Under The Magnolia Read online

  “Am I a bitch? No. Have I gone through hell and deserve some peace?

  Hell yes. Now fuck off.”

  “Which one are you fucking? You must be something special for them to

  want to bed a cripple.”

  “Damn right I’m something special. Haven’t you realized that yet? I’m

  sensing another motive from you- jealousy. I may not be able to see any of

  you, but jealousy doesn’t look good on anyone. I’m fucking all of them

  because my vagina is fucking gold. So go find some other shmuck to waste

  your attentions on.”

  Okay, that was pretty much perfect. I bury my face into the nape of her

  neck to try and stifle my laughter, but it doesn’t work so well. Once the

  women realize we’re all laughing at them, not with them, they saunter off

  all haughtily, acting like they were the ones wronged.

  “Fucking bitches. This is why I don’t go anywhere. I hate people. Well,

  you guys are fine. I hate pretty much everyone else.”

  The other guys lose it too and all get closer to our girl, kissing her cheek.

  “Damn, grown-up Amelia has balls bigger than any of us.”

  “Balls are like the most fragile organ you have. I’ve never understood

  that expression.”

  Cam laughs again and kisses her, and I guess we’re all just not going to

  give a flying fuck if people see us all kissing on her because she doesn’t

  seem to care.

  “Damn that was hot, babe. Feel this.”

  He grabs her hand and drags it under the water, I’m assuming to put it on

  his crotch. She hisses a breath and rocks against me on instinct, feels mine

  as well, and then she just doesn’t know what to do with herself. “Seeing

  you stand up for yourself, claiming us, and being such a bad-ass is really

  fucking sexy.”

  “Fuck, Mils. That God-damned mouth on you might be my favorite

  thing. No, no. Not my favorite, but close. My favorite is definitely your

  golden vagina.” Constantine kisses her next, then Alex is pulling her out of

  my arms and climbing out of the water.

  “What the hell, man? I was doing something!”

  “I think we need to get our fiancée home so we can get a taste of her

  golden vagina.”

  We all groan and try to cover ourselves as we run to the car dripping wet,

  hastily grabbing all our shit as we stuff it in the back. Amelia’s sweet giggle

  is music to my ears as we gun down the back roads, straight to their house

  that they’re intent on us all moving into.

  Amelia

  “Fuck that felt good. You know how long I’ve wanted to tell people like

  that off? Damn.”

  Constantine has his arm around my waist in the backseat as Alex drives

  us, and I can’t even wait until we get home because all this talk about my

  vagina is making her quite feisty. After Cam and Theo both had to prove

  they were hard as granite, I’m determined to find out if Tina is, too.

  I lean over like I’m reaching for something on the floor, letting my hand

  slide up his thigh and…yep. Definitely hard.

  “Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

  “That’s a dick, sweetheart. A damn erect one.”

  I bat my eyelashes at him as I slowly lean down, twisting my hips as

  much as I’m able in the seatbelt to put my mouth on him. I can feel every

  ridge of him under the thin material of his sopping wet swim shorts, and a

  strip of Velcro is all that’s preventing me from tasting his bare skin.

  “Fuck, Mils. You don’t play fair. You seriously going to do this right here

  in the back of the truck?”

  “What is she doing? No fair, driver should get privileges.”

  The car swerves a bit and then straightens, right as Alex lets out a string

  of colorful curses. I’ve got Tina’s shorts open to me, pulled out his

  throbbing dick, and I’m just staring at it because I can. I’m not sure how

  long this drive will be, but I’m going to make it a damn good one.

  “Amelia Poppy, if you put your mouth on his dick while I’m driving and

  I can’t watch or participate, I’m going to have to demand some

  recompense.”

  “I’ll suck yours later, Alex, chill your tits.”

  I ignore all the rest of their banter, feeling several sets of heated eyes on

  me. The energy of the car is all focused on me, and I know Theo is doing

  something right next to me, touching himself maybe, because he’s got one

  hand on my hips, gripping me and flexing over my ass, but I can sense

  movement as well. If I could have eyes for one thing only and still be blind,

  it would have to be for sexual purposes. I don’t think anything would beat

  the sight of one of my men pleasuring themselves.

  Constantine’s skin is cool and damp as my mouth touches it, warming up

  his eager flesh as I taste him. I let my tongue swirl over the head, tracing

  the nice plump tip and right over the slit producing the precum, before

  lowering my mouth over him entirely and wrapping my lips over my teeth.

  His hand tightens in my hair and gently guides me, and I start getting lost

  in sensation and the smell of him.

  “Damnit. Fuuuuck. Amelia, shit. Baby, this is almost too much. Feels

  way too damn good. You don’t know how many fantasies I’ve had about

  seeing your lips wrapped around me before.”

  “No, Alex. Keep driving. You pull over now and we’ll never get home.

  You really want someone to stop and see why we’re sitting on the side of

  the road?”

  “This isn’t fucking fair! I’ve always wanted road head! Why does he get

  it???”

  I pull off Constantine to giggle, because Alex just sounds like a petulant

  little kid. I reach forward to find his head, yanking on his hair a bit.

  “Alex. Drive the damn car. You can play with me when we get home.”

  I’m really not sure where this super-confident version of myself is coming

  from, but it feels freeing. Just taking what I want, damn the consequences.

  “She always like this?”

  This question is directed at Theo, who is now grabbing my hand and

  putting into his pants to feel what I’ve done to him on a closer level.

  “Fuck. No. She…” He’s scraping these words off his tongue, and I can

  hear how tightly clenched his jaw is as he tries to talk while I rub my thumb

  over the tip of him, smearing all that moisture around.

  “I think…this is Amelia feeling happy.”

  “Huh. That makes sense. You guys being here kind of makes me feel like

  super woman. It’s like as soon as I gave up on fighting any of this, I get to

  just enjoy you all, and for once I feel like my life is something that I can get

  excited about.”

  Constantine pulls my head over to him and kisses the shit out of me,

  tongue dueling mine and his hands digging into my neck. “Baby, if this is

  you happy, you’re probably going to be the death of all of us because we

  plan to make you the happiest woman on earth. You’ve already made us the

  happiest men on earth by agreeing to marry us, and I fucking love seeing

  you come into yourself and start owning what you want. It is so damned

  sexy to see you confident enough to just do what you want and not have to

  justify anything. I love you, Mils. Foreve
r.”

  He wipes the tears out of my eye and kisses me again after I choke out a

  ‘love you too’ response. The heat has faded a little as the car finally stops,

  Alex wrenching the doors out and presumably pausing as he sees my face.

  “Damnit, Constantine, you killed the orgy energy. Alright, Mils, let’s get

  you inside your new home.”

  ∞∞∞

  This whole night has been far too smooth, far too peaceful, for it to be an

  evening that belongs to me. Even knowing I wouldn’t be able to see

  anything, the guys gave me a tour anyway, making me tear up when they

  talked about how they had a diffuser going in each room with a different

  scent so I’d always know where I was. I mean, are you kidding me right

  now?

  And then there’s the fact that Cameron built me a ramp to get into the

  house and has his bathroom half torn up to install a handicap shower for me

  and has already ordered a lift for the stairs so I can get anywhere I need to

  go.

  They’ve basically thought of everything and there’s this stupid little

  voice inside me, that sounds suspiciously like my late aunt, or maybe my

  very-alive cousin, telling me I don’t deserve any of it. That ugly voice is

  trying so hard to take root inside me, but then I think about the fact that they

  really have imagined what it would be like to have me in their home

  permanently, and I realized for maybe the first time I can’t make that

  decision for them.

  When they were all three taking turns talking about plans for the house,

  or what they’d already done on short notice to make it more accessible for

  me, I had an ‘aha’ moment where I realized how deep this goes between us.

  I mean, they were talking about how we were soulmates, and I have

  known that forever, but I’m not sure I really believed they felt the same.

  Plus, they were including Theo in on all these plans, pointing things out to

  him and explaining how things would eventually be and he just jumped

  right in to offer more ideas and his hands.

  Love shouldn’t be this easy, should it?

  No, love isn’t easy. I had to fight really fucking hard to land here. I hear

  the chirps of cicadas starting up and I’m instantly brought to the here and

  now, all those ugly voices swept away like cobwebs from my mind as I

  remember Constantine’s shaky voice earlier when he told me he loved me,

  the feel of their bodies under me when they all made love to me a few days

  ago, the pride in Cam’s voice as he pushed me up the ramp to their home.

  And Alexander, well, I could tell there was something not quite so sure in

  him. I can tell he still feels guilty for whatever went down with my cousin,

  and even though the thought of them together, naked, makes me want to

  puke, I force myself to let the past go. Because we really can’t move

  forward together if the past is still going to be a player. We’ve all been

  given a do-over together and I don’t want to waste it.

  “Have we given you enough time? You ready for all your men to bug you

  again?”

  I can hear the smile in Cam’s voice, but I know that he’s trying so hard to

  make me happy that he needs to be reassured he’s doing a good job of it.

  “You guys could never bug me. I think I needed the fresh air, though.”

  “Come on, I haven’t shown you the best part of the property, the reason

  we bought this house out of everything we looked at.”

  Normally I’d try and be all independent, asserting I could push myself

  and didn’t need anyone’s help, but I really had no idea where we were

  going, and if I couldn’t hold his hand like I wanted to, then letting him push

  me was the next best option. Made it feel more like a co-dependency; I

  actually did need him to push me the right direction, but he needed me to

  need him so that he knew he had a permanent place with me.

  “You guys look at a lot of places?

  “Yeah. When you- when the accident happened, Mils, we were so

  broken. None of us could function. Like, at all. We all had to finish high

  school online because none of us could face school and all the questions

  from everyone.

  “It fucking destroyed us, thinking we had finally lost you.” His voice is

  breaking apart, making me tear up too, because that whole situation was

  just really fucking terrible.

  “I’m sorry, Cam.”

  “Don’t you apologize. You have nothing to apologize for, ever, you hear

  me?”

  I nod and hear footsteps and quiet voices behind us, talking about who

  knows what.

  “Anyway, our parents all more or less forced us into grief counseling

  eventually, and we finally got around to seeing the world again, though

  without you in it, none of us really wanted to be a part of it.”

  “He’s right, Amelia Poppy. We were not in a good place. That’s why…

  well, that’s why.”

  I heard what Alex wasn’t saying. He wanted me to know that Sophie was

  never a part of his plan, that she ended up in it because he needed

  something to help him cope. I hold out my hand, reaching for the direction

  of Alex’s voice and when his rough palm meets mine, I feel a shudder run

  down my spine.

  “After we finally started to live again, though it was just a shadow of the

  life we had imagined, we got drunk one night and came up with this grand

  scheme to build you your dream house or fixing one into it. I don’t know

  what possessed us, we were all 19 with very few skills, but we decided that

  buying something together and making it exactly how we thought you’d

  like it would fix something in us.”

  I stop moving forward and then Theo is helping me to stand, supporting

  most of my weight with his arm around my hips.

  “Reach your hands out, Amelia Poppy.”

  Alex’s voice sounds reverent as he puts his hands on top of mine, the

  feeling of rough bark itching my palms.

  “We thought this farmhouse was exactly you. It’s like a soft denim blue

  color, in case we didn’t mention that. It’s got white shutters on all windows,

  and the first thing we did was build a wrap around porch and put in a swing.

  “We always thought you’d be a front porch swing kind of girl, and as

  soon as that went up, we felt your ghost everywhere. Every time the breeze

  blew against the house and moved it, I felt you there. But this, this is the

  heart of the property. This is how we knew it was meant to be.”

  I hear someone climbing and branches rustling, then heavy footsteps as if

  someone jumped down from something high up. And there’s something

  white and huge in front of my face, lighting up my senses.

  It hurts to breathe as I get stuck in all our memories, of how we slowly

  fell in love as kids under this same exact type of tree.

  “It’s a magnolia.”

  “A damn big one. Maybe even bigger than the one by your parents’

  house. This one is all ours, and I think it grew to be this big because it knew

  you’d need it one day.”

  Alex traces my fingers over something scratched into the trunk, and

  before we even finish the outline I know exactly what I’ll find. A heart, and

&nbs
p; all our initials. Like some super cheesy film, but made real life and perfect.

  “Come here, Mils. There’s this branch over here, that grew perfectly

  straight out, just for you. We built you a swing.”

  Constantine is carrying me, his hands igniting fire everywhere they

  touch, before settling me onto a simple plank that sways gently under my

  weight. I run my hands up the rough rope that is holding me up, testing it’s

  strength.

  “Do you like it?”

  I don’t bother wiping the tears away as Constantine pushes me in shallow

  arcs, I just tilt my head up and let the air consume them.

  “I don’t know what to say right now. Everything…its perfect. You really

  think we can do this? Live a normal life together, and be happy?”

  The swing stops and I feel Cam kneeling in front of me as I wrap my legs

  around what I can reach to stabilize myself. At least, that’s the reason I give

  myself.

  “I want to promise you yes, but we’ve already learned we don’t know

  what the future holds. All I know right now is that this tree, this magnolia,

  is the start of what we’re going to build, all of us, together. Whatever

  happens, happens to all of us, and we figure it out.”

  Alex

  I can’t stop looking over at Amelia as we drive to the fire station. We’ve

  had her back, been engaged, for weeks now, but somehow, I still wake up

  terrified I dreamt it all. Every damn morning, I wake with my heart racing,

  and if I can’t get to Amelia within five minute to reassure me she’s under

  my roof, I have a panic attack.

  So much time wasted not being with her, I worried that we were stifling

  her, but she hasn’t made any noise of complaint yet, or insisted she needed

  a bit more space. Today I was taking her into the station, because even

  though a lot of the guys thought it was weird as hell that me and Theo were

  engaged to the same girl, they still wanted to throw us some sort of

  engagement party.

  Some of them were there when Theo pulled Amelia from the burning

  house and haven’t really seen her since. She definitely had fans at the fire

  house, and I don’t think it’s only because she was a success story. None of

  them saw her as a lesser woman because of her injuries, they’d been in the

  industry long enough to know she was miraculous for moving past it.