Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
BLUE
My apartment was so not ready for cats. What had I been thinking when I said I’d bring them home?
Adopting one cat felt like a nice, normal thing to do.
Adopting four at once felt a little insane.
But the look on Asher’s face as he fussed over them and got them settled into the spot I’d dubbed “the cat corner” made it all worth it.
“I should have thought this through.” I raked a hand through my hair.
Asher looked stricken, and it made me wonder what was going through his head.
“I just mean that your place is bigger,” I said. “Four cats might be too much for this space. Is it even fair to them?”
Asher cradled one of the babies close to his chest. He’d sat on the floor to set up their kitty corner and seemed content to stay right there. Had I just lost my boyfriend to a bunch of kittens?
“We can’t take them back.” Asher’s lip trembled, and he snatched his gaze away from me.
“Of course not.” I dropped down to the floor and sat next to him. “I just meant that maybe someone who has a bigger apartment than me,” I paused to nudge him with my elbow, “might want to have them at his place instead. Where they have more room to be kittens.”
Asher turned his head and looked at me. “Really?”
“Yeah, really. I love animals and it’s wild that I don’t have any, considering what I do, but when we got these guys home, I remembered I don’t have pets because I live in a small studio.”
“I’m sure they don’t mind.” Asher stroked the top of the kitten’s head, then put him back with his littermates to sleep. He leaned against me. “I’d really like to have them, though. If you’re sure your apartment is too small for them, that is.”
“You already named them, didn’t you?” Jax asked. He’d been leaning up against the wall and watching Asher with the kittens the same way I’d been watching him.
It struck me then that these men had confessed their feelings to me, for me, and I’d said nothing back.
I’d still been reeling from the events of the night.
The influx of animals. The way Jax and Asher had stayed and pitched in where they were able.
They’d not flinched away even when the night dragged on.
Jax and Asher had shown up and supported me without being asked. Without expecting anything in return. It was a far cry from the men I used to date. From the way I used to see any little sign of affection as a declaration of love.
The old Blue was desperate for something without even knowing what it was. Time and time again, I’d been a storm, crashing against the rocks, trying to get something out of people who had nothing to give me. They just wanted to take from me.
Jax and Asher were different. I never felt like they took anything from me or like they were only in it for themselves. Jax had crushed on me for a long time. And Asher, well, he hadn’t, but he was sweet and so honest about what he felt that it was almost painful.
“Blue?”
Asher calling my name dragged me out of my thoughts and back into the present.
“Yes?”
“Can we shower? And maybe do laundry? I smell like the trash can at a dog park.”
“We absolutely can do those things.” I pushed myself to my feet and then extended a hand for Asher to take. Pulling him to his feet, I tugged him close to me and stole a kiss.
“Will I ever be able to smell anything else? I feel like that’s all I can smell. Like it’s stuck in my nose or imprinted on my brain.”
“This too shall pass.” I ruffled Asher’s hair and gave him a gentle shove in the direction of the bathroom. “You and Jax strip down and get in the shower and I’ll get our laundry started.”
When I joined them a minute later, they were in the shower, the steam filling the room as I joined them. The space felt big when it was just me and almost too small when there were already two other men inside. Jax was busy soaping up Asher’s back, scrubbing it clean.
“Turn around, Blue. Let me get your hard-to-reach places.”
He was almost too happy to make the offer, and it was one I couldn’t refuse. I listened to Jax and slid in next to Asher, turning my back to Jax.
He scrubbed my back in gentle circles that started at the nape of my neck.
He moved across my shoulders next, then downward.
He passed the loofah off to Asher, who gave Jax’s back a quick scrub, after which Jax stole a kiss from him.
He pinched Asher’s chin with his fingers and tugged him close, slanting his mouth over Asher’s.
Asher let out a needy little moan and started to sway toward Jax, but Jax laughed and pulled back.
“Greedy.” He booped Asher on the nose, then handed him the loofah. “Blue’s had a long night, and he worked his ass off. We’re going to take care of him now.”
“I don’t—” I started to protest when Jax moved me so I was under the spray of the shower. It hit my upper back, pelting against my shoulders.
“Tip your head back. I’m going to wash your hair while Asher washes the rest of you.”
“I don’t have a choice, do I?” I couldn’t even pretend to not be happy about this with the way I was suddenly smiling and unable to stop.
“Not at all,” Asher confirmed.
Taking one of my wrists in his hand, he gently pulled my arm away from my side and started scrubbing up near the shoulder, then moving down my bicep. “Jax and I took a vote while you were starting laundry. So even if you had been here for the vote, it would still be two to one.”
“It’s hard to think of that as losing when I get spoiled rotten.” I let Jax tilt my head back, and I closed my eyes as he gently scrubbed my scalp with his blunt fingertips.
Someone, probably Jax, kissed the hollow of my throat. Asher changed his hold on me and gently washed my hand, paying attention to the webbing between every finger before moving on to my chest.
My cock stirred to life, but I ignored it. Hell, if I were able to open my eyes, I’d likely see Jax and Asher with matching erections. But this wasn’t about that, and I was all too happy to ignore my dick.
With Jax soaping up my hair and Asher gently washing every inch of skin, it occurred to me that maybe there was more than one way to make love to someone.
They’d said the words, but now they were showing me that they were true.
That it wasn’t lip service. It wasn’t something they said out of obligation or dishonesty.
I used to chase the feeling of someone loving me.
I chased it so hard sometimes I’d convinced myself that it was there when it wasn’t.
And now I didn’t have to chase that feeling because Jax and Asher brought it to me.
They gave it willingly, without strings or expectations.
They showed up for me, supported me, loved me, and wanted nothing in return.
They hadn’t been mad or upset that I didn’t say it back.
I hadn’t needed to earn it. They weren’t transactional about it the way my parents had been.
We love you so long as you do what we say.
We’d love you if you denied who you are.
We’d love you again if you stuffed yourself back in the tiny little box we kept you in.
That was the way I’d grown up and until they disowned me, I’d done contortions to try and get them to love me.
I’d chased love from people who never wanted that from me, and then I’d chased no one at all. I’d have been okay, I realized, if I’d never found love. Lonely? Sure, I’d have been lonely. But I had been lonely at home, growing up with a family who didn’t accept me, let alone like me.
Asher had moved on from washing my arms to washing my chest. Jax had rinsed the shampoo from my hair and now stood behind me, massaging my shoulders, peppering kisses against my damp skin.
His hands slid down my arms, then he held my waist as he buried his face in the curve of my neck. Asher, well, he’d since dropped the bath sponge and had decided that washing me with his bare hands would be better.
“I love you both. I do.”
Jax and Asher went still, but Asher pressed in closer to me, winding an arm around my waist. I draped my arms around his shoulders and pulled him in against me. “I didn’t say it back right away because…”
“You didn’t have to,” Asher assured me. “That’s not why we said it.”
“I know.” I kissed his cheek then pulled him into a hug, mostly so I could hide my expression.
I already felt raw and vulnerable in a way that I hadn’t in a long time, and I wanted to say what I needed to say before I lost my nerve.
“I went without love for so long that I didn’t recognize what it really looked like. What it felt like. My parents…sucked.”
I let out a weak laugh, and Asher held me tighter. Jax kissed my shoulder and gave my waist a squeeze to remind me that I wasn’t alone.
Asher and Jax stayed quiet. It was like they understood that I was trying to gather all my thoughts into something coherent to say. Their patience was unending, and another piece of me slotted back into place.
“I didn’t know what love looked like. I didn’t know it could be like this. I—the two of you showed up for me tonight, and you didn’t have to. You could have gone off somewhere and did anything. But you stayed and you helped. No one has ever done that for me before.”
“Because they’re stupid,” Jax said, kissing my shoulder.
“I didn’t know what love looked like. But I do now. And I—” I had to take a breath and swallow the nerves that made my insides shake. “I love you too.”
The breath I exhaled trembled on the way out. “I’m scared though. Because I don’t know how to be in love. It’s something I’ve wanted since—well, forever—but I don’t know how to be a boyfriend.”
Asher pulled back and held my face in his palms. “Blue, have you met me? I’m a complete mess.
I don’t know how to do a lot of things. Sometimes I barely know how to be a person, let alone a functioning adult.
I don’t know how to be a boyfriend either, and now we both have two of them. We can figure it out together.”
Asher’s sincerity made me weak in the knees, and I might have crumpled to the floor had it not been for Jax and the way he held me up.
“I may not know a lot, but I know that we will always show up for you, Blue,” Jax promised, his lips ghosting against my ear.
I tilted my head to give him better access to my neck, but a sudden drop in the temperature of the water had us all scrambling to get out before we turned into popsicles.
My bathroom wasn’t really big enough for three grown men to dry off in, so there was a bit of jostling and elbows bumping, but none of us seemed to mind.
We wore towels back to the section of my apartment that held my bed.
It was separated from the rest with shelves.
A dresser was tucked off to the side and the cats had been placed in the gap between the dresser and the shelves.
I fished three pairs of lounge pants out of a drawer and handed a pair each to Jax and Asher. “We never got dinner.”
Jax looked at me, then at the lounge pants, then at Asher. Then he looked at me again and tossed the pants aside.
“I know what I want,” he said as he lunged for me.
I squawked and tried to get away, but there was nowhere to go.
Oh darn.