Chapter 8
The rain mostly lets up by the time we make it back to camp, tapering into a soft drizzle that taps against the tent.
Inside, we fall into old rhythms. Tanner deals cards with that easy flick of his wrist, Milo sprawls across his sleeping bag, and I settle between them, the space smaller than I remember but somehow the same.
For a while, it’s easy.
We joke. We bicker. Milo accuses Tanner of cheating with zero evidence, Tanner denies it with a smile that somehow makes him look guilty anyway, and I get stuck in the middle, right where I’ve always been.
“Statistically, you’re cheating,” Milo insists, pointing at him.
“Statistically, you’re bad at cards,” Tanner fires back.
Milo scoffs. “I’m incredible at cards. I’m being sabotaged by vibes.”
“Your vibes are rancid,” I add.
“Wow,” Milo says, clutching his chest. “Attacked. In my own tent.”
For a few hours, it’s that. Three friends again. Not three people hyperaware of every inch between them.
By dinner, something shifts. The laughter thins. Tanner’s eyes linger a beat too long on Milo’s hands. I start tracking the space between words, the weight of what’s not being said.
The tacos are great. Annoyingly so.
Milo makes the beans without a single comment, which somehow felt louder than if he’d complained the whole time. Tanner eats like he hasn’t had a real meal in weeks, and I focus a little too hard on chewing and anything that doesn’t involve looking up for too long.
Now the plates sit abandoned, scraps going cold, practically inviting a bear situation, and none of us moves. Three chairs around the fire. Cicadas loud around us as the flames crackle and I can’t stop thinking about how temporary it all is.
This version of us feels like the fire. Hot, bright, convincing while it lasts. Gone by morning.
I can admit it’s never going to be like before. Not really. And now, with Tanner sliding back into the space he left, everything feels slightly off-center.
“Welp,” Milo says, dragging the word out as he leans back. “This feels awkward. Is this awkward?”
Tanner lets out a low laugh. “It’s awkward.”
“Great,” Milo says, clapping once. “Love that for us.”
He glances between us, already plotting.
“We cannot sit here and marinate in it. It’s the last night. We have to make it count.”
I groan under my breath. That tone never ends well.
Milo’s already on his feet, pacing. “I’ve got it.” He snaps his fingers. “Two truths and a lie.”
“Absolutely not,” I say immediately.
Tanner smiles. “I’m in.”
Milo points between us, satisfied. “Perfect. Majority rules.”
“This isn’t a democracy,” I mutter.
“No,” Milo says, dropping back into his chair, eyes flicking between me and Tanner. “But it is gonna be fun. I’ll go first.”
Milo leans back, takes a long swig of his beer, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Okay,” he says, holding up three fingers. “One… I broke my arm in second grade falling off the monkey bars. Two… I’ve never been out of the country. Three… I hate mushrooms.”
I blink at him. “That’s what you came up with?”
“It’s called a warm-up round,” he shoots back. “We’re easing into vulnerability.”
Tanner huffs a laugh beside me, shifting in his chair. “You don’t hate mushrooms. You order them on pizza all the time.”
Milo points at him. “That’s because they’re cooked differently. Texture matters.”
“That’s not the point,” I say. “The point is you absolutely broke your arm. You still bring it up every time someone mentions playgrounds.”
Milo nods slowly, impressed. “Okay, so you’re saying one is true.”
“Yes.”
“And two?” he presses.
I hesitate. “You’ve… been to Canada.”
He scoffs. “That doesn’t count.”
“It literally does,” I argue.
“Three’s the lie,” I say. “You love mushrooms.”
Milo claps once. “Wrong. I hate mushrooms. Always have.”
I stare at him. “You ate them last week.”
“You love them,” he says. “And sometimes I deal with them. That’s not the same thing as liking them.”
There’s no edge to it. The words are easy, practiced fact.
He shrugs one shoulder. “I can hate something or not want something and still do it for you,” he says simply. “Because I want you to be happy.”
I blink at him, thrown for half a second, but he’s already leaning forward, shifting gears.
“Alright,” Tanner says, his eyes landing on me. “Your turn.”
“I don’t wanna go next,” I say immediately.
“That’s not fair. I went,” Milo adds.
“Barely. You didn’t even follow the rules.”
Tanner laughs under his breath. “I can go, if you prefer.”
My gaze lifts to him, and I clock it immediately. There’s something sharper in his expression than I’ve ever seen before.
His eyes crinkle at the corners, but it doesn’t soften him. If anything, it makes the intensity worse. His pupils are blown wide, swallowing the color, and that crooked, almost playful smile sits at odds with the way he’s watching me.
This is a bad idea.
A really bad idea.
Instead of shutting it down and being smart, I nod.
Tanner exhales, almost satisfied, and drags his palms over his thighs before leaning forward, elbows braced on his knees.
He holds up three fingers.
“One… my Jeep isn’t the same one from high school. It’s a near-exact replica.”
Milo snorts under his breath, but Tanner doesn’t look at him. His attention never leaves me.
“Two… I turned down an orgy at Coachella.”
I scoff before I can stop myself. Of course that’s even a sentence he gets to say.
Then Tanner pauses.
It’s brief, barely a second, but it’s enough for me to catch the shift. The decision. It tightens across his mouth, flickers in his eyes. Whatever’s about to come out of his mouth next? He’s choosing this.
“Three…” he says, slower now, still holding my gaze.
My stomach drops before he even finishes.
“…Nate watched me jerk off in the bathhouse last night.”
Milo’s jaw drops. Heat detonates across my face.
Tanner sits there, wearing a smug grin. It’s unchanged from when we were sixteen and he’d drop a bomb at the worst possible moment and enjoy the fallout.
We’re definitely back in it now.
Tanner stirring the pot.
Milo watching it boil.
Me, dead center, with nowhere to go.
The fire feels too bright. Too close.
“Is he serious?” Milo asks.
My gaze ping-pongs between them. I open my mouth, close it, open it again.
“I… I went to apologize and he was already… “ My hands flutter uselessly. “I didn’t go there to… it’s not like I stood there watching on purpose…“
“Your cock was hard,” Tanner interjects.
“Your cock was hard?!” Milo shrieks.
I throw my hands up. “Oh yours would be too! It’s biology!”
“When were you gonna tell me,” Milo asks, voice dropping.
“God, I don’t know.” I rake my fingers through my hair. “Probably never? It happened and then it was over, and... We’ve been friends forever. I figured this was one more weird thing we’d never talk about.”
Milo’s eyes narrow. “I’m sick of being your emotional safety net while he gets all the interesting parts of you. Why am I always on the sidelines?”
“Sidelines? There was no game happening!” My voice cracks. “He was… and I was frozen. Standing there like an idiot. Trust me, it wasn’t some sexy moment. I couldn’t breathe.”
“It was pretty sexy.” Tanner says before turning to Milo. “And you’re complaining about missing the interesting parts? That’s wild coming from the guy who was giving Nate a handie while I was three feet away yesterday morning.”
Milo gasps. “You were supposed to be sleeping!”
“Even if I was… you think that makes it okay? You’re worried about being left out? How do you think I felt knowing you two were…“ He cuts himself off, exhales hard. “Why do you think I needed alone time in that bathhouse in the first place?”
Milo scoffs, voice dripping with disbelief. “So what, you’ve been sitting in some van traveling all over the country just pining away for him? For us? This whole damn time?”
“If I was?” Tanner snaps back, color rising in his cheeks. “What exactly would you have me do about it? I knew you looked at him the way he used to look at me. I knew you’d been half in love with him since we were sixteen.”
Milo’s voice goes low and possessive. “He chose me, though, didn’t he?”
Tanner scoffs, a harsh sound in the back of his throat.
“What, you think you’re the only one with rights to him?
” His jaw tightens. “Every time the three of us were together, you’d wedge yourself between us…
physically, emotionally, whatever it took.
I saw it happening. I watched you play the long game while I was... I let you have your chance.”
Milo’s face drains of color, his confident posture crumbling.
“You think I don’t see it?,” Tanner says. “How he watches you? I’ve been right here the whole time, waiting for him to look at me like that.”
Milo’s mouth hangs open, but Tanner barrels on, his knuckles white around his beer bottle. “I’ve been starving for years while you feast, Milo. So yeah, I took whatever crumbs I could get.”
I clear my throat. “Could you maybe not discuss me like I’m a prize to be won while I’m sitting right here?”
They both freeze mid-argument, their heads swiveling toward me in perfect unison. The fire pops in the silence. Milo’s face changes first. He offers a familiar furrow between his brows smoothing out as he studies me. Then he looks at Tanner with an expression I can’t read.
Without a word, he rises to his feet. Tanner follows, hesitant but drawn upward like there’s an invisible string between them.
I expect Milo to come to me as he always does, but instead he moves toward Tanner. His hand slides around the back of Tanner’s neck, fingers disappearing into dark hair, and pulls him forward into a kiss that makes my mouth go dry.
I can’t look away as their mouths collide. My cock is already tenting my shorts before my mind can catch up. When Tanner breaks the kiss, his forehead still pressed to Milo’s, his eyes find mine across the small space between us.
Something electric passes between us.
My legs move without conscious thought, carrying me forward despite the thundering pulse in my ears screaming run. My palms slide up the warm planes of their backs, and they part enough to let me in.
The first brush of our three mouths together is clumsy, desperate. It’s all slick heat and shared breath. Then fingers tangle in my hair, guiding me, and suddenly there’s Tanner’s mouth on mine, his taste flooding my senses.
Everything I’ve denied wanting for years crashes over me at once.
Tanner’s mouth is warm and insistent. His tongue is slick against my bottom lip before I even register that I’ve opened up for him. The kiss goes zero to sixty with alarming velocity. His hands land hard on my jaw, thumbs bracketing my face, holding me still while he devours me.
It’s fucking filthy. Teeth clash. Our noses smash together. I think I might be bleeding from my lip, but I genuinely don’t care.
Somewhere beside us, Milo is breathing hard, but then his hands are in my hair too, pulling, urging me toward Tanner like I might run if he let go.
He knows me and he’s right.
Suddenly I’m pulled away and redirected towards Milo. He licks the taste of Tanner from my lips. The kiss is claiming, almost cruel as his hands at the back of my neck tightens until my scalp prickles with pain.
His tongue is in my mouth before I even realize it’s coming, his teeth following, biting down on my bottom lip hard enough to make me gasp.
It’s strange to be here. I’ve always sort of been metaphorically caught between them, but now their physical presence makes me wonder why I ever thought it was wrong.
Milo’s thick cock presses against mine through thin fabric of our shorts while Tanner’s mouth traces fire down my neck, his erection insistent against my ass.
I feel whole, centered, anchored by their bodies.
The wanting I’ve denied for so long floods through me now, filling spaces I never knew were empty until this moment when they’re suddenly, devastatingly full.
Milo breaks the kiss, pupils blown wide as they search my face. Something softens in his expression, the hunger giving way to a vulnerability I rarely see.
“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he says.
A nervous laugh escapes before I can stop it. “A threesome?”
“No,” he shakes his head, “For you to own it.”
Tanner’s teeth graze my neck from behind, making me jump. I catch his eye over my shoulder.
“Let’s take this to the tent,” he says, voice like gravel.
We’re standing at a precipice. One more step and there’s no going back. Part of me wants to leap, but another part clings desperately to the edge.
I turn to Milo. “Is that what you want?”
“God, yes,” Milo breathes, eyes dark. “I want to watch him fuck you, but what do you want?”
I look between them, these two men who’ve orbited my life for so long. Want tangles with fear in my chest. I’ve spent years making myself smaller, denying what I crave.
What if I reach for this and it breaks?
What if I’m not enough for both of them?
“We can stick to this,” Tanner says softly. “No pressure.”
Something shifts inside me then. Their patience, their willingness to wait while I figure myself out. It’s been there all along, hasn’t it? A smile spreads across my face, surprising even me with its boldness.
“I want everything,” I say.