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Prologue
Fox
“Whatdoyoumean,you’re going?” I hated how desperate I sounded.
“You can’t leave.” Dawson echoed my feelings.
Lea turned, her long, jet black ponytail swinging, her brown eyes glassy with unshed tears as she looked between the three of us.
“And I can’t stay. You hurt me. You let me down. I need some space… some time to think.”
“But I love you.”
Lea walked toward me until we were toe to toe. Pressing her hand to my cheek, she ran her thumb through my beard, letting out a long sigh. “I love you too, Fox, but this… It’s not what I want.”
“But, Sugar, you know you can’t leave. What about these?” Marshall held out his arm, showing the words that ran along the underside of his forearm; a tattoo that we’d all woken up with one morning, remembering nothing other than being cursed by a witch that we annoyed in a club.
Four makes us whole. If one leaves, we all fall.
She dropped her hand, and I hated that she wasn’t touching me anymore. “It’s not real, right? We’re not meant to be together. God, we don’t even know each other.” She paused, turning to face Marshall. “I mean, Dawson is so closed off no one knows what he’s feeling, you’re lying through your teeth about not liking men… and Fox is desperately trying to make this work, but I don’t think any of us have made sure he’s getting what he wants from…” She waved her fingers between us. “Whatever this is.”
“I’m happy… if I get to be with you, then I’m happy,” I promised her.
She offered a small smile that was laced with pity, and I knew how pathetic I sounded. This wasn’t me—relationships—but I would do anything to be with her. Deep down, though, I knew she was right. Nothing about our current situation was working… except the sex. The sex was almost perfect, but I guessed that wasn’t enough for her.Was it enough to make any of us happy long term?
“But the curse?” Marshall repeated.
“Is the only reason you got mixed up in all this? Be honest. If that night hadn’t happened, would you even be here?”
“My job is here,” he replied, making her scrunch up her button nose as if his answer said it all.
“And you, Dawson? Would you be here if you didn’t have that tattoo on your wrist?” she asked. I could hear the hope in her voice; hope that he would finally open up and let us get to know what was going on in his head.
I glanced over at him, his face emotionless like always, but I thought I noticed his jaw tense, although it was so fleeting I decided I was imagining it.
“I like yo—I like having sex with you. We were having a great time before this.” He held out his tattooed arm. “Can’t we go back to that?”
“Before me, you mean?” Marshall bit out, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his eyes narrowing in anger.
Dawson shook his head. “No, that’s not what I meant, but you’re the one that keeps saying you’re not into men and sharing isn’t your thing. I mean, you tell us every time your dick is out; like you’re trying too hard to prove your point.”
Marshall took two steps forward, making Lea leap between them. “This is what I mean. None of us are happy. I thought I wanted to be in a relationship like this. We tried, and for a while, I believed it might work. You all know it was my ultimate fantasy, but maybe I should have left it as a fantasy because, while the sex has been the best of my life, the other stuff… it’s too hard to navigate. I want great sex, but I also thought we’d build our own little family, the four of us not needing anything more than each other. And then yesterday happened.” She let out a sad sigh.
“You hurt me. All of you. I have three men to come home to and not one of you could be there for me. It made me see things differently. It made me see us differently. I can’t live in that fantasy I craved, because real life is way harder. It’s time to put a stop to this. Who believes in curses anyway? I think we got caught up in it all.”
She looked at me with such hurt in her eyes that I felt it like a knife to the heart. “It’s time one of us put a stop to it.” She lifted her purse from the floor before taking hold of her suitcase. “I need to go. My car is waiting outside.”
“What will you do?” I asked quietly.
She beckoned me towards her, pressing a chaste kiss to my lips that was so full of sadness I thought I might cry. Stepping back, she spoke, “I’m going home. I’ve got a business to run, friends to catch up with, a house to rid of dust bunnies.”
“And what about us, Le?” I’d been in love with Lea Lewis for so long now that I couldn’t imagine my life without her in it, and as desperate as it sounded, I would take her any way I could get her… even if that meant monogamy—something I’d never tried.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I love you, you know I do. I just don’t know if it’s enough. But thank you… for giving me what I craved.”
“We’re so sorry about what we did. Does that make a difference, to know we’re sorry?” Dawson asked.
She shook her head and held out her hand. He stepped closer, running his finger over her tattoo. “Look after them for me and do me a favor. Work on how you communicate because you give nothing away. You don’t need to become an open book, but maybe it’s time to crack a little and let someone in.”
