| |
Jamie had never particularly considered London home — that was Dublin and his parents’ house — but it had never felt so strange and alien as it did when he returned from a month in Spain. Being surrounded by his own language was suddenly odd, the air had an unseasonable chill for the end of September, and his flat was dark and cold. As he dumped the contents of his suitcase on the bed, Jamie found it hard to believe that he’d been packing his last things at Callum and Nerea’s house a few short hours before. Spain already seemed like a lifetime ago.
For a few days he didn’t hear much from Callum and Nerea, other than affectionate texts here and there and the occasional business email from Callum connecting him with a producer or director. Mostly, Jamie tried not to worry. They’d warned him that these two weeks were for the time they needed together away from the world. Jamie had found that easy to accept in theory, especially when they had already given him so much. But in practice, he missed them desperately.
He still had the keys to their flat and even thought about going there under the pretext of making sure everything was in order. He didn’t, though; there was a vast difference between having a key and being told to make himself at home. If his own flat felt odd, he couldn’t imagine how dismal and lonely theirs would seem.
Thankfully, his schedule kept him busy enough that he didn’t have much time to mope. He had auditions to go to and, thanks to Callum, meetings to attend. When Jamie had protested — he hadn’t started sleeping with Callum because of what he could do for him professionally — Callum had shaken his head and gone about setting up meetings for him anyway. Even his evenings weren’t empty. He finally met up with his drama school friends and even got together once or twice with the Irish kids from Butterflies to have a pint and talk over politics at home.
In all, the two weeks passed faster than Jamie expected. The day before Callum and Nerea returned, he let himself into their flat. He’d brought a bouquet of wildflowers from Borough Market — sunflowers, Jersey lilies, and anemones, along with other blooms he didn’t know the names of — a card, and some basics for the refrigerator.
Having finally given into the temptation he’d been so nobly resisting, Jamie felt vaguely guilty. But as he found a vase for the flowers and cut the stems, he told himself that he had reasonable cause. He left the flowers on the table, scrawled a note on the card, and turned on the lamp next to the bed. It would hardly do for them to come home to a dark flat.
Jamie had appointments all the next day and so only knew that Callum and Nerea had arrived safely when Callum texted him a gorgeous picture of Nerea standing at the table in the flat, her dark hair curtaining her face, leaning forward with her nose buried in the flowers he had left.
Thank you from both of us, Callum texted. Especially for the provisions. Now get over here.
To Jamie’s dismay, he didn’t get there until nearly nine. His last meeting ran late, the Bakerloo line was out for planned work while the Hammersmith & City just wasn’t cooperating, and that was before he got stuck between stations on the Circle line for twenty minutes. By the time he emerged onto the street again it was raining viciously. Sometimes he hated London.
He was sopping and uncomfortable by the time he sprinted up the steps of Callum and Nerea’s building and banged on the door of their flat, laughing with happiness and relief. Cold and wet didn’t matter now that he didn’t have to wait to see them any longer.
Nerea pulled open the door to reveal a room full of light and warmth. She took one look at him and reached a hand out to pull him inside. The curtain was pushed back and Callum was lounging in his underwear on the bed, his tablet propped in one hand.
“Undress. Now.” Nerea ordered.
“You could say hello first,” Jamie teased even as he unzipped his jacket.
“That wasn’t about your body. That was about you dripping all over my floor. Callum, he’s as bad as you.”
“You say that like you didn’t know,” Callum said languidly, not looking up from his tablet.
“Why don’t you have pants on?” Jamie asked. Under the force of Nerea’s gaze he hung his jacket on the back of the door and toed off his squelching shoes.
Callum looked down at himself. “Oh. We got soaked coming home too. And then it was too much bother to get dressed again.”
“So the romance is over?” Jamie asked.
Callum swiped past something on his tablet. “You’ve spent the last month in my bed with my wife and you let yourself into our building with your keys,” he said, distracted. Jamie wondered what book he was reading. Maybe he could be coaxed into sharing or, better yet, reading aloud to Jamie as he drifted off to sleep. “While both of those things mean we have many obligations to you,” Callum went on, “neither of them mean I have to get dressed when you come over.”
Jamie turned to Nerea. “How is he so charming even when he’s a bastard?”
* * *
AND SO, JAMIE EMBARKED on his Adventures of Leading a Somewhat Organized Polyamorous Life. They made a schedule that Callum dutifully punched into his mobile, Nerea wrote in her beautiful looping cursive in her leather-bound day book, and Jamie scrawled on whatever scrap of paper he had at hand. To Nerea’s delight — and Jamie’s no small amusement at her delight — they stuck to the schedule. If two of the three of them had a night marked off for themselves that was exactly what happened. If Jamie and Callum went out, Nerea worked on her Tate show, visited with Leigh and Sam or Piper, or just relaxed. If Jamie and Nerea were together, Callum visited the girls or stayed in and read. And when Callum and Nerea went out together, Jamie sprawled across his own bed for a nap and enjoyed having enough room for once.
Jamie savored his one-on-one time with each of them. Those date nights invariably wound up back at his own place. His flat still wasn’t glamorous but he’d finally managed to clean and organize it. There was something wonderful about having Nerea spread out on his own sheets in the middle of the afternoon or lounging about naked with Callum watching rugby on his laptop after he’d pounded him into the mattress.
But as special as all that was, Jamie’s favorites were the nights that hadn’t been claimed by any pair of them. Those invariably turned into the three of them at Callum and Nerea’s. Jamie was welcome and expected there — in their flat, in their bed, and in their lives. If he thought about it too hard, it was overwhelming.
“I got a book,” Jamie blurted one such night. Nerea, in the middle of pressing kisses all the way down Callum’s body, turned her head to stare at him. Callum made a disgruntled noise.
“A book about what?” Nerea asked, somewhere between surprised and amused. Callum shifted his hips in a clear attempt to get her to continue, but she ignored him.
“About polyamory.”
Now Callum stared at him too. “Why?”
He might have been asking about the book. He also might have been asking why Jamie was blurting ridiculous things during sex. But it probably wasn’t that. In the last few months Jamie had learned that people definitely blurted ridiculous things during sex, even when sex was a hot threesome and everyone involved was a celebrity.
“’Cause I wanted to get it right with you.”
“That’s why he’s so bloody good at relationships,” Callum said to Nerea. “He’s cheating.”
“I’m not cheating. It’s research.”
Nerea burst out laughing and buried her face against Callum’s stomach.
Callum, after a moment, started laughing too. “You really got a book?” he asked through the feathery breath of his mirth.
Jamie gathered the blankets up around himself to hide the fact he was blushing.
“Oh come here, darling.” Callum reached out one of his big hands and wrapped it around the back of Jamie’s neck. “We’re not laughing at you.”
“Yes we are,” Nerea said.
“Okay, yes, maybe you are. And we appreciate the effort you’re putting into this,” Callum said. Jamie opened his mouth to protest, but Callum pressed his fingers over his lips. “But please shut up now so I can kiss you.”