Grace

 

Brett tried, I know he did. Thomas did too – finding a groove alongside me at breakfast while Brett busied himself in the kitchen.

I wanted to tell him to settle down into his seat like the guest he should be, but I didn’t. I could feel it from him with every gesture, how much he wanted to help. How much he wanted to find his sense of self at our side.

I wanted to believe he could find it here. That on some fucked-up planet he belonged here alongside us. With us. The three of us forging some crazy three-way thing that defied all social conventions but worked all the same.

My sister’s texts kept buzzing in my pocket, demanding an update. But I held back right through the morning. That’s the first reality check I really got – the prospect of telling Sarah that Thomas was indeed Brett’s stepbrother but I was loving him all the same. That in future his cock would be deep alongside my husband’s every day from here on in.

But was that any future? Really? Was that the road laid out ahead for us? With kids, in this little slice of paradise we were so desperately trying to carve out a future in?

I’d have managed to convince myself a whole lot better if Brett’s face didn’t look like death when he joined us in the dining room after the final guests had finished up their fry-ups.

The dawning reality that two in a bed alongside me was doomed to be one too many was enough to hitch my breath in my throat, the pain at losing something I’d enjoyed so much bubbling up to tear me open from the inside out.

“What today?” Thomas asked as Brett slid into the seat at the table next to me, and I saw something so clearly brewing there between them. The younger brother looking to his elder for guidance in a place where there had only been hate and confusion.

Brett’s shrug was casual enough to dismiss his own warring emotions.

“I dunno,” he said. “We talk about being brothers. We act like brothers. We try to forge some fucking route through this crazy shit fest. I dunno, Tom, we’ll work it out.”

Tom.

He called him Tom.

And so did I when I spoke again.

“So, Tom,” I said with a smile. “Did you sleep alright?”

A nod was all that was forthcoming until he finished up his coffee and shot Brett a stare.

“I slept just fine,” he said eventually. “Better than fine.”

“Good,” I said, and I meant it, despite the compulsive tap of my foot under the table.

Brett felt it. His hand on my knee said it all.

“When do you need to get back to London?” he asked his brother, and Tom’s shoulders stiffened.

“Any time,” he replied. “No time. It doesn’t matter. I’ve got all I need right here.”

Both of us hitched our breaths in unison, but he broke out a grin.

“I meant my laptop,” he said. “I have my laptop with me. The world at my fingertips.”

And so it was.

Brett made preparations in the bar and I dug into the usual room changes while Thomas grabbed his laptop and busied himself at the same window seat in the dining room he was coming to be a regular presence in. I said hello every time I ferried past him, my own heart warring over the potential outcomes of this crazy dynamic and which way it would likely swing.

I sought out my husband when I heard him in the kitchen, assembling pans on the rack with his face still etched with his own rioting emotions.

“Hey,” I said as I wrapped my arms around his neck. “We’ll work this out.”

“How?” he asked, and I took a taste of his lips before I answered.

“We’ll find a way,” I told him, hoping I sounded more convincing than I felt inside.

“He’s my brother,” he hissed, and I nodded, feeling it every bit as much as he did.

Only I didn’t. Couldn’t. I had no idea how it would feel to discover my father had been lying to me through all living memory.

“Stepbrother,” I tossed his way on instinct, but his whole body tensed in my arms.

“Brother,” he said. “The more I look at him, the more I see Dad.”

And there we had it. The verdict of doom in the silence of the room.

It was my turn to tense, and his eyes crashed into mine with a whole world more pain.

“Talk to me,” he said. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

But how could I? I didn’t even know myself. My pussy thought one thing, my brain another, and my heart was living in her own little flurry, wanting more than she could ever have.

“I don’t know what I’m thinking,” I told him, figuring he’d taken enough lies for the next ten years already.

“I guess that’s something we’ve all got in common,” he groaned, and held me tight.

Guests came and went, streaming in and out oblivious to the carnage all around us. I checked in a family with four young kids, and waved off a heavily pregnant woman with her nice young husband in tow. I scrolled through our upcoming bookings and the few chef CVs waiting in my inbox. I tried to function, tried to breathe, tried to convince myself this would all have a happy ending.

Maybe it would.

But I doubted it would be for all three of us, not right here and now.

Maybe not ever.

It was Brett who cooked for us, summoning us both to our own private living space while he laid out freshly caught cod in batter at our modest dining table. The buzzer was on call to ring right through from reception, and it did. Three times running, each time setting him running before I had the chance to get to my feet.

“He’s finding it tough,” Thomas commented when the door closed behind him for the latest mad dash.

“We all are,” I told him, and he gave me a nod.

“Some of us have had longer to accept the situation than others.”

I shook my head. “None of us have had time to accept this situation,” I argued. “There are just different aspects we’re having to sift through. None of them are easy. None of them make sense.”

But he didn’t agree with me. His gaze was firm on mine when I dared to meet his eyes.

“It makes sense to me,” he said. “More than the rest of my life ever has.”

That was the first real moment I felt it, the danger of loving another man alongside the one I’d given my life to. It was his twinkling eyes. The smirk I’d come to know was hiding a whole tumble of nerves behind his perfect features.

It was in the tension of his shoulders I knew was rife under his shirt. In the way my pussy clenched and fluttered.

And my heart.

It was in my heart.

Strong enough to make me feel sick as the spring of emotion bloomed behind my eyes.

“I’m not sure he’ll be able to deal with all of this,” I whispered. “Not like this.”

He dropped his gaze but his smile didn’t falter.

“Maybe none of us will.”

I wished more than anything I could argue, my heart finding a route through this that made sense for all of us.

“I need to go back to the city,” he said, and I felt my soul cry. “We all need some space to adjust. All of us, Grace. Not just Brett.”

I nodded, my fingers reaching out for his and gripping at the most inopportune moment.

Brett barged right through as I squeezed his hand in mine, standing mute for too long before coming back to his half-finished meal. I didn’t let go of Thomas, not until it was clear this wasn’t some secret gesture he’d uncovered from the shadows.

I was spread wide on a platter, my heart real and true, my motives as pure as they could be with two men flanking me in bed last night.

Thomas cleared his throat before he repeated his statement for the benefit of my husband.

“I’m leaving in the morning,” he said. “Work calling.”

Brett cleared his throat right back. “I thought you said you had the world at your fingertips.”

The other man didn’t miss a beat. “The world, yes. My project managers, no. There’s something about face to face you can’t substitute.”

“You can say that again,” my husband said, and I prayed he’d argue for more time, for more closeness, for more everything.

He didn’t.

“Brothers can use the telephone, right?” he continued. “Email, too. Fuck, even carrier pigeon. The city means nothing, we can still…”

“I’ll be back,” Tom said, forcing a grin at the iconic phrase.

I wished I could smile right back, but my lips wouldn’t move that way.

I wanted to beg them for one more night between them, no matter how desperate it sounded. I wanted to coax them for one more chance to feel the both of them inside me, but I never would. No matter how my slutty little clit begged me to sell out my mind.

We tucked into our dinners in silence, and I kept my tongue at bay, hating myself for even the hint of selfishness threatening to run riot.

I hoped neither of them would see it. That neither of them would ever stand a chance of seeing me the way I was coming to know myself.

But he did see it. Brett.

I saw it in his eyes as he placed his cutlery down on his empty plate and stared right at me.

“One more night,” he said. “I guess we should all work out what we need from it. It’s worth speaking up in this shit storm, no matter how fucking crazy it sounds.”

I never would.

Not now, not ever.

I’d never voice the urges pulsing deep, but it didn’t matter.

Because if my husband knew one thing in this hell hole of emotion, it was me. His wife. The woman who’d been at his side since we were old enough to count for something.

His smirk was every bit as confident as his blonde brother’s had been when he first rolled up on our doorstep, and it told me, beyond all doubt, that my silence wasn’t worth anything, not anymore.

They may have split me open already, but it was Brett who was unravelling my insides without a sound. It felt intrusive.

Addictive.

Strangely horny to feel him digging deep without a word.

“Let’s drink,” he said. “Let’s see if whisky can’t set the scene for our final evening, shall we?”

I was burning up before I’d even nodded my agreement.