This is getting silly.
Not that it wasn’t already. I come home to the Queen, we’re weeks into our unspoken arrangement, and as soon as I walk in the door, the scent of lemon-garlic shrimp, Connor’s specialty, hits my nostrils and makes them flare.
But the silly part is that it’s seven p.m., the table is made, the guys are all home—every one of them—and guess who meets me at the door? My Monday Fratter.
Diego saunters toward me, crimson lips curling in a secret smile. He holds an arm out for me, corded, slim, tanned, and I should turn and run upstairs immediately. What I do is tangle my fingers with his because that’s what I want to do.
He raises our hands between us so our eyes meet over the peak of our knuckles. “Welcome home, babe. You hungry?”
I shake my head. Geez, he’s flustering me a little.
“Did you eat already? Connor’s making shrimp.”
“I know. Couscous?”
“Yeah, and some veggie stuff.”
“The puree?”
Diego sends a quick look around us, lingering on Luka, who’s stomping up the stairs. Then he draws me in so I feel every ridge of his body against me. By my reaction, he might as well have groaned out loud. I can feel how he wants me, and it makes me warm down low.
I’m disgusting.
No, I’m not. That’s just what society teaches you to feel. I press closer to him, and a small exhale pushes out between his lips.
“That you, babe?” Connor hollers from the kitchen.
I clear my throat. “Yep. I’m home.”
“Food’s up in five!”
Diego tips my chin up. “Let’s get you a glass of wine.”
My breath shudders when I release it. Will I get used to this? Will it continue? How long? Will we end up fighting—will I end up mad, selective, wanting one Fratter and not the other? Will they all disgust me, like Luka does now?
“Okay, yeah, sounds good.”
Dinner is delicious and passes without event. Afterward, we move on to crazy stuff on TV. James gets to choose, and we watch two hours of Monty Python, the wildest British humor ever made. It’s ridiculous. It’s absolutely hilarious. I love it, and so do the guys. We’re laughing together like we haven’t since Julian was with us, and the whole time I’m on the couch with Diego.
As soon as I sit down, his arms go around me, attracting no attention from the others. Diego pecks my temple throughout, strokes my arm sweetly. He even brings my leg over his thigh so I’m resting as comfortably as I used to on Julian.
He pushes his knee up, and I’m not sure if he’s aware that he’s hitting my core. My body is fully awake again.
Once the TV goes off, Luka leaves first, waving a quick goodbye to everyone without meeting my stare. I can’t blame him. I haven’t been kind to him. I’ll probably never be kind to that man.
Diego stands next, pulling me up, his fingers laced with mine. He smiles that panty-dropping smile and lifts perfect eyebrows in question.
“You guys going to bed?” That’s Lenny. “I’mma hit the sack too. Dude, am I getting old? It’s, like, eleven thirty.”
Nathaniel groans sluggishly. “I kno-o-ow.”
As Diego guides us up the stairs, nose against my ear, I wonder how things became so natural. No questions asked, I get to cuddle with my man—the man I’m assigned each day of the week.
It’s just that tonight we took it even further. Since the moment I came in the door, Diego was my Julian. I let it happen, and that’s so fucked up.
“I’ll be right in,” Diego murmurs.
“Clean up, dirty boy,” I joke to compress the unrest inside me.
“I don’t think you mean that. I think our babe’s fond of musky men.”
Oh geez. I glare, but instead of disrespect, there’s seduction in his eyes, of the kind that’s been heating my girly-parts for hours now.
I’m barely out of the shower before he’s in my room, sliding the door open to the bathroom. Instinctively, my eyes widen in the mirror, and I clutch my towel over my breasts. Diego’s eyes darken.
“You’re hiding?”
“I... Well, I wasn’t sure who it was.”
“Were you afraid of someone else coming in? Connor? James?” He tips a playful smirk up his cheeks.
“Shut up. You don’t get to talk to me like that.”
“Geneva, look at me.”
“I am.” I squint, unhappy.
His eyes settle, black-fringed and serious. He caresses my cheek with the back of his hand. “I only wanted to make you smile. It’s my job—all of our jobs—to make you smile. We want to help you through this, okay? Make you forget. What Julian did wasn’t right.” Diego expels a puff. “He could have avoided it.”
That makes a giggle tick out of me. “Yes. He could have not died.”
“He could. He wasn’t sick.”
“Except for what he did to himself,” I add.
“Yeah.”
And then I’m crying. Then I’m in Diego’s arms. Then my towel drops to the floor and he carries me to my bed and tucks me under the duvet. He tucks me against him too, exactly what I need.
“That was an asshole move,” he murmurs, kissing my forehead, my lips, finding my tongue. I press against him, nodding against his forehead.
“Fucking asshole.”
“We all loved that douchebag.”
“I know.” I swallow while he finds me, touches me, makes me feel better. We flow under the sheets, cause each other’s breaths to shorten until I whimper. He groans, and I snuggle in against him, as close as I can possibly be.
“Douchebag,” I wheeze quietly. Douchebag.
I have a small freak-out on Tuesday night. Lenny’s night. When I enter the Queen an hour late, they’re all waiting for me with Lenny spearheading them in the hallway. He smells like heaven. But then there’s Marlon behind him, a bit taller, eyes burning on me like he has plans too. So that’s why I tell them at dinner, fork and spoon pointing at the ceiling, “You guys better not get any ideas.”
I tip my fork forward like I’m about to skew a few of them. Marlon, for instance, with his neon-sign stare broadcasting how he’d rather not wait his turn.
“I’m not into threesomes. Or foursomes or fivesomes or anything like that.”
“Ba-a-be.” At least three of them exclaim this in mumbled what-’r-you-talking-about voices as if they’re all my boyfriend and I’m being ridiculous. You know what’s ridiculous? This arrangement.
“I’m serious! Just because I’m happy with one of you at a time doesn’t mean I’ll ever want to be... invaded by several of you at the same time.”
James has the decency to look shocked, and so does Nathaniel. The only one looking positively unimpressed is the one I haven’t slept with. Luka’s classic features are perennial ice/the Siberian tundra. Even so, he’s the one speaking up.
“No one would do that to you.”
“Really? Because I didn’t ask for anyone to come to me in the first place. You guys just came. So consider this a clear message: don’t ever misinterpret my body’s reactions into believing I’ll accept more than one of you at a time.”
Several pairs of eyes run over my body before slinking away.
“Got it,” Marlon says. That’s good, because he looked too hungry for a Not-Wednesday. I wonder if he has other girls. He must, right? He was with Sheena for a couple of years, but they broke up a few months before Julian died.
James pushes the pan of meatballs toward me, jutting his chin for me to serve up. “Stop worrying, beautiful. We’re not a bunch of animals. Personally, I like my girls open and receptive and… wanton.” He makes his brows dance.
Lenny lets out a snort.
“Jesus, the stuff coming out of your mouth,” I mutter, feeling a smile grow on my face.
“You were alone,” Luka cuts in, ruining my budding mood lift. “You needed someone. That’s why we do what we do. But biologically, no woman actually needs more than one man, so that’s what you get, one guy comforting you at a time.”
“‘We,’” I mock. “Like you’ve ever consoled me.”
Silence. The others look away. Yellow ice sparkles into me, but I don’t avert my stare. Finally, he opens his mouth, tight lines settling as he says, “Right.”
“I wish he didn’t do that,” I tell Lenny as I relax, cheek on his chest, drawing small circles around his nipple. “Luka thinks he’s the king of the Queen, in charge of everything that goes on here.”
“He kind of is.” Lenny’s voice is lazy. By now, I know he slides into a euphoric coma after he ejaculates. It’s adorable and a tad hot.
“No, he isn’t. Only about the rent and the utilities.”
“And about you.”
I lift my head and squint at him. “Luka is not in charge of me.”
Lenny narrows his eyes too, an easy feat. I ignore how beautiful he is beneath me. “No, but he’s who came up with our solution.”
“What are you talking about?”
He studies me, eyes widening more than usual after against-the-wall sex. “Hmm, you look like you’re working yourself up.”
“What does it matter? Just give me the lowdown.”
“Well, if you’re gonna go witch-nutty on me, I don’t know if I should.”
I lower my voice. “Witch-nutty? What does that even mean?”
“You know. All...” He lifts his hands in the air and waves them lazily while half-rolling his eyes. Not impressive.
“What solution, Lenny, or your sex life has to fend for itself from now on.”
“As if it doesn’t six days out of the week.”
“What did Luka come up with?”
“We had a house meeting.”
“Without me?”
“It was about you, so yeah. We saw how you were struggling to keep it together, and Luka came up with what we’re doing now.”
“As in invading my bedroom every night? Taking turns with me?”
“I guess?” He looks at me as if he just realizes how bad it sounds.
“That’s some crazy shit. Only a pervert like Luka could’ve come up with it.”
Lenny’s brows tick in a furrow. “Well, I figured it was too obvious to work on you, but Luka insisted, we gave it a try, and hey, you went along with it. You seem better too.”
My stomach churns. “Who does he think he is? He has no right to set up some get-’er-done plan for me. I’m in charge of my own life, my own future, and…” I sigh. “Luka’s a pig.”
I mean it. Even though I’m disgruntled, I twist my arms around Lenny’s middle needing his nearness. I’m not exactly backing myself up, here, but Lenny doesn’t hold it against me. Instead he wraps me closer and nuzzles against my hair. Murmurs, “Shh, you’re okay, babe.”
“What about the days? Did he assign them too?”
Lenny nods, rocking us with his chin. “Yeah, which made sense.”
“Why, because you didn’t want to deal with me more than once a week?”
He chuckles. “It was more so that we’d all have our turns consoling you.”
“Sleeping with me, you mean,” I say, feeling slutty and berating myself for it in the same thought.
“I’m not gonna lie and say it’s not a pleasure to comfort you.”
I arch an eyebrow. “So I shouldn’t feel bad for you guys?”
“You should.”
I let out a huh?
“Did you see Marlon earlier?”
I bite my lip. “Yes?”
“That’s how most of us feel the rest of the week. Tuesdays are the shit.”
“Even when I go all witch-nutty on you?”
His grin gleams white. “Have you heard me complain? Sparks are the shit too.”
I stare at my would-be team. How is this possible? I definitely saw sturdier girls in the classrooms than these four miniscule, skinny blondes, all blue-eyed with alabaster-white skin. Of course, I get quadruplets of the kill-me-jungle type. They would break out with all sorts of insect bites before we even got off the ferry in the Amazon. Are they suicidal?
“This is such an amazing project,” Blonde One gushes. “I’d be so honored to be a part of it. How is the humidity in the jungle?” She touches her hair with careful pats. “What’s their voltage? My straightening iron does most types, but it’s good to be sure. I’ll, ya know, get a universal adaptor.”
“Just bring a lot of hairspray,” Blonde Two says. I turn to smile at her joke, but she’s serious. Blonde One lights up.
“Good idea!”
Blonde Three isn’t so sure. She wonders how far apart the creeks are, and if we can bathe daily, because that’s what she’s used to (no shit). She doesn’t recommend most hairsprays if we’re not to wash our hair daily, because it will make it lifeless and potentially lackluster.
Blonde Four keeps a stone-face during their exchange, and I’m starting to believe that twenty-five percent of my group has brain cells aimed at explorations beyond their own hygiene.
I’ll invite her to meet up later, I have time to think before she asks, “There are no snakes there, right? I don’t do snakes.”
As I leave the library, I teeter between the urge to cry and laugh. If Julian were with me, his eyes would glitter, the center of his irises more yellow than usual. I’d complain. He’d wiggle my shoulder playfully. “Come on. You see it, right? This is hilarious.”
Just, it’s different now. Julian isn’t here.
Connor pushes himself up against the headboard and crosses hairy arms over his chest. “Obviously, you can’t go with a team like that. And the interpreter situation you’re talking about? That’s just—yeah.” He shakes his head. “Last thing we need is our babe in trouble.”
I don’t know why I told him. Between Joy and Diego, I have enough shrinks to fend off. I’ve blurted stuff three nights in a row now, while really, the guys need to just be my lovers.
“Stop it. I’m an adult, and I know what I’m doing.”
“Being an adult doesn’t make you any safer in the jungle I’ve heard. Didn’t you just say those girls would get sick out there?”
I kiss him, and he kisses me back. “Trust me, okay? It’s really sweet that you worry about me, but I’ll find a solution.”
“In five weeks?”
If I can pull off the Mikhailov Oracle funding, yes. My chest flutters thinking about the message from Dr. Bergstein last night. The Markata grant is awarded on the condition that I can introduce at least one companion. The department funds run out in mid-November, which means I have to leave as soon as the semester is over if I’m to be eligible.
“Yeah, wanna go? Since I’m supposed to bring dudes with me, I’ve decided to bring the Fratters. You can study in the jungle, Poet Boy, while you defend my life.” I twist into an ironic smile.