Plugging It In(16)

"Oh, brother." She let her own smile turn wicked. "The things we did. The sounds we made. The positions we-"

Mike threw a cushion at her. Given he was one of those freaks who excelled at any sport he played, the cushion hit its intended target-her face-without any problems. "I said I don't want the details."

She chuckled, hugging the cushion to her chest as she slumped back into her seat.

"C'mon, kiddo." His voice was gentle. "Tell me what's going on. You've been here for four days, hiding out. You won't tell me where you were for the two days before you came here. You're not eating or sleeping. I've watched you killing opponents over and over again with almost feverish joy on some online game I'm pretty certain isn't the one you created. And you're crying at toilet paper commercials. And now Ruckus turns up and talks about love? Fill me in." He held up a staying hand. "Without the details no brother should ever hear."



       
         
       
        

RG looked at him, plucking at the hem of the Sydney Swans T-shirt she'd raided from his wardrobe. Lena-her sister-in-law, currently on assignment in the US-had told her she was more than welcome to any of her clothes, but Lena was a pixie and none of them fit RG.

"Any minute now," Mike prodded, expectant expression on his face. "Any minute … "

"So I had a threesome with Ruckus and his ex, Brannum West," she blurted out. "And it was as hot and amazing as I thought it would be, but then I realized how much Bran still loved Ruckus, and how much Ruckus still loved him, and I figured they didn't really need to have me with them, given they had each other first. And even though Ruckus made me admit I was in love with him, even though he's the most incredible man I've ever met, I can probably fall in love with someone else at some point in time later in the decade, so I left. And I thought if I wasn't around they'd just get on with their new life together."

She let out a sigh, plucking more at the hem of the shirt, trying to not look at Mike. Holy smokes, had her cheeks ever burned so hot?

"Okay." Mike tented his fingers in front of his face, nodding his head as if to himself. "So you're in love with a guy who also loves another guy, and-from what I gleaned from Ruckus's visit-both those guys want you to give it a shot as a … a … what's it called?"

"A threesome?"

"There's another word for it. One that covers the whole living thing, not just the sex thing."

"A triad?"

Mike scrunched up his face. "It messes with my head that my little sister knows that term without even needing to Google or think about it."

She gave him a sheepish grin.

He shook his head, rolled his eyes and then gave her a warm smile back. "I love you, sis. Because you are you. Never forget that."

"Okay." A tight lump in her throat tried its damnedest to choke her.

"So you're in love with Ruckus." He picked up where he'd left off. "Ruckus and this Brannum guy want you to become the three musketeers, and you took off. You don't like Brannum that much? Or is he good in bed but a hopeless conversationalist?"

"He's smart and talented and successful and almost as big a geek as me," she answered. A smile pulled at her lips and she pictured Bran-in his office at Virt.Real and then as West Wind. "And he's a serious gamer who I've been flirting with for a long time in Hell's Harbour. His company has also just become the sole world-wide distributor for Hell's Harbour 2."

Mike frowned. "So he's not a dummy. He moves in your … albeit unusual circles, and you get a goofy, gooey grin on your face when you talk about him. What am I missing here? The three of you sound like it's meant to be." 

"But Bran and Ruckus had a thing first. Shouldn't I let them have their thing again? Without me? And seriously, when do threesomes in reality work? Do you know any? I don't. So a threesome in real life might destroy what they'd only just found again, and I'd be responsible which would suck like hell."

"If they both want you to have a thing with them … " Mike shrugged. "Why shouldn't you?"

RG frowned. "This is not really what I thought you'd say."

His eyebrows rose. "What did you think I'd say?"

She scowled. "I dunno. Something about doing the right thing. Something about true love. You're a corny romantic since you and Lena got your acts together and ripped up the divorce papers, you know."

"A corny romantic?" Mike considered the term. "I like it. And hell fucking yeah, I am. Because true love is incredible. Powerful. Undeniable. And if you love Ruckus, and if you're even halfway in love with this Brannum guy, who the hell am I to tell you to deny that?"

She stared at him, catching her lip with her teeth.

Mike leant forward, elbows resting on his knees, and fixed her with a steady gaze. "Sis, the one thing every person with a heart and a soul longs for more than anything is connection. True, real, unfathomable connection. Some lucky people find it with one person, like I did with Lena. Some poor bastards never find it. If you've found it with two people … and those two people have found it with you and each other … " He settled back in his seat and shrugged again. "If you walk away from that, you're an idiot."

She wriggled deeper into the armchair and pouted. "I'm not an idiot."

"Errr … hello? You've been hiding out here for four days." He frowned. "Where were you for the two days before that?"

"I went and got coffee."

"Where?"

"Queenstown."

"In New Zealand?"

She nodded.

He laughed. "Oh, sis, when you throw a wobbly, you throw a wobbly."

She poked her tongue out at him.

"Don't make me toss another cushion at you."

Gnawing on her lip once more, she turned her stare to her knees, and thought of Ruckus.

The bastard had done a real number on her: made her break her one-and-done rule; made her confess she loved him; made her experience the most intense sexual pleasure of her life; made her experience it with the man Ruckus himself loved.

"If I go to them … " She looked at Mike. "If I come away brokenhearted, you know I'm going to be a mess, right? And move in here with you and Lena and annoy the hell out of you and drag my feet all over the place and leave my shit around, and generally be miserable, right?"

Mike pushed himself out of the sofa, rounded the coffee table, and crouched down in front of her, taking her hands in his. "Listen to this, RG. If you come away brokenhearted, I will let you plait my hair and paint my nails and bake cookies with you every day."

"Your hair's not long enough to plait," she pointed out, even as a bloom of love for him threatened to make her burst.

He smiled. "I'll grow it."

She chuckled, the sound shaky and wet. God, was she about to cry? Was she? "You wouldn't really grow your hair for me, would you?"

He snorted. "Hell, no."

She squeezed his fingers. "I love you, brother."

He squeezed her fingers back. "I'm partial to you, myself, sister. And just so you know, while I might not grow my hair, I will get my old hockey stick out of storage and kneecap the bastards if they hurt you."



       
         
       
        

She rolled her eyes and smiled. And then frowned. "Am I a chicken if I say I'm scared?"

He shook his head. "Love is scary, kiddo. But worth it. Trust me. And as for you being scared?" Another shake of his head. "You are the most fearless, fierce person I know. You took on a world driven and controlled by males and beat them at their own game. You aren't a chicken and could never be one. You know that. Just as you know, in your heart, what you really want to-"

She jolted to her feet.

Mike looked up at her, lips twitching. "Going somewhere?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she grabbed him by the ears, smacked a kiss on the top of his head and ran from the living room. "I'm taking your car," she yelled over her shoulder as she reached the front door, snatching up his keys from the hall table.

"Okay," he called back with a laugh. "Why?"

"Mine's almost out of petrol." She yanked open the door and grinned at him. "And I'm not wasting any time filling up."

Buckled into Mike's Wrangler, engine running, stereo blasting AC/DC with enough volume her stomach shook, she turned her phone back on. Six days of missed calls and messages pinged up on its screen. Six days of Ruckus and Bran trying to contact her, plus a few early texts from Mike wondering where she was.

She didn't bother reading or listening to any of them.

Instead, she opened Ruckus's contact page, chewing on her bottom lip.

"There you are." She grinned. According to his phone, he was almost back at Bran's place. She was the only person Ruckus allowed access to his location via his phone. He hadn't turned the Share My Location function off. Good. That made things easier.

Sunglasses in place, she threw the Wrangler into Drive, and turned the music up even louder.

"You want me?" She pressed her foot to the accelerator. "You've got me."