Three Brothers (Completed)

The Days In Between

Between the summer session coming to an end and me moving off to university, I didn't see much of Lily outside of work. Lily was looking for a real job in the real world and trying to sell her first novel all on her own. I know James bought ten copies and made her sign them all, so that when she was rich and famous he'd have her very first novel signed and he could sell it for big bucks. Even I had to admit her first book had been gripping, a little preachy and she definitely needed to work on her grammar, and I had no idea who the bad guy was until the very end.

I was busy packing all of my clothes and everything I wanted for my dorm up at the university. It was hard work I tell you. Sean just bought an apartment downtown and was in the process of moving all his stuff, and some of our stuff into it. He was distracting himself with the positive energy of his apartment, which was a pretty weird thing to hear a grown man say. James was still sulking, he was refusing to talk to me and had started going out drinking every night.

At this time, Sean had been unreachable. I had no idea why until he told the story three months later. Sean had been downtown wandering around his new area and had bumped into Lily who was just getting out of the office where she was doing her internship. Sean had enveloped her in a hug and invited her to dinner. He had been curious to witness firsthand what made this girl so special that his two younger brothers would go crazy for her.

They shared drinks and talked and laughed, and Sean began to realize that maybe Lily was something special. Easy to get along with, easy to talk to, she was the type of girl that let you in right away, that trusted you completely until you betrayed that trust. Sean understood why she wasn't close with James or Royce anymore, they had hurt her and she had shut herself off from them. She was kind of dramatic that way.

Sean and Lily went wandering after their drinks to clear their heads in the night air. It was at this moment under the summer stars that Sean began to contemplate trying to get with Lily. "You know I get it now," he said. "Why my brothers went crazy for you."

Lily blushed and looked away. "Yeah?" she asked.

Sean nodded. "I never got it, I watched them argue over you and I wondered what it was," he whispered. "It's your whole package. You're the good girl that a boy brings home to mama and eventually marries."

Lily laughed. "I had a similar idea about the three of you," she admitted. "Royce is the boy you'd bring home to mom, James is the womanizer who you slept with once and never heard from again and you are the guy a girl would date to get back at her daddy."

Sean laughed. "Yeah, but you didn't sleep with James." Lily went bright red and Sean stopped her on the corner. He leant in towards her. "I want to do so many horrible things to you," he murmured before kissing her roughly. She was so much smaller than him Sean had to stoop down to kiss her. When he pulled away he softly whispered "Wow," to her.

Lily smiled lightly. "All three of you have said that to me after the first kiss."

Sean smirked at her. "Yes, but I'm a man not a boy. I can show you things that they never could."

Lily shrugged. "Well, I suppose you'll just have to show me these things another time," Sean groaned and Lily giggled as she pulled away. "Everyone has to wait, it's just how things go. I have to see if you're worth it."

Sean had already decided that he was going to sleep with Lily, and he'd wait as long as he'd have to, to be the first Soran brother to nail Lily. At the same time as my brother was doing everything possible to get with Lily, I was going back and forth between the city and my university dropping all my stuff off at my dorm.

I still managed to text Lily, she told me that she had sold almost thirty books to friends and family, that her connections in her program at school had gotten her book on a few review sites. She told me that she had got an unpaid internship at a publishing firm and was only going to work some nights at the pool instead of every night. The worst thing Lily told me was that she was sort of, possibly seeing another guy.

That had been a blow to my heart, my Lily with another guy? I literally felt part of my heart and soul die when I read that text. It was a national tragedy, if I had a flag it would have been flying at half mast. I had decided to not tell James about it, he was pretty upset as it was, I didn't want to make it worse, besides I wasn't certain if Lily and James were still on speaking terms. She said everything was fine, but Lily was a grudge holder.

I found out, maybe two or three days later, that they were on speaking terms. I had found James in the kitchen at two in the afternoon drinking a cold beer. We were all pretty concerned that he had developed a bit of a drinking problem and we weren't sure how we wanted to deal with it. We didn't know if it was a send him to rehab kind of problem or hit him over the head with a frying pan and hope that fixed the issue sort of problem.

"Dude, you have a drinking problem!" I said. It was all I ever said to him.

All I usually got out of James these days was a grunt of acknowledgement. Today he said, "Lily's got herself a little boy toy. She met him at her internship."

"Oh she told you about that?" I asked. I was eyeing the beer in his hand, I kind of wanted to try and steal it from him.

"Why did you have to do it Royce?" James suddenly asked. "I'm sorry that you liked her and all that, but dude, I was really happy, and you...you took that away from me."

For a while I stood there, not recognizing my brother. I hadn't realized he was that hurt, he had been the one who taught me to dump a girl fast before she got attached to me, he had always seemed so strong and impervious to any sort of emotional damage. For the first time since breaking up he and Lily, I genuinely felt guilty.

That night I tried texting Lily, I tried convincing her to get back together with James that I really wanted to see them together and I wouldn't try to ruin them this time, but I was too late. Lily told me that she wasn't interested in starting anything with James again, not at the expense of my relationship with him. It's a horrible thing to say, but that text made me feel a little better. Knowing that neither I nor James could have Lily was comforting.

I didn't tell James that Lily had turned down getting back together with him. I didn't tell James anything. I moved away that week. As I left the city, I left Lily behind. Part of me hoped that James would get better, maybe he'd get back together with Lily, but the other half of me had hoped that when I came back Lily would finally be willing to start a relationship with me, the university man.