Chapter 40 Trouble
Trouble
It’s not even seven a.m., and it’s already been one hell of a morning. It started with slow and sensual hand jobs and grew rapidly carnal. We were all left in a state that urgently required a shower.
In the bathroom, I lean over the sink to splash my face as I wait for the water to heat up.
It’s an entirely innocent action that Mattie mistakes as me presenting my ass for a fucking.
Naturally, being Mattie, he doesn’t hesitate.
He mounts me as quickly as possible and goes at it.
Will seems sidetracked by the sight of us, and as soon as Mat pulls out, he gets stuck in.
Stuck in, lol.
Oh, I amuse myself.
By the time it’s all said and done, my legs are shaking like twigs, and I’ve come so hard I can barely stand straight. Mat takes one look at the mix of his semen and Will’s running down my thighs, and his expression darkens. He walks toward me, boner in hand, and I squeal loudly in fright.
“You’re insatiable, Mattie,” says Will sternly. “I’m getting into the shower now, and I’m taking Trouble with me.”
He wraps a strong arm around me and bundles me into the steam.
The cubicle is tiny. We’re a profusion of limbs and skin pressed against each other.
Still, I tuck myself behind Will for safety.
“He’s going to kill me,” I babble, looking at Mat accusingly through a cloud of steam. “He’s going to fuck me to death.”
Will smiles. “Hmm. Death by orgasm, not the worst way to go.”
“Hurry up,” calls Mat cheerfully, “or I’m coming in with you.”
“We need a bigger shower,” I say. The second the words leave my mouth, I realize what I’ve said. “I mean you. You need a bigger shower. You and Mat.”
Will has his head ducked under the water and is rinsing shampoo out, so hopefully, he didn't hear me. Still, I put myself on notice. Yes, I’m having the time of my life, and yes, my two dude-bros are insanely hot, and yes, they are terribly, terribly nice, but that’s no reason for me to get silly about things.
I’m many things—fabulous things mainly, obviously—but silly has never been one of those things.
I must simply hold the line and continue in that vein.
This situationship is pure fire, but still, I mustn’t allow myself to get silly about it.
There’s absolutely no need whatsoever to start being silly at this point in my life.
Jesus, I’m using the word silly a lot for someone who proclaims not to be silly.
Oh shit.
I’m rambling. My sugar levels have crashed.
That must be it. I probably need to eat something that isn’t semen.
I’m probably severely dehydrated from how much I’ve come.
I should probably drink a gallon or two of water as soon as I get home.
That’s what I need. A nice, chill day to park my ass on the sofa and not move very much.
Some solid quality alone time to rest and recover.
As soon as Will and I get out of the shower, I say, “Got to go.”
“We don’t want you to go,” says Mat, his mouth dipping down at the corners.
“Yeah, don’t go, Trouble. Stay.”
“I’ve got to go. It’s almost eight. You two need to get to work.”
“We can be late. Stay. Please stay,” pleads Mat. He bats his eyelashes and slides his bottom lip out in a way that’s very, very hard to say no to. “Stay, and we’ll take you out for breakfast.”
“But I…”
Will gives me a strict warning look. “Trouble, this is very important to Mattie.”
“They make insane french toast at Destresso, and you can get bacon as a side.” Mattie’s eyebrows raise high and his face shines as he makes the offer. “It’s just across the street from us, and the service is super quick.”
My stomach pangs deeply, and I concede, though I do make my objections plainly known. It’s not much, but I think it counts for something.
We crowd the sink as we brush our teeth and shuffle around each other in the tight space to take turns using it. As soon as I spit, I look up and say, “We need another sink.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
What's gotten into me today?
I leave my hair down to dry and manage, with some difficulty, to stop myself from telling either of my er, hosts, that we need a hairdryer.
Instead, I pull on a ripped red crop top and a pair of uber wide-legged black trousers.
I line my eyes darkly and smudge them until they look smokey.
It’s far from my most outrageous look, but I think it’s enough to make sure I’m not mistaken for a basic bitch.
God forbid such a thing.
“Wow,” says Mat when he sees me. His head tilts to the side and his expression turns dreamy.
“You’re beautiful,” Will says as if it’s a fact, not an opinion.
My heart does ridiculous things in my chest, and I start deeply regretting agreeing to go for breakfast with them.
The whole thing about this kind of arrangement is that you have to keep the boundaries firmly in place.
Everyone needs to know where they stand, and everyone needs to know their role in the whole thing.
That’s why it’s been working well so far.
Well, that’s why it’s been working well, aside from all the after-sex talking, and the sleeping over, and the breakfasts, and for the last couple of weeks, the phone calls and messages too.
As we stand on the curb, waiting to cross, Mat takes my hand. Will does the same. I stand there feeling slightly idiotic, slightly lightheaded. I feel like an odd combination of a child having my hands held by both parents and the most spoiled rotten little perv in existence.
“Oh my God. Are you Trouble?” asks a girl with immaculate makeup and a very fancy coiffe as we walk into Destresso.
“Yes,” I say, fixing a bright smile on my face, wondering how the hell I’m going to explain this.
“Oh my God. I love you,” says the girl.
“T-thank you,” I splutter, never quite sure what I'm supposed to say to a total stranger who professes to love me.
I turn my attention to Will and Mat.
“Three french toasts? My treat!” I dash to the counter before they can argue or ask questions, leaving them to find a table.
I’m trying my hardest to ignore the fact I don’t need to ask what their coffee orders are.
I know them courtesy of Will’s terrible talking game and all the fucking breakfasts we’ve had together.
I head to the guys with the table number flag in my hands, and as I flit past a table, a thoroughbred douchebag, complete with slimy hair and a goatee, makes a comment that doesn’t bear repeating. I stop in my tracks and spin around, glaring at him until he withers and looks away sheepishly.
“What did he say?” Mat asks as I sit down.
“Who?”
His eyes are trained on the douche and growing darker by the second. “That guy, the one over there. The one who made you turn around and look at him.”
“Ugh.” I wave it off with a casual flick of my wrist. “It was nothing. Just the usual. Nothing to get upset about.”
The words have scarcely left my mouth when Mat’s on his feet, pushing his chair back so loudly several people around us turn to look.
“No, no,” I cry. “It’s nothing.”
Will’s up and on his feet, hot on Mat’s heels, without a moment’s hesitation.
They round in on the douchebag and crowd him.
I see him sit a little straighter and glance around uneasily.
Mat and Will are each physically imposing in their own right, but together they give off the clear impression that you’d have to be stark raving mad to fuck with them.
Especially now. Especially like this. They lean down low so they’re at eye level with him.
“What did you say to our friend?” asks Mat, a threatening sneer in his voice I’ve never heard before.
The shithead opens his mouth and closes it again, trying and failing to swallow.
Mat’s voice drops even lower. “Next time you think about commenting on a person’s appearance, orientation, or gender, don’t.
Got it?” When the guy doesn’t answer immediately, Mat balls his hands into fists on the table.
“D’you need us to take you outside to explain it more clearly? ”
“Ugk, uh, n-no,” splutters the guy.
Will places a hand on Mat’s shoulder and Mat instantly relaxes and straightens. Will looks at the douchebag long and dispassionately.
“I feel sorry for you,” he says quietly.
“And I feel sorry for people like you.” He breaks eye contact with the guy and looks up at me, and his face changes.
It goes from thunder to softness to mischief and sex.
He dips his chin, and the next time he speaks, he does so with a thick, near-perfect Louisiana accent.
“It ain’t possible to live unless you’re crossin’ somebody’s line. ”
Jesus, send help, babe. Seriously, a smokin’ hot, brand-new bi guy just quoted my favorite line from True Blood.
I’m deceased.
It’s urgent. Need raising from the dead, stat.
Will and Mat mosey back to our table. Their faces are neutral and happy.
All traces of cavemen and imminent danger are gone.
As they walk, I become increasingly aware of the fact I can’t tell if I’m hot or cold, and my heart is punching my ribcage like it’s trying to escape.
I sit as still as I can, trying not to blink, trying not to show the immense fear I feel.
When he gets to me, Mat’s eyes spark with the same mischief Will’s did. “Hot-ness,” he drawls with a sharp chin wag. His accent is just as good as Will’s was, maybe better. He leans down, moves my hair away from my neck, plants a soft kiss just under my ear, and smiles. “Hookah, with yo’ fine ass.”
The chair beneath me gives way. I drop out of my body and crash through the floor.
Through the Earth’s surface and into nothing.
I’m falling. Flying. There’s wind in my face and my hair is whipping around my face.
I tumble and turn, somersaulting wildly as my belly lurches and I grapple helplessly for safety.
It takes me a full second to snap out of it and realize the chair beneath me is solid. It’s strong and unbroken. It hasn’t moved.
Nothing happened.
I eat my meal without tasting it. I smile when Will and Mat talk to me, though I can’t tell if I’m smiling too hard or not hard enough.
They talk about their day and ask me about mine.
Fuck alone knows what I reply. At one point, I hear myself say, “You can’t do that, you know.
You can’t just threaten to beat up every person who makes a shitty remark about me. ”
“Why not?” asks Will, seeming genuinely curious about what could possibly stop them.
“Yeah,” Mat agrees. “Why not? We’ve got the time.”
I release a very strange and disturbing laugh. It consists of a couple of short, sharp ha-ha's and a long, shrill aaaaah at the end. If I wasn’t the one who’d made the sound, I’d strongly suspect the owner of that laugh to be completely hysterical.
Mat changes the subject and asks me to come over on Tuesday as well as Thursday next week.
“Can’t,” I croak.
“Let me guess,” he says, rolling his eyes. “You have a thing.”
“Uh, no. Just c-can’t.”
I almost continue. I almost go ahead and say a bunch of damn stupid shit about not being that kind of guy and about protecting myself and my sanity and my heart, but thank God, I manage not to.
When they leave for work, I order another coffee and sit still for a long time. People come and go. Friends meet, and a kid sitting two tables away drops his muffin on the floor and starts screaming about it.
Nothing happened, I tell myself. The chair held firm.
But that doesn’t mean I didn’t fall.