense tingled.
I skimmed the ordinary texts, none of which contained anything worth sounding the alarm.
As opposed to the red flags Cole was tossing out like confetti.
Or maybe rose petals.
Twisted as it was, my warped heart interpreted his insane possessiveness as something romantic. Butterflies filled my belly as my chest warmed.
I tried to grab my phone, but he lifted it out of reach. A muscle in his cheek ticked. “Well, is it?”
“Yes. I always smile when people say hi and ask when I’m returning to work.” I poked the bear a little. “It’s that kind of dirty talk that gets my motor runni?—”
My words were cut off when he grabbed my braid again. Not to give it a playful tug. He yanked.
Hard .
With his tight hold, I had no choice but to look up at where he stood next to my chair. My lips parted as my breath came in shallow pants.
His dark brown eyes dropped to my mouth, and I wondered if he would kiss me. Not a tease. Not barely grazing the edge. A kiss . The kind I was desperate for.
I wondered if he felt that, too. That maddening desire. If he loosened his hold so I could shift my head, would I see his arousal?
I didn’t have the chance.
He released my hair as he crouched next to where I sat. “What were you smiling about then?”
Unable to speak past my racing heart, I pointed at the flurry of activity from three bees as they investigated the greenery on the deck. None of it was what they needed, so they would move on quickly.
“Need me to swat them away?”
“Don’t you dare,” I hissed. If he tried, I would’ve thrown myself in front of them like a scene from a dramatic movie. I kept my voice soft as they darted around. “They’re just doing what they’re made to do. I wonder if their hive is close.”
“Know a lot about bees?”
I scoffed. “Next to nothing. I lived on a commune farm in Utah. We sold what we grew at a roadside stand. That included the honey from the Langstroth hives.” My lips curved down, and I blinked back stupid tears. “I wasn’t great at any of the other jobs on the farm. I got in trouble. A lot . But I found my place with the bees. They had a routine. It took the guesswork out of it.”
“You lived in a commune?”
I hadn’t meant to share so much, but between the intense moment with him and the bees distracting me, it’d just come out.
I’d learned early on that no one understood my life. Teachers were always concerned—something that got worse with each move and the more I’d struggled. Other kids thought I was some kind of freak. It’d been easier to keep my guard up and hide behind lies and half-truths.
But Cole was different. Freddy and Marco, too. They were aware of my life at Eternal Sun—well, they knew the very minimum, not the gory, damaging details. Their valid suspicion of the place showed they knew it wasn’t just a wellness center.
They’d seen bits of my messy life. And my messy me. They weren’t running.
Plus, of the three, I had a feeling that Cole might understand my past the most. Sensitive soul recognizing shy soul or something.
Following that instinct and the fact it felt good to share without having to watch every word I said, I let him in a little more.
“No.” I glanced over and smiled. “I lived in a lot of them. Co-ops. Group homesteads. Alternative communities. But they were all basically communes.”
“That sounds like shit, baby.”
Tilting my head, I regarded the past through the lens of what I’d learned. Of how bad it could truly get. “It depended. Some of the places were great. Like a big extended camping trip with family. Others were… less great.”
“How so?”
“They weren’t about community. They were about escaping responsibility.” I grimaced. “And getting high and having orgies. Those places sucked—pun intended—because either I was stuck taking care of other people’s kids or I was left alone. The lonely places were the worst, you know?”
I wasn’t sure why I’d phrased it like that. He wouldn’t know.
But I was wrong.
Like me, his gaze was locked on the bees as they landed and took off. Testing. Searching.
Yearning.
“Yeah, I know. My mom was a whore. Not in an insulting, name-calling way. A literal one.” He finally glanced at me. “And not the heart-of-gold kind. She left me on my own for days at a time, starting when I was a toddler.”
I wasn’t sure what to say.
So I didn’t try. I just grabbed his hand and held it.
It was the right choice.
“It’s not something I talk about,” he continued, “because I would always get the same reaction. People defending her. Telling me how desperate she must’ve been. How hard it must’ve been for her to go through that. That I should have sympathy for her like she didn’t make my life hell. Leaving me to starve on a good day. Beating me nearly to death on a bad.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He shrugged like all that was nothing. “I’ve made peace with it for the most part.” There was a weighty silence before he admitted—or maybe warned, “But I’m still fucked up in some ways.”
I swallowed hard and broached the subject that was like an elephant between us.
“Like the, uh, Daddy stuff?”
Cole’s face twisted in a horrified expression as his complexion turned green. He looked like he was about to throw up over the railing. Or maybe just throw himself over it. “Fuck no. My head might be jacked up about some shit, Calliope, but my sex life has nothing to do with my mother. Jesus.”
“Sorry, sorry,” I rushed out, trying to release his hand so I could hold mine up in the surrender position. He didn’t let go, so I just moved it with mine as I explained. “When I researched it, some sites said that those kinds of scenes help people with trauma.”
“You researched it?” His brows lowered. “On your computer?”
I had no clue what that had to do with anything, but I shook my head. “I was going to try reading all the classics people talk about, so I bought a reading tablet with a very laggy internet. You’d be horrified. But anyway, after Juliet called Freddy Daddy —or when I thought she did but was talking to her actual husband—I was, uh, curious…”
I pressed my lips closed, worried I’d just ruined the whole thing. And not just with my assumption.
If he’d gotten jealous about the innocuous texts from Alex, surely bringing up Freddy was the wrong thing to do while he was sharing such a huge part of himself.
But he didn’t seem put off. He took it further. “Freddy’s not a Daddy. I don’t know about Marco. He mostly likes control.” He met my eyes. “As for the rest, maybe for some people it’s a scene they walk away from, but that’s not how I do things. It’s not a switch I flip because there is no off.”
This is definitely a warning.
He’d already shared more than I expected, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to know more. Know it all. I hesitantly pushed. “What are the fucked-up things about you?”
“I don’t like to be alone.”
Is he saying he dates a lot?
Or has nightly hookups or something?
My stomach twisted with jealousy until it burned up my throat. It was hypocritical. I’d literally been obsessing about how to choose between the three men when he’d come outside.
Trying to hide my reaction, I turned to scan the horizon. The backdrop of beautiful mountains painted a more wholesome picture than the sins and depravity the city offered.
The perfect place for someone who didn’t like to be alone.
“Callie?”
“Hmm?”
“Look at me,” he said.
“Hmm?” I repeated while not looking at him.
He stood and grabbed my chin roughly between his bent index finger and thumb. Tilting my head so I had no choice but to do as he ordered, he studied my face. A smirk curved his mouth. I thought he and his ego were gloating at my envy, but he offered me reassurances I had no right asking for. “Not like that. I haven’t been with anyone in…” He paused to think it over. “Christ, I don’t remember. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t have a house because I don’t do well with solitude. Even when it was just crashing in Maximo’s pool house, it worked. I like to be around the few people I care about.”
I got that. After growing up the way I had, it’d been an adjustment to move into an apartment with a couple who didn’t want to socialize. They didn’t want to tell me about their day or how things were going. They hadn’t noticed I was gone until I’d messaged from the hospital. And that had barely garnered more than a vague get better response.
At first, it’d been nice to finally have that privacy I’d thought I would get at ES. Then it’d just been lonely.
It was part of the reason the dinners with Cole, Marco, and Freddy had been secretly comforting—even when I’d ignored them the whole time.
But Cole wasn’t done. His hold on me tightened. Fire burned in his brown eyes, but it was lined with barbed wire.
A promise.
And a threat.
“And once I let someone in,” he rumbled, “I don’t let them go. Ever .”
The tension crackled between us, tightening my chest and building a coil of need in my lower stomach. Each shallow inhale was a battle through the heady anticipation.
I need him to kiss me.
I need him to do more.
I need him to do it before I faint.
I need…
To know what the hell that beeping is.
At the interruption, Cole’s lids closed, and he dropped his head back. His bunched shoulders rose as he inhaled. “That’s the emergency tone from work. I have to take this.”
“I hope everything is okay.”
I got the brush of his lips against the edge of mine before he stalked off. It wasn’t until he was gone that I flopped back and took a full breath.
And then I watched as the three bees left to return to their queen.
Lucky queen.