Chapter 12
SLIDING SCALES I will always listen to my wife and do all I can to make sure her needs are being met, while at the same time not completely mutilating the few boundaries I have. ”
“Y’all are fucked up.”
Declan chuckles and waves my insult off. “I think people who risk their relationship based solely on their narrow-minded ideals are fucked up. We don’t all just fit nicely in the same damn box, Ren. Without a sliding scale, a large percentage of relationships are doomed.”
He goes back to looking out the window, the reflection of the lights from the Strip painting his features in rainbows. I turn to look out my own window, using the silence to unpack what Declan and Tony have told me.
Cassidy and I are at the beginning of a journey that has been laid out in legal documents, but the legal documents don’t dictate our daily interactions.
Those legal documents don’t tell us how best to meet each other’s needs or how to navigate the many unknowns of learning to coexist as virtual strangers.
That being said, I am not at all happy about her being surrounded by semi-nude muscular young men. I’m not at all happy about her watching them, touching them, maybe even wanting them.
I won’t tell her that, though. I won’t send her a text asking her to change the plans of her group based on my own ridiculous insecurity.
But it nearly kills me.