Serendipity ○ All 14

14. Addie

Addie could feel the tension in the air. No matter how relaxing the hot springs were, she knew that Brandon was preparing to give her a difficult to swallow explanation.

He gulped down a few drinks of her red wine and handed it back to her. Drops of the red liquid rolled down his chin, and she had to make an effort not to follow it with lusty, wandering eyes.

"We met Kayli when we were twenty," he started with a faraway glint in his eyes. "I can't say much, but we had caught her stealing to support her alcoholic father and her brother that was still in high school."

Addie felt sympathy for the girl. Brandon must have caught the look in her eyes, because he stopped her by raising his hand.

"Don't feel too bad. Yes, her situation sucked ass but she didn't work to earn her own money. She claimed that no one would hire her after she dropped out of school and got her GED, but stealing came easier for her."

He paused before continuing with a frown. "We would have understood if she stole to cover what she didn't earn with her own work, but she didn't work at all. She was basically living off of whoever she stole from."

Addie leaned foward, intrigued with the tale. It was hard to picture Kayli as the girl from his story. Addie couldn't imagine being in that position.

"Basically, we offered her an ultimatum. Quit stealing or we would turn her over to the authorities. She chose to quit. The next few months were spent getting to know her and we became friends. It wasn't until we all started catching feelings for her that Axel, Raven, Corey, Marc and I decided to try a polyamorous relationship with her."

Addie gaped. "This was before the virus hit?"

"Yes," he confirmed with a wry smile. "It was all going fine until she tried bringing another guy who we didn't know into the relationship."

Addie whistled lowly. She had never witnessed that type of relationship before the virus, but she wouldn't judge. The heart wants what the heart wants. "You didn't like the guy?"

"Nope," Brandon said. "Blake Coulter was a drug dealer who was selling JH14 to high school kids."

"JH14?!" Addie exclaimed, absolutely horrified. She took a drink from the wine bottle and passed it to him. "That shit was all over the news."

"Mhm," Brandon said with a grimace. "Ultimately, we tried to keep our relationship with Kayli steady and healthy. We loved her and she felt the same for us, but she loved Blake just as much. She tried to bring us together until the virus ended up taking his life. It was downhill from there. We tried to stay with her, but once she lost her father and brother, she started to change."

"And you've been with her ever since?" Addie felt horrified, about to scramble out of the hot springs and drive their asses back into town, because she was not messing around with a relationship.

She had thought they were together when they first showed up, but she had never seen them show any affection towards her, or her to them.

Brandon calmed her down with a soothing sound. "We tried to, yes. But we were always off and on, trying to hold onto what we knew. We 'broke up' again when she had punched Raven in the face about a week before we showed up here in New Haven. We told her earlier today that it was over for real, since she didn't seem to get the clue. There was no working it out any longer since we don't have the same feelings for her that we had back then. The love was lost a long time ago."

Addie instantly relaxed, but tensed when she remember his words. Raising a hand to a loved one was despicable. She never knew why it was considered okay for a woman to hit a man they loved. It was just as bad as a man hitting his significant other. "That bitch! She hit Raven? Was that what the bruise was from?"