Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 127712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
“She has agreed to talk to you.”
Mercer guffaws. “Oh, has she!”
“She just wants an apology, Mercer.”
“An apology?” He points to his chest. “From me?” He shakes his head and throws up his hands. “I can’t do this.”
“Mercer, after what we did to her—”
“What we did to her?” Again, he’s pointing to himself. “We gave her everything, Locke. Everything that went wrong was because of what she did to us.”
“You fell in love with her. It was a mistake—”
Mercer laughs so loud, I stop talking. “Don’t you see what she’s doing, Michael?”
His use of my first name stuns me for a moment. Today, after all these years, both he and Nova have called me Michael.
Does it mean anything?
There’s no time to decipher this because Mercer has crossed the room and is grabbing my shoulders, shaking me. “Wake the fuck up!”
I push him off and take a few steps back. “We owe her.”
“We owe her nothing.”
“Veda—”
“That child—” Mercer shakes his head. “It was a trap.”
“It? It, Mercer?”
“I’m not calling the girl an ‘it,’ Michael. You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, actually. I don’t know what you mean at all. She’s not asking for money, or power, or anything, really. All she wants is an apology.”
“She doesn’t deserve a fucking apology! She ruined us, Michael. Ruined us!”
“Dude!” I laugh. “We’re here. We’re still good. We’re just fine. Everything’s fine.”
He throws up his hands, covers his face and scrubs his face as he lets out a long, tired sigh. “OK.”
“OK? You’ll come?”
He lowers his hands and looks me straight in the eyes. “I’ll come. To make you happy. But it’s not going to work. None of this is going to work. So I have a demand of you. I want to remind you of something.”
I shrug a little. “All right. What is it?”
“Sit.” He points to the bed.
I cannot stop the grin.
“We’re not having sex, Locke. That’s not why I’m asking you to sit on the bed, for fuck’s sake. This is a serious conversation.”
“Whatever.” I sit on the bed and he sits next to me. “What’s on your mind then?”
“Do you remember the last time you, and me, and her—that last time we all had sex?”
“Of course. It was fucking awesome.”
“Right.” He lets out a frustrated breath. “But it didn’t start with all of us, remember?”
“Yeah. It was me and you. She was watching.”
“She was watching, Locke. She was watching.”
“So? That’s not weird. You watched us too. That time in the woods with Olsen. Hell, I let you film it.” I turn my head to look at him. “Do you still have that vid?”
He just stares at me for a moment. Then kind of shakes himself out of something. Maybe a memory. “Yeah. I still have it. I have all of them. I even have that last time. With me and you—”
I kinda lose track here. Because Mercer was so out of sorts that night. Normally, he’s pretty reserved. But that night he was different. With me, not her.
That was the first—and only—time Mercer ever touched me like that.
Aside from his palms on my face or his encouraging hand gripping mine as I jerk him off—and the kissing, of course—he doesn’t touch me like that. He holds me in bed. In that way one holds a lover. So I have always felt like his lover.
But it’s always been very conditional.
I don’t think it’s some kind of weird denial, either. We’ve never used the word ‘gay.’ Mostly because it doesn’t fit. We’re not gay. I don’t date other men. I don’t even date Mercer. I’ve messed around with Olsen, but even before Nova, there was always a woman between us. I just like the dynamic of a threesome and that’s all there is to it. I don’t need a label to describe myself. I know who I am.
And if Mercer’s been with other men, I’ve never heard about it.
His reluctance to take things to another level was always something else.
Until that night in New York.
And then, of course, it all fell apart.
“Do you remember how she looked at us?”
I think back to that night again. To Nova. Then look at Mercer. “Ya know, I didn’t really give a fuck about her that night.”
“I know you didn’t. That’s why I’m reminding you. Did you see her watching us?”
I shrug. “Yeah, of course.”
“She saw us, Michael.”
“Why are you calling me that? She was calling me that today too. Fuck, man. I go decades with no one calling me Michael and suddenly you’re both calling me Michael. Stop it, OK? I don’t like it.”
“She saw us.”
“So what? What is your point?” I’m getting frustrated with him and it’s coming out in my tone.
He takes my face in his hands. And for a moment my heart skips. I’m expecting a kiss. Because this is his signal that one is coming. But he doesn’t kiss me. He just stares into my eyes. “She saw us. She saw…” He lets out a long breath. “She knew, Locke.”