Lochlan's other husband.

Schuyler has both arms around my neck from behind me, phone in front of my face while he tries to teach me the lyrics to Shallow, the song from A Star is Born, a movie I freaking loved and am never ashamed to admit that but I can't for the life of me hit those notes. He tries to coach me through a lower octave but I keep lapsing into the wrong part, as if I am now Bradley Cooper, he can be Lady Gaga.

I wrote Lady Gage there but only because Schuyler and Gage wear the same aftershave and the same kind of antiperspirant so they smell the same and it shouldn't surprise me this late in life but it does.

Schuyler is affectionate (as always) and In Charge today, as everyone is out. He's also stupidly lonely, as Daniel and Ben are away (yup, yeah, Christ) and Lochlan wants help with my endless sleeping and of course Schuyler can fix all of that and it's less risky than August (as ever).

If this is the level of affection that Daniel receives in my absence no wonder they are so stupidly happily. Damn. I'm on my figurative knees here from how nice this feels, and that's saying something because Schuy is always so generous with his hands/arms/kisses/AHEM UNPRINTABLES that we all benefit nicely all the time but this is truly next-level.

I love you, Bumblebee. His hand is wrapped around my neck, a kiss landing on the side of my cheek. I'm glad he's holding me up or that would have knocked me over. He really needs someone in hand to molest twenty-four-seven or things aren't right for Schuyler.

You miss him. 

Badly. 

Think we can keep you busy until they come back?

Depends on how much you stay awake, he laughs. You're a beautiful distraction. So is Lochlan. 

Oh. Don't hit me right where it hurts. That's a mutual feeling. 

Good to hear, he pulls me in underneath his coat collar. Makes it easier to ride out the end of the week without Daniel if I have you both. 

I smile into his coat. Not because of the analogy my brain finds in his words but just because double the affection in any given day makes a Bridget feel a whole hell of a lot better. Maybe I'll get my mini-vacation after all, if, like he said, I can stay awake long enough to enjoy it.

Broke.

You think it's all fun and games and romantic extravangances and new Jeeps and boys everywhere.

It is but it's everything else too and I'm not looking for sympathy I'm just telling you how I feel.

('You' being Sam or Ben or Joel or Christian. I don't know.)

The headache persists and I maintain, like I have for the past three years, that I need a long break. I need someone to take over and take care of me. I need to not be the one buying groceries, saying no, paying bills, keeping it all together. I feel like I'm losing it. The part where I gave up my car and came home with a Jeep flew. The part where it has to go back for something things is dragging. I haven't caught up to life again yet. I feel perpetually overwhelmed.

Maybe we all do. Maybe this is the new Spring Fever.

I'm at that stage of life where everything is so tough and my legs feel like they're encased in concrete and I don't know what to do except to marvel at how white my knuckles get and hold on until I feel better.

But they'll be concerned if I go to bed before dinner.

Not that I care right now. Sleeping is the only relief I have from my racing mind anymore.

Brighter, smaller, slower (Hey, like me).

The Porsche is gone at last and in it's place, a second Jeep.

A third, if you count PJ's, but he steadfastly refuses to let me rename them. They have names, though I thought we could call them after the three musketeers: Athos, Porthos and Aramis.

He said no but he laughed when he refused so it was clever, I guess. We put them out at the end of the lawn up on the rock wall flexing and had a little photo shoot and then he tucked his safely back into the garage because he only pets it. I'm kidding! Sometimes he pulls it out into the driveway and pets it in the sun.

In marked contrast, I promptly scraped the door on my (new to me) one but Lochlan said it was very fine and will polish out.

It will be for the kids to learn stick on. I can already drive stick and trust me, I was looking for a second Jeep, a two door but automatic and I wasn't finding what I wanted and honestly to me being able to drive a standard is a life skill, just like swimming and juggling.

(I am fun at parties. I think.)

They've had a few lessons and are really good at it, at least, and I no longer have to worry about Ruth wanting to borrow the Porsche (it was a standard and she learned on it too, a little though I had zero interest in her bombing up the Sea to Sky in such a tiny vehicle) because it's finally gone. I also don't feel like such a hack owning a fussy, high-end car that had such heavy connotations.

(Caleb says that's imaginary. Lochlan laughs out loud at him because it's...not, actually.)

Now I'm a Jeep girl X 2.

Perfect.

Mother of all headaches. Pulled off all my long pink fake nails even. Hate that it hurts this much.

Rich men purchase, poor men plan.

It used to be easier to say that before I forced the rich one to apply the laws of California (an expression in our house. It means half.) to my life just to stick it to him further at one point for the fiasco that was Henry's paternity suit and efforts to muscle his way right in on a permanent rather than symbolic level.

Lochlan was given equal everything for a time. If I got a deposit so did he. It was five years of misery for Caleb and by the time I let him off the hook Lochlan could have retired in the past, he had so much in the bank. I helped him invest it, I'm not a hundred percent sure he understands the gravity of it because he still grabs his cases and runs off any time someone needs anything computer related because he has ego issues, like everyone here. I keep pointing out his dividends, his compound interest, his capital gains, as if to show him, oh I think I fucked this up but here's what you kept (because I am also stubborn and probably doing this wrong) and he kind of shakes his head but he's said before it's blood money and he doesn't want it, a curse born of a tragedy and fuck that shit poor is better and I agree but the poor one at the end of this life isn't going to be him or me, it should be the Devil.

Last night Lochlan appeared quite suddenly just before dark. I had been previously warned that he was 'working' all afternoon (rolled my eyes, I did) and not to eat dinner as we would have a date when he came home.

He was home the whole time, someone else took his truck. Plotting and scheming and planning.

We had what he has chosen to call an inside-out bonfire. He made a huge heart-shaped bonfire on the beach, picnic blanket in the centre, laden down with sweet things and flowers scattered everywhere.

Ready? he asks. We are standing far back from it. It's huge. It's as if the entire beach is on fire and the flames are up to my knees. He takes my hand but I pull away. Honestly it was an amount of fire I haven't seen before, not since the camper and I was afraid.

I don't know why, things have changed. This was romance, not danger.

He did that thing where he waits for my confirmation that I trust him and we stepped into the heart.

I lived.

Inside the heart was cake. We ate the cake and threw the flowers into the flames one after another to make ad-hoc wishes and when the tide rose and began to put the fire out, beginning at the point of the heart, it was time to go. I didn't want to go, high on sugar with smoke in my hair and salt on my skin I wanted to stay all night but it started to rain then and he laughed and said Mother Nature is helping because we're late for the next phase.

The next phase was upstairs in our warm room with more flowers, more flames and some unspeakable, unprintable acts.

No one can do what he does to me. Not Caleb, not Ben, not even Jacob. He ties my heart in knots and then makes it bloom. He cleanses us with fire. He makes everything fun.

And he's surprisingly not excited about the bees.

Happy Valentine's Day!

They got me bees.

We pick them up in March or early April. Two hives and sixish pounds of bees.

I don't remember what six pounds of bees looks like but I'm so excited I could burst.  My grandparents had hives when I was a kid and a few other family members so I'm comfortable around bees but only to the extent that I could do minimal things to help out at honey harvest time and otherwise mostly left them alone.

Honestly if someone asks you what your polyamoric commune got you for Valentine's Day and you can answer Six pounds of bees you have to be having the BEST DAY IN THE UNIVERSE.

Lochlan and I exchanged gifts privately as well. He got me a booster cushion (!!!!!!!!) for driving (It's been a thing for oh, about two (okay three) decades and I've had enough. Driving all these oversized trucks is rough when my ribcage is against the steering wheel in order to reach the pedals. When I drove the Porsche daily I had to extend my legs far forward and use the tips of my toes to push the clutch in.

I had his (good, not the every day one) top hat repaired professional. In London. It took a leap of faith and seven months of nailbiting but they replaced all of the binding and the ribbon and replaced the very top circle as well as it had a...bite out of it (very long story) and could not be patched. Or it could, but I did a very poor job and they also cleaned it and it's beautiful again. He almost couldn't believe it's his, as he thought I  must have finally thrown it out or something.

That, well, that almost started something, as I would never do that.

So while our gifts weren't romantic in the least (presents rarely equal romance, something that has been promised in spades for later this evening, and boy am I excited), they were exceedingly touching and useful and helpful in everyday life and I'm grateful for Lochlan, grateful for all of the boys (who all got freshly detailed trucks-I ordered a whole team to come and do mobile detailing because they are very messy though far far better than we were when they were teenagers-

Wait, what do you mean 'bees and tophats aren't useful in everyday life'? Of course they are. Don't be ridiculous.

Wizard and sage.

Schuyler is less convinced that a good long kayak excursion has cured me. Also I cannot lift my arms to hug him when he greets me. Honestly he is a lot like Caleb in that way, he likes his lovers helpless, and maybe Daniel and I are more alike than Daniel wants to admit.

And also their lives are far less complicated so Schuyler spends virtually all of his free time keeping a close eye on Daniel's particular shade of blue at any given moment. I think because I am smaller sometimes I slip through the cracks.

But not tonight.

Aside from sore arms how do you feel?

Fine, I lie and he gives me a kiss, trapping one lock of white-blonde hair between our lips as I can't get my arm up fast enough or high enough to pull it away.

Liar, he hisses against my teeth. God, Schuyler loves a full house and people who need him. Hellbent on not being needy I push off and point out the time.

Already fixed, he says, pulling me back in. Daniel kisses the top of my head from the dark behind me and I can already feel myself relaxing but I step out from between them anyway.

I'm beginning to think you keep Lochlan running on purpose. 

Schuyler smiles. He's free to say no but maybe I do. 

You've got everything you need right here. I pull Daniel in front of me. He doesn't actually move but it's the thought that counts.

Schuy nods. I do. Daniel holds my heart and my soul. 

Then why am I here?

It's nice to have a pet. They both laugh and I am gone now, high on attention, wound out on the warm affection I crave more fiercely than oxygen. I make mental notes, as always on the way they check in with each other. A look, touch or a word. A pause. A rush in, too fast, so intense and then I blink and I am awake and no one else is and I don't remember falling asleep, I don't remember this night ending only I do remember smiling as I watch them lavish their affection on each other, a truer love existing nowhere else that I can think of.

And now I feel like I want to cry.

Schuyler wakes up and sees the look on my face. You okay? What's up, Bee?

Just had a massive attack of jealousy, that's all. 

He pulls me in close, talking into my hair. I will definitely be washing it today. Because of last night's antics, and because of his breath. It's not bad, exactly but it's not really good either.  There's no place for that. With Loch you two have the love for the ages. It's withstood wars and birth and death and sabotage and the Collective. That's something to be jealous of. 

I never see him though and when I do see him we fight. 

I didn't say life isn't hard, Bridget but you've got everything you need and I've already put the word out for some people to replace Loch so he can actually retire instead of just talking about it.

You say that every six months. 

He's a fixer. I don't meet many people like that. It's going to take six people to replace one of him. That takes time. I'm sorry. He's sorry. But you know he likes to be busy so I get it. 

Maybe I could keep him busy. 

You're the only thing he can't fix. That makes him crazy, you know that? He's scared to death someone else will be able to before he can. Jake was the biggest threat of his life and he's always got Caleb breathing down his neck-

Caleb isn't breathing down anythi-

He is, and it doesn't matter if he's not a threat. If he helps in any way then Lochlan sees red. It's not a bad thing. It'll get better. Everything will. 

I wish I had your optimism. 

Look around. I'm so lucky it's almost criminal. 

Me too.

Everything is better after you exercise or something (bah humbug).

Ectoplasmic. You know, when I need someone else to keep me warm.

He bursts out laughing. That's ectothermic. Ectoplasmic is ghosts.

Figures. I'm not actually picky. Living or dead is fine.

You should get up. We'll have a fun day.

I'm fine right here. Go live. Come back when I've had some sleep.

You don't need anymore sleep, Bridge. Whens the last time you washed your hair?

Sunday.

Wow.

I think.

That's a sign when someone isn't doing so well. They let their appearance and their hygiene slide.

LOOK AT MY PRETTY NAILS, DANIEL

What have those done for you? They keep you from being able to do anything. Bet he's happy to keep you helpless.

Oh, a rare comment on the devil from Mr. Impartial.

I'm not impartial, just quiet about it. I have a nice life here and my brother keeps a good eye on you so I can stay out of it. 

And yet here you are.

Look, I get lonely too and I wanted to know if you want to go kayaking. That's all.

Of course I want to go kayaking. What a ridiculous question. 

Then get your lazy ass out of bed and go take a shower. Christ. It's almost breakfast. 

(For the record, I am not helpless. We kayaked for almost three hours. I'm tired now, that's what I am. I thought I was before, though.)

Of no consequence.

Every morning now I wake up at five or five-thirty, untangle myself from an embrace that makes me feel feverish but safe, and hop in the shower. Sometimes I wash my hair and then comb it out with a wide-tooth comb, squishing up the ends so it will twist up and curl like Lochlan's, though it is almost too long for that now. Sometimes I pretend I am bald and fail to address it at all. Then I hop into a vat of cocoa butter because you've never met someone with skin as dry and hideously sensitive as me. I've swapped out to cocoa butter for my tattoos as well which is part of my own personal aftercare routine a week after the latest round. It just works better for me, might not for you.

Then I come downstairs, make coffee (currently swapping between Tully's and a no-name grocery store brand Mexican dark roast that I really freaking like) and read some stuff, mostly things like CORONA VIRUS WILL KILL US ALL, TRUMP SOMETHING SOMETHING IDIOT and HOW TO MAKE NONFATSMALLBATCHORGANICNONDAIRYYOGURTINYOURINSTANTPOT.

Yes, those are all real headlines on my black mirror today and I'm sorry I looked, frankly.

Instead, I peruse the new Vesey's seed catalogues, the latest of which they've sent me is one all about bulbs, and I wonder if I should plant some or if I should maintain the illusion that I am helpless and unable to be that pulled together.

Oh, but I am pulled together. Look at my nails. I tap them against the side of my coffee mug. So pretty. I'm so pulled-together I orchestrated a fun day out with my sugar daddy footing the bill so I would be pretty and fed and that's something, isn't it? It's how I was taught.

(That isn't how it went at all though. Caleb touched my hand, compared it to 80-grit sandpaper and looked at my short ragged nails and eight-year-old's hands and suggested I doll up for Valentine's Day and maybe we should get some lunch, as my stomach growled right then, blocking out his words briefly. I hedged my bets that this was his Valentine date so I agreed.)

(Apparently it was not.)

Caleb and Lochlan went another round last evening concerning their age-old war between the finer things in life and the plebian things in life. Caleb would like to fly us to multi-Michelin-starred restaurants for dinners, Lochlan's idea of a balanced meal is a corn dog AND a candy apple, though I never ever had room for both. And sometimes if we were very hungry, completely poor and he was feeling extra guilty, Lochlan would eat the candy layer off the apple and give me the rest, something we both hated but he didn't want me to die from a lack of fruit and vegetables but also couldn't afford to feed us both without stealing but he could jack up his blood sugar until we could get a meal so it was good enough.

Good enough became a battle cry for us, something that has built character and kept us ridiculously grounded all the while it's been a level Caleb will not stoop to, no matter what. He is rigid and resistant and jealous beyond reason.

Lochlan on the other hand is also jealous but simultaneously angry at me for feeding the beast, as it were, and also for having 'stupid looking nails' (ouch) and even for wasting an Olive Garden trip on Caleb when Lochlan would have liked to go and I will only go once every ten years or so because it's awful, honestly.

But the breadsticks-

The ones from Little Caesars are the same thing only not as salty, thank God. 

They're smaller though. 

Boy, Lochlan gets hangry now. He's probably making up for years of forcing his metabolism to run at the pace of newly-poured concrete so I wouldn't be hungry.

Want me to make you some non-dairy yogurt?

What?

Nothing.

You taught me this, Locket. All of it. 

You weren't supposed to bring any of them home, you were just to take what you needed.

This is different.

OG breadsticks.

For my grand finale, since I look so pulled together or something, Caleb let me pick the restaurant for dinner.

I picked Olive Garden.

Just to see the look on his face, mostly. I figured he would refuse. He did not. We went. That was interesting. More tomorrow.