13. Jackson

Chapter 13

Jackson

"Where are we going?"

Brooklyn had planned our first date, our first proper three-person date. The early disasters where we met and misunderstood the other person or couple didn't count. I'd wiped those misadventures from my memory.

"Do you know where we're headed?" I turned around and looked at Marcelo in the back seat of Brooklyn's car.

"He hasn't shared."

A movie or a trip to a museum were options, but he'd said to wear comfortable clothes that we didn't mind getting dirty. Unless the movie theater seats hadn't been cleaned—that was gross—or the museum had set up an interactive display where visitors participated in some way.

The former was out because I'd refuse to go in, but the latter sounded interesting.

But Brooklyn pulled into a parking lot beside a gray blob of a building with no windows.

"What is this place?" I got out of the car and glanced around. Groups of people were emerging from a door, some laughing and congratulating one another, others commiserating, saying they had to try again.

"Is this indoor rock climbing?"

I'd tried it once, and it gave me a thrill, but I suspected my companions would be much better at it than I was. Their strength when trying to move a branch blown down by the wind was superior to mine, and their reflexes were much quicker.

"No, this is not about physical strength." Brooklyn showed his phone to the person behind the desk.

"You chose the mystery room," the guy said.

"It's an escape room." Marcelo's wide smile suggested he approved.

I'd never done an escape room challenge, and as long as Brooklyn and Marcelo were with me, I'd be okay. I'd freak out if I was locked in a room by myself.

We left our phones in lockers, and the guy behind the desk gave us a walkie-talkie. "In case you need me to let you out or if you need a hint."

He led us into a room, not the escape room.

"Today you'll be entering a library in an old mansion. The owner of the house stole a valuable scroll from a museum, and the museum board has hired you to find it."

"Are there cobwebs in the library?" I shivered, remembering being a kid playing hide-and-seek in an attic and cobwebs draping over my head as I crawled behind boxes.

Marcelo sidled up to me and took my hand. "Don't worry. I'm on cobweb patrol and won't let anything happen to you."

"Me too." Brooklyn stood on my other side.

We entered the room, and I looked over my shoulder as the door closed. We were in a different universe. This was the world of mustached detectives and creaking floorboards, wind whistling through the cracks and a window banging open and closed.

Before us lay a library, three of its walls lined with bookshelves. The ceiling, floor, and shelves were sepia toned, and there was a yellowing light hanging from the ceiling. A lamp was lit up on a huge wooden desk, and a piece of yellowing paper lay on top. An aquarium, filled with sand and colorful fish, sat in the corner.

A voice boomed out from hidden speakers, telling us the first clue was on the desk and good luck. "You have sixty minutes to solve the mystery."

Marcelo grabbed the paper and read out the text. We had to open the desk drawer which was locked to find the next clue. The text called us landlubbers.

"What does that have to do with a library?" Marcelo looked up at the ceiling.

"Maybe in a book about the ocean?" Brooklyn was reading through the old texts on the shelves and dust flew everywhere. I sneezed, but it didn't affect either of my companions.

"A ship!" I raced to the model on a side table and picked it up. "This is a model of an old pirate galleon." My grandfather was a fisherman and loved telling tales of pirates and buried treasure.

I was proud to have worked out the clue, but as I examined the ship, I couldn't see anything that would give a hint as to what we were supposed to do next. But when I ran my hand over the bow, the wood was uneven, and I rubbed it back and forth and put pressure on it. A hidden door popped open, and I withdrew a small key.

"How did you do that, Jackson?" Brooklyn peered at the model ship. "I would have had to ask the staff for a clue."

Marcelo tapped my head. "There's magic in here."

I puffed out my chest. Despite being an alpha and Marcelo an omega, he was stronger and faster than me and able to play a wide variety of sports. Brooklyn and I had been to cheer him during a football game, and he'd scored more touchdowns than the other players.

Brooklyn was a marathon runner, and we'd met him when he'd finished training one afternoon, and he'd hardly broken a sweat.

On unlocking the drawer, I discovered a small piece of paper with a series of numbers scrawled on it.

"It's the code to a safe," Marcelo declared and crossed his arms.

Brooklyn nodded and clapped Marcelo on the back. "Let's find it." My companions opened every cupboard in the room. They looked behind paintings and in a trash bin. They eyed the light in the center of the ceiling, but I studied an old map on the wall.

While Marcelo and Brooklyn pulled out papers and objects from every corner of the room, I examined the map.

"I don't think so, guys."

They shared a glance, and Brooklyn said, "Nah, it's a safe. Every mystery escape room has a safe."

This was awkward. A safe was too obvious, and the map continued the nautical theme. I wasn't going to say they were wrong, but the clock was ticking, and we had less than an hour. I didn't want us to fail at this.

"The numbers are latitude and longitude." I pointed to the exact position on the map.

"Wow. I was wrong, and you're a genius." Brooklyn kissed my brow, and Marcelo put an arm around my shoulders. "We'd be lost without you."

"But now what?" Marcelo peered at the point on the map. As with many old maps, sea monsters were drawn at intervals, along with whales and other sea creatures.

"The aquarium." The three of us leaned over the watery receptacle. Although Gramps was a fisherman, I had an aversion to touching live fish. There was a tiny anchor half hidden in the sand, and Marcelo dug it out.

"Thank gods I was able to do something. I was feeling quite useless." He handed me the anchor, and I studied the letters on the side.

A voice boomed out that we had thirty minutes left and three more clues to discover before we found the scroll.

Between the three of us, we completed a jigsaw puzzle—Brooklyn aced putting the pieces together—solved a riddle, and decoded a message. We eventually found the scroll hidden in a carved-out archeology book.

The door unlatched, and we high-fived one another as we raced out to clapping and cheers from the staff.

"That was so much fun." I was high from solving so many of the clues with the help of Brooklyn and Marcelo. I'd played charades and guessing games since I was a kid, and maybe my brain worked in a different way to the other two.

"We worked well as a team." Marcelo hugged us both before we headed to buy fast food to celebrate.

"I would have failed miserably without you two," Brooklyn admitted as we walked into the fast food joint.

"Same here." Marcelo shoved a handful of fries in his mouth. I couldn't fathom how he didn't choke.

"I know something else we can do together." Brooklyn took an enormous bite of his sandwich.

I'd given up guessing when we were going to have—ahem—sex. It didn't happen the morning after the wedding, despite my many hints that accompanied stroking, kissing, and pressing my body against theirs.

If they hadn't been turned on, I would have worried they didn't want to have sex with me. But they got hard, so damned hard, and their cocks were huge. Their faces tinged with pink, their heavy breathing, and narrowed eyes didn't lie.

But I sensed both Marcelo and Brooklyn were holding back for a reason. They shared something that I didn't possess. What that was, I had no clue.

"Oh yeah, what's that?" I licked ketchup off my fingers.

"We could go to my place and get naked."

I froze, waiting for him to add that we'd have sex, not just take our clothes off.

"I have a hole that is aching to be filled." Marcelo put his lips close to my ear. I dropped my burger, and ketchup splattered my shirt.

"Tut-tut. We need to get you out of that."