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BTC 2.0: Chapter 45

Added 2024-09-03 23:06:12 +0000 UTC

-- CHAPTER 45: The Boiling Frog --

****

Sam squealed at the sound of the door opening, and once again I instinctively clapped a hand over her mouth to silence her. A fat lot of good that would do us, given that we were alone in a darkened garage where the only illumination came from the dome lights spotlighting our butts.

The clomping sounds of high-heeled shoes striking the painted concrete floor echoed through the cavernous garage while we both froze in place like deer in headlights. A moment later, a figure stepped out from the shadows and into the light cast from the interior of the SUV behind us.

Sam yanked my hand down from over her mouth and exclaimed in relief, “Addie! How did you find us?”

“Charlie told me where you were.” The Pre-Law freshman was a pretty girl: slender with nice cheekbones, cunning eyes, and dyed-blonde hair with dark roots. She folded her arms across her chest and smirked at us. “He thought you were just talking, but somehow I knew you’d snuck off to have a quickie.”

“Umm, we didn’t actually plan this,” Sam stammered at first. But a moment later she visibly relaxed, smiled, and pushed herself off the Jaguar’s hood with both hands.

Meanwhile, I stood up straight, yanked my semi-hard sausage out from Sam’s tailpipe, and almost sheepishly tugged down the front of my shirt to cover myself. Despite my earlier internal assertion that I’d have nothing to be ashamed about should we get caught, it still felt pretty awkward to be standing there with my pants around my ankles and my ass hanging out in front of a girl I barely knew.

“Aww, looks like I got here a little too late to join in,” Adeline sighed while watching me bend to yank up my pants. “Seems like you two just finished. On the other hand, you DID always brag that Matty’s a machine who can get it right back up and keep going for hours.”

Sam likewise stood up and straightened out her dress. She glanced at me and winced. “Now’s probably not the best time…”

“Your fault for stirring up my interest.” Adeline sighed. “It’s not polite to keep teasing me if you’re never gonna let me find out for myself. You have NO idea how horny I am right now.”

“Shouldn’t be THAT horny,” Sam chided. “It’s not like you’re all pent up anymore. Especially after last night.”

That last sentence piqued my interest. Sam still hadn’t given me the details of what she and her Pre-Law friend had done, and my expression of clear curiosity caught Adeline’s attention.

“Wait, did you not tell him?” Adeline looked confused. “I thought you said you tell him everything?”

“She told me,” I interjected quickly. “We just haven’t had time yet for her to give me all the details.”

“Well I’d love to do a little show instead of tell,” Adeline suggested with a giggle. But then she let out a weary sigh. “But like you said: now’s probably not the best time. Your friends are looking for you, and they don’t seem particularly happy.”

“Ah, bugger,” Sam swore as if she’d completely forgotten about her little tiff with Naimh. Closing her eyes and grimacing while covering her forehead with both hands, she muttered three more times beneath her breath, “Bugger-bugger-bugger!”

Adeline stood back, her arms still folded, looking wistful. I caught her eyes yo-yoing down briefly to Sam’s hanging tits when the bustier blonde bent over to pull up her panties.

Sam stood back up with an audible squish, and she shot me a little smirk at the idea of my cum still soaking into her bowels. And despite initially freaking out a bit at the knowledge of our friends not seeming “particularly happy”, as Adeline had put it, my former Head Girlfriend held her head high and had a confident, poised demeanor about her.

“Not worried about Neevie being mad at us?” I wondered aloud.

Sam shook her head. “I’m good. I had a few minutes sitting out here by myself to think about what I wanted to say to her. I think I understand now why she got upset.”

I winced. “She might be even more upset when she finds out we had a quickie just now.”

“Nah,” Sam muttered dismissively, looking cool. “Sex was never the issue.”

“Then what IS the issue?”

“Simple.” Sam sighed and turned to look back at me. “Neevie’s jealous.”

****

I obviously wanted to know more about what Sam meant about Naimh being jealous, but knew we shouldn’t keep our friends waiting any longer. I figured Sam and I would go out to rejoin the others, then I’d suggest we collect our jackets from the “coatroom”, and then we’d head back to the house to discuss things “in committee”.

I figured wrong.

Adeline, Sam, and I emerged from the garage and went over to the bar where Charlie was attending to other guests. But an idea popped into my head, and I grabbed Sam’s hand, leading her out onto the back deck. In the days before any of us had gotten cell phones, we’d all drilled into our heads the need to rendezvous back at the place we’d all last been together. So I walked over to the railing and looked down over the edge at the fire pit, and sure enough, Isabela, Luna, and Eva were all standing there in a group.

That said, we did now have cell phones, and I pulled mine out to see missed calls from both Belle and Naimh. I glanced at Sam and suggested, “I’ll call Neevie and you call Belle?”

My blonde girlfriend nodded and fished her phone out of her purse while we headed down the stairs onto the patio and rejoined the other three girls.

Naimh picked up after the first ring. “Matty? Where are you?”

“Sam and I are heading to the fire pit.”

“Be right there.”

“Is Belle with you?” I asked.

“No, she went looking for you guys outside.”

“Okay, Sam’s calling her.”

Naimh hung up the phone without saying anything further. I assumed she was on her way. And ten seconds later, Sam hung up her phone and told me Belle was returning as well.

Isabela, Luna, and Eva were all seated on one of the couches, but Isabela stood as soon as we approached. She went to Sam to give her a hug, and then pulled back with a saucy grin while deliberately sniffing Sam’s neck. “Smells like somebody did some - what did Neevie call it? - oh, canoodling!” The lusty Latina giggled.

“Belle’s gonna be miffed she didn’t get the creampie,” Luna muttered.

“Unless it’s still in there,” Isabela teased.

“Speak of the devil,” Eva remarked a split second before somebody slammed into me from behind, a pint-sized pixie wrapping her arms around my waist, and I raised both of my arms up in surprise.

“We’ve been over this. Mari’s Matty’s Angel, and you’re the Devil,” Belle cracked back from just below my left armpit. She then glanced up to meet my gaze when I looked down at her, and my ever-watchful ‘little sister’ warned, “Neevie’s mad.”

I blinked. “She literally ordered me to go away and catch up to Sam.”

“Yeah, well, that was one order she would rather you’d not obeyed.”

I blinked twice. “When in our entire history together have I NOT obeyed?”

“Oh, she’s not surprised you obeyed or anything like that.” Belle made a face. “But if you were ever to be disobedient for the first time, that would’ve been a good time to do it.”

I grimaced and sighed, rubbing my face.

“Be gentle with him,” Sam cautioned sympathetically. “He’s got a Y-chromosome. There’s no overcoming that kind of genetic defect.”

I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to Belle. “What happened? What did you guys talk about while we were gone?”

But Belle was sniffing me, and then like a bloodhound she kept her nose against my midsection while circling around to the front of me and sniffing lower before popping up just short of actually parking her face in my crotch. “Did you?”

I blushed, my expression answer enough.

Belle’s eyes darted straight to Sam. “Tell me you didn’t swallow it.”

Sam smirked. “I didn’t swallow it.”

“Still have it inside you?”

“Belle, focus,” Luna warned. “Not the time.”

My horny ‘little sister’ sighed dramatically before pouting, her eyes rather wobbly. “Fine.”

“Sam!” a familiar voice suddenly called from up on the back deck. We all turned to find a flaming hot redhead standing at the railing, and by ‘flaming hot’ I mean that in more than just her physical beauty.

“Hey, Neevie,” Sam answered casually as she turned around and put her hands on her hips. “We need to talk.”

“I agree. Let’s go.” Naimh gestured with her head to the side.

Sam nodded and started back for the stairs, and I went with her. But Sam abruptly turned to face me and put a hand to my chest. “Oh, not you.”

I blinked. “What? Are we not all leaving? I figured we’d go home and do this ‘in committee’.”

“The rest of you can stay and explain things to Matty,” Naimh pronounced. “Sam and I need to hash this out one-on-one.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Sam agreed.

I gawked around at the other girls. “Am I the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on?”

“Are you the only one here with a Y-chromosome?” Belle asked rhetorically. And when I simply rolled my eyes, she went ahead and answered with a teasing smirk, “Then yes.”

By then, Sam had trotted up the stairs. Naimh’s lips were pursed and her eyes were cold. Sam’s jaw was set, but she looked confident and resolute. And then the two of them headed inside.

Belle folded her arms and pouted, “If Neevie ends up getting Matty’s creampie, I’m going to be quite put out.”

Eva arched an eyebrow and leaned over to Isabela. “How many drinks has Belle had?”

“Four,” Isabela muttered in reply. “That equals six scaled up for a normal girl’s body weight.”

“Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” I interjected, throwing my hands up.

“Simple,” Belle informed me with a drunken grin. “You’re the boiling frog.”

****

“So you know the old urban myth?” Belle began once we’d all re-assembled away from the crowd and over by the fence overlooking the city far below. The air was chilly away from the fire pit or the electric heaters and none of the girls had their jackets. But they all had flushed skin from drinking and nobody complained. Plus, I stood behind my Baby Belle and wrapped up the little one with no meat on her bones in a warm hug, just in case. “The one about putting a frog into a pot of cold water and then slowly heating it up.”

“The frog wouldn’t notice the water heating up and would boil to death, right?” Isabela queried.

“Right,” Belle confirmed. “That’s Matty.”

Every girl in the circle nodded their understanding, but I tilted my head forward to look down at Belle with a perplexed expression. “The last time we used that analogy, it was about me not realizing how bad our relationship was getting.”

Belle tilted her head back to look straight up at me. “Specifically, it was about you not realizing that I was starting to get jealous of your other relationships.”

That was the second time a girl had used the word ‘jealous’ around me within the last few minutes, and I frowned. “This would seem to be the part where you tell me that Neevie’s jealous of my other relationships, but that makes absolutely no sense. It didn’t make sense when Sam said it a few minutes ago, and it doesn’t make any more sense now. Neevie’s the least jealous girl in the entire BTC.”

“Hence your being the boiled frog. It happened slowly, over time, and you didn’t notice.”

“But what, the rest of you DID notice?” I raised my head and glanced around the group. “How come nobody told ME?”

Isabela pulled her head back. “Don’t look at me. I didn’t notice anything.”

“I don’t think we’ve been around long enough to recognize anything was amiss,” Luna added.

“The rest of us didn’t notice either,” Eva assured me. “So we’re ALL boiled frogs in that case.”

“I should’ve noticed,” Belle sighed and looked up at me again with an apologetic face. “I’m an idiot, and I’m a boiling frog. I let myself be blinded by Neevie assuring you and me that she would never be selfish about wanting you all to herself, that she would always prioritize keeping The BTC together over keeping you.”

I nodded my understanding. “Neevie has always insisted she’d make decisions based on what was in the best interests of the group.”

“She HAS always insisted that,” Eva interjected almost distractedly, standing a step back outside of the circle’s circumference over by the fence, half-turned to stare out across the city with her arms folded across her chest. “But sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants.”

I frowned as the calculus of what the girls were telling me arrived at only one possible answer. “Are you saying Neevie was lying? That she DOES want me all to herself?”

“Not all to herself,” Belle added quickly, squeezing my forearms around her. “She went out of her way to make that abundantly clear to us while you and Sam were…”

“Banging,” Isabela finished with a grin when Belle’s voice trailed off.

“I was gonna say ‘talking’,” Belle finished. “In Sam’s defense, I know she was upset as well. And since all of us were with Neevie, I don’t blame Matty for… uh…

“For making Sam feel better,” Luna finished for her.

“Good way of putting it.” Belle grinned.

“We’re getting off-track again.”

“It’s not complicated,” Eva cut in, literally stepping back into the circle and holding her hands palms-up. “Neevie talked a good game about always putting The BTC first and doing everything she could to keep everyone in harmony.”

“Don’t try to claim all that was a lie,” I interrupted harshly. “Neevie’s done a great job of keeping everyone in harmony ever since she arrived, even back before you ever met her.”

“Not a lie,” Eva stated carefully, holding her hands up. “But times have changed. The situation’s changed. And most importantly, your relationship with her has changed. You made Neevie Head Girlfriend.”

“Belle made Neevie Head Girlfriend,” I pointed out.

“Neevie wanted to be Head Girlfriend. She’s a good Head Girlfriend. And she really does try her best to put The BTC first over her relationship with you.”

I sensed Eva’s next words before she said them, quoting back, “‘But sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants.’”

“She wants to be your wife someday,” Eva stated plainly.

“Neevie told you that?”

Eva nodded. “But she’s terrified that Sam’s going to win the prize.”

“Again,” Belle stated emphatically.

Eva frowned. “Again?”

Belle winced. “Sam’s always been competitive, and Neevie somehow always ends up in second place.”

“Not always,” I insisted.

“Often enough,” Belle sighed. “How many ‘firsts’ did Sam get with you? Who just took your V-card without asking?”

“I know Sam’s always been competitive and could sometimes get seriously upset whenever she lost. But Neevie always said those competitions were just in good fun and never really minded if she didn’t win.”

“I’m sure she’s always said that,” Eva chimed in, giving me a knowing look. “But sometimes people say things they don’t really mean.”

I smiled, thinking back on all the times Eva herself had said things she didn’t really mean. Eva herself smirked at the irony of her statement. But then I narrowed my eyes and sighed. “You’re trying to say that Neevie’s resolved to put The BTC’s greater good above her own selfish desires, but that she’s struggling with that resolve and feels guilty about it.”

“Actually, I don’t think she feels guilty about it at all,” Isabela spoke up. “The way she was talking to the rest of us, there’s no resolve to prioritize The BTC’s greater good anymore. Neevie wants to be your primary, Matty. Period.”

“She does,” Luna agreed. “That girl loves you more than anything. More than life itself.”

“And she’s terrified of Sam waltzing back into your life and taking the top spot just like that.” Eva snapped her fingers for emphasis.

“Again,” Belle added.

“Again?” I frowned. “When did Sam waltz back into my life and take the top spot before?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Belle looked severely disappointed in me.

“Well Sam obviously took the top spot when I made her Head Girlfriend in the first place,” I admitted. “But it’s not like she waltzed back into my life and stole me away from Neevie or anything.”

“You’re an idiot,” Belle muttered with a sigh. “Let’s start with the obvious that Neevie was your only official girlfriend to begin with, right up until the Conor thing. I wanted to comfort you, but Sam beat me to the punch.”

“And then Sam promptly withdrew from me, trying to emotionally keep her distance and not let herself fall in love with me.” I shrugged. “Not exactly waltzing in to steal me away.”

“Sam did withdraw, and you eventually forgave Neevie and we started the whole ‘Girlfriend of the Week’ thing. Queen Mari got a shot before you broke her heart--”

“Hey!” I protested.

“And then you had your ‘first time for the second time’ with Neevie,” Belle continued as if I’d never interrupted, “and Neevie ultimately had her Girlfriend of the Week spot.”

“After which she told me flat out that she didn’t want to be my girlfriend anymore,” I pointed out.

“As I said, you’re an idiot.” Belle rolled her eyes.

“You’re saying that was a lie? Way back then?” I questioned skeptically.

“The heart wants what the heart wants,” Eva muttered.

“She could tell that you didn’t want to be her boyfriend,” Belle explained. “So she told you – and worked very hard to convince herself – that she didn’t want to be your girlfriend either.”

“And I’m guessing that’s when Sam waltzed back in and took the top spot?” Luna chimed in.

Belle tapped her nose. “Exactly.”

I pursed my lips and narrowed my eyes. And then after tapping the top of Belle’s head to get her to look back up at me, I growled, “If all this is supposed to be as obvious as you’re making it, then how come nobody warned me?”

“It wasn’t obvious,” Belle insisted.

“Only in hindsight,” Eva added. “We’re ALL boiled frogs.”

“I honestly thought Neevie was perfectly happy to just be part of The BTC,” Belle said ruefully. “Happy to be one of your multiple girlfriends.”

“But then I made Neevie Head Girlfriend,” I sighed.

Isabela looked perplexed. “Thought you said Belle made her Head Girlfriend?”

“Long story.” I rubbed my forehead. “The point is: Neevie’s in an elevated position from which she could potentially fall.”

Belle tapped her nose again.

“And she’s terrified that Sam will come waltzing back in and take over just like that,” I finished, snapping my fingers. “I get it now.”

“Neevie’s always feared she was just a placeholder,” Luna spoke up. “The rest of you may not have noticed the water was slowly boiling, but from the first time she talked to me about your relationship, she worried that she was nothing more than ‘the spare’.”

Belle frowned, asking, “‘The spare’?”

I grimaced and rubbed my forehead again, explaining, “That first Monday after the beach trip, Neevie told me she was afraid of her long-term place in my life. She said that Sam being my Head Girlfriend and you being my ‘little sister’ were all that I really needed in life, and that she was just ‘the spare’.”

Luna nodded her agreement. “Even being your Head Girlfriend, Neevie said she was just keeping the spot warm until Sam came back into your life.”

I shook my head, asking rhetorically, “How many times did I try to reassure her that wasn’t the case?”

“How many times did she believe you?” Eva asked in the same tone.

“Okay I take it back: you’re not a boiled frog,” Belle scolded. “You’re a fucking idiot who should’ve noticed the hot water a LONG time ago. She’s been calling herself ‘the spare’ for months and you never--”

“I just SAID I’ve been trying to reassure her,” I insisted. “I DID make her Head Girlfriend.”

“And you’ve also made Neevie believe that no matter how much more attention she gives you than Sam does, no matter how much quality time she spends with you compared to Sam, no matter how much she makes clear that YOU’RE the number one priority in her life, YOU will still make SAM your number one priority,” Belle scoffed, shaking her head. “I TOLD you that if you were ever to be disobedient for the first time, staying here with Neevie instead of going after Sam would’ve been a good time to do it.”

“How was I supposed to know?”

“Are you kidding me?!?” Belle looked seriously peeved, and she abruptly took a big step forward to jerk herself out of my arms.

I blinked in surprise and glanced around at the other three girls before returning my attention to the pint-sized pixie glaring up at me and waggling an accusatory finger in my face.

“How many times have I tried to make clear that Sam doesn’t deserve the pedestal you put her on?” Belle barked. “How many times have I tried to tell her she’s doing it wrong? But Sam can ignore my jibes and all of my attempts to make her uncomfortable with the situation because YOU keep enabling her bad behavior and letting her get away with it!”

“I’m not putting her on a pedestal. And I’m not enab-- …” I started defensively before my voice trailed off as my thought processes started to catch up to my mouth. I furrowed my eyebrows, pursed my lips, and blinked twice before glancing around at the others asking, “AM I enabling her?”

Isabela looked skeptical. Luna looked thoughtful. And Belle was nodding vigorously.

Eva pinched her lips together, glanced at the grass beneath our feet, and looked a little green. “Kai’s parents told us that doing drugs would fuck up our lives. My dad tried to ground me, which just made me insist on sneaking out and shooting up. When Kai started slipping, sneaking extra shots and stuff, our friends caught him and told him to knock it off. But I was still looking at him with rose-colored glasses, believing he had his shit under control. I told him he’d be fine. And with a hundred people telling him he was an addict while I reassured him that he could handle it, who do you think he listened to?”

Belle turned pale. Luna grimaced. And Isabela pointedly looked out across the horizon. Neither Isabela nor Luna looked like this was news to them, so I had to assume they knew the basics of Eva’s and Kai’s story at least. And Eva didn’t look particularly interested in hiding it, either.

That brief moment of concern for Eva’s secrets shook me out of my own defensive shell. Having the situation turned around on someone else gave me a different point of view, and I couldn’t deny the truth laid bare before me.

“I’m enabling Sam, as much as you were enabling Kai,” I muttered softly. But then I took a deep breath, set my jaw, and shook my head. “But Sam focusing on her academics is NOT heroin. She’s a driven student, not a drug addict. She’s NOT burning out. She CAN handle her workload.”

“At the expense of her relationship with you.”

“I’m fine.”

“No you’re NOT.” Belle groaned and rubbed her forehead, her frustrated expression that of someone trying to verbally convince a brick wall to dance a Viennese Waltz. “Neevie’s seen you crack. I’ve seen you crack. You try so hard to put up a stiff upper lip, but we ALL know you’re hurting inside and wish you had more Sam in your life.”

I sighed, shook my head, and insisted, “I can handle it. For her.”

“You shouldn’t have to. You’re NOT fine, but every time I try to convince Sam of that, you undermine my efforts. I can literally see Sam start nodding her head and listening to me when I tell her she’s doing it wrong. She KNOWS she’s not paying you enough attention. She knows she’s not paying The BTC enough attention, nor spending enough quality time with the rest of us. I get her within inches of coming back to us, and then she goes over to you, asks you if you feel neglected or feel like you deserve more from her, and what do you do?”

“I tell her I’m fine, that I don’t feel neglected, and that I don’t need her to change a thing,” I said in the same quiet tone.

“You’re being the Matty you’ve always been for her. You’re trying to be supportive.” Belle shook her head. “You’re lying to her. You’re lying to yourself.”

“I’m not lying about wanting to support her.”

“You’re lying about her absence not bothering you,” Belle muttered. “You hide behind a wall of rationalizations that the two of you agreed her academic career would always come first. You insist that because you’d always known it would be this way, you have no grounds to say you’re unhappy with the situation.”

“I’m NOT unhappy with the situation,” I insisted. “I really DO get… enough… time with her.”

“I’m not the only one hearing in his voice that ‘enough’ isn’t enough, right?” Isabela chirped.

“All you have to do to get more Sam in your life is TELL her you want more Sam in your life,” Belle asserted. “But you don’t. You won’t. You’re just sabotaging your own happiness. And for what?”

I gave Belle a serious look. “For her.”

“The two of you against the world,” Eva said softly.

I frowned. “That’s different.”

“Neevie doesn’t seem to think so.”

I pursed my lips and shook my head. “All I’ve ever wanted was to help Sam succeed. Well she’s succeeding. She’s getting excellent grades. She’s networking with the kinds of influential people that will make her career for years to come.”

“She’s a college freshman,” Isabela muttered.

“She’s a freshman and yet head of the Writing Committee. That’s huge. Look at this place.” I gestured back at the mansion behind us. “She’s on her way to being able to afford a place like this without needing a dime from her parents.”

“That’s all well and good for her,” Belle complained. “But what about you? What about the rest of us?”

I suddenly remembered Naimh’s seething resentment when she snarled for Sam to go join her “real” friends. How many times HAD Sam come to this house to socialize with not only her Pre-Law crowd, but also everyone else she knew on a first-name basis? The Sam who apparently didn’t have enough time to hang out with The BTC apparently had plenty of time to hang out with the large group here. Could she have invited us more often? Should she have invited us more often?

I’d asked Sam before if she wanted me to join her at these social gatherings – explained that I’d be happy to simply “hang onto her arm and look pretty”, as I’d quipped. But she’d insisted that she didn’t want to take me away from my other girlfriends, which had made perfect sense at the time. But now I found myself wondering whether or not we’d be in this situation had things been different.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I shouldn’t have made this situation entirely about me. The rest of you have every right to be upset that your roommate and somebody who was supposed to be one of your best friends is never around. Had I insisted she come back to spend more time with us, not just me, maybe none of us would’ve been upset tonight.”

“I miss my friend,” Belle admitted. “I know Neevie does too. But Neevie didn’t lose her shit tonight because she’s jealous of Sam socializing with Pre-Law folks.”

“Neevie’s jealous because as far as she’s concerned, Sam’s already won,” Eva muttered softly.

“You made Neevie Head Girlfriend,” Luna commented, her lips pursed. “She told me how excited she was for her big chance to develop closer intimacy with you.”

“But how much did your relationship actually change?” Belle added. “Did you two grow closer together?”

“Of course,” I insisted before hedging, “Although I suppose Neevie might have a different opinion of that.”

“Look at this from Neevie’s perspective,” Luna continued. “She’s Head Girlfriend. She’s devoted to you – at your beck and call at your slightest whim. She makes abundantly clear that you are the single most important priority in her entire life: always by your side, always ready to listen to you, always there to be whatever you need her to be.”

Luna glanced at her girlfriend, and Isabela frowned and looked a little uncomfortable.

But Luna returned her attention to me. “And then Neevie looks over at Sam’s relationship with you: never available, takes you for granted, expects you to be whatever she needs you to be. Neevie sees someone being a BAD girlfriend, and yet somehow you remain utterly devoted to her. -I- see the way you are when the whole BTC is together, Matty – you drop everything and everyone to focus on Sam for what precious few moments she’s around. You ignore Neevie completely. You forget about your supremely devoted Head Girlfriend as soon as the busty blonde walks in the door. And for what? What has Sam done to deserve such love and loyalty?”

“Hey, cut him some slack,” Eva stated sharply, taking a half-step closer to me. “It only makes sense for him to try and spend time with a girl he loves for the precious few moments she’s around. You don’t know Sam. You don’t know Matty. You haven’t been around long enough to know jack shit about their relationship.”

“Maybe I haven’t,” Luna admitted before refocusing on me. “Maybe she’s done a ton to deserve his love and loyalty.”

“She has,” I stated emphatically. “You might think I’m the cornerstone of The BTC, but really it’s always been Sam. She’s the one who brought everyone together in the first place, and then kept seven hormonal, angst-ridden teenagers from splintering over the years. And don’t look at me like that! You know it’s true.” That last part was for Belle.

“True or not, all I have to go on is what I’ve seen with my own eyes these last couple of months,” Luna continued. “Neevie’s the greatest girlfriend you could possibly ask for while Sam’s flitting off and… canoodling… with Charlie.”

I rolled my eyes. “Charlie is just a friend, and Sam--”

“It doesn’t matter,” Luna cut me off. “This isn’t about Charlie. It’s not even about Sam. It’s about Neevie, about her belief that Sam is doing jack shit in your relationship and yet still coming out ahead. It’s about your devoted girlfriend feeling insecure and you doing jack shit about it, alright?”

I blinked several times. The shy, mousy young girl had surprised me before, the day I’d tried to talk to Isabela one-on-one about our relationship. And she was surprising me again.

“The water is already boiling, frog,” Luna stated emphatically. “You’re on the verge of losing the greatest thing that ever happened to you. What are you gonna do about it?”

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath to organize my thoughts, and sighed. The girls gave me a moment to collect myself, and when I finally opened my eyes, I found them all staring at me quite intently.

“I can’t ask Sam to give up her academic career for me,” I stated while shaking my head. “I can’t even ask her to give it up for the rest of you. I promised to be supportive, and I will.”

“Enabling,” Belle grumbled, rubbing her forehead.

“But now that I know the way Neevie feels,” I continued, “I CAN try to directly reassure her that my decision to support Sam’s career doesn’t somehow mean that Sam’s ‘going to win’. I need to talk to her. I need to better understand if everything she’s been saying about prioritizing The BTC as a whole above being my romantic primary was really just a smokescreen to protect herself or if she really meant it. I need to get on the same page with her and find out what she really wants from our relationship, what she expects to happen, and what -I- can do to meet those expectations.”

“But before you do any of that,” Eva interjected, “There’s something else you need to find out first.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

Eva turned and pointed across the lawn: specifically at the blonde and redhead making their way towards us.

“You need to find out what the hell THEY just spent all this time talking about.”

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Remember that all authors thrive on feedback, so let me know how you're enjoying the story! Leave a comment here or come chat with us on Discord! And be sure to connect your Discord account here on the Patreon website to get access to the Patron-Only channels! https://discord.gg/fg3m6MdfN9

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Prologue & Chapter 1: The BTC: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99290461

Chapter 2: Hoalauna: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99357682

Chapter 3: E10: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99433482

Chapter 4: Leeloo: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99506524

Chapter 5: The Fifth Element: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99618767

Chapter 6: Lily: https://www.patreon.com/posts/100326143

Chapter 7: The Hangover: https://www.patreon.com/posts/100548952

Chapter 8: Quality Time: https://www.patreon.com/posts/100806434

Chapter 9: The Favor: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101140618

Chapter 10: Ku’uipo: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101372817

Chapter 11: The R-word: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101672192