ROMANCE: PARANORMAL ROMANCE: Coveted by the Werewolves (Paranormal MMF Bisexual Menage Romance) (New Adult Shifter Romance Short Stories) (166 page)

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                      “Eighty hours a week, eighty hours a week they worked until some med intern passed out and they had to file a lawsuit.  God damn, is that what it’s going to be like?”  Amy sighs deeply and tosses her book bag on the softly carpeted ground.  She plops herself down on the couch and kicks off her shoes, groaning in equal parts pain and relief, since she has been on her feet for six straight hours.

                      “Doctor Charles didn’t give you a break today, huh?” Sandrino asks sympathetically.  He had arrived at her house at least an hour before and was perusing her family’s well-stocked library when Amy burst in like a summer storm.

                      “No,” hisses Amy, pseudo-evilly, and leans her head back against the couch; with closed eyes, she continues.  “The Hendersons like to take their schnauzer on walks not on grass and ground like normal people, but while they’re running errands on Maine Street, so the poor guy’s nails got all worn down and super-sensitive.  Those idiots!  We spent a good forty minutes just trying to calm him down enough to allow us to get near him with the clippers.”

                      “It’s all going to be worth it, relax.”

                      “I know, I know,” Amy says, turning her head to get a look at her friend.  He has grown tall, taller than he ever has been, and his brown body has angled out in a way that makes her think of
Family Guy’
s Meg’s boyfriend, the one Francine is so jealous of that a poltergeist is created.  From the deep vee of his faded maroon T-shirt, Amy can see the slight curl of chest hair, and tangled in it is the family crest Sandrino wears on a gold chain.  When he leans forward to get off the couch and kneel by her feet, she allows herself one clandestine glance at the way the dark denim of his jeans encase his thighs.  Does he have any idea how beautiful he is?  And if he does, does that make her like him any less?  Amy shakes her head, trying to rid her mind of the inappropriate thoughts.

                      Sandrino leans back until he is resting on his elbows and looking up at Amy.  Lately, he has begun to notice the dark circles under her eyes, making her look bruised, but still like Amy.  He knows she wants to be a doctor, but is all this effort worth it?  He picks himself up and grabs one of her feet, hearing her squeal in delighted protest.  If anyone can do it, he thinks as he slides a rainbow-colored sock off her foot, it’s Amy; she’s strong enough to do anything in the world and then some.

                      “I just wish it would all happen sooner.  I know I have to pay my dues, but for how lo—ohhhh,” she moans, just as Sandrino begins to rub the soles of her feet, to bend and need her tired, tired, overworked adolescent toes.  She is filled with bliss, but just as she is tilting her head back to enjoy the massage, Sandrino lifts her leg up high and places it on one of his shoulders to work on her calves.  What attracts her attention to his face in that moment, she is not able to say, but the look Sandrino wears suddenly spells everything out for her in huge letters, and in that moment, Amy realizes how blind she has been.  It is as if someone has deluged her with cold water, and she tries not to freeze as she realizes for the first time, just how much Sandrino desires her.

                      Sandrino looks down the length of Amy’s leg, knowing that he has kept it inside because it is almost more fun for him this way, not knowing if she feels the same way.  There is an utter deliciousness to anticipation, to the covert looks he has been stealing at Amy over the years.  She did not notice, but he did, when she got her first bra, the globes of her breasts perched in a delicate balance beneath her shirts, the way her long legs looked in the shorts she so carelessly donned every time they went hiking, or how terrifically firm her ass looked in a pair of simple jeans.  The way he felt about her transcended the physical, though he would not admit this out loud for years to come.  He loved her neuroticisms, her drive, and every female character he ever created had some Amy in her.

                      He gives her leg a yank and with a startled gasp, Amy lands on the floor next to him.  Their eyes meet and they laugh, and then stop suddenly.  The air around them is so tense you could slice it with a knife, and for the first time, Amy feels shy around Sandrino, as if she cannot truly speak her mind.  She feels, as his delightfully brown face comes closer and closer to her, as if she cannot, for anything, focus on something other than the pink perfection of his lips as they edge closer and closer to hers.

                      The kiss is so full of hormones and affection and built-up longing that it startles them both.  For just a few seconds, they clutch each other desperately; when Sandrino pulls Amy on top of him so she can straddle him, they know that if they go further, it will be a move that they will not be able to go back from.  Amy pulls away.

                      “Sandrino, we’re going to college…” she tries to say through her ragged gasps.

                      “I know, I know,” he agrees with her, running a hand through his hair, looking over at her freshly kissed lips.

                      “It’s just that—I want us to stay together during college, me, you, and Paul, and there’s no saying anything will work out between us.”

                      “And our friendship is more important than anything,” Sandrino says, with only a hint of bile.

                      They sit in silence for long moments, feeling their beating hearts slow to a more normal rhythm.  The future looms ahead of them, a long forever that now seems fraught with emotional peril, and they ask themselves the same question, over and over again—

                      Can they survive it together despite the odds?

*                    *                    *

                      “A priest?  You’re going to become a priest?” Amy shrieks, stopping motion in the bar for a split second with the announcement.

                      “In Wisconsin?” Sandrino says, accepting his beer from the bartender.  “Man, why would you want to go into the middle of nowhere for a life of celibacy and destitution?”

                      “I feel like I have a lot to offer the world and I want to help people,” Paul answers.

                      “Should have just applied to med school like Amy, then,” Sandrino shoots back.

                      The pub at McLaren’s is mercifully empty.  Over the past four years, it became a regular favorite for the four childhood friends.  Cake shop during the day and bar at night, McLaren’s features a small array of bookshelves towards the back lined with the old classics, which explains why Sandrino was drawn to it from their very first day, not to mention the terrific vegan pumpkin whoopee pies filled with enough cream to choke a horse.  Or satisfy Paul’s sweet tooth.  There are plenty of tables for Amy to get her studying done at, and McLaren’s was one of those open until four in the morning places that allowed for her long hours; over the years, the pub owner became so used to the trio that he started reserving the back table for them, over by the window overlooking the backyard area.

                      They have just finished their last final, closed their last textbook, and now, the final summer of their college careers is upon them.  Amy, Paul, and Sandrino sit perched on a new age in their lives, an age that is so bittersweet that they have avoided talking about it altogether for the past year, wanting to push it off to the side, to the last minute, to this minute, when their lives are laid out before them and there is nowhere left to run or hide, nowhere but the future to face.

                      Novitiates are required to undergo a training period before applying to seminary school, something Paul found that he had no struggles with at all.  Years of conversing with Father Andrew and helping out in the parish prepared him for this life of not having an overwhelming wealth, and he finds he is drawn to a more ascetic lifestyle in any case.  His only problem, after all, has only ever been with Sandrino and Amy; he has learned to control the lustful thought everywhere but here.  He has read about this, this demisexuality that leaves you attracted to a select number of people in the world, sometimes one or two for the entire lifespan, and he knows, he just knows, that this is his burden in life, and that he must make up for it and somehow manage to make peace with God.

                      Sandrino developed into the type of young man who disappeared for weeks and months at a time.  Ever since Amy rejected him at the end of high school, there were women, and sometimes men, since Sandrino believed in a healthy experimentation, but he always kept near her, hoping, waiting, knowing the whole while that it was in vain, that Amy’s one-track mind would never let her focus on anything other than her work. He was wrong, but he would not know until just a little bit later that night, when the suppression of the last four years would come out in an explosion that would rival the world wars in the lives of the three friends.

                      They knew, sitting there around their drinks—non-alcoholic for Paul—that their lives as they knew them were changing.  Nobody was truly surprised that Paul was going to become a priest, or that Amy had fulfilled her lifelong dream of going to medical school, or even that Sandrino was getting his master’s degree in fine arts, with a book deal in the making as soon as he was accepted into the program.  But somewhere along the way, they had forgotten that sometimes life throws you an odd curve or two, that somewhere, reality must kick in, and reality never wears a pretty mask, it’s just as blunt as can be.

                      “Guys, we always knew we were a bit delusional about the whole deal,” Amy finally says into the tense silence.  “I mean, how could we expect that we would all end up in grad school in the same area?”

                      “Yeah, I knew you had applied to New York, and my program’s in Washington,” Sandrino says, sadly.

                      “We became obsessed with
Friends
somewhere in sophomore year and it never really eased up its hold.  I think we all sort of became obsessed with the idea that we would always have McLaren’s, that we would always have the time to drink coffee and eat cake, and that we would be together forever,” finishes Paul.

                      “Those relationships are all so incestuous anyway,” Sandrino butts in, and the other two laugh.

                      “Don’t you start,” Amy and Paul chime in.

                      “It’s true, though!  You spend so much time around people that it’s impossible not to be attracted to them, and then they’re also your best friends?  Phew, does that spell trouble,” Sandrino says, and in the silence that follows Paul catches a look that he throws Amy that seems to be so full of meaning that for a moment, the blond man is filled with a pain that knows no bounds, a pain that signifies that not only is his secret unanswered, but that there is another dimension to the story, one that he had not ever anticipated.  In a moment, that odd premonition is gone because they’re all drinking again, washing away the memories of a childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood past, trying to make a future apart seem brighter.

                      Amy, however, does not miss the look that Sandrino has just given her.  It is a question that she knows he has been asking again and again in his head, and she knows that now that she has accomplished her goals, she finally has an answer.  Four years of watching Sandrino retreat into himself.  Four years of many lost months where Sandrino ended up crashed on her couch and she would find herself settling a blanket over him and feeding him coffee and hot greasy things in the morning to ward off a hangover.  Four years of trials and tribulations and she knows that now is the time when she can no longer stave off a hunger that has been growing inside of her ever since that shared kiss on the floor of her living room, a kiss that has seared its imprint onto her mind in a way she can no longer deny.  Sandrino, beautiful Sandrino, in his worn jeans and his smell of books and cigarettes.

                      Tonight she tells him.  Tonight, Sandrino knows.

*                    *                    *

                      There is nothing like waking up in a house that is far removed from the big city in its essence, if not its actual location.  The two-story house that Amy shared for the duration of college with three other roommates is now empty, save for herself, Paul, and Sandrino.  Morning light shines inside of the windows like a bright and merry intruder, showcasing the paintings on the walls and warming Paul’s bed.  He stretches and then snuggles deep under the dark blue covers.  The day is beginning, the day is begun; he is used to waking up far before anybody else, and relishes this time of day.  It is when the birds sing their songs and are not drowned out by the honks of cars on the roads, when the smell of wisteria is so strong you can do nothing but stand under it and drink in the full glory of its scent.

                      Paul swings his legs out of bed, feeling foolish for his strange wonderings of the previous night.  Amy and Paul were clearly feeling the pre-effects of missing each other; they had been an integral part of each other’s lives since they were practically tots, and going away would feel like chopping off another limb.  Buoyed by the start of a new day, Paul pads down the stairs quietly, loving the plush feeling of the carpeting between his toes.  The floor below him has two other bedrooms; Amy has a free-standing tub all of her own in an adjoining washroom, one of the larger draws of the house, but to the right is the guest bathroom, the old-fashioned hook-and-eye lock on it a testament to the age of the house, and also, to its charm.  Paul twists the marbled handle of the door and freezes in his tracks.