Page 34 of Eternally Devoted

“Did you break in?” Dash asks, his eyes widening. “What if he shot you? Juniper, you can’t?—”

“Four years, one month and one week. That’s how long ago it’s been since Mark Mumsen met his end, so please, please don’t retroactively stress yourself.”

“If you broke into his place, how’d you get him to eat the jam?” Sterling asks, finishing his tea.

“I knocked on his front door, he answered, I pulled down my shirt and he let me in. The rest was just promises of jam on my tits. I told him if he licks it off my feet, he can lick it off my tits. But of course, by the time he licked it off my feet, the paralytic was already well underway. He got on the couch as he lost use of his body and voice, I read him sapphic fiction out loud, then tore the pages up and shoved them down his throat until he choked.”

“Jesus,” Dash breathes, his eyes wide, signaling his despair. Knowing full well I may lose one or both of them, I continue tolayer facts and details, hoping to protect us from a permanent break.

We are just getting started. I won’t succumb to loss just yet.

“I’m still me,” I whisper, tears springing unexpectedly to my eyes. “I just… I got to a point in my life where I couldn’t stand it. The one-off comments about my body, the whistles at job sites, the way their eyes go to my boobs before anywhere else or sometimes that's the only place they look… the ghosting, the lies, the cheating.” I shake my head, a catalog of men filtering through my mind. “Dolly, Ivy, myself, we all dated a bunch of duds. And they weren’t just duds. They were offensive. Abusive. Horrible. And I think when I usedHinge, I was hoping to break the spell. Find a guy who wanted to hook up but could do it without bringing all the awful bullshit along. And when he joked about chaining me to a stove to make jam my whole life, I snapped.”

More silence as Sterling considers everything I’ve said, staring into his cup, stroking a hand down his face with the other. Dash blinks down at his plate, both palms spread, flat against the counter.

They’re processing. I expected long bouts of processing where they both felt disgusted with me for the things I’ve done. I understand that.

“There are some things neither of you can understand. I lost my mom young, and my dad not too long after that. My entire life, all I’ve wanted was to make jam and have a loving little family of my own to serve. All I’ve wanted was love. A household full of it, no matter how that looked. You know? And not familial love, like with my sisters. Something engrossing and exquisite and passionate.” My pulse picks up as heat prickles along my cheeks and down my chest. “But you know what I got? I got pricks that wanted to feel me up and say crude things to me, egg me on and gaslight me when I dared to stand up to them.I got assholes and sexual predators. Over and over. And I know the answer isn’t murder,” I breathe, nostrils waving with each heated, hissed word. But I’m angry now. Not at them, but at this world full of men so terrible that a woman would rather be alone with a bear than a man.

Taking me off guard, Dash speaks, still pale but now his slice of pie is gone. That’s a good sign. “The things women have to deal with,” he says, shaking his head, sipping what seems to be the last of his tea. I get to my feet to refill the kettle. “But I’ve never heard that name—Mark Mumsen.”

“He wasn’t from Bluebell. He was from Riverside. I think I got lucky in that regard. Only a few of the men were actually from Bluebell. It’s how, maybe, I’ve avoided suspicion.” I lift one shoulder then let it fall. “Truth is, I don’t feel bad for those men not being alive, and because I don’t feel bad, I rarely revisit it. Once the shock and adrenaline wear down, I feel good.”

“No regrets,” Dash breathes.

I nod. “No regrets. I don’t want to be a murderer, but I don’t want those men to populate the world either.”

“Mark,” Sterling loops back. “What did you do, you know, after you smothered him with the pages of the lesbian romance book?” He smirks, and I love the way the hair at his nape drags over his collar just slightly when he shakes his head. I’d love to run my fingers through that soft hair while I encourage his mouth to find Dash’s.

“I learned my lesson from Justin. It was… disgusting and messy. And burned the bottom of my pots,” I tell them as I tear open another oolong tea bag. “I rolled him up in a blanket and ran him through a woodchipper I bought off Craigslist.” Plucking an apple slice from the pie, I drop it into my mouth, humming responsively at the sweet cinnamon flavor. “I buried his chipped remains.”

“You didn’t really want to make mulch?” Sterling questions, something like awe in his eyes. That’s what I told him when he drove me upstate to buy the chipper years ago.

With a sad smile I nod. “It was only a partial lie. I did want to make mulch for the garden, but the primary reason for buying the chipper was definitely Mark.”

“And Mark’s chipped remains are…?”

“Beneath the porch. I think that’s why my tomato plants aren’t growing anymore. All the poisonous men in the soil.”

“All?” Dash questions hoarsely, volleyed back to pale and sweaty. “There’s more than Mark?”

I nod. “That brings us to number three. Jeffrey Morgan. We matched onSoulmate Search?—”

“I didn’t know you were looking for dates,” Sterling cuts in, sitting up straight as he pushes his empty mug toward me. I refill it with a new tea bag and hot water, and a squirt of honey because I know that’s how he likes it. “All these years you were…looking?”

Our eyes idle before I break the contact to look at Dash. He peers at me the same way as Sterling—his eyes wide, brimming with surprise and something more, something I can’t quite place.

I nod. “My entire life, all I wanted was my own little family. Well, my jam and my family. And as soon as Dolly set her eyes on Hudson, I knew it was only a matter of time before I was the last woman standing. Ivy was unexpected, but now here I am. And I was right. I’m the last one to be wed, to find my happiness, to change my name and have babies and chaperone field trips and be yawning all day on Christmas because of all the Christmas Eve lovemaking.”

Unexpected tears cloud my vision, but I swipe at them before they can fall. Sterling takes me in his arms, embracing me whilepressing his lips to the top of my head, strong hands stroking my back with calm reassurance.

“You’ll have that, just like your sisters,” he consoles as I try as hard as I can to hide my falling tears.

“I didn’t want to be a bad person,” I breathe against him, my words muffled by his strong chest. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone, I never wanted to kill anyone.” He loosens his hold to put just enough space between us that we can eye each other. Sterling smiles at me before casting a look at Dash behind me. A moment later, Dash’s chest comes to my back, and my body melts between the two of them.

Dash’s lips graze the backside of my ear, my hair sticking to his stubble as he whispers, “We know, Juni. We know.”

Their acceptance of my darkness makes my eyes sting and panic climb my throat. What if this is the tender moment before they turn me in? The calm before they do the right, sane thing? Turning, I place a palm against each of their chests, twisting my gaze between them.

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