33. Thirty-Three
Thirty-Three
Xavier
We’d haunted the gorse bushes behind the office all evening, waiting for the lights in Jack’s office to turn off.
When the windows at the back finally went dark, we waited–the three of us barely breathing–for the sound of the door closing.
The slam of the hinges sounded, and still, we waited, my pulse staccatoed, impatient to get in there, and finally, maybe get my hands on what I’d spent all summer looking for.
Once we were sure Jack had gone, we crept around the front. Toni in the lead, while Brennon grabbed my hand and pulled me after him. There was that spark against my skin every time he touched me that I hoped never went away.
Inside, the office was dark. We’d planned for that. Each of us bringing flashlights and our cell phones to act as back-ups. Turning on the lights was too risky, Jack, or even Riley, might see it and both of them had the same key Brennon did.
All it took was a soft shove of the door to open Jack’s office.
Inside, we each used the flashlights from our cell phones to search.
Toni took the desk. Brennon, the filing cabinet, while I took the time to crawl over every inch of the room I hadn’t had time in all my previous searches to focus on.
There was nothing. No hints or clues of where anything might be.
Until Brennon yanked too hard on the lowest drawer of the cabinet, and the whole hulking thing shot forward and bounced back against the wall.
The metal made a clanging sound as it hit the wood, but it shouldn’t have been able to do that.
Filing cabinets that large and that heavy were supposed to be screwed into the wall.
Those were the basic instructions so that they didn’t fall on someone and wind up with the manufacturer getting sued.
I dropped to my knees beside Brennon and stared at the carpet and the floor all around the corners.
They were hard to see, but there were scuff lines on the floor and ruts in the carpet from repeated wear and tear.
“Bren, help me,” I ordered, getting us both to our feet.
“Grab the top corner at the back, I’m going to grab near the bottom, and on my count, I want you to pull.”
We both got into position.
“Three. Two. One,” and we heaved. It was as heavy as it looked, but slowly, the cabinet inched away from the wall, revealing a hole in the plaster behind it. And in that hole were several rolls of cash, a gun, and a stack of files. The very top one labelled “Cole Michaels”.
Our files. We’d found them. We pulled everything out, barring the gun and the cash. Neither were relevant to what we were looking for. Sketchy as fuck, and we’d certainly report them to the police at a later date, but just not what we were searching for.
Underneath Cole’s file was my own, Brennon’s, Toni’s, and even my sister’s. The sight of Rachel’s name after so long, after years of having my mother and father pretend like she never existed, was like bearing the full brunt of her disappearance all over again.
She was real. And she had vanished. But maybe looking at these files would help me figure out what happened to her.
The three of us retreated back to the main part of the office. There wasn’t enough desk space, so we spread the files out across the linoleum floor. Brennon took his own, Toni, hers, while I kept the rest.
Starting with Cole’s, I began to read. And read.
And read. Each page of his records threw me back to those days like a time machine, but with emotional whiplash.
I paused as I closed his file and opened my own, savouring our history written on these pages.
Our past, fanned out around on pieces of paper.
These files only told the surface level story.
About our accomplishments. Swim levels passed.
Prizes won, or times we’d been pulled into Jack’s office for doing something that got us in trouble.
Reading them wouldn’t tell you about the time that Toni got her first period while we were in the middle volleyball game.
She’d been so embarrassed, she’d bolted.
Neither Cole, nor Brennon, of course, had any fucking idea what to do, but my father’s house was always full of women and girls–albeit none of them happy to be there–so menstrual cycles were just a reality of life for me.
So I’d gone after her. Lent her a sweatshirt to tie around her waist and persuaded her to go to the nurse’s office for help.
These files wouldn’t tell you about Parent’s Day when we were thirteen.
Neither Brennon’s parents, nor my own turned up, so he and I spent the whole day in the Creative Cluster.
He played guitar while I read beside him in companionable silence, my head resting on his shoulder the whole time.
Nor did they mention how that same day, Cole came back from his visit with his dad near tears.
Ones he spent the rest of the day denying had been there.
It was hard to read. Not just for me, I realized, when a telltale sniff came from behind me.
I turned to see Brennon twisting his fingers between Toni’s.
“I know, baby, it’s hard to remember.”
She smiled up at him, “Oh, Bren, it’s not hard. It’s just beautiful. What we had was so beautiful, and I ruined it.”
“You did not,” I barked, twisting and crawling over to them, “You didn’t ruin anything, Nettie. We did. The second we decided not to trust you. We ruined it.”
Brennon nodded, “For the longest time, I held out, but eventually I lost faith, baby. I lost faith in you, and in us. That’s on me. And I’m so, so, sorry.”
We all held each other for a moment, until Toni wiped her eyes.
“I’m sorry, too.”
Then, she smiled so big and so wide. It was her old smile, the one from before the world ripped her apart, the one that was all bravery, and boldness, and beauty, “But I’m so glad we found our way back here, because now I get to have two boyfriends.”
I couldn’t help but grin myself. On the other side of her, Brennon smirked, too.
“And do you like that your boyfriends are also boyfriends?” he taunted, playing with the metal ring on his lip and cocking a brow.
She nibbled her lower lip and nodded.
Brennon ran his thumb over her skin where her teeth had just been, letting her briefly suck on the tip of his finger.
“It’s a good thing we’re all so good at sharing then, isn’t it?” he asked.
Toni stumbled over an answer, “But how is that? Not that I ever had a boyfriend before, let alone two, but I do know this isn’t normal. Like, how are we all so okay with…?”
So many of those questions had echoed in my own head the last week or two that I couldn’t answer her.
Brennon, on the other hand, chuckled, “Well, partially, it’s because we got lucky.”
When neither Toni nor I said anything, he explained, “In our dynamics, we’re lucky. You’re a sub, I’m a dom, and Xav’s a switch,” he jerked his thumb in my direction, “And Cole’s a-”
“Woah, woah, woah. Cole’s not shit in this scenario,” I snarled before returning my attention to the stacks of papers spread across the office floor.
“How do you even know that, Bren?”
Across from me, Toni looked up at him. Her eyes wide in the way they only got when she was either horny or enthralled.
Right now, I suspected she was both. I was well aware that Brennon was more experienced than both Toni and I.
He basically grew up surrounded by rock groupies after all.
Yet he kept it pretty quiet, so I was just as keen as Toni was to get some insight into his romantic past.
His smile was wide, and his blue eyes sparkled with mirth as he looked at us both, “Well, my beautiful toy, I’ve always known I was bi.” He reached down and gave her cheek a gentle pet. “Well, not always, but from very early on.” He tossed the quickest of winks in my direction.
Then, he straightened and shrugged, “It was just never a hang-up for me. And it wasn’t exactly like my parents were paying much attention, so I had plenty of room to explore it as soon as I figured it out.”
“Which was when?” I asked, curiosity and recollection of my own less-than-ideal learning experience.
“The summer we turned fifteen.” His casual tone was a complete reversal of the panic I’d felt back then. “And after that, I just dated.”
I glared at him, “You dated, huh?”
“Yes, Xav, I dated. Because the people I wanted to be with had either vanished,” he pointed at Toni, “Or, wanted nothing to do with me anymore.”
My cheeks flushed, and shame burned in the pit of my stomach. I did push him away. Basically, as soon as the trial was done, I pushed and pushed until he was gone. Without meaning to, I’d picked between him and Cole, and that choice had proved to be amongst my worst ever decisions.
Brennon didn’t linger on it though, “So I dated casually until my first year of college. I had a TA, Jameson.” I grumbled hating this stupid guy’s name, “and his girlfriend, Honey.”
This time Toni reacted with a gasp. Brennon just chuckled, “It started out innocent enough. Jay and Honey became friends, and then they became something else. Both were adventurous and taught me a lot.”
“What happened?”
“We had fun. I learned a lot. But it was casual.” His voice then slid deeper, raspier, “We had plans to hang out when I got back from Agonde last summer, but then someone,” he stressed, eyes heating as she smiled, “catapulted back into my life and reminded me about what I’d always wanted.”