They've been a threesome all their lives.

They were together at the beginning, and, Adam thinks when he's the third to sign his name to the lease on their new apartment, it looks like they'll be together until the end. Or another eight months, at least--their freshman year at UCLA. Adam finishes his signature with a flourish and grins up at Byron and Jordan. They grin back--familiar mirrors. The apartment manager nods, stuffs the papers into his filing cabinet, and pulls three key rings off a hook on the wall. Pushes them across the desk.

"All yours," he says, and maybe it all started when they all reached out simultaneously to grab a set.

Together, still.

It's a marvel that they've managed to get this far--all the way cross country. It's tough for their parents, having four kids in university at the same time, and soon five. Mal's a junior at Bryn Mawr, taking a creative writing major, and Nicky's finishing up his last year at Stoneybrook High School. And the three of them--well, they've flown the coop. They're on their own.

They head out to the U-Haul they drove out here in five days and nights, staying at crappy motels and eating at crappier fast food joints. Adam had the last driving stint, and he's still pepped up and shaky with five cups of jet-fuel coffee. Byron and Jordan are laughing and shoving each other on the lawn.

Adam throws open the back of the trailer, shakes his head at the mess of stuff they crammed in there without much thought a week ago. Dad put his head in his hands and told them they'd regret how they packed, but the wild energy of independence had already claimed them, and the three of them just got behind the door and shoved at it until it latched. Nope, no regrets. They're ready to make their own mistakes.

During their last few months at Stoneybrook High, they'd tossed around the names of colleges and universities around the country. They applied all over the place. Byron picked the most schools, Adam chose places as far from another Connecticut winter as he could, and Jordan tried for every athletic scholarship in the book.

In the end, the only place where all three were accepted was UCLA. Of course, they said they were going for different reasons--Jordan's baseball scholarship was surely not worth passing up, and it's true that their engineering program was one of the best in the country, as Byron pointed out; and Adam checked their annual precipitation rate on the net and said if he never saw another snowflake it would be too soon.

So the last week of August was a combination road trip and moving extravaganza. Mom and Dad can hardly afford to keep them all in different places, so again it's no surprise that they end up rooming together. But even the smallest three bedroom apartments they look at are way too expensive. And with two bedrooms, somebody would end up jealous over who gets a room to himself. It's that easy--they're going to be three-to-a-room again.

They might be on the other side of the country, but there's a sense of home in not leaving each other. Adam sits on the curb and watches Jordan wrestle Byron to a fall. There's this crazy happiness bubbling up somewhere inside him because it's just the three of them. No parents. No rules. No worries.

Jordan finally lets Byron out of the headlock and they join Adam behind the U-Haul. Byron grabs Adam's hand and yanks him to his feet. He drapes one arm around each of them and gives them a quick, hard hug.

"To us," he says, and that silly grin he's been feeling for a week is back on his face.

"To us," Byron and Jordan chorus. It feels good. Their shoulders under his arms, warm and solid; the drying-sweat smell of people who have been driving too long in the heat--their smell, his smell; it's all the same. Jordan slaps his back, and Byron sticks an elbow in his ribs.

"Let's get this stuff up there," Byron says.

There's not much need for words after that. They work well together. They know that Jordan's going to take the bottom when they haul the beds, that Adam's going to direct them around corners, that Byron's in charge of the box full of electronics. By the time all the boxes are inside, the sky is full of stars and a breeze is blowing away the last of the day's heat.

Adam steps out onto the balcony and stares east, back the way they came. The glow of streetlights brightens the horizon. It's way lighter than a Connecticut night. For the first time, he's homesick, thinking how Mom and Dad are probably dishing out spaghetti at the dinner table (where everyone finally has enough elbow room, now that it's only the six of them there). Nicky's probably lording it over the girls, glad to be the oldest at last.

The screen moves behind him and he can tell by the footsteps that it's Jordan. Then there's a warm hand on the back of his neck, and he's pulled into a hug.

"Hey," Jordan says. "I miss 'em too."

"Yeah." That's the thing about being triplets. They always know. He turns around into the hug and sees Byron standing in the doorway, his eyes shiny. Jordan drops a kiss into the hair at his temple and hauls him back inside. They sit side by side with their backs against the full boxes, Byron's head on his shoulder.

Finally, Byron says, "I think I got the Nintendo working again."

"Damn thing'll probably blow a fuse," Jordan says. "First day here, too."

"Nah." Adam feels Byron shake his head. They know to believe him. He keeps the relic game system going, and he hasn't been wrong yet.

"I could kick your asses at Duck Hunt," Adam offers, and knows that the homesickness is going, is already gone. In its place is a shivery excitement. All alone, he thinks again. Just the three of us. Together.

By the time he falls asleep hours later listening to the sound of their breathing (after another ten thousand ducks meet death at the wrong end of his light gun) he's only thinking about how it's the three of them against the world, the three of them together still.

And that strange happiness is growing inside.

Byron arranges the second bedroom to his satisfaction the day after they move in. They're turning it into a monster gaming room, holding two TVs (the good one and the pawnshop second-hander), VCR, DVD player, PS2 and Gamecube and the old battered Nintendo original that he keeps working with solder and prayers, controllers and light guns, and a cardboard box full of cartridges.

The rooms are small, and across the hall their three beds are pretty much squashed together so that the door can open. They use the storage closet for clothes and stuff. The living room has desks for their schoolwork and some weights that Jordan brought. But the game room is the center, the place where they all end up when they're hanging after school or staying up all night just to see who's the strongest mutant, the fastest motorcycle racer, the best princess-rescuer.

They've shoved four couch-sectionals together in a rough cube. It's the dog-end of summer, hot and humid, and they're all wearing loose shorts and tees. Jordan lays on his stomach to play, legs bent at the knees. Adam sits beside him, occasionally swatting at Jordan's waving feet. Byron likes to sit cross-legged on the floor, his back against the couch, Adam's feet behind his head and Jordan's controller beside his ear. They yell and scream and insult each other and sometimes toss the controllers to the floor and wrestle, Byron leaping onto the cube to yank Jordan's foot up to his ass until he calls uncle, Adam grabbing him in a bear hug from behind, his laughter warm against Byron's neck, Jordan twisting beneath him to give Adam Indian burns up and down his arm.

Byron always forgets what they're fighting about, what imagined outrage sparks it, but the end is always the same--they wind up in a dog pile on the cube, all heaped together until the only way you can tell whether that's your arm you're looking at is if it wiggles when you move it. It's warm and cuddly and, okay, childish--Mom always told them that eighteen was old enough to give it up, like the wrestling was a security blanket or something. But as far as Byron's concerned, it's just fun; it feels good, laying there afterwards, tired out and sweating even in the air conditioning. Jordan's back moves under his head and Adam's legs rest in his lap. He's looking at the TV upside down, and the screen's flashing NEW GAME?, but he's happy just lying here and he knows it's the same for them.

Then Adam's foot moves just so, and suddenly he's sporting wood, and he's buried under brothers here and can't do much about it. Adam snickers--he can feel it against his calf--and Jordan says, "What?"

"Byron's pitchin a tent," Adam says.

Jordan laughs. "You want up, man?" he asks. He's got Byron mostly trapped under the weight of one arm.

"He's already up," Adam says. "Or do you mean, does he want out?"

Byron can feel his face getting hot, but he really doesn't feel like moving. Jordan's breathing shifts him back and forth slightly, and Adam's laughter shivers through him where they're pressed against each other. Okay, it's weird, but it's not like they don't know this about each other. They went through puberty in the same room and in a house with only two bathrooms. No mystery here. It'll go down in a bit and he can jerk off later, in the shower.

Thinking about this.

All right, so that's weird.

"Shit," he says. And doesn't move. Jordan's breathing faster, and Byron can hear his heart thumping underneath his ear. Adam moves his foot again and this time Byron doesn't think it's an accident.

Jordan rolls sideways, taking his arm away, and Byron wonders if that means he wants Byron to get out, but then he feels Jordan's chubb jutting into his hip. Okay, so maybe not. Adam gives a sharp, almost breathless gasp--his cheek is now resting practically in Jordan's crotch.

For a moment longer they lie still, probably all thinking the same thing--hell, they're triplets, they've been thinking mostly the same things all their lives. And it's not like the situation's leading them to wonder about peace initiatives in the Middle East.

"So..." Jordan says, at last, and then they're all laughing, crazy, together. This isn't going away. They're going to have to deal with it, Byron supposes, but why worry? He snuggles closer to Adam, feels that okay, they're all three in the same boat here, and he laughs again. He lets his hand drift down, brush against his own erection, then Jordan's.

"Okay?" he asks the room in general.

"Hmm," Jordan says, and the push of Adam's hips is answer enough.

At first it's just hands, touching like he touches himself, but it grows and changes and it's different when it's someone else. Byron hesitates for a moment when Jordan's lips meet his, but the feel of Adam's hand cupping him and rubbing pushes him past any resistance, and he opens his mouth, lets his tongue meet Jordan's, sliding wet and hot across each other. Adam moves up and steals the kiss away, and Byron watches with a sort of distant awe, while tracing the outline of their chests under their shirts.

There aren't any surprises when their clothes come off. They've seen each other naked, after all, and besides, looking at them is like looking at himself. Jordan's shoulders are bigger, maybe, from working out; and Adam's chin is rough where he hasn't shaved in a while; but pretty soon none of that matters.

It's a struggle of a different sort, straining to reach as much skin as he can, touching and being touched. Heat pools in his stomach and he can't stop, doesn't want this ever to stop. It's a competition to see who comes out on top and it's not that at all. Two against one and one against two and then every man for himself. The tables turn and turn again.

Byron knows the moment he goes over the edge. His mouth slips over Adam's dick, it seems, at the exact moment Jordan sucks him between his lips. They're daisy-chaining their way around the cube of couch sections and it's never been this good, and he's going to come harder than he ever has before. Pleasure flashes through him like an earthquake, and he hears his voice and theirs together, together still. Adam explodes in his mouth, salty and hot, and he lets go into Jordan, and then falls back onto the couch, the three of them wrapped around each other.

He's lying there, tasting the remains of their come on his lips, and he hears the TV beeping again.

The screen flashes NEW GAME? and he grins, because this is a new game all right, and one that he thinks they're going to be playing for a long time yet.

Jordan has time to think afterwards that this isn't going to be taken well when they go home for Christmas break. By now their beds are pushed together not because they want more floor space in their room, but because what started by accident (sort of) has continued a lot longer than that excuse would hold up to scrutiny.

They don't talk about it much, but Jordan knows they understand each other. Triplet telepathy. God forbid that they tell anybody. Nicky writes that he's coming out to visit for a weekend, and Jordan knows this is just one more thing that they're going to keep from him, just like they did their secret games when they were kids. That's what it is, really--a game, a secret language, something that's just for them, something nobody else would understand.

The wrestling matches in the TV room are less about revenge for cheap shots during Mortal Kombat and more about how soon they can get out of their clothes. It's not really about being guys, or about being brothers--it's about being them. If it's just him and Adam, or him and Byron, not much happens. But if it's the three of them, then there's a grin, a look that passes between them, and they're lucky to make it back to the bedroom before one or more of them is getting sucked off, hands busy, mouths working.

Maybe someday one of them will bring somebody over who isn't part of this--a girl or a guy they want to be with, like, in a relationship--and then, Jordan supposes, this whatever-it-is will fall apart. They won't be together anymore. One of them will move out, and then the other two will be left with a space to fill and they won't be able to do it. The threesome will be broken, and it's not something you can fix.

Jordan knows this. Adam and Byron know it too. But the day when all that happens--when real life breaks into this secret world they've created for themselves--seems like it's a forever away. When he's lying in bed, curled up with Adam on one side and Byron on the other, warm in the California night but not too warm, all he can think is that they're together, still.

That they'll be a threesome all their lives.

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May 4, 2004