Silence 38

Slow-burn story of a father, a son and the girl that captures their hearts (non-incest throuple).

This story describes the setting up of their relationship, and the way the dynamic between them gradually gathers momentum, which means it's a slow-burn to get to the eventual sex in the final epilogue scene - just giving you a 'heads up' now. I didn't want to shoehorn an earlier sex scene in just to have one in there because it wouldn't have worked in the context of the story. Believe me, I tried. But it didn't work, so I kept it as the unconventional sweet romance I think it is.

Written in British English. Like the story or got any suggestions to make? Please take the time to vote or comment to let me know what you think.

***

Silence

Beckett

I bounce my leg nervously as I sit in a coffee shop in the city, clenching my teeth together in time as I count, 1, 2, 3, 4 on repeat in my head.

My dad and I are waiting for my friend's cousin to join us to see if she'll be suitable to take on our house-keeping job. We're rather...eccentric, difficult, fussy, awkward, weird --pick any adjectives that describe bewildered outsiders-- which has greatly hampered our search to find anyone we could cope with, despite employing several recruitment agencies. I often think that with a few tweaks, we'd have been better suited to living in the 19

th

century than having to exist in the 21

st

century.

After moaning about the sheer exhaustion of having to interact with people and not finding anyone suitable, my old school friend Thomas jokingly suggested his older cousin, Kira, who chooses not to speak, saying she'd be perfect.

I got Thomas to put us in touch and we've swapped a few WhatsApp messages. She's staying with a friend after her marriage broke down, so we thought we'd meet her here in the city rather than drag her out to the village where we live. Plus if she's no good for us, we can easily cut our losses and at least we'll get a decent cup of coffee out of it.

Dad taps my bouncing leg with a frown, and I stop. My phone pings.

Kira: I'm coming in now. Can you look out for me?

I turn my head to look for a Mrs Doubtfire look-a-like, almost discounting the woman around my age striding in with her head held high, her long hair in a curled ringlet over one shoulder. She spots me looking over and smiles quizzically, waving her phone in front of her.

Fuck! She's gorgeous! No, this isn't right. She was meant to be matronly. She doesn't match who I was expecting, so she's not the right fit in my head. I feel caught off-guard. I shoot to my feet, bumping the table and sloshing our coffees over the sides of the cups. Dad swears and I don't know what to do; greet her or help him.

She assesses the situation in an instant, reaching into her bag to pull out a small bag of tissues, mopping the coffee up with one hand while she gestures for me to sit down, and holding her other hand out to my dad.

"I'm sorry," I stutter, feeling like a gawky teenage kid as they shake hands.

She's beautiful. Thick browny-red hair, green eyes that smile as much as her mouth does, soft puffy lips....

concentrate Beck

.

She's perfect. No matter what vision I had in my head. We

need

her, I tell myself.

Dad stares pointedly at me and I pull myself together, offering my hand to her. "Hi, Kira? I'm Beckett, and this is my dad, Gideon. Thank you so much for agreeing to meet us. Did you get here okay? Can I get you a coffee, and is there anything we can do to help you with our chat?"

She shakes her phone and nods her head towards mine.

I look and she's sent another message which I missed: Please can you set us up in a group chat?

"Oh yeah, sure. Sorry." I scramble to set up a WhatsApp group with the three of us, annoyed with myself at not thinking ahead to do that and make things easier for her. I'm such an idiot; Thomas told me that's what she usually did to communicate with people and I should have remembered. I dig my nails into my palm in annoyance.

Her fingers fly over the screen, then her reply comes in: Yes, I did get here okay, thank you. Black coffee, no sugar, thanks. I know this is strange to get used to, but just talk to me normally and I'll reply via message. I don't do text speak so hopefully you'll understand me, but just ask if you don't. I prefer to be direct and ask you to do the same.

So we talk. The coffees are drunk and the conversation flows. There is a slight pause as she responds, but it's nice. It forces us to take it slower and focus on her replies, making me feel calmer inside as I don't have to race to get my words out and I feel less gripped by fear at speaking.

We explain that we're a musician (me) and a writer (my dad), and that we need complete silence while we work. We need a shield between us and real life. Someone to clean the house, do the shopping, keep the fridge stocked for middle of the night raids when we work late, to walk the dogs, make our lunch when we forget to eat, and to take their turn at cooking us dinner. To keep the house quiet, stress-free, and operating smoothly without the constant noise and chatter that seems to accompany modern life, in exchange for a live-in position in our house on the edge of a village about 20 minutes away from here, a car, and a very generous salary.

She grins silently at the noise comments: Noise-free existence? I'm your woman then.

She doesn't make much eye contact, more just quick glances, but that's okay. I can't draw my eyes away from her, and I wonder if I'm coming across a bit too intense so force myself to sit back and look at my feet for five seconds.

She explains she's looking for work after the company she set up with her husband folded during the pandemic, bringing his affair with their accountant to light, adding: I rubbed chilli powder into his underwear before leaving though, so make sure you don't piss me off. I'm not as vulnerable and as easy to take advantage of as some people think. I'll make myself known even if it's not through words.

I'm not sure if she's joking or not about the chilli powder, but by the sparkle in her eyes, I deduce she can give as good as she gets. I grin at her and I realise with a jolt that it feels genuine rather than the polite one I usually flash. I barely know her, but I'm already rooting for her over the pathetic bastard that cheated on her.

I wouldn't cheat on her if she were mine.

I really want her to take this job.

She glances around, looking for something: Excuse me while I pop to the Ladies. It'll give you a chance to talk about me and see if you think you can put up with my particular brand of weirdness. While I decide if I can put up with yours.

She smiles and walks off, both of us turning our heads to watch her go.

"What do you think?" I ask my dad, holding my breath in case he says no.

"She'll do," he says, nodding.

Dad never gives compliments freely. For him to say that is as close to him saying he thinks she'll be perfect.

"And you?" he asks. "Although I think I know your answer given the fact that you've hardly taken your eyes off her. Just remember she'll be working for both of us."

I nod, ignoring his slight admonishment, an unfamiliar pull inside making me want to grab her tight to me, which both horrifies and thrills me. "It's a yes from me."

We wait for her return, my fingers tapping a silent melody on my thigh. My shoulders relax when I see her sliding back into her seat and I bring my hands up onto the table, managing to stop myself from reaching out to her. That might be a

bit

much.

Kira: So do I have a job?

I smile at her directness, her eyes flashing up to check my response. "Yes, we'd like to offer you the role on a trial period of a month? For your sake as much as ours...we're not easy to get on with and we acknowledge that."

She wafts a hand as if to dismiss my words: If you can cope with my silence and my replies through your phones, I think this can work. I want immediate release from the trial though if I decide this job isn't for me. And I'll walk the dogs and pick their shit up while we're out, but I'm not clearing it up from the garden...

I incline my head at her responses, relief flooding me at her saying yes to us.

My dad speaks up, "Deal. We have a gardener for that. Although, we don't share our home very easily with strangers, Kira, so we'd ask you not to have any overnight visitors during the trial period, and just check with us if you bring friends home so we know to stay out of the way. Just until we get used to one another. Will that be a problem?"

She frowns and shrugs, her eyes darting up to his: That's fine. No, not a problem. When do you want me to start? Because I'm eternally grateful to my friend, but she's getting annoyed at my lack of chit-chat and I'm sleeping on a shitty lumpy mattress in a tiny single bed. You'd best offer me something better than that?

Dad laughs and it's good to see him being so light-hearted. She's charmed him already as well. "You'll have your own suite of rooms and it's yours whenever you want it. Today, tomorrow, next week. What works for you? Do you need time to think this through? Or come and look at the house first?"

Kira: Today's good for me. You had me at 'suite of rooms' and I'll just leave if it doesn't work out or you're weirdos with a pile of dead bodies in the cellar. But my car was taken as a company asset -- can I get to yours on public transport?

Dad shakes his head, pulling several crisp sheets of A4 paper out of his briefcase and pushing them towards her. "Not easily. But this is a draft contract with all our details, including our address. Take a look and let me know if you have any questions or clauses you'd like to add. I've got some things to do today and I'm sure you need to pack, but how about if we come and pick you up at 5pm? Then we can have some dinner, you can settle in, and tomorrow we'll get started, add you to the car insurance, show you the house properly and so on?"

She smiles and my lips lift involuntarily with hers as she types a message to us: Sounds good.

5pm? Disappointment floods me as awareness rushes in. "Oh, I've got a call with New York, they want to discuss progress on the movie score. I won't be able to come."

"Oh, okay. Just me then," my dad amends the plan. They smile at each other and I feel a stab of jealousy. I'm being left out and I don't like it.

The notes in my head start up again as she gathers her things, shares her address, and says goodbye.

***

Gideon

The day goes too slowly and I'm too impatient with everything and everyone. I snap at my research assistant, Misha, making her cry. Luckily it's only over Teams so I don't have to deal with actual tears.

Muting my laptop and turning my head away gives her the chance to pull herself together, before I mutter an apology, then say we'll pick it up tomorrow. I cut her off mid-reply as she's assuring me she'll have got the work done by then. I know I'm being an arse, but for the first time in a long time, work's the last thing on my mind.

Kira

is.

I feel...I'm not sure what I feel about her, but that fact that I'm feeling

anything

is wonder enough for me. I mean, it's not sexual, obviously, for lots of reasons, but I'm just excited to see her here with us. I like her directness. I like her honesty. I like her quietness, her confidence.

Her

. I like

her

.

She's going to be good to have around us, to stop us getting stuck in the mud. Even Beckett at 28 is turning into an old fuddy-duddy like me, refusing to go beyond his set likes and dislikes. I know he has his liaisons with women, keeping them at arms-length, but I want him to experience the joy of truly loving someone. I don't want him to sleepwalk through life like I've done since his mum died.

Sally laughed at me when I was getting too pompous, made me get up and dance around the room with her, made me play Musical Statues with Beckett, tickling me to make me lose and Beck squeal with delight at winning. She made me laugh at myself, and no-one's ever dared to have the balls to do that to me since she left us behind. I'm only 61, but I might as well be claiming my pension for how people see me, shuffling around in my tweed suit, my head too full of anthropological facts to remember much else.

'Professor Addison', 'Mr Addison', 'Sir'...the stuffy academic boffin...I intimidate everyone I meet because I don't know how else to be, but I have a feeling Kira's going to cut through that crap and I can't wait.

I plan the meal I'm going to cook tonight, chopping the veg and dicing the beef ready. Damn, I didn't check if she's vegetarian. Or vegan.

I fire a quick message to her, checking for any likes and dislikes, breathing a sigh of relief that there's not really anything other than celery. Can't blame her for that.

Good. She needs a bit of feeding up, and hopefully if she can sleep a bit better in her new room, the dark circles under her eyes will recede. Unless she's an alcoholic. Or a drug addict. Oh my god, we know nothing about this woman and we're just inviting her into our home. What if she killed her ex-husband? Fuck!

I pick up my phone to tell her the job's off, then take a breath and put it back down.

Get a grip, Gid, you old fool, I hear Sally tell me.

I carry on with the prep, searing the meat, adding spices, then the veg, breathing in, breathing out. It'll be fine. She's not a heroin-injecting, axe-murderer who drinks bottles of neat vodka. It'll be okay.

The curry sauce sizzles as I tip it out of the jar and into the hot pan. That's about the extent of my culinary skills, and I transfer it to the oven to cook on a low heat for a couple of hours.

I go to the bottom of Beck's stairs to tell him I'm off, but I can hear the distant strains of his music and I know he's preparing for the NY call, so I leave him to it.

***

Gideon

I pull up into a visitor space of the new-build block that Kira's been staying in and locate her flat on the entry panel, pressing the buzzer and pushing the door when I hear it click open.

I climb the flight of stairs and she's waiting for me, my heart rate speeding up when I see her again. I follow her into the flat and there's a pile of bags and suitcases by the door.

"Is this everything?" I point to the heap.

I start picking them up as she confirms with a nod, "Well, I reckon, one, maybe two trips, and we'll get it all in." We trail down the stairs to the car then back up again to pick a final bag up each and head towards the stairs.

She slips her free hand through the crook of my arm and holds her thumb up, looking at me quizzically as if checking it's okay for her to do that.

I nod and cover her hand with mine, patting it gently, small shocks like electricity skittering over my skin where we touch. I like how it makes me feel. Protective of her. Caring for her. Making sure she doesn't slip, even though she's probably only doing it to look after me and make sure

I

don't slip.

We're at the car all too soon and I feel the loss as she leaves my arm to get in the passenger seat.

I gesture towards the radio as I start the engine up, "Do you want it on?"

She shakes her head, and turns to look out of the window. I like the lack of British manners that usually ties us all up in knots. There's no 'well, not unless you want to?', 'but do you want to?' 'I don't mind' back and forth rigmarole of trying so hard not to offend anyone that no-one actually dares to say what they do want. With Kira, it's just a straight-forward 'no'. Simple.

I wish the journey out into the Warwickshire countryside was longer. I almost want to take the long way round just to prolong our companionable silence, but that's just being silly. I pull into our old manor house at the edge of our village and sneak a glance at our new housemate as she takes it in, enjoying seeing the smile on her face.

I suppose the house is pretty impressive to look at. I take it for granted now, but seeing Kira's reaction transports me back to when Sally and I came to view it, a squirming Beckett in my arms. We were giddy with excitement at the royalties from my first and second books that had shot up the historical fantasy charts and the advance I'd been given for the final part of that series, hardly daring to believe we could live in such a place.

The central part we're looking at is the oldest, and not that she knows it yet, but that'll be Kira's part of the house, with wings added to the left which is my part, and right which is Beckett's part.

I say we'll sort bags in a minute and take her on a tour of downstairs, the dogs following us with their tails wagging, as enthralled by her as much as I suspect we are. We go up into my wing, then across to Beck's stairs where I shout up that we're back, but there's no response.

She nudges me and taps away on the phone: Hi Beckett, I'm home!

Ten seconds later, there's the thundering of feet as Beck comes racing out of his rooms and bounds down the stairs. Damn, why have I never thought of just messaging him before?

We go up for a quick tour of Beck's rooms and then we show her to her suite across the middle of the upper floor. She can access her landing from the stairs up into either wing, and we tell her we'll get her bags while she explores.

Forty minutes later, she's joining us in the kitchen, her energy animating us, and Beckett checks what she wants to drink. She gestures towards the red wine we're drinking, and I feel embarrassed at my mini panic attack earlier. It's early days but it feels fine. We're all smiling and there's a new lightness around us. Hopefully my cooking won't put her off and it's all going to be okay.

***

Two weeks later -- Kira

I wake up and stretch out under the cool cotton sheets, still relishing the feel of a luxury king-sized bed all to myself.

I smile contentedly. This job suits me down to the ground. I can potter about all day, and now that I know where everything is and how Gideon and Beckett like things to be, the sense of order we all enforce is perfect. I don't have to waste energy typing to ask where things are because it's all exactly where it should be, and now I've got the stock supplies under control. I've even had time to pick my graphic design portfolio back up and start sketching out a few ideas.

Still, we agreed we'd review the role half-way through the trial and there's no harm in having a little fun. I open the group chat and type: We need to talk about the job. Are you both free in 15 mins?

The ticks turn blue as both of the guys read it. Cool, calm, collected responses of 'Sure, let's meet in the kitchen' are sent back, followed by individual messages from them asking if anything's wrong, that they'll sort anything that needs changing, checking if the other one has upset me. They make me laugh...if I could laugh. I laugh in my head anyway. For how different they can be, they're also like two peas in a pod at times, them two. And right now, there's nowhere I'd rather be.

All my life, I've been the odd one out, consigned to the shadows because I couldn't ask to join in, or shout to say pass the ball to me, or link arms and sing the latest pop song. But here? Here, my quietness is revered, desired and embraced with open arms.

Some of my loveliest evenings these past two weeks have just been all of us in the snug.

Beckett's usually on the floor, laptop balanced on his outstretched legs, headphones on, tapping his feet away as he listens to his progress, scribbled notes either side of him, back leaning against one end of the huge 6-seater sofa. Gideon's usually at the other end, reading academic journals to aid his writing, muttering to himself as he pushes his glasses up his nose with his index finger every two minutes. And I'm sandwiched across the middle, propped up by cushions, reading books on my Kindle or doodling on my laptop. There's usually a bottle of wine on the go, and the boys are well trained now to bring me chocolate, carefully stepping over the spaniels sprawled out across the floor as they go. We might say or type a mere dozen words an hour between us, and if they chucked me out tomorrow, it's those nights of peace and acceptance that I'd remember.