“Something happened last night, Mom. I don’t know what.”
“What do you mean? I need details, honey.”
Leah raised her hand out in front of her. “Please, Mom. Give me a few minutes. Let me finish loading this up in the washing machine, and I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”
“Okay.”
She finished the call, loading the washing machine then putting the clothes from the spinner into the dryer.
After she was done, she noticed the woman who’d been sitting next to her was gone. Shaking her head, Leah walked out of the front door and dialled her mother’s number.
Her mother listened as she told her everything she knew happened last night. By the time she had finished, tears spilled down her cheeks, and her hand was gesturing all over the place.
“I don’t know what to do. I feel everything has changed,” Leah said.
“Everything has changed. You’ve crossed a line with your friends. You can’t come back from that. Do you still love them?”
“With all my heart. I just can’t bear the thought of them sleeping with me because they felt sorry for me. I begged them, Mom.”
“Mitch and Chase will not hold it against you. I think you and the boys need to take a long look at your life together. It will only be a matter of time before this goes wrong.”
Leah looked through the window. “How do you know it will go wrong?”
She heard her mother sigh over the line. “You’ve slept with your two best friends. The two friends you’ve known most of your life. What would you say to another woman in that situation?”
Leah stared at her reflection hating her own answer. “That she’d need to make a choice.”
“What choices would those be?”
Closing her eyes, Leah answered her mother. “Either to stay and work it out, or to realise it was a big mistake and leave.”
“I’m sorry you have to make these choices, baby. You’ll figure it out in the end.”
“And if I don’t?”
Her mother sighed. “Do you really have much of a choice?”
Leah shook her head. “No.”
“I’ll be waiting to hear from you. Good luck, honey.”
She disconnected the call and then made her way back into the laundrette. After a couple of hours, their clothes were washed, dried, and neatly folded. When she got back to the apartment she’d iron them for the guys.
Leah was careful with the washing as she loaded them back into the now cleaned sacks. She waved goodbye to the owner then made the walk back to the apartment. It no longer felt like her apartment but a thing. A place she slept in. Leah knew she was more hurt about begging them to take her. What if she hadn’t begged? Would they have still taken her?
Her face was red as she got back to her apartment. The doorman nodded at her. She smiled even though she didn’t feel there was much to smile about.
She used the stairs to walk up to their floor. The door was not locked, and she let herself inside with ease.
Chase and Mitch were sitting in front of the television. She tensed as they turned to her.
“I wondered when you were going to make it back home,” Chase said.
Mitch looked up and down her body. She felt an instant bolt of lust straight in her cunt. Leah licked her lips, looking at the pair of them.
“I did the washing. You had a lot of clothes to sort through.” She put her key on the hook they put by the door.
Mitch came over taking the sacks from her.
“I’ll iron them,” she said.
“All right.” He lifted them up. She noticed the strain on his muscles even though he didn’t complain. A memory of her nails sinking into the flesh of his arm flashed across her mind. The memory was gone as quickly as it had come. “You’re still on for making dinner tonight. I’m starved.”
Leah smiled feeling the tenseness ease out of her. “Sure. Anything you want.”
She moved toward the cupboard where she kept the iron and the board. Mitch put the sacks on the chairs and went back to the television.
You’re a coward.
She knew she should be talking to them about what happened, but she couldn’t bring herself to destroy the peace around them. They both seemed happy to her. Bringing up last night was wrong.
You’re going to regret it.
No, I won’t. They don’t want to talk about it, and I seriously don’t want to talk about it.
This is your chance with them.
Leah knew she was in love with them. She didn’t know why she was holding herself back from them. Being with them was a dream come true.
It would be a dream if you remembered what it was like to be in their arms.
Shutting off the thought process, she picked out each item and made sure to make it crisp before putting it onto their pile.