Jacky went back to her apartment for the first time in what felt like lifetimes. But she couldn’t stand being around her things now. It all seemed so foreign to her. She was driving herself crazy thinking about the previous few days, replaying the events through her mind over and over again.

Each experience was so magical in its own way, how could she ever decide which one she preferred? She’d always thought that she would know when she found the one, it would feel right. But both Adam and Nick had made her feel so alive. Each in their own way.

Thinking about it just made her feel like a whore. That’s what it looked like after all. The country girl runs away from her boyfriend at home to go stay with the billionaires. Just so she could fuck one in a fancy hotel in Prague, and then the other one the very next day in his mansion. Just a gold-digging whore. What a life.

But she knew it wasn’t like that. She didn’t know what to do with herself at present. She didn’t feel like eating. She couldn’t sleep. She didn’t even want to read.

So she did the only thing she could think of. She packed her bags and got on the first bus home. Back to her parents’ house. It was about a six hour bus ride. But she enjoyed the passing of scenery and time. It gave her time to think, sorting through the puzzle pieces.

Her mother didn’t need much warning to prepare for her arrival. Jacky phoned her in tears, saying she wanted to come home. Her mother asked no questions, just got the bed in her old room ready again. She’d been waiting for her to come home for a visit but Jacky seemed to have gotten so caught up in her new city life.

When Jacky got to the station, both parents were waiting for her with open arms. She plastered a smile on her face that her mother saw through immediately but asked no questions. Jacky got onto the back seat of her dad’s beat up Chevvy as they drove the familiar streets to their humble home. The one just down the road from Adam’s place.

It was hard to be back home. It all felt so different now. They drove past the school. Past Nick’s house. The church… Adam’s house… Finally, her dad turned into lane she’d seen so many times in her life. It was like coming home. It had been the longest she had ever been away from home before and it all still looked exactly the same. But so much had happened in her life since then.

She walked up the stairs to her old room slowly, promising to be down for lunch later. She closed the door behind her, relieved. But she couldn’t run away from her own mind. It had followed her around the country.

She didn’t go down for lunch. Her mother couldn’t get her out of her room until breakfast the next day, assertively ushering her to the kitchen to sit down behind the plate overflowing with pancakes and bacon.

Jacky knew better than to argue with her mother and listlessly shoveled the food into her mouth. It didn’t taste like anything but she realized she was famished, finishing everything on her plate and dishing some eggs on the side. Her mother looked on pleased, pouring her a cup of coffee to wash it all down.

She still hadn’t asked her why she was home. She knew Jacky would tell her all when she was ready. After the second cup of coffee Jacky finally opened up, filling her mother in with all the developments since she left home. The edited version, minus all the steamy sex scenes.

Jacky was still no closer to finding the answer to her problem. Which one did she want? The charming Nick with the hidden vulnerable side who made her feel so alive with his impulsive nature? Or the compassionate Adam who swept her away in more emotion than she’d ever felt?

All she knew was that she missed them both.

They knew they wouldn’t find her at her flat, but they looked anyway.

After grabbing some pizzas that they devoured in minutes, they’d finally set out to find the only thing that mattered to them. Jax. They still had no idea what they’d do when they found her but they’d agreed that they’d let her make up her own mind. They’d let her choose. Neither wanted to think about the possibility of what would happen if she chose the other one, but even if she chose them—things would never be the same ever again. But what was the alternative? Everyone loses?

Nick used his spare key to open Jacky’s door after getting no response to minutes of insistent knocking.

The place was as neat as Jacky always kept it but there were clear signs of packing. It wasn’t hard to figure out where she had gone, her world really wasn’t very big. Nick remembered that he could easily track her phone. The phone that she had been refusing to answer despite their endless calls since she left not too long ago. She’d gone home. Or at least to what used to be their home.

The city felt empty without her. For them, home had really become wherever Jacky was, they realized.

They both kept phoning, sending her messages, reaching out. But there was nobody on the other side.

“We can’t exactly just rock up at her mom’s house and be like hey, let us in,” Adam said as they sat down in Jacky’s lounge. The place felt incredibly void without her but there was nowhere else they wanted to be.

“Well, what else are we going to do?” Nick replied, typing out another pleading message that wouldn’t get read.

“You want to drive or fly?”

“What do you think?” Nick smiled.

“Obviously fly. I mean what’s the point of having money if you’re not going to spend it flippantly?”

“That sounds like something I would say.”

“I’ve been hanging around you for too long.”

“Yeah, I can tell. Look at you fighting for a girl. That’s new.”

“It’s not just any girl. Fuck man, what are we going to do?” Adam asked as they closed the door behind them.

It was a question they pondered over the hours that lapsed like a slow foreign movie with no subtitles but they were forced to watch anyway. The taxi drive to the airstrip. The two hours on the small plane. It was bizarre what money could buy you at any inconvenient time. They should probably have been more responsible with their money but it was just one of those things other people told you to do. They invested some of it in well advised ventures. It was a financial app they’d developed, and they did know a few tips and tricks to expand their wealth.

It wasn’t the same plane they’d taken to Prague a few days prior. Nick felt somewhat relieved about it. But he didn’t understand why. He was never the sentimental type. Nor the type to get himself in such a spin over a woman. The feeling confused him. The feeling of everything in his entire world suddenly being unimportant in comparison to his need to find Jacky.

The fact it was now a Wednesday didn’t matter to Nick. Nor the fact that he’d even thought about the office since the previous week. All that mattered was what Jacky was thinking. What if she didn’t want to see either of them again? Or if she chose Adam instead of him. But what if she chose him over Adam? He couldn’t imagine his life with either of them. ‘Mutually exclusive’ had never sounded like such a cruel a term.

Adam’s thoughts followed much the same path, just more elaborate in its twists and turns. He couldn’t find a resolve in his mind, no matter how many times he rewrote the equation. But they had to know. This uncertainty was driving him mad. Like the cruelest kind of limbo. Purgatory. He could not imagine any of the outcomes, yet he tried. None of them seemed satisfactory. But he had to know.

They made the flight in silence, each floating away in his own personal hell. It felt much longer than two hours. Still no subtitles to the movie that was their lives.

When they showed up at her doorstep finally, they were both so anxious they could hardly speak, their hearts were beating in their chests. Two such different beings but feeling such similar emotion each in his own way.

“Nick, Adam,” her mother said simply like she had been expecting them. But of course, she had.

“Can we see Jacky, please?” Nick stated the obvious. He only realized now how haggard the two of them must have looked. Neither had slept in ages except for the tactical power blackout they had on the mini flight. Adam still had a scrape on the side of his face, luckily not too deep. But the sight of them was quite dramatic.

But she would’ve denied them entry even if they were immaculately dressed and polished. She’d heard enough of the story from her distraught daughter. “I’m afraid not.” She didn’t bother denying that Jacky was actually there. Where else would she be? But she couldn’t let them in.

“Please, Mrs. Ryan. We have to see her,” Adam pleaded almost desperately.

“I don’t think that will help anything right now,” she responded as she started to close the door. But Nick wouldn’t let her. He grabbed the door, stopping it in its trajectory.

“Not resolving it won’t help anything either. Please, Mrs. Ryan, let us at least talk to her. We can’t leave with things the way they are. We’ve been through too much over the years. Please,” Nick said.

She didn’t respond. She didn’t know how to. She just stood there, slowly letting the door swing open.

They pushed past her wordlessly, making their way up the stairs.

Jacky’s door was closed. Adam knocked gently.

There was no answer. He knocked again before opening the door. It was unlocked.

Jacky was sitting on her bed, staring at the door. She looked as bad as they did.

“I was waiting for you,” she said simply.

They didn’t talk, just sat on her bed, staring at one another. It was an impossible situation.

“Come home with us, Jax,” Adam said, taking her hand as she sat on her right side. Nick was on her left. “You have to.”

“I know,” she said, not looking at either of them.

“What is going on in that head of yours?” Nick asked earnestly.

“Too much, way too much,” she said, looking down.

“I don’t want this to be our life,” Adam said. “Just relieve us from this torture. Tell us who you choose.”

“There is no way I can choose. Both moments meant so much to me. It’s all I’ve been thinking about since I left that house when you were fighting like fools. I keep replaying it all in my head and all I want is the continuation of that world. Those worlds. But how can I choose one reality above another? When both were so completely perfect for completely different reasons? I don’t know what to do. I honestly don’t. I’ve been trying to think about what I’d say when you two inevitably showed up here… But I don’t know. I love you both.”

Neither guy knew how to respond as they sat in silence, letting her words sink in.

It was Nick who made the first move, pulling Jacky towards him and kissing her slowly, gently, lovingly. It was beautiful. He looked her deep in her eyes as he pulled away finally. He smiled at her and then looked over at Adam on the other side, smiling.

Adam smiled back at him, turning Jacky’s face towards him and devouring her lips in his own. The kiss was so different but so perfect in its own way.

She pulled them both close, holding them tight. They smiled.

Maybe there was another solution after all.