Chapter 6: Claiming Their Bed
The walk to campus was a punishment. Every step sent a dull ache radiating up from his lower back, a persistent reminder of exactly how thoroughly he'd been taken apart—and put back together—over the past twelve hours. James shifted his bag on his shoulder and grimaced as the strap pressed against a fresh bruise just below his collarbone. He could feel the marks scattered across his skin like a constellation only the three of them knew how to read. A bite mark on his shoulder. Finger-shaped bruises on his hips. The ghost of stubble burn on his inner thighs.
He was going to be so late.
The thought should have sent him into a panic. Professor Hartley didn't tolerate lateness. Professor Hartley didn't tolerate excuses. Professor Hartley had a face like a Renaissance painting and the patience of a man who'd never once missed a deadline in his entire principled, put-together life. James had spent the entire semester nursing a hopeless crush on the man, and now he was about to walk into his lecture twenty minutes late, reeking of sex and looking like he'd been in a fight with a very enthusiastic octopus.
And whose fault was that?
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out to find a message from an unknown number. Then another. Then a third.
[Unknown: You looked good this morning]
[Unknown: Even with that chin.]
[Unknown: Come back to bed.]
James's face went hot. He shoved the phone back in his pocket, but the damage was done. He was thinking about them again. About Ghost's hands on his hips, about the low rumble of Price's voice in his ear, about the way they'd held him between them like something precious, like something they had no intention of letting go.
The memory made his knees weak, which made him stumble, which made the guy walking behind him curse loudly.
"Sorry," James muttered, but he didn't slow down.
He reached the lecture hall just as the door was closing. He slipped inside, pressed himself against the back wall, and tried to catch his breath. Professor Hartley was at the front of the room, gesturing at a slide about urban sociology, his voice a smooth baritone that James usually found hypnotic. Today, though, all he could focus on was the edge of the desk digging into his lower back, the soreness that made him want to curl up on the floor every time Hartley mentioned "structural inequality" in that low, measured tone.
He lasted twenty minutes before he gave up.
He slipped out of the lecture hall as quietly as he'd slipped in. His bag was heavy on his shoulder, his body aching, his mind full of static. He should go home. He should crawl into his own cramped apartment, with its pile of dirty dishes and its futon that sagged in the middle, and sleep for three days. That was what a sensible person would do.
But James hadn't been sensible in a long time.
He found himself at the subway station before he'd consciously made the decision. He rode the train uptown, watching the city blur past, and when he surfaced at their stop, his feet already knew the way. He walked past the corner bodega where Price sometimes bought cigars. He walked past the laundromat where Ghost had once been mistaken for a bouncer and had simply stared at the man until he'd apologized and backed away slowly. He stopped outside the building and looked up at the window of the loft, searching for a sign of life.
The lights were off. The curtains were drawn.
He was alone.
James fumbled in his pocket for the spare key they'd given him, the one with the little skull keychain attached to it—Ghost's idea, Price's execution, a dark joke that had made James snort into the silence between them. But when he tried to fit it into the lock, it wouldn't turn. He jiggled it. Nothing. He tried again, harder. Still nothing.
Of course. Of course the one time he actually needed to get in, the lock would be stuck, and they weren't there to open the door, and he'd have to stand here looking like an idiot unworthy of them—
He checked the key. Wrong side up. He flipped it over. The lock released with a satisfying click. The door swung open.
The apartment was dark.
The apartment was dark, and quiet, and empty in a way that made James feel like he'd swallowed something heavy. He stood in the doorway for a moment, listening to the hum of the city outside, the tick of a clock somewhere deeper in the loft. The light was low, filtered through the curtains, casting the room in shades of amber and shadow.
He dropped his bag in the middle of the floor.
It landed with a soft thud, the sound echoing in the silence. James didn't pick it up. He didn't move. He just stood there, staring at the bed that dominated the room like a home, its white sheets rumpled from the night before, the corners of the duvet hanging off the edge. The pillows were tossed, the blankets twisted, a single sock lying on the floor near the footboard.
He swallowed. His feet carried him across the room before he'd decided to move.
He didn't bother to undress carefully. He just peeled off his shirt, dropped it on the floor, and kicked off his shoes with more force than was necessary. His jeans followed. He stood there in his boxers, in the middle of their bedroom, and for the first time all day, the tension in his shoulders began to ease.
The sheets smelled like them. Like Ghost's cedar and gunpowder. Like Price's sandalwood and coffee. Like the three of them, tangled together under the weight of the night.
James climbed into the bed.
He didn't claim his usual spot. He didn't curl up on one side, or wrap himself around a pillow, or try to find a sliver of the mattress to call his own. He lay down right in the middle, stretched out across the entire expanse of the bed, and let himself sink into the softness of the sheets. He closed his eyes and breathed in deep.
Home. The word surfaced in his mind, unbidden, uninvited. He tried to push it away, but it clung to him like static, like the warmth still embedded in the fabric of the pillows. This wasn't his home. This was theirs. He was just a visitor, an interloper, someone who'd stumbled into their world by accident and somehow kept finding reasons to stay.
But his body didn't listen. His body relaxed into the mattress. His eyes grew heavy. The day caught up with him all at once, a wave of exhaustion crashing over him, pulling him down into the depths. He fought it for a moment, the way he fought everything, but the battle was already lost.
James let go.
He fell into a sleep so deep, so dreamless, so utterly complete that he didn't stir when the front door opened two hours later. He didn't stir when Ghost's boots crossed the wooden floor, or when Price's voice murmured something low and warm. He didn't stir when the bed dipped beneath the weight of two bodies settling on either side of him, boxing him in, pulling him close.
He just slept. And in his sleep, for the first time in years, he smiled.