The Space Between Us Read online

  “Do you have to call your parents and get permission?”

  At Vic’s house, we’d be having leftover pizza from the frozen section in the supermarket, not even takeout. He’d probably have a beer or two in front of the television before going off to bed. If I was lucky, he’d tell me about his day and ask about mine. Cap would make us laugh. We might play a game of cards or something. Vic might slide me some cash across the scarred kitchen table, enough to buy groceries for the week or pay a few bills. But he wouldn’t kiss me. Wouldn’t even touch me. In fact, he’d barely look at me.

  “No. I don’t live with my parents.”

  Mrs. Murphy’s eyebrows met her hairline. “You don’t? Oh, I didn’t know. Sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” There was a lot to the story, none of it her business, but I could tell she was dying to ask. “Anything I can help you with in the kitchen, Mrs. Murphy?”

  She seemed pleased I’d offered. It was no big deal to me. When I’d lived at home my parents both worked weird hours, leaving the cooking of meals to me and Cap, who was helpless at it. At The Compound I’d taken my share of days in the kitchen. And of course at Vic’s house mealtime was haphazard, depending on what else was going on.

  I didn’t mind helping her, even if I didn’t necessarily like Mrs. Murphy. I thought she babied her sons too much and was too involved with them. She was the type of mother I was glad I didn’t have, and never wanted to be. As we worked at setting the table and mashing the potatoes, I discovered she had a pretty decent sense of humor that didn’t get its full share of her time.

  Chance, as it turned out, wasn’t at dinner. He’d gone to a friend’s house, something that shouldn’t have surprised me. I mean, it wasn’t like I didn’t know the brothers had friends, or that they sometimes did things with those friends separately from each other.

  And actually, I was glad. I wanted Chase to myself. I’d wanted it ever since the Christmas dance, watching him with that behemoth Becka Miller. And it wasn’t that I didn’t still like having Chance fuck me from behind while I sucked Chase’s dick, or having both of them shaking and shuddering and muttering my name, because I still did. It was all the rest I wanted with Chase instead of his brother. Holding hands while we walked between classes, wearing his letter jacket—yes, even a rockabilly girl like me could be swayed by the status of wearing a boy’s letter jacket.

  After dinner, the Murphys left to run some errands and Chase and I went downstairs into the rec room to “study.” By this point I should’ve felt doubly bad about taking Mama Murphy’s money. Her sons didn’t need me to tutor them anymore. But if I gave up tutoring, I’d have no excuse to come over and fuck them, and at eighteen I wasn’t too proud to have an excuse that had nothing to do with what I actually wanted. I’m not sure I’d be too proud now.

  “I already did the homework,” Chase said. “We have a test tomorrow.”

  “Want me to quiz you on it?” I was already unbuttoning my shirt, the heat of arousal gathering in my belly and lower.

  “Nah.” He shook his head. “I got it.”

  When I moved to kiss him, he turned his face at just the last second so my lips landed at the corner of his mouth, not on it. I didn’t pull away at first, and he didn’t move, so for an eternity of seconds we stayed like that with his subtle rejection between us. When I did draw back, the heat in my stomach turning to ice, he caught my wrist to keep me next to him on the couch.

  “You don’t want to kiss me?” I asked in a low voice.

  “Sure. Sure, I want to kiss you. But maybe…” He trailed off, looking uncomfortable.

  I’d never seen Chase look anything less than confident, even when he was failing calc. I sat farther back on the couch, my wrist still imprisoned in his fingers. “But maybe what?”

  “Maybe we should wait for Chance to get back.”

  The gears in my brain whirled, stuck, whirled again. “Why?”

  Chase wouldn’t look me in the eyes. “Because he’s a part of this, right? He’s always been a part of it.”

  A squicky feeling stole over me. “You can’t do it without your brother here? Or you don’t want to?”

  “No!” Chase cried, lip curling. “It’s not that.”

  I moved a little closer. Our knees pressed together. “What, then? I mean…yeah, I like being with both of you. I told you that before. Besides, he’s not here. You are.”

  Chase’s fingers tightened on my wrist, pulling me closer. He kissed me then, long and thoroughly. Lingering. His tongue stroked mine. He was a better kisser than his brother.

  Always before, the fact we were three instead of two had made the sex a little frantic. So had the possibility of being caught by their parents. Tonight, with Mr. and Mrs. Murphy gone and only one twin to focus my attention on, things felt different. There was the same familiar licking, stroking and sucking, but for the first time since I’d started this with the Murphy brothers, it felt like something other than fucking. It felt like making love.

  It was still pretty fast. We were still teenagers, eager to get to business, and mindful that though the Murphy parents had gone out, they’d still be home at some point. We were totally naked within minutes, something we’d never done with the three of us, since it had always been important to make sure we could get dressed in a hurry if we had to.

  Chase seemed nervous being naked in front of me, though I’d seen his cock dozens of times already. He seemed even more nervous looking at me fully naked. I wasn’t nervous at all. We’d never done it face-to-face before, but without his brother between us, there was no reason not to fuck the old-fashioned way. Chase lay me back on the rec room carpet—oh, the luxuries we’re willing to do without when we’re teenagers! Kissing me, he put on a condom from the box he and Chance had cleverly hidden under the couch. When he pushed inside me, we both groaned.

  Blinking, Chase pushed himself up on his arms to look down at me. I reached for him. Pulled him down to kiss me. And kissing me, he began to move.

  I’d come with him before, and with his brother, too. I’m a greedy slut for orgasms and even back then saw no point in not getting mine when I had the chance. But this time was different. This time I didn’t have to use my own hand to get off while I used my mouth on one brother and the other one fucked me. I didn’t have to steady an overeager hand or slow the pace of one of them fingering me. This time, we just moved together and the pleasure built up and up until I was digging my fingernails into Chase’s back and hooking my heels around the backs of his thighs to push him deeper inside me.

  It was like the difference between riding an old wooden roller coaster and getting on the zero-to-seventy loop-de-loop coaster. We were doing the same things, but it was better this time with just the two of us than it had ever been with both brothers. Chase kissed me, his hips moving faster, and mine rose to meet him. I was already coming when he drew in a breath and groaned. He opened his eyes and looked into mine. We came within seconds of one another—yet another first. He collapsed against my neck, and I stroked his hair as I blinked and tried to catch my breath.

  “I’d pick you,” I told him, unable to stop myself from telling him the truth, and so caught up in the afterglow of that ridiculously great sex that I had no filters.

  Chase shifted, still inside me, and pulled out. He knelt between my knees, one hand still on his dick to keep the condom from slipping off. “You went to the dance with Chance.”

  I pushed up on my elbows, aware suddenly of how sweaty we both were. How the air smelled like sex. I needed to pee and wanted a drink of water, but I was still so languorous I couldn’t rouse myself to move, even to relieve the pressure of the nubby carpet on my ass. “Yeah, well, he asked me. You didn’t. And you went with Becka. But I… If I had to choose…”

  I paused, this truth a wall between us I wanted to knock down. “If I had a choice, it would just be you.”

  In the Murphy basement, there was a long closet that extended along the entire back wall of the space. I didn’