Chapter 15 Remy
REMY
“I can literally see CUNY from the rooftop.” I’m talking to Ariel on my new cell.
“Let me get this straight.” Ariel sounds as if she is jogging, only I know that she has a natural aversion to any form of exercise, but particularly to jogging around a city in the middle of summer. “He has an infinity pool… on his rooftop.”
“Correct.”
I haven’t stopped smiling this morning. Sure, it might have something to do with the multiple orgasms I experienced last night.
But I feel as if I’ve woken up in an alternate universe where I grab a bathing suit from the walk-in closet after my morning shower and sunbathe on the roof before setting out for college in a chauffeur-driven vehicle.
People live like this.
My mind is blown. My pussy is still a little sore from all the attention it got last night. And my heart is at a bursting point.
The three of us slept in the rooftop cabana, a tangle of limbs and throws and cushions.
It wasn’t discussed. It simply felt… right.
And this morning, I woke up to breakfast on a tray, grilled sausages, bacon, hash browns, and fried eggs.
A pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice.
A basket filled with fresh baked bread. Apples and bananas and pears.
Enough food to feed me and Ariel for a full twenty-four hours.
They watched me eat like I was being interviewed for a job as taste tester in one of their restaurants.
“What?” I asked, mopping up egg yolk with a slice of buttered bread. “Do I have sauce on my chin?”
“You would still be beautiful even if you were covered in sauce,” Bash said. Serious.
“Especially if you were covered in sauce.” Cash’s eyebrows danced independently.
We didn’t talk about what happened on the rooftop and the breakfast counter. They bounce off each other. They communicate without words. I sensed that they both knew what was going on and were comfortable enough not to voice it out loud.
Or perhaps they were keeping their promise and making things easier for me.
Bonus. Because if they asked me how I feel about them, the answer would still be the same. I couldn’t choose. I don’t want to choose. Even though, deep down, I understand that this will never work in the real world.
“And you shared the asparagus spears with both of them.” Ariel’s question drags my head out of the fantasy and back to the phone call. “On the rooftop.”
“Yes.”
She knows everything. She is also the only person I know who won’t judge me for thinking that I could… just for one night… have both twins.
“Did they, like, feed them to you, one at a time, while you sat back with your mouth open?” She snorts through the phone. “On second thought, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know what you did with your mouth open.”
“Ariel!”
“Some girls get all the luck. If Tristan had a twin and a rooftop pool, I’d kiss goodbye to my college degree and go buy the sexiest bathing suit you ever saw. Two bathing suits, different colors. To remind me which twin was which.”
I giggle. It’s easy to detach myself from the real world and laugh about it from the rooftop. Literally. But I know the bubble will burst eventually. I’m pregnant. Last night isn’t the start of a sustainable future together.
It was a sexy, romantic, unforgettable interlude.
“I don’t need different colored bathing suits. They both have different qualities that set them apart from each other.”
“Such as?”
“Bash is the serious one, but when he smiles, he gets the cutest dimple. Just one. And when he thinks no one is watching, he squints a little like the sun is shining in his eyes. Cash is louder, more confident, more… everything. But underneath the bravado is a little boy looking for praise.”
The silence is louder than I anticipated.
“Wow.” I can almost see Ariel blinking at the phone screen by the tone of her voice. “You discovered all that while you were lying on your back with your legs open and your eyes closed.”
“Not exactly.” I cover my eyes with sunglasses borrowed from the guest room as if I could hide behind them. “The signs were always there; I just didn’t notice them before.”
Ariel sucks air through her teeth. “Girl, you’ve got it bad.”
“I’m still buzzing from last night is all.”
“Yeah, you tell yourself that, Rem. What are you gonna do about it? About them? I mean, I’m all for girl power, and I’ll support you all the way, but other folks might not be so understanding.”
“I know.” I can already feel the euphoria starting to evaporate in the mid-morning heat. “I can’t think about it right now. They’re both… I can’t even imagine… I can’t wait for you to meet them, Ariel. When you do, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.”
Someone clears their throat, and I startle.
I sit up straight, phone still pressed to my ear.
A guy is standing near the entrance to Bash’s apartment, staring straight at me, and my pulse leaps like it got a shot of strong caffeine.
He’s wearing a designer suit. At first glance, I thought it was one of the twins, but his hair is longer than Cash’s, unruly, and there’s something almost apologetic about his stance, head lowered like he doesn’t want to intrude.
I vaguely recall Fran telling me that there are four brothers. And they all look like that.
“Someone is here,” I murmur to Ariel. “A brother, I think.”
“Put in a good word for me, Rem.”
I end the call and stand up, suddenly hyper-aware that I’m wearing a bathing suit from Bash’s guest room, sunshades that he paid for, and I have full use of his apartment and pool while he and Cash are working.
I should’ve gotten a ride into college this morning before they left. I shouldn’t have stayed here alone.
I can already see exactly how this looks: college student gets pregnant, moves into penthouse apartment, and takes the Murray twins for whatever she can get.
“Remy?” he speaks first.
“You know my name?”
His smile is the same but unique to him at the same time. His canines protrude just a little, and there’s something subdued behind his eyes.
“I’m Kyle,” he introduces himself, comes closer to shake my hand. He removes his suit jacket, folds it neatly, and sits on the pool lounger next to me. “Please, sit. This isn’t a formal meeting. My brothers asked me to come and speak to you.”
“They did?”
Is this the part where they get the lawyer of the family to evict me from the rooftop terrace? Maybe he’ll serve me with a legal injunction to leave his twin brothers alone, a judicial order to maintain a three-mile distance between me and Cassius and Bastien, or their place of employment.
“They didn’t tell you, did they?” He shakes his head, but it isn’t accompanied by a Scrooge-type scowl. “I don’t even know why I’m surprised at this point.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
I haven’t moved, but breakfast is churning around inside my stomach, and I pray that I won’t be sick in front of him. Or if I must, I pray that I can at least contain it until he has finished delivering the bad news.
“They want me to discuss your property requirements.”
“My property requirements?”
My brain isn’t working at the correct speed. When Cash and Bash left me earlier, they kissed my cheek and told me to help myself to whatever I wanted. Food. Drink. Clothes. Books. The rooftop cabana. Now they want me to sign for it or something.
“I’m not going to take anything home with me. I’ll wash the bathing suit and replace it in the closet.”
I peer down at it and feel self-conscious about having this conversation half-dressed. Kyle has the advantage here. Well, it’s more than just the suit, there’s his legal background to consider too.
“No, you misunderstand me.”
Well, maybe that’s because you’re not being clear enough.
“Property requirements. Housing. Where would you like me to start looking?”
I open my mouth to speak and change my mind.
I’m still not following the conversation.
Ariel mentioned that baby brain is a thing.
Women shed brain cells during pregnancy which is why they often become forgetful and clumsy.
But I’m still in the first trimester, God help me, I won’t remember my own name by the time I go into labor.
“Start looking for what?”
“Somewhere for you and the babies to live.”
I’m still numb when I leave the apartment to go to college.
Ariel’s predictions are coming true. No paternity test, and they want to buy me an apartment.
Anywhere I want. Kyle didn’t mention the possibility of them living with me, but baby steps.
I wanted to ask him how much he knew, but he was so focused on showing me images on his tablet of the kind of real estate featured on Selling Sunset, that I was afraid to interrupt.
I saw the price tags. I’m still unsure if they were real or if I imagined the entire conversation, because Kyle moved swiftly onto gynecology care once I told him that I couldn’t possibly accept that kind of offer.
I grew up in Port Washington. Owning my own home is something that I’ve never strived for.
It’s right up there on a shelf, alongside getting married and having babies.
I guess I’m partway there.
But still…
The Murray family will pay for the best gynecology and obstetrics care for me and the babies.
Apparently. Because only the best for their offspring.
I didn’t ask the difference between the care they want to pay for and the care I would receive through my own healthcare policy.
At this point, I’d given up trying to follow the conversation and was trying to get my head around sums of money that don’t exist in the real world.
I’m still so dazed that I exit the elevator into the foyer rather than Bash’s private parking bay at the back of the Rinse.
Each time I pass through feels different. Today I feel like a fraud. I’m wearing clothes that don’t belong to me, I spent last night in a penthouse that people like me only see on TV, and am vaguely aware that soon, I will be calling a vastly overpriced apartment home.
I keep my head down, trying to remain invisible.
A woman dressed in a raw silk shift dress, carrying a chihuahua under one arm, almost walks straight into me on her way to the restaurant, distracted by the telephone conversation she is having.
She sees me though. She sees me, and she makes that call to keep right on walking because she expects me to move out of her way.
I stare at her back, teary-eyed, willing her to turn around and acknowledge that she elbowed my chest as she walked by. But she is oblivious.
I speed up. I want to get out of here, get back to college, sit through a lecture and think about anything other than the world inhabited by the Murrays. I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if my feelings for them can outweigh my insecurities about this world that they live in.
I’m almost at the exit when I hear Bastien’s name mentioned. A woman is talking to the concierge. I glimpse her profile, olive skin, diamonds glinting in her ears, that air of belonging in the Rinse that all the visitors to the casino wear so comfortably.
The concierge is smiling, an expression that he forgot when I came to speak to Bash without an appointment. I hear him ask, “Is Mr. Murray expecting you?”
And the response delivered so effortlessly: “No, but perhaps you could give him my card.”
These people carry business cards in slim silver cases. They don’t count the cash in their wallets before they leave home. They don’t check price tags before they purchase a wardrobe for the new season.
I forget that Bash’s car is waiting for me in the private lot.
I forget that they were having me followed when they thought that I was trying to scam them on my ex-boyfriend’s behalf.
I forget that I left my café uniform in Bash’s laundry hamper for his housekeeper to pick up when she comes in, and I have a shift this evening.
I walk back to college. One foot in front of the other. Pounding the streets until I erase the images in my head of spacious apartments on the Upper East Side, rooftop pools that resemble Irish coves, and celebrity-recommended doulas.