Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Cleo
By noon, the fog has pulled back a little, leaving the big room rinsed in sunlight. The ocean keeps hurling itself at the cliff. I’m curled on the end of the new long sofa Eddie brought last evening with a throw over my legs, pretending I’m a person who knows what to do with hours.
Barret arrives with a guitar and a tray, one balanced over the other like he’s learned to carry his comforts in pairs.
“Not going out today?” he asks, setting the tray on the low table—soup steaming, toast, apple slices fanned like a neat good afternoon.
“I was thinking about swimming, but—” I tip my chin toward the water pounding itself into foam. “It doesn’t seem like a safe activity.”
He snorts. “Well, it all depends on where you choose to swim.”
“Oh, I have options?” I clap, trying to sound amused. “You telling me that the island's north side is tamer?”
He rolls his eyes. “We have an indoor pool. Eddie built this place thinking about us—he knows how much you love to swim.”
“You and him.” My voice comes out flatter.
He glares at me as if saying, Don’t be fucking obtuse. Okay, maybe not that blunt, but it feels like it.
I rub the comforter, look at my toes, which are in desperate need of TLC, and say, “I heard you.”
“You heard us . . .” He drags a breath, then softens it. “You need to be a little more outspoken. My mind-reading abilities are . . . well, you’re the one who actually reads minds. Not me.”
“That’s not exactly it. I was good at trying to guess because making other people happy guaranteed my place in their lives,” I confess.
See, nobody can’t say I’m not reading the books they left on the nightstand. I’m even borrowing words from it—probably learning a thing or two. Not that they might be useful, but at least I can talk shit right now without sounding broken.
He narrows his gaze and glances toward the stack by the bed. “You’re reading Eddie’s self-help books?”
I shrug. “Just because I’m not going outside doesn’t mean I’m not doing something when I’m not sleeping. Or screaming.”
His mouth curves. “Why don’t you call us? We can keep you company.” He looks around the room. Glass. Cedar. A view that swallows you whole. “This place is big. It’s less boring with two idiots hovering.”
“I’ve been out,” I mumble. “Earlier. While you two were behind two huge wooden doors.”
He arches a brow, a glint in his eye that isn't quite teasing but definitely knows too much. “How did you know we were there?”
My face heats instantly, that useless flush crawling up my neck. I hope the tan of my skin does its job and hides it, but I’m not exactly proud of myself. “I might’ve heard a thing or two.”—Or everything. But I don’t say that part.
His mouth curves, the start of something mischievous. But it doesn’t bite. It doesn’t mock. “You did, huh?” he says, tongue touching the roof of his mouth as he tsks. “If we weren’t in a weird place, I’d threaten a good spanking. But . . . tell me—what did you hear, princess?”
“Princess.” That word settles right into a crack inside me. Like it belongs. Like I belong.
For a split second, I let myself be that Cleo again. The one who took on the world like it owed her nothing. Who solved problems with a snap and a smirk and never let anyone see the bruises beneath. But she’s gone now. Replaced by this fragile thing wearing her name like it still fits.
“Never mind,” I say, before I derail into something I can’t climb out of. Then I remember Dr. Stevens—her voice unblinking, unbothered by the mess. “Fine.” I breathe, drag the courage through my ribs, and let it spill out fast. “You-two-seem-to-be-in-couples-counseling.”
It comes out in one breath, rushed and slurred.
“We were . . . are,” he admits. “If you recall, our dynamic leaves all the decisions to Eddie.”
“It’s easier to let him,” I say, and it’s true. True enough to sting. “I made so many decisions for everyone that letting the two of you take care of me was—” I fumble. “—a different pace. So much easier.”
He nods slowly. “We love to take care of you, princess.”
“Loved,” I correct. Automatically. Because it’s safer to believe in past tense.
He doesn’t even blink. “We still love it—and love you. Right now we’re learning what you need, though.”
My voice is too thin. “What does that mean?”
He shrugs. “If I knew, I wouldn’t have to learn.”
“I don’t know what I need,” I confess.
“Then we’ll learn together. The three of us.”
My breath catches. Because he says it so plainly. Because he means it.
“But you two are together,” I say, the words feeling like an old bruise I keep pressing. “I know how much you love each other.”
“So fucking much,” he agrees without hesitation, without performance. “As much as we love you. But the love we have for each other and the love we have for you aren’t in competition. They’re different. They don’t cancel each other out. And we like the dynamic of three.”
I sit with that, staring at the tray. Wondering if eating now will allow me to swim right after or if I even have a swimming suit in that closet which magically has all the clothes I could ever need, including fussy socks that I didn’t know I needed but I’ve learned to love.
Which, if I have to guess, is all Eddie.
The man who wants to give everything to those he loves.
But how can he love me and Barret at the same time? I wonder if I love them both, but before I can answer if there’s any love from me to them, I have to find love for myself, don’t I?
And then I ask, without meaning to: “How did it start?”
He looks at me puzzled.
“Not the love,” I say quickly. “But you two of you. How can it exist and still make room for . . . me?”
His eyes drift—not away from me, but inward, like he’s reaching for something fragile at the back of his mind.
He sets the guitar beside the couch, then shifts to the floor in front of me, crossing his legs slowly, the way someone does when they know this won’t be quick.
Elbows resting on his thighs, hands loose between his knees, gaze locked on mine—like he’s about to hand me something with edges.
“You know how Connor liked to exploit the bad-boy-playboy image,” he says.
I nod. “Which is why Rod cheated on Kit.”
He sighs. “Cheating isn’t the word, Cleo. He was too drunk and high to know what was really happening.”
“That was—”
“Grooming,” Barret cuts in. “Connor hurt too many people. There’s still a lawsuit pending. More musicians keep coming forward. It’s turned into a movement.”
His voice is rough. “The point is, I was breaking down while Connor paraded his curated collection of women in front of us. It felt like each night shaved off a piece of me.”
He swallows. “Eddie started bringing me to his room to do some aftercare. He’d rinse the stink out of my hair, talk to me until my body remembered it belonged to me. One night . . . he joined from the beginning. To keep me safe. To make sure I wasn’t a body just going through the motions.”
He goes quiet then. Not absent. Just folding the memory carefully so it won’t cut either of us when he offers it.
“Do you want the version with dates and hotel names and the moment I learned to breathe into a kiss without disappearing?” he asks, eyes never leaving mine.
I’m not sure I’m ready for the whole story. But I want the first sentence.
“Start at the door,” I say. “The first one you closed, so the world had to knock.”
He nods. Fingers curl around a guitar pick, slowly turning it like a prayer bead. His gaze tips past my shoulder like he’s watching a hallway open in real time.
“It was a night with a penthouse and too much perfume,” he says softly, voice thick with memory. “And that’s where it began.”
Then he pauses, as if he’s holding the door open. Waiting for me to step through.