SWNOVELS HUGE X4: Chapter 11
I have a salad for dinner and watch a stupid rom-com on the hotel’s entertainment system. I even break open the mini-bar and drink up all the gin in the fridge with ice-cold tonic. I’m feeling very sleepy when there’s yet another knock on my door.
Jeez. Who the hell is it now?
I roll off the side of the bed feeling more than a little woozy and go to stand close to the door.
“Who is it?”
“Ryan and Matty,” a deep voice says from the other side of the door. “Liam sent us to check on you.”
I frown, wondering what the deal is, but I decide to open the door because keeping it closed in my soon-to-be stepbrothers’ faces feels ruder than I’m prepared to be at this early stage of family bonding. Still, I’m wary of their motivations since the conversation over breakfast.
“Hey,” I say, taking in the sight of one of the twin’s baby brothers. Not such a baby.
Damn.
These O’Connell boys are all way too sexy. They must create quite a stir when they go out together. It’s just so hard to separate them all in my mind when they look pretty much identical.
Ryan cocks his head to one side, just as Liam does. “You look a little flushed. Are you sure you’re not really sick?”
I think about what he and Matty stumbled in on this morning and flush even more.
As if reading my mind, he smirks. “I told you that you don’t have to be embarrassed around us. It’s not the first time we’ve seen something like that and it won’t be the last.”
Oh god, let the ground swallow me up. I’m totally mortified and it must show.
“You’re a beautiful girl, Bethany,” Matty says gently. “Any guy would be grateful for having seen you naked.”
“Oh my god,” I squeak. “Do you have to?”
Ryan chuckles, deep and low. “You know what? You look even sexier when you’re embarrassed.”
“I don’t think this was quite what Liam had in mind when he sent you guys to check on me.”
“Probably not,” Ryan says. “In fact, he gave us a lecture about conversational content before we set out, but Liam doesn’t get to control everything or everyone, as much as he might like to.”
Sounds like there’s some serious sibling competitiveness going on between these two.
“So how come he sent you?” I ask.
Matty shrugs. “He didn’t have much of a choice. Dad insisted that Liam and Callum spend some time with your mom. Kind of a ‘get to know you’ exercise. With our brothers having been in Dubai, they hadn’t met dad’s girlfriend. Me and Matt have spent some time with your mom already.”
“So how long have you known about all this?” I ask, wanting to find out how long my mom has been hiding things from me.
“Oh, they’ve been dating for a year I think, but the engagement was a surprise.”
“A year!” I practically screech. “She’s been hiding this from me for a whole year.” They both shrug like they have no idea what to say. “What kind of mother doesn’t tell her adult daughter she’s dating someone for a whole year?”
“Seems like she’s a secretive woman, doesn’t it,” Ryan says. “Are you a secretive person, Bethany?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, feeling a little defensive.
“Well, Callum and Liam told us we need to keep what we saw to ourselves. Seems like it’s not just your mom who likes to play her cards close to her chest.”
“That’s hardly the same thing,” I say.
“Isn’t it?”
Matty steps forward a little, as though he can tell his brother is starting to wind me up. He’d be right.
“Of course it isn’t. She didn’t tell me about her one serious boyfriend. You’re talking about me keeping two guys I’ve had a vacation threesome with a secret. Definitely a different thing.”
“I think my brothers see you a little differently than you see them,” Ryan says with his eyebrows raised.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Bethany. Just so you know, my brothers don’t share girls they aren’t taking seriously. That isn’t how it works. They’re okay with having casual sex separately, because they aren’t thinking the girl might be something longer term. But if they both like a girl enough for something more meaningful, then they want to share because they know they don’t want to live apart long-term.”
Ryan’s expression is fierce, as though talking about his older brothers has made him protective. For all his directness and challenge, seeing this side of him makes me feel less hostile. Particularly when Matty puts a hand on Ryan’s shoulder and squeezes.
“We’re the same,” Matty says softly. “We tried to date separately, but it just caused problems between us. Dating isn’t something we’re prepared to let come between us anymore.”
I don’t know what to say to any of this. I never intended for what I had with Liam and Callum to be anything more than a fling, but as stupid as it is to be happy that maybe they are thinking longer term, I am. If circumstances were different, I think I could love them. It’s a pretty terrifying thought. The way I feel about them after such a short amount of time has me reeling. The fact that their brothers are telling me that they could feel the same is terrifying and beautiful, all wrapped up into one uncertain package.
There are so many things I want to ask Ryan and Matty, but it feels like prying. Before I get a chance, Ryan rests his hand on top of the door frame and smiles. His eyes are heavy-lidded, his grin sexy, and I get the definite impression that he’s about to turn on the charm.
“You wanna go for a walk on the beach with us?” he asks. “Seems a shame for you to be stuck in this room when it’s so beautiful outside. The others have gone to a restaurant in the hotel next door so we won’t be seen.”
I should probably say no and go back to my solitary sad evening, but with mom otherwise engaged, a walk on the beach sounds much better than being cooped up in this room. I’m going to have to get to know Ryan and Matty at some point now that we’re becoming a strangely blended family, so it seems like as good an opportunity as any I’m gonna get.
“Sure. That sounds nice. I’ll just grab my purse.”
My sandals are on the floor by the dresser and my purse is on a chair by the window. I’m ready quickly and Ryan and Matty have politely stayed in the hallway to wait.
“So, you came to surprise your brothers?” I ask as I close the hotel room door.
“Well, we knew that dad was going to propose to your mom and that Liam and Callum would be here for the wedding, so we thought it was a good opportunity to bring us all together. My brothers aren’t due back in the US for another couple of months so this seemed like a good time to have a reunion.”
“It’s nice that you all want to spend time together.”
“We’re really close,” Matty says. “When we’re all in the same area, we tend to do everything together.” He smirks and I get a feeling he might be talking about something more than going to grab pizza. Or maybe that’s what he wants me to think. I’ve no way of being sure without asking him outright. “When we moved out of home, we all got an apartment together. Poor pop was a bit lonely for a while, then he met your mom and now he’s glad to have the house to himself.”
I shake my head because I really don’t want to be thinking about the reasons why their dad might want to be alone with my mom.
“So you all live together? Aren’t Callum and Liam living away?”
“They’re in Dubai right now on business. Our company is in the running for a big security contract there.”
“Oh, wow,” I say. “Security.” I don’t really know what it entails but I don’t want to pry too much. “That must be interesting,” I say.
“Well, it’s never quiet, that’s for sure. We’re bidding for some big contracts in some of the South American countries right now. It’s close enough for us to be at home on a regular basis, though.”
“So you all still have a place together?”
“Yeah,” Matty says smiling. “We all get along really well.”
I wonder for a moment what it might be like to be a fly on the wall at casa O’Connell. Are they tidy or is the place like a college frat house? Do they all sit around watching TV in their underwear? Then my mind wanders back to my main point of fascination with these men. I know they don’t always share girls, and I know they do share in their twin pairs, but do they ever go so far as to share between four? I want to know the answer so badly but there’s no way I’m going to ask. Instead, I get back to making innocuous conversation. “That’s nice. I’m close with my sister too.”
“Kerry? We haven’t met her yet.”
“I’m sure you will soon.”
We’re almost to the beach, walking through the lush gardens planted to the rear of the hotel. I can smell the damp saltiness of the sea and the sweet scent rising off the evening-warmed flowers. It’s beautiful and romantic and I get a pang that Callum and Liam aren’t here too. That they’re having to spend the evening schmoozing my mom makes me even more resentful of the ridiculous situation we’re all finding ourselves in. I mean, parents getting remarried when kids are young is one thing, but parents expecting that their new relationship is going to bring together six adult kids into a family unit seems deluded.
“Did your mom give you the ‘we’re all gonna be family’ talk?” Matty asks, cutting a glance at me curiously. It’s like he was reading my mind.
“Yeah,” I say. “Four new stepbrothers,” she told me.
He chuckles. “I bet that came as a bit of a shock.”
“You could say that. Especially when I found out who the stepbrothers were.”
“Especially after what you’ve been getting up to with my brothers, you mean.” Ryan’s eyes flash with mischief and even though I was thinking the very same thing, I still blush scarlet.
“Yeah, about that…” I say. “You know that if my mom found out, she’d probably never speak to me again.”
“Yeah,” Matty says softly. “We get that.”
“So you’ll keep what you saw to yourself?”
Ryan shrugs, ushering me through the walkway to the beach. “What did I see?” he asks with a wink.
I smile, but I’m not really convinced by his pretense. I feel as though Matty can be trusted, but there is something about Ryan that is still jarring to me. Something sharp and challenging. I play along, though, because that’s what I think he’s expecting. “Nothing, I guess. My mistake.”
When my shoes touch the sand I stop and lift them, slipping off my sandals so I can feel cool grains between my toes. We walk towards the sea and then along the shore. The moon casts a stream of yellow light across the inky water and it’s so beautiful that my heart aches a little.
“There’s something so melancholy about you,” Matty says softly. “Something sad. I didn’t see it before, but I feel it now.”
“You feel it?” I say, trying to sound skeptical. Ryan is looking at his brother and something passes between them in the hushed silence of the deserted beach. I wish I knew what it was. I wish I could decipher twin eye contact because the more time I spend with the O’Connell brothers, the more useful I think that skill would be.
“Yes,” Matty says. He stops walking and sits on the sand, slipping his own feet from his brown leather sandals and leaning back on his arms. I stand, looking out towards the inky horizon, wondering at what he said. Do I really give off that aura so obviously?
“You can sit, you know,” he says.
He’s smiling and patting the sand beside him. Ryan sits now too, taking a place next to his brother. In the low light, with their hair fixed just like their older brothers, Ryan and Matty look uncannily like younger mixtures of Liam and Callum.
I take a seat next to Matty, crossing my legs and folding my hands in my lap the way I always do when I’m not really sure of the situation.
“Sadness is a burden to carry, Bethany,” he says softly. “I know because I carried it for a long time after my mom died. I couldn’t seem to let it go. I guess we all deal with things in different ways. My brothers partied harder and looked for distractions. Maybe because I’m the youngest I felt and dealt with the loss slightly differently.”
“How?”
“I withdrew. I put barriers up. I was fearful of letting people close because I didn’t want to feel that loss again.”
I sigh and he rests a hand on my forearm and gives it a gentle squeeze.
“I know you don’t want to hear it because I felt the same, but you need to know that putting barriers up will hurt you more in the long run. You have to accept the risks that come with caring for someone, because otherwise you won’t ever reap the benefits that come with opening yourself up to loving and being loved in return.”
I’m still after he’s finished because I feel so exposed. Ryan’s sitting with us, listening to the whole thing, and I get the feeling he’d be the kind of man who’d think that this kind of conversation was stupid. I thought I was better at hiding things but here I am finding out that my vulnerabilities, my fears, my weaknesses, are all on show to this man who is, for all intents and purposes, a stranger. I can’t find the strength to respond, particularly when I can envisage Ryan scoffing at anything I might reply that would involve feelings. So we sit together in silence for a while, me digesting what Matty has said. I have no idea what he’s thinking outside of what a sad and fucked up individual I am. This whole situation feels seriously strange. I’m not a curiosity for the O’Connell brothers to fix. I’ve got two of them thinking that amazing sex will cure me of my hang-ups, and another two trying to psychoanalyze me on a dark beach. Well, maybe only Matty is trying to do that. Ryan only seems concerned with getting me into bed.
I start to feel a bit pissed off that they can be so presumptuous. We’ve spent so little time together.
“You don’t know me,” I say quietly, but the warning tone is clear in my voice. It doesn’t seem to dissuade Matty, though.
“I know,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t see you, Bethany.”
“And you can see all that from the way I walk? The way I talk? What?”
“You carry yourself so you don’t ripple the air. Your shoulders are tight, your steps measured. You’re so closed off.”
“Not so closed off,” I say. “Your brothers can tell you that.”
He shrugs his shoulders and gazes out to sea. “Sex is one thing. Being free to give your heart is another.”
“Maybe I’ve got good reason to keep my heart to myself,” I say.
“Maybe you have,” Ryan interjects. “But, maybe you should know that my brothers care about you.”
“They don’t know me,” I say defensively.
“Don’t they?”
“From a few conversations and some sex? I don’t think so.”
“I think you underestimate the impact that a few conversations can have if someone is really listening.”
I think back to the night before. The way that Callum and Liam seemed to see and react to the things I said and the things I didn’t say. The way they’d look at each other before changing the way they responded to me. What Ryan is saying is true. I did feel as though they were getting inside my head. But it’s dangerous to be thinking that what we’ve been doing has been anything more than a two-night fling, as much as my traitorous heart might be feeling otherwise.
“It doesn’t matter either way,” I say shrugging my shoulders.
Ryan’s stare is penetrating and dark. “You can tell yourself that, but I know that you don’t really mean it.”
“And how do you know that, Mr. Expert in everything me?”
He shrugs and grins, seemingly totally unphased by my snarkiness. “My brother has a gift for getting to the heart of people. I don’t need to look that deep to see everything I need to know.”
I turn and face them, shifting my legs to the side so I can get a proper look at these men who presume to see me.
“Why did you come and find me?” I ask.
“Because that’s what we do,” Matty says. He shrugs, and when Ryan looks like he’s going to speak, he puts his hand up to stop him. “I don’t know why we’re like this,” he says, but Ryan makes a scoffing sound. “Well, maybe I do.”
“Our mom was a family therapist,” Ryan says. “We grew up listening to her talking about understanding people…taking the time to see to the root of people’s motivations and drivers. She spent a lot of time helping other people, and for whatever reason, it seems that my brothers have inherited her predilection.” There’s a bite of anger in his voice and Matty puts his hand on Ryan’s forearm.
“Some of us respected what she did.”
“I respected her,” Ryan snaps. “Just didn’t really like the way she put everyone else first.”
“That’s not fair,” Matty says.
“No point in going over this again,” Ryan says, standing and walking closer to the shoreline. His shoulders are high, his body coiled tight, and for the first time, I feel like I see through his hard outer shell.
“She sounds like an amazing person,” I say softly to Matty. He stares at his brother as though he wants to go to him, but I guess that years of experience have taught him that it won’t help, because he stays right where he is.
“You’re looking for something, Bethany,” Matty says.
“What am I looking for?”
He shifts forward, moving closer, then reaches out to touch my face. “Love. Understanding. Fulfillment. Same as we all are.”
“Then why are you so bothered…if I’m the same as everyone?”
“Now that is the interesting question.”
I frown as he stands and reaches for my hand. I reluctantly stand too, bending to collect my purse and shoes. “Not interesting enough to answer, though,” I say.
“I’m not sure you’re ready to hear yet, Bethany.”
“I’ll tell you what I am ready for,” I say, turning and starting to walk back in the direction we came.
“What?” he calls, seemingly not trying to follow.
“My bed,” I say. “I’ll see you around.”