Chapter Sixteen
Iris
I’m an idiot. “Wynter, you don’t even like me.”
“Really? That old chestnut again.” His glass-green eyes are alight with a sort of inner fire I’ve not seen before. It makes him nearly unrecognisable. He seems so… so uncontained. It makes me realise how broken he’s been. Now, the real him is peeping through. “I never said that, Iris.”
“Your body language for the last week has.”
“My body language sometimes lies. I lie. It’s easier than being rejected.” He crooks one of those devilishly sharp brows as if to challenge me on that point. Of course he fears rejection. I’m familiar with the songs now. I’ve heard the lyrics he wrote. Lyrics in which he bares his soul.
No wonder he recoiled into himself.
“You want me? Want to be part of…” Whatever it is that Reid, Max, and I are.
“Why is that so hard to entertain?”
I don’t know. I just… I’m afraid. It feels as if he’s taunting me. Him and the universe, or whatever force washed me up on this beach.
He moves closer, but I splay my hand across his abs and give him a little push away.
“Cop a feel and see if he’s excited, Ariel,” Reid shouts from up by the seawall.
It’s a joke. It’s all a joke.
Reid waves at us, standing so close, but with mountains between us. He makes a rude gesture with his fist. Wynter chastises him with a finger ticking, but Reid just smirks and pushes his tongue into his cheek. “Or ditch him, and come and pogo on my stick.”
“You’re a crass bastard,” Wynter remarks, but he surprises me by wrapping his arms around me and pulling my back against his body, so that I can feel his interest is real.
“Is this what you want, Iris?” He speaks right into my ear, before nicking the lobe with his teeth.
“Wouldn’t mind a taste of what you’ve already given Max and Reid. ”
I wriggle out of his grip, leaving him sucking on his teeth.
I can’t deal with him playing with my emotions. And if it is real, then… then it doesn’t matter because the dream will dissolve tomorrow regardless.
After a moment, Wynter turns away. I watch him walk towards the steps and join Reid on the seawall. It’s apparent from the way that he’s walking and how Reids’ gaze is targeted that he’s uncomfortable.
Makes two of us. I just don’t quite know what to do about that.
“She’s got you tetchy, hasn’t she?”
Wynter flips Reid a V.
“Need me to suck it better for you?”
I must make a sound, because Reid turns his impish grin on me. “That get you going, sea siren? Or are you just figuring out you’re the straightest person around these parts?”
Wynter stalks off towards the house.
I scurry to catch up with Reid, and we both tumble into the living room where we find Max laying a fire. “Must you piss him off?” He nods towards the kitchen.
“Let me.” Reid bounds after him. I follow Reid but stop shy of entering the kitchen when I hear them speaking.
“Come back to the lounge,” I hear Reid say.
“Why?”
“So, we can talk, that’s why.”
I curl my fingers against my mouth, ears perked to pick up the reply.
“She’s not interested.”
“Should you be eavesdropping?” Max wraps his arms around me from behind.
“I screwed up, Max. Wynter was trying to be real with me, and I…I rejected him.”
He squishes me inside one of his weighty embraces.
“Do you want to come upstairs with me?” Reid is propositioning Wynter. He’s trying to close the wound I’ve thoughtlessly inflicted with an alternate plug of affection.
“Think your mermaid girl might have something to say about that.”
“Probably yes, please, and thank you, I’ll have some of that,” Reid predicts.
He’s not wrong. I’d pay to see that. I’d pay to photograph it.
Fuck it. I want this. I do.
Wynter’s right. The only person getting in my way is me.
It doesn’t matter what Lucidity’s fan base think, or the press, or the world.
It doesn’t matter what the lady in the corner shop thinks, or the guy in the garage, or Harrison—.
It especially doesn’t matter what Harrison thinks.
He doesn’t get to dictate how I love or behave.
Those are my choices to make. So why the fuck am I making decisions that are the very opposite of my own best interests?
Yes, I might get hurt. Yes, it might fall apart, but not giving it any chance at all is a way worse option. I’m a fool. All week, I’ve been hoping for a miracle, but I don’t need one. All I need to do is believe in it, in us.
When I’d get bogged down in everything, my dad would tell me that none of it mattered.
So what if I got a C in English instead of an A?
So what if I needed stuff printed on pink paper to make it easily comprehensible to me?
He’d say: let go of those expectations you’re putting on yourself, Iris.
You’re building them up in your mind as things you have to do to make people accept you, but none of that is coming from them.
All I want is for you to be happy, and you do that by being you.
That’s it. You do it by being you and not letting anyone else dictate who that is or what it is you want.
And what I want right now is them.
I may not know them perfectly after a week, but I know them enough, love them enough to know that life without them will be a thousand times less… well… everything than it’ll be with them.
“She’s not blind, Wynter. She knows I share your bed.”
“Yeah, are you sure she knows that what happens in there isn’t just sleeping?”
“She does now,” I say, loudly enough to make sure they hear me. “And she’s not mad about it.”
“Told ya.”
The pair of them emerge from the kitchen, Reid with his arm hooked around Wynter’s throat.
Lucidity fans would be whipped into a frenzy by this knowledge.
Me? I’m almost relieved. I no longer feel like the base of some sort of fork.
I don’t have to worry about spreading myself too thin.
They can be happy shagging one another, as well as me.
Assuming they want to keep on shagging me and I haven’t screwed things up.
Believe in it, Iris.
I look at Reid. Then Wynter. Then Max.
I want this. It’s time to make it happen.
I smack a kiss on Reid’s lips, before moving on to crush Max in a hug and kiss him too, then to Wynter. He cocks a brow. “Yes, flirt?”
“You want one of those, too?”
For a heartbeat, I’m afraid he’ll say no.
“Yeah, Iris. Yeah, I do.”
He opens his arms, and I throw myself into his embrace.
“Fuck!” I hear Reid gripe. I pull away from Wynter, enough to turn my head, though he keeps on kissing my throat, and making me all jelly-limbed. “The cruel prince strikes again.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Wynter always gets the girl in the end,” Max says returning to the fireside. He bends and sets about lighting it. “It’s just the way it is.” He strikes a match and applies it to the kindling.
“Oh,” I say, and back up a little. Wynter just follows.
“It’s okay, Iris. We get it. He’s hot. And he’s new and exciting,” Max continues.
“Wait…. No. I mean…” I look to him and then across to Reid. “This isn’t me choosing him over you, either of you.
“Maybe we should sit down and talk.” Max herds us all towards the sofa, which is still not big enough for all of us. I wind up perched on the arm with my feet in Max’s lap, while Wynter and Reid occupy the other end.
“It’d be cool if we could negotiate this sensibly,” Max says.
Wynter and Reid look up keenly, and then all three men look at me.
“What exactly are we negotiating?”
“Now and tomorrow,” Wynter says. “Iris, do you want to be in a relationship with us?”
I suck my lips together. Tears prickle my eyes.
I do. I so desperately want this. It’s still hard to let that desire out into the world and not keep it tucked inside my chest, all safe and tiny, rather than setting it free and allowing it to grow into something sprawling and messy and likely painful too.
I goldfish my mouth a few times, but the requisite ‘yes’ fails to come out.
“Argh! Everybody be fucking honest, okay? On a scale of one to ten how much do you want to get laid tonight? Show of fingers, now.” Reid signals ten before he even stops talking.
After a moment, Max does the same, as does Wynter.
“Iris?” the latter prompts. “It’s a straightforward question.”
I uncurl my fingers. Why is this easier than saying yes?
“That’s pretty unanimous,” Max says, pushing his sleeves up.
“All we’ve established is that everyone is horny,” Wynter contributes.
“Question two. Iris—”
“Don’t just pick on me.”
“Fine. Stick your mitts up if you’re cool with the idea of us all getting it on together.” There’s another tentative show of hands.
“And hands up again if you want this to be an ongoing affair.”
To everyone’s astonishment Wynter puts his hand up first. “What?” The incline in his ski-slope brows increases. “You said we had to be fucking honest, so I’m being fucking honest. If it works and we’re happy with it, then why not pursue it?”
“No arguments from me,” Reid says.
“Max?”
“As long as there’s not a rule that says we’ve always all got to be together. I like alone cuddle time with Iris.”
“Any of us can pair up, or throuple up, any way we like. If you’re fine with that, say, yay.”
They all say yay.
“Iris?”
It’s big girl panties time. “Yay.” My voice comes out so high-pitched it makes everyone laugh.
When they stop, I remove my fingers from in front of my mouth and look to each of them in turn.
They’re all so different, but that’s what makes this perfect.
Each of them offers something the others don’t.
Max with his hugs. Impish Reid, and Wynter, the man I’m only just starting to get to know.
“I want tonight, and tomorrow,” I say, my voice finding its strength.
“I’d like a lot of tomorrows. A lot of tomorrows with all of you, and I hope you want the same with me. ”
“Fucking course we do.” Reid tips forward onto his knees. “Max, some party hats, please, we need to celebrate. Ariel, get your beautiful arse down here, honey.” He pats the sofa.