Chapter Text
My first girlfriend was in middle school. She asked me out in PE and broke up with me a week later. Reasons unclear to this day. I’m not sure she counts, but if I leave her out I feel like an asshole.
My second girlfriend was Molly Wagner. We went to Homecoming together, which was why I asked her out. I got her a nice corsage that she lost by the end of the night. Broke up before Christmas. She said I was boring and that all I wanted to talk about was hockey.
My third girlfriend was Anya. Field hockey assassin. Didn’t need to make any money off whatever she did after school, which was good because nobody made anything doing women’s field hockey. Actually nobody. She made me remember I was lucky that my thing had a tiny chance of paying off. Lucky in that way but not every other. And it was impossible to talk to anybody about any of it. Not guys—every guy I knew played something or wished they did or really wanted to say how little they gave a shit about sports and the guys who played them. We’d end up talking about that and not my shit. Not girls either—I didn’t really know any. If I did, I figured they’d be the same, except for the vague probably sexist idea that girls were supposed to be on their emotional game more. So, when Anya asked me out, I said yeah because I thought it would be different. I thought she’d get it.
My fourth girlfriend was Chloe, but everything we did felt like a first. The real firsts. And not the part where Matty was in the room for it most of the time. Not just that. It never felt like a distinction worth narrowing in on in the moment, so I didn’t get to explain she was the first girl that made me feel like she picked me because she liked talking to me. How much that meant. Concussed, delirious, half asleep, or drugged—whatever made it out of my mouth, she wanted to hear it.
Mainly, though, she was the first person who tried to get me. Day one, she’d cared about what I needed enough to try and give it to me, and she kept caring. I lost everything I had including a place to live, and she let me crash with her forever. No strings attached. And by the way, Matty was never grateful enough for that, how Chloe let us move into her goddamned house. I was probably the last person who got to accuse people of ungratefulness, fine, but still. He was so ready to belong with her that sometimes he forgot to not take her for granted. And she liked him enough not to remind him. I noticed, though. I tried to notice everything I could about her.
Chloe was clocking firsts before we were even dating. Before we were fake dating, too. First stranger in my hospital room, first big hug in a while, first girl who talked to me and didn’t seem to think I was a fucking idiot because my brain wouldn’t spit words out fast.
Tons of firsts during our second time at the hospital, all under the umbrella of the first time there was somebody in the room who cared more about my wellbeing than I did. First person to pretend to be my girlfriend to get in an ambulance with me. She said to somebody, “He wants me to stay so I’m staying.” And I couldn’t remember if I’d told her I wanted her to stay. It felt like she’d picked it out of my head.
Chloe kept making them explain the things they wanted to do to me. I didn’t know you could do that. My family treated doctors like cops. Trouble. Growing up I got stitches from the vet sometimes ‘cause Mom said she was done paying for every lil thing. If I ended up in front of a doctor from something that happened on the ice, I knew the script. I knew how to get out fast. That night I didn’t have any words left, and she let me use hers. I held onto Chloe. The warm home of her hand on me somewhere all the time almost made me forget she was, before anything else, Matty’s girlfriend. Hard to remember when she was the only face I could see clear.
The nurses got me back in one piece, but they said I’d need the big full leg brace. First time I needed that. They insisted. When the Coach told me to get up, I was still gonna do it. If I wanted to stay on the team, I had to keep listening to him. Not like that was anything I actually needed to think, I knew it. I’d known it forever. I could always make myself do it before. Whatever Coach said. Maybe slow or wrong, but I’d do it. One more rep, one more lap, one more drill. This was the first time I froze.
Chloe knew what was going on before I did. “Actually, I drove,” she said, and I knew the hard part was over. She had me.
First time somebody took me home from an away game that I could think of. Pretty nice. First time I got home and realized I didn’t know if we won or not. Coach had to have said something but I didn’t remember. We drove hours. They’d come all that way just to see us play in the first place and it never came up.
All of that was small potatoes compared to the main event, like I said. First time anybody ever gave me a place to live and asked for jack shit in return. And I was a really bad roommate. It hurt to do anything, so I didn’t. Her and Matt had to help me shower. The low point. And, because I was doing so shitty, they kept trying to convince me they liked me there. Nice and all, but I kept my head on straight.
For a few weeks we were just hanging out. Snow day in summer. Then I had to get back on track. Chloe wanted me to rest but I didn’t. I was tough. I pushed. I played through the pain. Coach had me on what he called easy mode, to piss me off and make me work harder. My knee kept going out, wobbling, and I’d overcompensate on the other side. He noticed. He had me do drills on the bad side because he said it was ready. The minor tear they fixed went full-blown. It was over.
The only thing that went right in that year was Chloe. It felt like she knew I thought that, too. She told me I could stay longer, and I still was selfish enough to say yes to everything she offered. In return, I tried to stay out of her way. Not ignoring her. When she said something to me, I made an effort. I thought I did okay. When she had less to say, when she winced away from me, I figured she was getting sketched out. Of course she was. I was making it weird. I figured she was trying to tell me leave her alone and left first.
Chloe still got on a plane because I asked her to. Because I heard Matty’s voice, and all she’d done for him and needed them.
I knew there was basically no shot at not begging her to let me come back when I saw her. I did think I’d be able to make it without telling her how I was falling for her, especially since it would probably hurt my chances with the other thing. She was a taken woman. My best buddy’s girlfriend. It didn’t matter if she was also the only person who made me feel safe. I wasn’t going to tell her. Them. And then I got high.
It was kind of the best thing that ever happened to me. I got everything wrong, and they said they wanted me. She kissed me. It wasn’t a dream. We woke up and talked about it. They said friends with benefits. I didn’t know what that meant, but whatever it was it was better than home.
This was where the firsts with Matty started too. Me and her kissing was the first time it felt like he actually looked at me without keeping something away. Me and him holding hands was the first time I thought he might like me back.
&&&
After graduation, Matt got a grown-up job, and then he got a promotion less than a year in, and then he started traveling for work. A day or two at a time, going to Detroit or Columbus or Cincinnati to do big presentations to executive boards or whatever. What a surprise—everyone loved him and wanted him to talk more. I was really really happy for him, and I missed him. We talked on the phone most of the nights he was gone, with Danny joining in on speaker for however long he wanted.
“Okay. Be honest right now,” Matt said the second I picked up his call on the first night of his big three-day trip. “Do you hate this? I’m feeling guilty.”
I smiled at the sound of his voice. Pavlovian. “Hi babe. A little, but you love it and that’s more important. And it’s amazing. You’re killing it.”
“I am. Is the thing.”
“You totally are.” Maybe he was angling for a pep talk. The big meeting and company dinner after was tomorrow.
“No, I mean like. Okay.” He’d be motioning at me if he were here. “What if I keep travelling more?”
I couldn’t avoid looking at Danny any longer. He was at the table across from me, chin in his hand which was covering his mouth, but I had more than enough to work with. “Do it. Have fun. We’re fine.”
“Okay.” Matt sighed.
“Unless you want me to beg you to come home. I can do that too. Whatever my big-shot salesman wants.” Danny flushed when I said stuff like that to Matty, more now than ever maybe. “Say the word, Matty,” I prompted.
He didn’t. Now that I’d taken him seriously, Matt could let this fake emergency go and tell us about the amazing day he had. And of course it was amazing. He only freaked out these days when things were going too well. That was basically the only kind of problem I could have with him. Even his trips kind of worked out. Danny and me had all this time to date.
&&&
Matty was my first boyfriend, but that basically came with the all three of us thing, so. First guy, first time dating two people, first threesome. All that stuff. His and hers, which felt right. I wouldn’t have had either of them without the other.
I got it right after that. I got her better. It was easier to understand her when she was letting me feel her breathing. One time I had my arm around her and raised my voice to answer Mom from the other room and she tensed up. Not like she wanted me to notice. Opposite. I tried to apologize and she just said “What?” and kissed my cheek. That was still newly allowed, so I shut up and let myself be satisfied with noticing. There was something there, I’d seen it, and she knew I saw it. We had a secret kept between our eyes. We had a few of those these days. Chloe was seeing all sorts of things about my family, and I saw her seeing them.
I knew I was an asshole here, I was ready to not be able to explain it to her whenever she eventually asked. Something about my blood relatives rubbed me wrong. I couldn’t let go of stuff that bothered me, it kept bothering me. I was raw by the time Chloe and Matt got here. Snapping at everybody, dipping on every family thing and hiding in my room. Bad son. I was ready for her to call me on it but Chloe, who wanted to talk about everything, kept not bringing it up.
There were a lot of distractions. After they decided I got to be part of them, I found out she’d been holding back on just how couple-y she’d be with me. Good. I wanted that to be true, so we could both say we did right by Matty. Before we talked about it we were mostly holding hands a lot. I’d put an arm over her shoulder. Standing closer but not that close. That type of stuff. Now she’d sit in my lap, or pull a chair over to me at dinner so we were on top of each other, or she’d take my hand in both of hers, absorbing all my angst. As long as she was around, I didn’t have to even think about my family. Whatever they said about me being out of character for being in a good mood slid right off me.
Matt was there most of the time, too. She wasn’t shy with him about it. If he came around with drinks for people and she was snuggled in against my side, she’d stay there and meet his eyes. “And for the happy couple?” he said one time.
“Spiked egg nog, please,” Chloe answered. “Danny, baby?”
Mom heard that. I felt her look at us, and the feeling bubbled up again. The hot something knotted in my chest, hard to breathe around. That was mostly how home felt. Like being scared but not yet.
“Beer.” I kissed the side of Chloe’s head.
Matt was all smiles. “Any specific kind?” Of course everyone liked him. He was the brightest thing in the room.
I pretended to think about it so he’d look at me longer. “Nah.”
“Nah,” he echoed, and came back with our drinks like he thought we’d be timing him. He’d probably like that.
Even if he was over Mom, he was still running interference for us with her. Spent some time in the kitchen helping with cookie prep. The second she was distracted, he pulled a chair over in front of us, respectful distance away, and started telling us about how he’d play manhunt in the woods on New Year’s Eves near him. Or they’d have snowball fights with barricades of sleds. Not the kind of stuff we did over here, but one step to the side.
Chloe linked her arm with mine and held her drink with that hand. I couldn’t move without spilling. I didn’t want to, after I checked that Matty wasn’t getting weird. Opposite of that. “Ah. Young love,” he said when I met his eyes. Teasing but not. And Chloe didn’t freak out at the word. Course she didn’t, she was a grown-ass woman. She didn’t freak out about it being used near me, was the cool part. They must’ve meant it. They liked me.
We squeezed a few more new things into the final days home. First time I planned a date like the type of stuff people did online. I had to do something for just us before we left. I had to be with them somewhere besides my house. They’d probably think it was funny how serious I took it, getting everything together. Blankets, hot cocoa blazing hot in a thermos, gear swiped from the garage. It was my idea so it had to be the best I could do.
First time I went out when it was frozen over and didn’t get on the pond, but I couldn’t feel the sting of that when Matt and Chloe were both pink-faced and shouting my name. My real fake nickname name. The one that hadn’t been ruined.
First New Year’s Party I had any fun at since I was a kid. Not much. The gauntlet of family members who wanted to ask me what I was going to do now made sure of that. But both of them were glued to me, Matty and Chloe, one on each side, smiling at my not funny not-really-jokes so my cousins and uncles wouldn’t get offended when I gave stupid answers to their stupid questions. When I didn’t have the right things to say about the team that kicked me out and the people that used me up.
Fine, though, because the real party was after, the three of us in my room eating and talking shit about the people downstairs to blow off steam. Matt and Chloe were good at bouncing back. Second family thing like this. Chloe was probably more into it when it was her actual boyfriend. He knew how to talk to her when she was worn out. He got her giggly, and then he started in on me. “Dude, is it weird if I try and make your mom’s coffee cake?”
“No.”
“Well, would you like it?”
“I like everything you make, so yeah.”
Matt snorted. “When I’m not trying to impress Chloe, it’s a lot less…”
“Impressive?” Chloe deadpanned.
“Diverse.” Matt took huge bites. Sometimes I caught myself just watching, trying to figure out where it went. “Microwaved veggie bags and burgers on bread type shit five days a week.”
“Okay. Well I can mix it up in there too. Get some pasta goin.”
“Oh, you’re going to make pasta,” Matt said in that annoyed tone that meant we were done really talking and starting to argue ourselves into laughing. I wondered when I’d be able to tell him I liked when he got like that.
&&&
“Question,” Danny said.
“Huh.”
“No like. Can I ask you an actual question?”
We were clearing out the overgrown back corners of the yard, trying to get rid of anywhere mosquitos could be so we could sit outside in a few months, during summer. Another thing I loved about Danny: when I went outside to do something, he’d come and do whatever it was with me and then some. Never even had to ask. I came out to empty out the flower pots so there was no standing water on a Saturday morning. He was out the back door with boots on a little while later, and got the hedge clippers out of the shed. One corner was almost cleared now. Apparently he thought it was time for a break.
I straightened up, and wiped my baby hairs back away from my sweaty forehead. “Okay.”
“What if it was just you and Matt? And he was still leaving this much.”
“Wouldn’t love it.”
Danny nodded, long and slow. “Because your dad.” It was a very gentle type of statement, specially chosen so I wouldn’t need to answer if I didn’t want to. Another thing we’d noticed about each other; how careful we were in moments like this.
I wanted to answer. “Uh, I guess. And I’d have so much time to miss him.”
“And think about your mom.”
I wasn’t rising to this like bait, because it wasn’t. I knew that Danny’s awkwardness sounded like a dig when he didn’t know how to make it tentative. “Yeah, I guess that’s still always part of it.”
It paid off. Danny wiped his face on his sleeve and took a deep sniff. “I try not to think about my mom.”
“Oh.” This felt huge.
“Yeah, and I didn’t want to say it when you were still deciding, but. Being with you and Matty. This is my favorite place. You guys do a lot for me. I hope you don't feel like you have to, or anything.”
I loved him. Was now the time I was supposed to say it? I started smaller. “I’m actually pretty allergic to doing something out of obligation, actually.”
Danny nodded more, eyes fixed on every part of my reaction. “Right. Well. You’ve done a lot for me already.” It felt stupid to say that; I saw it on his face.
“Hey, no, yeah, I’m saying I think that’s kind of our thing.”
“What?”
“Doing stuff for each other. Acts of service.”
That was rearranging his brain. “Oh.”
“You like that. Doing things for me.” My turn to sound stupid.
“Well. Everything’s easy with you.” A statement I was already prepared to be very touched by, but then he added, “I think because you think about what I want.”
“I do my best.”
“Me too.”
“How about we do the other corner and then we take a shower together.”
His face lightened up. “Yeah?”
“Sure.”
“Let’s do it.”
We were a minute or two into trimming down big weeds to pull free. I was crouched on my rapidly-tiring knees. “Somebody’s in the driveway,” he said. I looked up to find him standing up tall and looking down the side of the house. Seeing him made me feel safe in the same moment scaredness welled up. Big guy, work boots and a thick flannel shirt. It'd been a couple years since his job was being in shape, but he was still strong at a glance. Stubble on his face. Clippers in hand. These were all things people didn’t fuck with. “Silver sedan,” Danny added. I heard a car door open and close.
“Stacy.”
Danny looked at me. Cold splash. “You want her gone?”
Not thinking, just answering. “I’m worried about the kids. If she’s bringing them here, I think she’s drinking again. And Stacy found me. When I tried to kill myself. So. I have a hard time saying no to her.”
His chest rose and fell. “Oh.”
“This is the part of me that is not so fun. And I’m sorry. It’s—“
His hands closed around my wrists and helped me up to my feet. Reading my mind, as usual. I needed to be up. I needed to see what was going on in my front yard. I needed to not be scared. “I get it,” Danny told me. He took my face in his hands and told me again. “I’ve got your back.”
I wanted to believe it. As always, it was easier with him so close.
&&&
Even once I thought Matty could like me, I didn't know the whole truth for a while. At the time I figured it would take him longer to get cool with things because he hadn’t been thinking about it so long. That was the only thing that made sense. I met him and noticed how soft his lower lip looked. Like, that was the first thing. So I’d had a lot of time to get used to the things I wanted about him. Assuming it’d be a dealbreaker, too, so I got really good at just seeing and stopping it there. The warm living brown of his eyes. His surprisingly quick hands. The way he was always careful about clothes. Sharing a room I got a front row seat to all that. And now I was sort of possibly allowed to notice. I’d been all over his girlfriend for the holiday season, and he said he wasn’t just being a good friend. I remembered.
Matty was a really good friend, though. He was the easiest person I’d ever lived with. He told me exactly how much I annoyed him all the time but it was never a big deal. Saying it bluntly took all the edge out, and he never liked me any less. And when there were actual problems, we could handle that too. He told me he hated the way I folded things that should be hung up and I told him to hang up whatever he wanted then. And he did, and it was over. I told him I didn’t want people barging into our room whenever, and he started locking it and enforcing knocking by throwing hard things at people who didn’t. He said something about how I snored, and I told him to wake me up when I did it but he never did that I remembered. Whenever I woke up he was gone in class, usually, or at the gym. All of that was fine. It didn’t hurt us. We were the same.
With all that time together, I was waiting for something to feel new with him. There was lots of potential. Sleeping in the same bed, doing each other’s laundry, spending evenings in his room fucking around watching something on my phone while he did homework. Or even the part where him and me went to his girlfriend’s house every weekend and played house. None of that actually felt that new. He made me believe we could do anything and it’d be fine, whatever ended up happening. Pretty sure he made me feel like that before he felt that way. Like I said. I’d been looking for so long, this half step couple of weeks felt like less than I was ready for. A warm up for the real thing that kicked off with Chloe’s surprise. All three of us. When we hooked up it worked exactly like Chloe thought it would. Like I'd hoped it would. We proved it; we made a perfect thing. A good line. Covered each other, worked together, read each other's minds. For months, we held up together. And then Chloe asked us to move in when our leases were up, so any doubts I'd been letting myself have about her wanting it as bad as we did were ruled out. We were going to live together. No end date in mind. No end date required as long as we kept on making it work.
That was the first time I knew what I wanted to do with my life if it couldn’t be hockey. Even if I still wanted it to be hockey.
&&&
The kids had backpacks. Red flag. Stacy was trying the door handle. Also bad. “Hey guys,” I said, trying to sound cheerful for the children. They ran over to me for hugs.
Mason was taller since the last time I saw him, and bony. They all were pretty bony. A pang in my chest told me I’d make the decision I’d already made. The conversation was kind of an afterthought. “Hey girl!” Stacy said with a big wobbly smile. “My key’s not working.”
My hackles were up. Danny was only a presence at my side. “Yeah, I had to change the locks. What’s going on?”
“Well, I was wondering…”
That was all I could stay checked in for. It never got any easier to be begged for something by someone I didn’t like much but couldn’t help but owe. I went around the house and in through the back to let the kids in. By the time I got there, Stacy was gone. Danny herded them in, arm out. He was the last through the door, locked it and stood so close to me our shoes were touching.
I took a second to do the mental math. Nora was a teenager now. Thirteen. That made Ashley ten and Sabrina nine? Mason was fifteen or sixteen. At least two of them were old enough to talk to. When I hugged them they only smelled normal dirty, a day or two and not like a week. I sent the girls up for showers, Nora supervising her sisters and asked Mason to stay down here with me. “I need help making sandwiches for everybody,” I invented on the spot, and he agreed with a single nod. His hair was a dark shell around his head.
The kids all still listened to me. That was good. Within thirty seconds of directions being given I was alone at the bottom of the steps. I needed to follow Mason to the kitchen.
“You want me to finish the yard?” Danny said.
“No.” I couldn’t manage to be polite. It was impossible.
Danny understood. He rubbed my back a couple times with heavy pressure. Something about the size of his hand on me helped, or maybe it was just something about him. “So I should stick with you,” he said, and I got to nod.
We supervised sandwich-making, Danny from the other side of the room and me from up close helping. Mason waited to touch anything in the fridge until I told him he could, and then he didn’t know where anything like plates or butter knives were. Those things took up all the first minutes, got us both a little loosened up.
“So are you driving yet?” I asked.
“I have my temps.”
“Awesome.”
“Whatever. It’s okay.” It sounded shy, not bratty. Mason glanced over at me. Big nose, worried little mouth. “I thought you wouldn’t let us in.”
My chest clenched. “Well. I kinda care about you guys having somewhere safe to sleep.”
“Thanks,” he said, and I said he was welcome.
When Mason took his plate to the couch to eat and watch TV, Danny came over to help me finish cleaning up. I was cutting the crusts off for Sabrina, so he started putting stuff back in the fridge. “Thank you, babe,” I managed to say like a normal person. He hummed a no problem back at me, but I heard a catch in there. “What?”
“Nothing.” It wasn’t nothing. His face told me that, and he knew it; whatever I caught him thinking made him embarrassed to be identified. At least it got him to speak up. “Well. Just. Where’s he gonna be?”
“Air mattress.”
Danny nodded without meaning it. “But like. Sucks he’s the one kid without his own room.”
“Yeah. He didn’t live here when they did.”
“Right. But.”
The silence said more than anything else could’ve. I started to clue in. The other time the kids were here, he’d had the same worry. “This is really important to you.”
He managed a single jerky nod. “But I know it’s not my place, to like.”
“It is. It totally is. So you’d come share with me?”
“No. I’ll sleep on the couch.” Danny shut the fridge and leaned against it to look at the floor near my feet, not at me.
“Is that your first choice?”
For several long seconds, we were in a stand-off. It still took him a sec to decide to let me lead him somewhere. “No,” he said like I was holding a gun.
I took the girls’ plates to the table for them, went back for drinks. No hurry to talk if he wasn’t, but I could sense gears turning. He didn’t say anything before the girls came down, at least, so that was a pause on that conversation while they told me a million things. Sabrina wanted to complain about the dolly she left in her mom’s car. Okay, fine. Then Ashley. “Where’s the other one?” she asked.
“Other one what?” I asked, and she pointed at Danny. “Oh, Matt? He’s at work, they sent him on a trip. He’ll be back in a couple days.” Hopefully the kids would be gone before then, but I stopped that thought from making it out. “This is Danny, remember him?”
This was enough of an opening for the girls to grill him. “Is your leg still broken?” Sabrina asked.
“No,” Danny answered.
“Do you still play hockey?”
“Not really.”
Nora rolled her eyes for some reason. Definitely a teenager. She was half done with her food already. “Are you guys dating?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said for him. “So you better be nice.”
“I’ll be nice if he’s nice,” Ashley said loudly.
My heart sank. Danny stepped closer to me, bumping his hip into mine. “I’m nice,” he said, and I vouched for him. He was nice. The nicest.
&&&
Like anything else I cared about, I put my time in. Tried to get things done and be useful for both of them; do all the things they wanted done, help with whatever they were doing when they were doing it. Matt didn’t have to clean up our room basically ever. I made half his meals at least. Chloe said dishes were her least favorite chore one time, and me and Matty silently agreed we’d do them forever. So that was always something. But honestly, Chloe had a lot less she wanted done around the house compared to my mom. She’d probably be mad if she knew how much I did that; silently held her up against Mom and tried to make it mean something. I couldn’t help it.
They didn’t look the same, besides being bigger for their height. Chloe looked mean but she had soft edges. Mom looked nice, probably, to other people but I couldn’t remember her being particularly great to hug. Maybe because it was always forced. She used to count to five before she’d let me let go. Or the way they were at home, that wasn’t the same either. Mom was always moving, doing something or making something to do. Chloe would spend half a Sunday in the same spot on the couch reading her books. She liked paperbacks with crime scene photos on them, or mysteries that she was always saying she called the ending of. But she’d only say something about them if I’d been sitting around with her for a while. If she really got comfortable. Most of the time she thought I didn’t want to hear it.
Another new thing: me wanting to correct stuff like that. Feeling like it was worth it, for one, and then feeling like there was something I could do about it. My family didn’t talk about things. Especially me. Anything I said to somebody else ended up being told to Mom, and then she’d ask why I hadn’t told her that, and I wished I never said anything so much that eventually I just stopped saying shit. So then I was the asshole who wouldn’t tell anyone anything. Hard to remember that reputation when the first thing I knew about Matty and Chloe and how they worked was that anything was fair game to say forever, no guilt trip. They were always scheming how to tell me more. Fill me in.
Even talking to Matty about her felt like it had to be cheating because it helped so much. I asked him if it ever seemed like Chloe was holding back stuff because she thought we didn’t care. “Oh yeah. That’s for sure it,” he agreed. “She assumes everybody thinks she’s boring. She’s got issues, dude.”
“So what do you do?”
“I don’t know. I show her I want to hear it.”
“How. What do you say?”
“Feel it out,” was all he’d tell me. Not super helpful, but I didn’t have to worry about him telling Chloe I was asking about her. I actually couldn’t imagine that. If he thought I shouldn’t ask he would’ve said that. He did that sometimes, tell me I should ask her not him and I’d have to figure out how. But he answered, and he’d never tried to interfere with her and me except to help whenever he could. Her and me was our own thing, and him and me, and her and him. We saved the most fun stuff for when we were all together, but any two of us was good too. They made it so easy.
I was probably the most complicated one. Last to join. Extra sensitive about what felt like cheating, compared to either of them, but no matter how picky I got Chloe and Matt were fine with it. They wanted things to be aboveboard too. I never knew two people who wanted to talk to me more about what we wouldn’t do yet. I’d never had so much sex in my life, either. That was the other thing about all three of us I’d never had before—it was so fucking hot, and I didn't have anything else to do so we were fucking all the time. Some of that was Matty; getting to have him after so long wanting him was too much of a dream come true for me to not be hard whenever we were nearby. Chloe too, she was everything and more. I liked how herself she was, even when she was wearing Matty’s shirt and shorts. Maybe even especially then. I wanted her hands all over me like I’d never wanted anybody. I wanted her to trust me. More. The most. Tied for most. So. I had some work to do.
As the weather heated up, I went on Matty’s jogs more and did some thinking. Lots of it. I thought about how when Chloe was stressed, Matty announced everything on his mind to her. He didn’t do that with me. I wouldn’t mind, but Chloe needed it. She got real worried about us doing things not because we truly genuinely wanted to. So, alright. Where could that come from?
From her feeling obligated. Life was complicated for her. And maybe something worse than that. Maybe she’d felt worse than obligated. I knew what that was like too.
Thinking about it like that, of course she didn’t ask me exactly what she was scared of. If she had to ask, she couldn’t know I meant it for real. So I had to figure out how to tell her stuff. I had to get better at going first.
At least I was used to working on that. Offense was never really my thing.
&&&
I was in my room, waiting for the kids to be done with bathroom chores so I could go kiss them all goodnight. I hadn’t bothered to turn on all the lights yet. Just the little twinkle lights around the edge and the purple paper lantern. The house was different with people in it. A different base thrum, even when everyone was still. I could feel them vibrating in the same space as me. I’d also just hit the bong in my bathroom. Great time to text Matty.
So my stepsibs showed up again. Here for the night. Everything’s fine. Miss u
Danny’s footsteps were the only heavy ones in the house right now. I heard him come out of his room, which he’d been cleaning up for Mason, and towards my door. He knocked and stuck his face in the gap between door and frame. “Hey.”
“Yes, darling.”
“What if I put the air mattress in here?”
“Do it.”
Along with the mattress he brought his and Matty’s backpacks, hanging heavily off his shoulder. All their valuable shit, computers and probably the nice watch Danny had, and whatever else. I let him stash it in the bottom of my closet, and then I looked over at where we’d put it once I was back in bed. Our things mixing together. He used my blankets and pillows on his mattress. I’d noticed a particular fondness for the Nightmare Before Christmas stuff, so I threw that down for him. Once he was all set up, he got on his phone with his airpods connected and settled into silence. Not a surprise, exactly, but I did spend a lot of seconds waiting to see if something would occur to him to say. I missed Matty.
“Chloe!” Sabrina called out, and I got up.
Her and Ashley were easy. They wanted a kiss on the forehead and tucking in. I checked the night light. I shut the door almost all the way. Then Nora. No kiss, but I said goodnight. Her bedroom was the smallest, basically a closet, but she was always so happy in there, in her fluffy green pillows. I left her to enjoy it, and checked in on Mason.
He looked little, in the boys’ queen-sized bed. “Hey, Mason. Need anything?”
“No. Thanks. Do you know when she’s coming back?” he added at the last possible second, when I was almost out.
“Your mom?” I asked, and he nodded. “She said tomorrow. I’d guess early, if you’re gonna go to that church breakfast.” They went there a lot. Dad tried to tell me that meant he was a god-fearing man.
Mason seemed to find that plausible. “Thanks,” he said again, and I left him alone.
My room was dim after the brightness of the lamp on in Mason’s room. I paused in the door to let my eyes adjust. Danny looked so comfy down there on my floor, it almost made me mad. I got his attention ruffling his hair, and when he could hear me I said, “You could move over by me.” He jumped up, blankets falling off him, to snug the mattress right up to the side of my bed. There was something said there, something I was trying to hear, but the house was noisy. My brain was. If they weren’t gone for breakfast, I wasn’t sure what I’d give them. Danny probably knew the fridge better than me. I could just ask him. He was right here. All I had to do was disturb him again. Right when he settled back in.
I was addicted to bothering him tonight, apparently. Couldn’t help it. I had the thought and reached down to poke his shoulder. My beautiful boyfriend didn’t even complain, he just paused whatever he was watching again and looked up at me.
“When do you leave for work tomorrow?”
“I switched shifts, I’m here all day. I was gonna say something in the morning,” he added, and I felt the teeth of whatever trap he thought he was avoiding.
“You did that for me?”
“Yeah, I don’t want you to deal with this alone.”
“But I don’t want you to piss off your work.”
Danny looked up at me, finally, his eyes taking on a purple glow with the lights. God, I liked his face. “I can get another job. Only one you.”
I flopped my arm down to touch him. The angle was awkward, I could only brush his shoulder until he leaned into my hand. “Wow. I feel so taken care of,” I said. The kind of thing I didn’t think I was going to say until I said it.
“Good.” He rolled over, and put my hand in the middle of his own chest to hang onto. His hand circled my wrist easy. “I like taking care of you.”
“Right back atcha, baby.”
Danny closed his eyes with me looking right at him, and made a little show of snuggling into my touch. I think the darkness let him do it. The angle, maybe. And I was sleepy with my arm down like that. He probably was wondering why I wouldn’t just let him in bed with me. We stayed there a while. Longer than I thought we would, but he didn’t try to get back to whatever he was doing. He breathed with me. When I pulled my hand away, he didn’t ask to get up in bed with me and I didn’t offer. That only felt strange for a second. Then he was just down there, and I was up here.
Danny’s phone went off sometime in the morning. After a detour to kiss my cheek, he went downstairs. I was half-awake long enough to trace his steps by sound. The front door didn’t open. None of the kids were up. I heard something from Mason’s direction, but not much. Could just be turning over. Could be the vents. I didn’t realize I’d drifted off again until I heard Danny on the steps. He bumped my door open and closed it behind him. Something was clinking.
I kept my eyes shut. His weight sank into the mattress, making me slide a bit in towards him like he had his own gravity. “There’s coffee for ya,” he said in his rough morning voice. I heard him set the mug down on my bedside table.
“Mm. What time is it?” I reached out for him blindly.
He caught my hand in his. “Like 8:30. I think she got here around 9 last time, yeah?”
Yeah, good fucking memory. I hadn’t realized it left such a vivid impression on him. Not that it shouldn’t have but, we’d just hadn’t talked about it yet. Maybe this was him wanting to. I sat up, accepting his hand for leverage when he offered it. “Yeah. The thing starts at nine, so. Probably same timing. I’d let the kids sleep.” He’d put it in my favorite skull mug. Just the right color, tasted perfect. Mug for himself right next to where mine was, slightly lighter. He liked flavored creamer. “Any other reason you’re waking me up? ‘Cause I’m getting a feeling.”
“Well.” He looked sheepish to be caught. “You said you wanted your own space. And now I’m on your floor. Was that okay?”
“Very okay. Things change.” This felt more blunt than I usually was, but morning made the words blocky in my head.
Danny put his hand over my leg, long fingers spread wide and pressing deliberately into me. “Okay.”
“Was that what all of last night was? You didn’t want to ask?”
“I don’t think I’m supposed to ask if you’ve already given me an answer.”
“Yeah, but. I’m.” I had another sip of coffee while I floundered, and he copied me. It meant so much that we weren’t anything near upset. I felt a kind of smile on my face even, an awkward animal instinct to show nonaggression, and he had something way more real on his face.
A little hand knocked on my door, and I held Danny where he was by the wrist while I told them to come in. It was Sabrina, and Ashley close behind, still in PJs, looking really shy. “Hey girls. Morning.”
“Morning,” Sabrina echoed.
“Your version of this room is so cool,” Ashley said loyally.
Alright. I stopped pretending not to know what they wanted. They were always so transparently psyched to get invited up onto my bed. This time was no different. The two of them each claimed three separate stuffed animals first thing, and Danny huffed out a laugh with me. His family didn’t have any little girls like this. He watched them with a Jane Goodall type of interest.
“Guys,” I finally said. “Say hi to Danny too, please. He’s sitting right here.”
Ashley obeyed immediately, but Sabrina didn’t. She peered at him, and only said hi when he’d submitted to her examination. “Hey,” he said back, same as if he’d been talking to me.
“Why are there two beds?” she asked.
“Because this one’s hers,” Danny answered.
I loved him. I had to tell him soon, but right now I took over the conversation. They were in here because they wanted to know if they could watch the cable cartoons, so once I said that was allowed they were out of here like a rocket. “Wow,” Danny said.
“They’re fickle.”
“Not what I would’ve said.” He snorted at himself.
God, he was so cute. I kissed his smile, and thanked him for the coffee. When he was pushing my buttons on purpose, I knew exactly why he did it because every time I thanked him I did it a little bit because it flustered him. He liked it so much it surprised us both, when he kept on liking it this much. Maybe when I kept making the effort, too. This time, I particularly couldn’t believe that things were worse than ever and one of the guys I was still and always trying not to expect too much out of was right here, respecting my boundaries so hard he wouldn’t even talk about them again. Let it never be said that Danny didn’t put the work in.
I made him sit down so I could cook him breakfast. Pancake batter needed to be measured and mixed up. The kids were upstairs getting dressed. And we might as well put their clothes in the laundry for next time. I wouldn’t start making anything until they were gone, but I figured I could cut fruit up without them getting too jealous. Strawberries. Even though I was just halving them it took a while. When I was on the last couple, Danny told me it was 9:15. I heard Nora yell at her sister upstairs. They were obviously still here.
“So what now,” he said.
“I don’t know.”
“Can I get up?”
“Yeah.”
He came and got me in the corner of the kitchen to ask, “You want to call her?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I should do that.”
The girls noticed how close he was to me when they ran into the kitchen all dressed for leaving. It was maybe ten minutes later. Their mom still wasn’t here. She wasn’t picking up the phone, but I didn’t say that. I didn’t know what to say if I wasn’t saying that. I hated being in charge of how much they knew about their parents even if we shared one.
Danny put his hand over the middle of my back. “How about I take over pancakes?”
“Great,” I answered. “And I’ll make eggs. You guys need breakfast, right?”
&&&
While I was working on the talking thing, I got other things going too. A doctor listened to me talk about how I felt when I couldn’t get out of bed, and she said that sounded like a textbook depressive episode and got me on meds like Chloe’s. They worked fine. Things never got so bad again, but I didn’t lose a second lifelong dream either. Then my doc switched me to another one they said should work better, because I’d started getting short of breath all of a sudden and that wasn’t any good. That one was better. It still didn’t make sentences any easier, but I stopped fantasizing about going to sleep forever so much.
While I was getting used to it, we did something for Matty’s birthday. My first time being allowed to care this much, so I shut up and let them call the shots. Matty wanted to go on a hike, and he told Chloe what he wanted for dinner, and he told us not to get him anything. I hadn’t been planning on it. When he said that, I really wanted to.
Now I had someone to ask about it. Matty said it on his way to work, kissing both of us on his way out the door, and then I brought it up. Me and Chloe at the breakfast table. “What kinds of things have you gotten him?”
“Uh. All kinds. Got him a dinner out, a pair of sneakers he wanted, that kind of stuff. Why, what are you thinking?” She took a bite of her oatmeal.
“I don’t know.”
“Like you need ideas?”
“Like. My family does gifts different.”
Chloe looked at me, instantly tuned in. “Different how?” Her and Matty acted like I was gonna stop talking if they did the wrong thing sometimes. It was annoying but mostly it made me feel taken care of. Held like a baby bird.
Like Mom always said the gift was time together, so we’d be hanging out all the time and if anybody got something for somebody we’d do that in some moment stolen away. Big fleece from my sister. Hand-me-down skates from my brother. More than that felt like showing off. Right? It was nice sometimes, to not get things. I tried to explain that and link it to how Chloe and Matty hadn’t done gifts for me either, they took me out for a night together, or tickets to go somewhere. But if she was going to get Matt something anyways, if that was the standard than I wanted to too.
“Wait,” Chloe said. “What about toys? Like as a kid.”
I shrugged. “So do you make some kind of list?”
She didn’t seem sure I meant it, staring at me. I didn’t have any trouble just looking at her back. “Yeah. Let’s make a list,” she finally said, which was what I wanted but not all of it. I wanted her to tell me the way she thought about things, all things, so I could try and hold that up next to Mom’s way, too. “But wait,” she said then, trying so hard not to sound too nice. “Give me some ideas for you too.”
I stammered my way through a few. Better shoes for work? Bottle of whiskey? Whatever, I could think of a bunch of nice things I’d never get myself, if she really wanted me to. Chloe asked me, “Yeah, but what do you want to try for fun?”
I couldn’t think of an answer.
For his birthday, I got Matty running shoes he’d never get himself. The real deal ones. Marathon runner ones. Because he should have the best of whatever he wanted, no matter what. He told me it was dumb, but then he decided he could throw an arm over me in bed if it worked out that way which he’d been trying not to do before. So I liked doing presents even before I got any.
Chloe’s birthday in November was far enough away from moving in that I had time to get ready. Last year, when I wasn't sure I got to be here much longer, I’d made myself scarce. Me and Matty planned it together now, the two of us, on Friday nights when she was at work and I was off. He planned to make her favorite food; a big slab of steak with garlic mashed potatoes and some kind of apple-y cocktail. That was all him. I was in charge of the other gift that wasn’t material, the birthday sex part, and I prepped too.
We’d been some kind of together for almost a year at that point. Fucking for more than six months. I had a good handle on what she liked in bed, but I still was nervous to pitch the idea. We thought her birthday could be the first time I got to take the lead, because Matty wanted her to relax. I wanted her to be into it so bad, so I didn’t start there. I knew how to ask. She’d showed me. “Hey. Could we make you come as many times as we can?”
The flush in her cheeks from drinking was so cute. She smiled less carefully than usual. “Wow. You know how to make a day special.”
I could only ask because of the number of drinks I’d had too. “Well. You mind if I trying telling you what to do, too? So you can relax?”
“As long as you’re polite," she decided.
Matty was watching with his mouth hanging open.
So I told them when to get naked. I put him where we agreed, under her, flat on the bed. Chloe got up on top of him when I asked her to, settled back against Matt’s chest. She had her feet planted on the bed outside his legs. Leverage. I didn’t want her to have any, so I picked up her ankles one at a time, and let her legs sprawl out.
“All of my weight’s on Matt,” she said after a second, like that was a bad thing.
“Yeah, it’s perfect,” Matty chirped up. “Danny.” He held his arms up on either side of her, begging for the next part of our plan. I cuffed his hands over her, around her, so he got to play with her tits and be tied up, both. Matty loved this part of the plan. He caught her nipples between his fingers and kissed the back of her neck.
Still. I could tell Chloe wasn’t totally convinced. Her hesitation felt like a no. Something was wrong. “You’re staring,” she said.
“Nice view,” I answered.
Maybe she wanted me to take a hint and get things going, but it felt weird to touch her pussy, like just like that. I also didn’t think I should do it because she said it, on principle. Standing next to the bed, too, that was weird of me. She was so good at staying part of things when it was her calling the shots. I stripped my bottoms off, trying not to touch my dick too much. Hard, obviously, but I had to play the long game. I’d seen a look on her face sometimes, when we got her to forget people were ever self-conscious. Spread out and jello and panting, totally her. That was what I was after. Eyes on the prize.
I crawled up onto the bed near them, and started by giving her a kiss. A soft one, so I could feel the shape of her lips. We were flipped, so I tried to remember what she’d do for me, how she made me feel like I could let go. I made out with her good and hard and then sat back for the lay of the land. Matty had stopped playing with her chest. That wasn’t what I’d said for him to do, but I wasn’t sure he wanted me to bark at him so I leaned down and sucked her nipple into my mouth. That got her to squeak. I was desperate for a repeat. Matty too, he was trying to squirm his hand in between her and my mouth and saying something into the back of Chloe’s shoulder that I was planning on ignoring when something else occurred to me. Had to sit up for it, and Chloe sighed.
“Patient, please,” I told her, and leaned down to help Matty get his cock inside her. That was the point of them being like this, how easy he could slip into her, the way he’d push up against her inside how she liked. I helped them move around so things were all lined up, and then I took him in hand and guided him when he couldn’t hump his way there. They both groaned once he was in, and the headrush I got from that was unreal. So this was what she got out of her side, feeling like a fucking god.
I knew my job, I started on Chloe’s clit with a couple fingers. Just the tips, pressing over the little hard nub. She must’ve clenched down on him, because “Jesus, Chloe,” came from Matty. He was actually doing his job for once, teasing the side of her rack I hadn’t gotten to yet. By now, he could really play her perfectly. He knew just when to stop the gentle pinching and move to slow circles with his palm, when to move on and trace his fingers lightly over the swell of her breast, tickling her until she almost got annoyed at him and then he pinched her again and she’d inhaled sharply through her nose and Matty whined.
Chloe was a little less together when I went back up to taste her again. Her hairline was sweaty. First thing she did when I kissed her was nip my lip, and I repeated it back to her, gentler than I thought she’d been. She made a sound in the back of her throat, and stiffened, and that was the first orgasm on the board. Not bad. We could do better.
While she came, Matty fucked her through it. Usually that kicked off a second one, but he was speeding up and that wasn’t working. I didn’t know why, but I knew the second the good-too-much was getting just too much for her. Her face was the only thing I actually knew how to read. So I slapped the outside of Matt’s leg, light so it would only sting. He jerked in a way that made her whimper again. “Slow, Matty,” I reminded him, and he promised. I got distracted looking at them, their hips nestled together, the way he shifted his legs to get her even more open for him to fuck up into. When I’d let him. I forgot how to swallow. Being in charge was hard.
Worth it, though. Chloe tugged on my arm to get me to kiss her again, and now she was getting there. Hungry and hot and sharp-edged. There we go.
With her onboard, we got Chloe to come so much she couldn’t breathe. First Matty fucking her slow, or mostly slow, while I ground the heel of my hand over her clit and kissed all over her neck. She got another couple that way. Then I let him move faster, and Matty came inside her the next time I got her over the edge. Even though he’d just turned in a stellar performance, he wasn’t too spent to lift Chloe on his own and let his cock flop out. I wasn’t thinking totally when I touched her. Just, I wanted to know if she wanted more so I tucked two fingers into her. She groaned, that was my answer. I got to fuck her like this, when she was soaking and sticky and not trying to keep anything back.
Couple things I had to keep track of here, to keep our numbers up. I was fucking her, and I had my thumb on her clit, and I was watching her close, to see when the next one was up, lucky number six. I would feel it too, so I got distracted looking down at where she was letting me in. Next time I looked up at her, she had tears on her cheeks. “What. What’s wrong?” From under her, Matty had her hugged against him, held in place but not responding. He wasn’t listening.
“It’s good. It’s perfect, you’re… oh, Danny.” She held my face in both her hands. “Come on. Let’s finish, I want you to come. You’ve done so good.”
I could do better. I buried my face in her chest to kiss and nip as I snapped my hips into her. I got her to come again, her core too weak to even tense much. Then I reached down and massaged over her clit to get her one last one. The encore. I could barely see Matt at this point, she’d shifted up so I just saw his hair over her shoulder but then his arm wrapped around her and found me. He reached between her legs to feel her where my cock was. Her shivering through another orgasm, the brush of his finger—I came while she did, it was done.
Matty was pink and damp all over when she peeled up off of him, dazed and thrilled. “You’re awesome,” he told me. “That was…”
“What he said,” Chloe said when he’d paused for too long. Which was kind of a compliment, but not really.
We were freshly rinsed off, stripping all the towels and the under-layer of sheet so she could build all our pillows back in. “Something’s bothering you,” she said to me while I helped.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Was I not clear enough? That was awesome.”
“Well.” What he said didn’t count, and she had to know that.
Now that I asked, though, she gave me a real answer. “You killed it. More than good. I loved every second. You did amazing.” More than good. She tackled me into her pillows and kissed all over my face and then when Matty was back snuggling into us too, she said, “Now imagine how I feel when you refuse to say much one way or the other.”
Well, when she put it like that I did have to admit it was a pretty shitty move. Heat kicked up vaguely in my gut but I was out of everything, even embarrassment. “Sorry.”
“No. I’m sorry. Shitty. Buzzkill.” She kissed my jaw and set her head down on my chest, trying to let us drop it.
Matty looked at me. I didn’t like that glint in his eye. “Danny, how much did you talk to any girl that wasn’t Chloe in bed?” he asked innocently.
“Barely. But the situation’s kind of different.”
“Little bit,” Chloe agreed, still nestled on my chest. I wanted to, and did, spread my hand out over her head to see how much of it would fit. Felt like half. Her hair was damp at the scalp still. I could smell it.
This was not what Matty had in mind. Pointedly, he scooted up to bump his head into mine, like a baby goat, and he did what he did best. He went first. “Well, you know me. I couldn’t shut up, but they didn’t like that either. But I also kinda think we weren’t really… I mean. It was just fucking.”
Yeah, and more of that for him than me, but sure. Point taken. Nobody like this. Before Chloe it felt good, it lasted about ten minutes, and it had nothing to do with anything. If anything, the girls usually seemed kind of embarrassed afterwards. Especially if she liked it. Never talked about it. So. if after all of this, Chloe had said something like I’d said to her when I didn’t know what else to say, it was hard to picture how I'd feel.
That worked. I said that one time, early on, trying to be low maintenance, and she got really weird until I promised I liked it later on.
Oh. Because it sounded like I didn’t. I’d been making her do extra work checking every time I couldn’t just tell her she’d blown my mind. Every time I was too embarrassed to give her the hard yes she had the decency to ask me for. Now that I’d been on the other side of it, I couldn’t believe I’d been I’d been dumb enough to think she was telling us what to do because she didn’t want my input.
Matty tapped his fingers on my chest, near the base of my neck. He’d washed his hair, it was dark and cold. I didn’t have a shirt on yet. Maybe I’d never wear one again, if they’d both get up on me like this. Chloe’s cheek was soft and distractingly close to my nipple on the other side.
“Me neither,” she said. “I’m making it up as we go too. I haven’t had a lot of… well. Sex that I wanted to have, this much.”
That was big. Or I thought so. The last two words were pretty obviously added on just to be nice, so she hadn’t said what she said. It was also pretty solid confirmation to me at least that she was on the wavelength I thought she was on. She knew what it meant to have people not listen. To make up for noticing, I planned on never saying anything about it.
But. That was usually what I thought before I went around not saying things, and I’d just learned that was really dumb. I wanted her to talk to me. Had to let her know I was open to it first. Lead the way. Like Matty did all the time.
Speaking of. Matty got distracted by his phone. Then he got distracted and hungry, and he said, “actually a sandwich sounds really good” and me and Chloe both said no thanks so Matty was downstairs making one for himself in three seconds. He moved so quick sometimes. If it was just me and him I would always get left behind. Instead Chloe was heavy on my chest.
Oh yeah. I’d decided to say something to her. I couldn’t just start with her name. It had to be softer. “Hey, honey?” I finally decided on.
“Yes?”
“Had a lot of sex you didn’t want as much?”
She spread her hand out over my stomach, which never got less knee-jerk uncomfortable even when I wanted her there. I thought that was why she did it, maybe. Sometimes she liked trying to get under my skin. Especially if she thought I was trying to get under hers. “What’s a lot?”
“You tell me.” The way she held her breath said enough. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
“No?”
“No. Go for it. I’m still here.”
Chloe traced her fingertips up my stomach just light enough to tickle. “You are. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. You’re here. I need to thank you for that.”
“Come on.”
“I mean it.” She kept tracing big round shapes on me. Goosebumps raised under her touch, every inch she touched new after. “I see it,” she told me. “I see you.” And she did, and I knew she did because I saw her too.