Imry

Chapter 1

Haze

I chose this cottage because of the semi-erotic art on the walls. I call it semi-erotic because it could be said that you’re not looking at body parts at all. But with more than a dozen pieces throughout the cottage, I’m convinced the artist was making a sexy statement.

They’re all solo erotica. None of the artwork is of partners. One of my favorites is the large one above the couch. It takes up most of the wall, and if you look at it like I do, there’s a guy gripping his dick with his head thrown back in pleasure.

Honestly, I can’t see anything else when I look at it, but it took Oakley a minute to see it. Briar, Honey Bee, and Brek all saw it without me pointing it out. Levis still doesn’t see it. Maybe that says something about me. Or maybe it says something about Levis, since most of our friends see the same thing I do. 

This cottage is perfect for a first home on my own. Honestly, I think it’s pretty perfect for a long-term home, too. There are two bedrooms and then an attic space set up with a bed. I think the building was built in the old style of houses where the attic space was large, with tall ceilings and the ability to be converted into living space later. They simply made it a living space right away.

The kitchen, dining, and living areas are all one wide-open space with large windows overlooking the grass surrounding the house and the field of wildflowers on the other side of the road. I asked the Van Dorens when we moved here what was up with the wildflowers and why they didn’t just plant flower beds and they say they’re there for the bees.

I’m not sure why I don’t quite believe that, but what else could they be there for? There isn’t even anything I can say to explain why I don’t feel like that’s the entire truth. I can see there are just flowers. I’ve even meandered through the field alone and found nothing suspicious. Not that I thought I’d find anything suspicious, but… the field just seems so out of place.

Everything else is neat. Manicured. There’s a level of perfection and sophistication carrying through the entire Van Doren Estate. Then you get to these imperfect flowers growing at different heights and in a willy-nilly mix of species. I don’t know why more people don’t look at it and think something isn’t right here.

But maybe it’s just me. One too many true crime documentaries, I suppose.

My phone pings when I step inside. I pull it out as I drop the keys in the bowl by the door and kick off my shoes. Master multi-tasker here.

[Imry

Okay, I think I got one. You can high stick with me anytime. No penalty.

[Imry

Wait, I don’t think I have that one quite worked out. There’s no penalty when you high stick with me.

I laugh. He’s been working on his hockey innuendos and it’s fucking hilarious. I think he’s going to be a hockey expert just so he can get the innuendos right. The first time I made one, and it was lost on him, he became determined to show me he could innuendo anything.

We’ve been texting like this for months. Most of the time, it’s just playful banter. Like, who can come up with the corniest come-on or the best innuendo for some random prompt. I’m not even sure when or how this started. If memory serves, it was a typing mistake. An autocorrect that made an honestly innocent statement or question suddenly very suggestive.

We laughed over it and just… didn’t stop.

Most of the time, it’s all fun and games and we’re just teasing. But sometimes, these funny puns cross the line into breathless sexting, and I end up in the shower, jerking one out. It doesn’t help that Imry is hot as fuck. I think I’ve almost gotten to the point where I recognize Imry when the triplets are together.

It’s in the way he looks at me. As if we share a dirty secret. I guess we kind of do. To my knowledge, no one knows we sexy text, never mind just playful teasing texts.

[Me

You can do better.

[Imry

*laughing emoji*

I toss my phone down and head to the bedroom to change. Getting a job in Flagstaff was easy, but honestly, it’s so damn boring. I work for the college doing research, something I thought I’d enjoy. As it turns out, not so much.

I also teach on Mondays and Wednesdays. I dislike this even more, especially since the class I teach is a required core class, meaning everyone has to take it. So hardly anyone in the class gives a fuck about it. It makes teaching difficult when no one cares what you’re talking about, regardless of how passionate you are about the material.

Not that I’m overly passionate about history. Growing up, I thought I’d become an archeologist. I’ve always been fascinated by past civilizations. At first, it was even a career field my father approved of until he learned it would take me all over the world and far, far away from him.

That’s about the time he decided archaeology wasn’t an appropriate career. It’s also the time I went hardcore into wanting to be an archeologist. But for him, there was no compromise. I had to choose a career path that kept me close to home or he wouldn’t let me go to school.

Yes, those words were exchanged. Since that was also the case with all my older brothers, I believed him. After all, home was a hellish existence, and I wasn’t even the chosen target. They actually liked me.

When my father was murdered at the prison he worked at for thirty-something years, I got out and ran to the next state over to get far away. I felt guilty as fuck leaving my older brother, Oren, behind because he was their target of abuse for as long as I can remember. But he was finally out of the house, having finally broken out of his literal prison.

That meant I could leave too. My friends and I left as soon as we were all accepted into Eastern State University in Southern Arizona. I’m not going to get into the horrors of being on the phone with Oren, telling him I was leaving, and suddenly there were car bombs going off and my brother screaming before the line died.

That’s a trauma I’ve buried deep.

My father might be dead. My brother—the one who set the car bombs outside Oren’s new home—is now an inmate in the same prison where our father was murdered. Our oldest brother, who also worked at the prison, has apparently fallen off the face of the earth.

Good riddance to all the assholes. Oren is now safely in North Carolina with his boyfriend, and I’m far away from the rest of my brothers as well.

My first act of rebellion after settling into our new home in Southern Arizona was changing my major to something my father would absolutely hate—liberal arts. Of course, I was still on track with the secret major I’d been working toward all along, which was still archeology. However, the new university didn’t have an archeology program, so I ended up graduating with a history degree instead.

There are a lot of degrees out there that are kind of broadly useless. My history degree is one of them. I should get my master’s degree but… I’m not sure I want to accumulate more debt when I’m already unhappy with my career.

Now that my sole goal in life isn’t to get away from my abusive family—while somehow dreaming up a way to kidnap my brother out from under their noses—when I head to Africa to dig up relics of a lost nation… my passion for archeology has dwindled considerably. Traveling the world still holds a lot of appeal, but I’m not sure I want to dig in the desert anymore.

I knew at the time the determination to be an archeologist was solely based on getting away from my family and somehow stealing Oren away too. But now that I’m not facing a future where that’s necessary, I don’t actually know what I want to do with my life.

So here I am, knowing I don’t want to study historical documents and piece together old puzzles of lost rulers’ remains while teaching eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds history that they have no interest in. But what does that mean? Begin again? Go back to college and start a new path for a career I want to be in?

For that to make sense, I first need to discover what I want to do and, quite frankly, I have no idea. I understand that when a person reaches a certain age, they need to become useful in society. They shouldn’t be a drain on tax dollars or their families or whatever. But the world isn’t set up for people to get a good idea of what they actually want to do when they get older.

If you ask a group of first graders, they’re going to give the stereotypical answers—astronaut, firefighter, teacher, policeman, doctor, etc., etc., etc. Because those are careers everyone is exposed to. Then those same first graders grow up and, nine times out of ten, they don’t want to be that at all.

It’s so rare for someone to know what they want to do in the world. We just hop on a path that either guarantees us a job after or follow a passion that probably doesn’t. How many people go to school for what they actually want to do for the rest of their lives?

When I come out of my thoughts and reflections, I’m standing over my stove, frying some bacon. Apparently, I’m having bacon for dinner. I snort and check my fridge to see what else I’m going to have.

This is a common occurrence when I get home. I almost always reflect on how I got here because I’m truly thankful for being where I am. I’m thankful for my job. Even more thankful for being away from my asshole brothers and thankful that Oren is far, far, far away from them and the place that holds all his bad memories.

But I’m unsatisfied too. And I don’t really know how to fix that.

“I’m not unhappy,” I tell the milk in the fridge. “Just unsatisfied. There’s a difference.”

My milk does not talk back, which is probably a good thing. I decide to make a maple bacon French toast bake, which, for me, is basically cinnamon rolls where I doctor up the filling a bit. Not the healthiest dinner, but I’ll add a protein shake and call it a compromise.

Since it’s just me and no one else is waiting for dinner, I make my dough from scratch and put it in the oven at the lowest temperature with a large tray of water on the rack below it so the dough can rise. That’s the secret to really great dough. Then I make the filling while the dough rises.

Twenty minutes later, I roll out the dough, spread my filling, and roll it into a spiral loaf. Then I cut it into pinwheels, setting them squished up beside each other in a glass casserole baking pan with half a stick of melted butter in the bottom.

They go back into the oven to proof a little more. After another twenty minutes, I have them out, the oven preheating and I pour the egg and cream mixture over the dough to bake for real.

It’s not long before my little cottage is filled with the best breakfast smells. Okay, clearly my subconscious knew what it wanted to eat. Hands down. By the time I sit at the table with my phone and three of these fat French toast things in front of me, I’ve forgotten all the stressful things that usually weigh me down when I get home.

Besides, I have Imry to distract me. He hasn’t given up on his hockey puns.

[Imry

There’s a reason it’s called the sin bin. We’re gonna be on our knees, begging for… forgiveness?

[Imry

I need some work on this. Help a guy out, man.

[Me

The sin bin is where all the sins are committed. The only thing you’ll be on your knees praying to is my dick.

[Imry

Why are you so good at this? Let me try one. Hold on.

[Imry

I’ll let you rough up my stick.

I laugh, thinking he’s going for a play on the roughing penalty. This carries on well into the evening as I lie on the couch with the television on, though I’m not paying any attention to it. It’s just background noise.

[Me

Two-minute time out for that one. Oof.

[Imry

Puck it. I’ll puck you real good. Let me into your crease and you’ll be chanting my name like you’re in the crowd and I just made a really good goal.

I’m not sure what about this particular one has heat surging through me. I shiver as I stare at my phone screen. The little dots are dancing, telling me he’s typing again.

[Imry

I bet you have a really nice, tight hole. Don’t you, Haze? You have the sexy kind of ass that promises a pretty hole. I’m not joking about you chanting my name. I’m sure you will if you let me in it.

[Imry

I’ll split it so wide and make you whine like a little bitch in heat. Mmm. I can feel you now. I bet you’ll squeeze my dick so good.

I drop my hand between my legs to grab my cock that’s now pulsing.

[Me

Okay, Im. You made your point. Unless you’re going to fuck me, stop right now. You’ve lost track of hockey innuendos.

[Imry

I haven’t. I was circling back.

[Imry

I bet you have the best fucking stick of them all. Hard. Maybe a little flexible. If I hold it tightly in my hand just the right way, I bet I’ll get the goal I’m looking for.

[Imry

Ohh. I bet you’re so fucking hot when you come, Haze. Aren’t you? Do you have a sexy orgasm face? I can just see it when I close my eyes.

I groan, rubbing my cock through my pants. Fucker.

[Me

I mean it. Don’t think I won’t drive over there.

Either he’s not taking me seriously or he doesn’t care because this man doesn’t stop. His sexy talk gets more elaborate. More detailed. I’m practically shivering on the couch as I jerk myself.

Nope. Enough is enough. Time to stop playing games. Time to see what Imry can do with his dick and if it matches what he claims he can do. I jump up, grab my keys, and practically run to my car. I take the most direct route to get to Imry’s house, which is basically directly across the property from my cottage.

Which means I drive straight through the main driveway on my way there. It’s dark out, which means anyone on that side of the house will see my headlights moving through the windows. I don’t even care at this point.

I need to get off and my hand isn’t going to cut it tonight. Imry better be as good as he says he is.