Chapter Twenty-Three – Royal
Hawthorne calls me and Ezra into his office one day, about a week after I joined him and Abby when they were getting busy that first time. I did learn some new things about the man. For the guy who loves telling people what to do, he can definitely take some orders when his clothes are off.
And Ezra? Let’s just say I overheard a bit after my workout, right after I told Abby to go to him and tell him about Connor herself. I won’t say I’m a matchmaker and that I made it happen, but… I fucking made it happen. They both should be thanking me.
Hawthorne stands before his desk, leaning his backside against it, while Ezra and I stand a few feet away from him, waiting for him to disclose just why he brought us in here to begin with. The door to his office is closed, which means he doesn’t want Abby overhearing.
I wouldn’t put it past her to eavesdrop, though. She seems like the type who’d do something like that.
“What’s going on, Hawthorne?” I ask. Can’t be anything involving Connor, not yet. If it was, Abby should be here. That leads me to believe this is about something else.
“I wanted to talk to you both about…” He adjusts his glasses, his amber gaze darting between us. “About Abby, actually. I’m well aware that we’ve each—” He stops, apparently unable to say it, even though he’s watched me do it.
“Fucked her?” I offer, and my crude words earn me glares from both guys in the room. “What? That’s what it is, ain’t it? You fucked her, I fucked her, he fucked her—” I point to Ezra. “—we’ve all fucked her. No point in beating around the bush about it now.”
Ezra shakes his head at me, while Hawthorne rubs the back of his neck, acting awkward about it. Again, I don’t really get why he’d be acting awkward about it. Aren’t we past that point now? Shouldn’t fucking her have, I don’t know, made things less awkward?
Once he regains himself, Hawthorne says, “As you’ve put it, yes, we’ve all been with Abby.
I have not disclosed it to the Benefactor yet, but eventually I’ll have to.
I don’t know how they’ll react once I tell them.
It doesn’t explicitly go against the rules they set out for us, the rules we agreed to when we joined up, but I imagine they won’t be too thrilled about it either way.
” He pauses for a second. “I don’t know what’ll happen after that, but I don’t plan on telling them until we figure this out first.”
It’s Ezra who asks, “Figure what out? What’s there to figure out? I thought everything was figured out already?”
“I mean with Abby.”
Again, he’s confused. “What about her?”
Hawthorne looks between us. “The situation is not a typical one, but we aren’t your typical people, either. I wanted to pull you both in here so we could talk about it, about her, and make sure we are all on the same page.”
Both Ezra and I are quiet, letting him continue: “We are a family. We may not be related by blood, but we are a family nonetheless. I do not want anyone to get between us, including Abby. I also don’t want to deal with any sort of jealousy in this house.
We’ve all… crossed a certain line with her—” Still, the man can’t seem to say it aloud.
“—and she doesn’t seem like she wants to choose one of us. She seems content with us all.”
I can’t argue with that. It’s definitely true. Abby’s a little freak, but there’s nothing wrong with that. The others might not accept it yet, but we’ve all got a freaky side, and that side has never had a reason to come out before. Now? It does.
Ezra is the one who says, “As long as we’re honest with each other, as long as we don’t try to hide anything, I don’t see that it’s such a big deal.
I mean, sharing her. That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it?
And if you’re worried that she’ll get in between us, I don’t think she’d ever do that.
” He speaks about her confidently now, so much more confidently than he would have before they got down and dirty.
Good for him. I’m glad to see him opening up some. Lately, he does seem more relaxed. A good fuck with Abby will do that for you, something I was the first to understand.
“So,” Hawthorne says, “that’s it, then? None of us are going to… pull back from her?” He sounds almost hesitant, like he’s uneasy in saying it, not because it’s Abby in question, but because it’s out of the norm.
Hooking up with someone is one thing. You kind of understand they’re also hooking up with other people. Sharing someone long-term is completely different, but now that I’ve had a taste of her, I don’t see myself abstaining from her particular flavor.
Fuck no.
“If I pull back,” I grunt out, “it’s only so I can push my cock in her again.” Just in case these two don’t get it, I add, “And again, and again, and again.”
Hawthorne holds up his hand, his cheeks gaining a bit of color. “All right. Then… we’re all… good?” Even now, it’s clear he still doesn’t get it, like a part of him is anxious we’ll start fighting over her.
I wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. And it isn’t like Ezra didn’t know she’d been with us by the time he finally sealed the deal with her, so I don’t think he would, either. Besides, like Hawthorne just said: we’re a family. Families share shit all the time.
Not typically women, but hey, I’m sure there are other kinky freaks out there doing some weirder shit than us, serial-killing included.
“I’m good,” I say.
“I’m good, too,” Ezra says with a single nod.
Hawthorne acts surprised, like he was anticipating one of us throwing a fit or arguing. “Oh, okay. That’s good. I’m glad we’re all on the same page, then. We’re just going to… keep doing what we’re doing, then?”
It’s funny. It’s like he needs permission to fuck her. I suppose it’s because a part of him still wants to run to the Benefactor and tell them about how entangled we are in our newest housemate. He’s guilty, but it’s a different sort of guilt than, say, what Ezra was fighting before.
“Yep,” I say. “Do you have any questions about it, Hawthorne? You look confused. I know you know where things go, I saw it myself. Should I go get Abby so we can demonstrate how it’s done again?”
He waves a hand through the air. “No. Just… no. You two can go.” He turns his back on us as he walks around his desk and sits down in his high-backed leather chair. A second later he is opening his laptop, his gaze completely fixated on it, which tells me this conversation is indeed finished.
Eh, whatever. If he wants to be weird and awkward about it, he can go right ahead. I’ve never seen him like that before Abby. From the first day we brought her here, he was acting a fool, like he’s never spent time around a pretty woman before.
I’m the first to leave his office, and Ezra is right behind me. He goes to his bedroom, and I follow him. Honestly, I thought after he and Abby did the deed, he’d come talk to me about it, but he hasn’t. Let’s change that.
“I’m surprised Hawthorne was the first to say something,” I break the silence of his bedroom, causing him to stop what he’s doing—pulling out some workout clothes from his dresser, looks like—and turn to stare at me.
“What do you mean?”
“I just thought you’d say something after. To me.”
He folds his arms over his chest. “The walls in this house aren’t thin. You didn’t come to me after you were with her, so why would I come to you?”
“I don’t know. You didn’t really give me a chance. You ran and tattled on us like a little bitch, no offense.” He frowns at me slightly, but he doesn’t say anything, which lets me go on, “We’re like brothers, you and me. We don’t have secrets—”
“I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you.”
“You know that day that you two finally fucked? I sent her up to your room so she could tell you about Connor herself. You’re welcome, by the way.”
Ezra gives me an unimpressed look. “You’re acting as if we never would’ve done anything if it wasn’t for you. You’re not the fairy godmother of sex, Royal. It would’ve happened sooner or later, even if you didn’t send her my way.”
“Yeah, right, because staying in your room all the time, fucking brooding, is real sexy to the ladies.”
“For your information, she understands why I felt the way I felt. She listened, she didn’t judge.
She…” His arms fall to his sides as he visibly relaxes as he talks about her.
“She said all the right things. I feel like I’ve known her forever, even though I haven’t.
It’s the craziest thing—and I swear to God, if you make fun of me for that, I’ll—”
“I’m not going to make fun of you,” I tell him. “Why the fuck would I? Don’t you think I feel the same way? Hawthorne, too. Do you think he would’ve gone so far with her if he didn’t feel it? She was fucking made for us, and that’s all there is to it.”
He stares at me for a while, and then a gentle smile pulls at the corners of his mouth.
“Yeah, she was. If Hawthorne tells the Benefactor, and they don’t approve…
I don’t know that I could go back to the way things were.
I wouldn’t want to. For the first time in forever, I feel okay.
No, better than that. I feel good. The last thing I want to do is act like she doesn’t mean something to me. ”
Now that is something we totally agree on. We agree on most things, but going back to the way things were before sounds like fucking torture, and I don’t know anybody who’d willingly sign up for that shit.
“She means something to me, too,” I say. “Maybe it’s cheesy as fuck, but it feels like this house is finally complete.” Fucking hell, it really does sound cheesy. So full of cheese.
Behind me, I hear a feminine “Awe” as someone else walks in the room.
Abby. As she approaches me and Ezra, she holds her hands behind her back and wears a big, fat smile on her face.
Her hair is freshly re-dyed; the blue is much more blue than it was yesterday, and the pink is more like fresh bubblegum rather than the dried up kind you find underneath tables in shitty diners.