A Deal With Dark

Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

*3 months later*

The sun was shining as I made my way towards the Cup, a cool breeze rustling the L.A. palm trees. It was chilly by California standards, but beautiful compared to the intense heat we usually had. I grabbed the door of my favorite coffee shop and pulled it open, holding it for the next person behind me before I walked in. I smiled at the two familiar men with dark hair and brown eyes siting at a table near a window in the back before turning to the barista to give her my normal order of a large caramel iced coffee with 2% milk. I gave my name, paid, and waited, tapping my toes to the beat of the music that was playing softly. Once I had my coffee I headed over to my table and took a seat next to the men I had smiled at earlier.

"Hey guys. How's the project going?" I greeted them, taking in a big gulp of my drink after I spoke. It was perfectly sweet - not too much and not too little.

"Good. We're about done, actually, I just have a bit more editing to do," Mark replied.

"How about the photos? Did they turn out?" Dark wondered, sipping on his plain black coffee.

"They turned out amazing! They'll be great teasers to lead up to the release of the video. Here, I'll show you my favorites." I pulled my laptop out of my bag and brought up the finished products, post edits. They included various eerie shots of things like old TVs with static screens, ominous hallways, and Dark in his signature suit.

"These are amazing, Mads," Mark commented.

"Agreed. Send them when you get the chance," Dark added.

Three months ago, as Mark and I found our way out of the abandoned house that Dark had tied us up in, I don't think either one of us would have imagined that now we'd be getting along rather smoothly in a coffee shop, doing business together. Then, I was terrified at how much Mark might get hurt, and I was unsure of what kind of relationship I'd have with him or Dark. Now, the three of us were working together on Mark's Youtube channel. I did photography and even some filming when I could for videos and the promotion of videos. Mark worked on the technical side of things, still doing editing and thumbnails and working with the software. Dark was the mastermind, the one deciding what we did, coming up with ideas, and obviously starring in basically everything.

I had feared that Dark would be more hurtful, more violent. And sure, it wasn't like he didn't do bad things to Mark for the sake of videos, or he never got angry at Mark when they disagreed, having to remind him of their deal. But Mark was okay. He missed some of the things he used to do on his channel. He missed having the freedom to do as he pleased without having to run things by Dark. But he still had his fans, Dark let him do some things, and he still had me. Plus, the channel was more popular than ever, its number of subscribers growing at a rather quick rate. And Dark and Mark turned out to be capable of working together and getting along sometimes, which was a nice change.

Aside from business, not too much had actually changed between the guys and I. Mark and I were free to talk now and spend time together. We were really only friends - occasionally we'd both hesitate to pull away from long hugs, we'd fall asleep together on the couch while watching something at his house, or we'd go out for dinner together, just the two of us. But we mostly strayed from anything too relationship-related. It felt comfortable to just be close - that seemed to be enough for both of us. As for Dark - well, whatever we had was forced from the beginning. I wouldn't say that we ever really were together for real, and we still weren't. But after a few weeks and some eventual forgiveness from him for breaking our deal, things went back to normal with him as well. We still spent time alone together, I still spent the night with him every once in a while, even if I didn't have to. I guess I'd call us friends with benefits, which was fine with me. I wasn't really in any position to be in a relationship with either him or Mark, but I still enjoyed their company. And with the deal that him and Mark had, if I wanted to spend time with one of them, I'd have to be okay with being around the other.