I dream of rain, of warm droplets falling on my face, and wake to Connor standing over me – sopping wet and buck naked, fresh out of the shower.
He falls on top of me in a move not unlike a belly flop, soaking the sheets and crushing me into the mattress.
"So my bed wasn't good enough for you, aye lass?" he teases, rolling us over so he's on his back and I can breathe.
"Murphy was cold," I tell him, wiping the sleep from my eyes and shying away as his fingertips brush that ticklish spot along my hipbone.
"Was he?" he raises a skeptical brow but can't hide his smile. "You ever stop to think about me, lass? Maybe I was cold too!"
"No," I tell him bluntly, raking my fingers through my hair and wincing as they catch on tangles. "You were sleeping like a baby."
"So that's how it is, aye?" Connor asks, deliberately shifting his hips up against mine. "You only think of Murph?"
"Jealous?" I hear Murphy ask, his footsteps approaching us from behind.
I turn to see him tying a towel around his narrow hips, still shaking water from his hair like an adorable, overgrown puppy. He tumbles down onto the mattress beside us with a groan, lazily swiping his hand under his pillow and coming up with a lighter.
He leans back, lighting a cigarette with his eyes closed, and I lick my lips at the sight of his broad, bare shoulders.
It's only then that I realize Connor is naked, Murphy might as well be, and we're all in bed.
Together.
And suddenly things seem a lot more serious and a little awkward. This is me after all – ruiner of moments.
There's tension in the room I didn't notice before. Connor and Murphy seem to notice the change in the air too. They exchange an odd glance and then look back at me curiously, expectantly. The dark glint in their eyes starts a fire somewhere deep inside me and the heat pools low in my belly.
I take a deep breath. Connor's hand stills on my hip and Murphy sits up.
And then I'm scrambling to my feet, stumbling over a pair of discarded boots and making a complete fool of myself because I'm a big fat chicken.
We decide to go out for breakfast. It seems like the sensible thing to do. Safe – out of the bed, out of the house, out of the "danger zone".
As we walk the cold, empty streets in fairly comfortable silence, I realize that I'm not really opposed to sleeping with both of them at the same time. But I feel like I should be – I mean, surely that's crossing some kind of line, breaking some kind of unwritten rule. Or…maybe it is written. Would it…would it be illegal? Oh God, no, I don't want to think about it that way.
If it did happen, it'd be my first threesome but obviously not theirs. I think back to that damn storage closet at McGinty's and my cheeks flame hot.
We step into the nearly deserted diner and I'm not surprised to find most people aren't out on Christmas morning.
I slide into the booth next to Murphy and he stretches his arm out behind my shoulders.
The disgruntled waitress is just bringing over our coffee when Connor broaches the subject I've been both dreading and expecting.
"So, should we talk about whatever that was?" he asks casually, tossing me the two packets of sugar he knows I prefer.
I lean my head back against Murphy's arm, staring up at the cracked ceiling tiles, and the fire in my cheeks burn brighter. It's one thing to think about it inside the safety of my own head – it's quite another to discuss it out loud, in public, at 10 am on Christmas morning.
"Come on, you two are guys," I mutter, still staring at the ceiling. "Shouldn't you not want to talk about stuff? Isn't that the way it usually goes?"
Murphy scoffs at that, lifting his arm and forcing me to hold my head upright again.
"Hey, we're modern men," he tells me, ripping open the sugar packets and dumping them into my cup. "We talk."
"Yeah, real modern," I roll my eyes.
"We are!" Connor protests, his voice climbing an octave.
His eyes are dancing and I can't hide the smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.
"Fine, you're modern men. What's there to talk about?"
He shrugs, looking down at his steaming coffee. It seems he's not as comfortable saying it out loud as he thought he would be.
"Well, is that something you'd want?"
My stomach clenches; it feels like I'm on a roller coaster and I scrape my shoes against the floor to remind my body that my feet are still firmly on the ground.
"I don't know. I haven't thought about it," I lie and then catch myself. "Okay, I have thought about it. But I'm still not sure."
"Oh, you've thought about have you?" Murphy purrs, his mouth right up close to my ear, and I shiver. "What'd you think?"
His hand lands on my knee, his fingers trailing up my thigh, and I have to shrug him off as the heat spreads from my face down across my chest and creeps even lower.
My heads spinning a little and cover my face with my hands.
"Hey, hey, it's not as bad as all that is it, lass?" Connor asks, reaching across the table to tilt my chin up.
I meet his eyes, "It's not that – I just, I don't know yet."
"It's not something you have to decide today," Murphy tells me, hand back on my knee.
But this time, he keeps his fingers to himself and soon the waitress brings our breakfast. I'm grateful when the conversation drifts to lighter subjects. Outside, the sun is finally peeking out from behind the clouds, reflecting gold on the fresh white snow.
Murphy catches my hand as we're leaving the diner and spins me around to face him.
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do," he tells me, pressing a kiss on my lips in front of the two bored-looking customers at the table next to us. "You know that."
I nod, squeezing his hand, "I do."
"But you should think about it," he says, face scrunching up thoughtfully as he adds, "And let us know."
"I'll definitely think about it."
He takes a few steps and then stops, pressing right up close to me again, eyes twinkling, "Okay, so what do you think?"
He's smiling and I can't help but smile too, "Alright, let's do it. Right now."
His eyes widen, "Really?"
"No."
"Oh."
I snort, "Maybe someday, Murphy. Is that okay?"
Connor stops in the doorway, the bell jingling as he pushes the door open, "Are you two lovebirds coming or not?"
Murphy's nose bumps mine as he nods, "Aye, someday is good enough for me."
The boys stop at a payphone to call their mother and I drift along, peeking into the dark windows of the closed stores.
I'm embarrassed to say that it's a rather gaudy lampshade that finally catches my eye.
I press my face close to the glass, cupping my hands around my eyes to get a good look the satiny red shade with dangling tassels. It's quite a sight.
The first tug on my purse feels like it nearly pulls my arm out of socket.
I jerk away from the store window to find a man in a hooded sweatshirt yanking on my purse, shifty eyes darting up and down the empty sidewalk.
"What are you doing?" I ask stupidly, yanking back.
"Give me the fucking purse," he hisses, grabbing onto it with both hands and pulling sharply.
And then it sinks in – I'm being mugged in broad daylight.
Cold fear shoots through my veins and out through my limbs and I can't let go of the purse.
He grumbles obscenities under his breath, tugging at it harder and looking around wildly.
I try to push him away and his elbow crashes into my teeth during the struggle. Blinding pain shoots through my head, throbbing and white hot behind my eyes, and it's only then that I scream.
By that point, honestly it's kind of overkill. The sound that comes out of my mouth would have been more appropriate for someone being disemboweled with a rusty fork or ripped apart by wild boars.
The guy must be really desperate because he's still yanking on my damn purse strap like a man possessed. I scream again, more out of dismay at the copper tang of blood on my tongue and the warmth of it running down my chin than anything else, but it seems to do the trick. The man curses and finally releases his grip just as I hear shouting and pounding footsteps fast approaching us from behind.
I double over, spitting out a disgusting mouthful of blood on the sidewalk as I watch him jump into a waiting car down the block and speed off into the sunset. Or sunrise. Or mid-morning sunlight.
Whatever.
Murphy gently lifts my upper lip, curling it back to get a look at the gash where it split open on my teeth. I see him wince as he dabs at it with a rough paper towel.
"Poor lass," he murmurs, meeting my eyes with a very appealing little half-smile. "Lucky he didn't knock your front teeth out, aye?"
I nod reluctantly, too bitter over my fat, bloody lip to feel very grateful about anything at the moment.
"He sure as hell wasn't getting ahold of that fucking purse, was he?" Murphy adds, thumb tracing my jawline with the kind of familiar warmth that still makes my heart flutter, even when I'm scared and pissed off. "What you got in there that's so fucking important anyway?"
I roll my eyes, running a very ginger finger over my swollen lip as I watch him ruffle through the fairly substantial contents of my purse. He dumps everything out haphazardly on the scarred, nicked up kitchen table.
"Wallet, of course. Gum. I'll have a stick of that, thank you very much," he pauses to pop a piece of Juicy Fruit between his lips and pockets the rest of the pack before delving his hand back in. "Hairbrush. Little round shiny thing…what is this? Some kind of powder stuff and a mirror. Gooey pink stuff…no, lip stuff! Aye, lots of lip stuff. Shiny lip stuff. You never wear any of this!"
"Do too," I answer childishly.
He sticks his tongue out at me and picks up a hard plastic cylinder, wrapped in shiny white paper that's plastered with dainty pink flowers, "What's this then?"
I sigh and lean back in the chair, rubbing my aching shoulder and feeling too tired to be embarrassed, "It's nothing. Just put it down."
"Why?" he asks, obviously curious now. "What is it? Is it a snack?"
He taps it on the table, frowning.
"No, it's not edible," I mutter. "Come on, Murphy. You've never seen one before?"
"No," he says, mulishly tugging at the slippery corners of the package.
"It's…it's a female thing," I explain as delicately as possible, reaching over to take it back from him.
He wrinkles his nose, holding it just out of my reach.
"What kind of female thing? Does it make you smell good or something?"
I wince as he holds it up to his nose and gives it a cautious, suspicious little sniff.
"Oh God, stop that!" I lean across the table, horrified, and rip it out of his hands. "It's a tampon, Murphy! It's a tampon!"
His eyes widen but he doesn't get a chance to reply as Connor walks through the door, carrying a brown paper bag.
"Alright, lass, no need to shout about it!" he grins at me as he drops the bag onto the table in front of me. "Got your frozen peas and fruity vodka."
"There is a God," I groan, slapping the cold bag over my swelling lip and leaning back in the chair.
As I slump down in my seat, they slip into another language which sounds, to my untrained ear, like French. Words fly back and forth around my head but I'm too exhausted to care, even when things get a bit heated. Connor slams his fist down on the table and even that's not enough to hold my attention.
I guess I drift off to sleep because at some point, I wake up in Murphy's arms as he's depositing me gently onto his bed and tugging off my shoes.
I end up staying the night and when I wake up again later, I'm still wrapped up in Murphy's arms.