Chapter 42
Trouble
What. The. Fuck. Have I just done?
Did that just happen?
Did the two guys I’m having a really, really impossible time getting a grip on my feelings for just call and ask if they could mess around without me, and did I just give them blanket permission?
Is that what just happened?
Oh my fuck.
I can’t with myself. I really can’t.
The second I hang up, my entire body is flooded with anxiety.
I can feel it everywhere. In my face and my neck.
Even in my fucking fingers. Mattie and Will have known each other forever.
They are as close as two people can get platonically.
If that leaks into fucking without me, it will spill into a full-blown romance. Any idiot can see that.
Why didn’t I just say, “Hmm, can I think about it and get back to you?” “Can we talk about this next time I see you?” “Will this change things between us?” “Where does that leave me?” “No! For fuck’s sake, keep your hands off each other unless I’m there.”
Any one of those would have been good, sensible things to say or ask. Instead, I went with, “If it doesn’t sound like someone’s in pain, you’re not doing it right?”
Motherfuck.
Jesus, you’re off the hook, babe. Not even you can help me.
I sprawl on the pure luxury that is my enormous, cloud-like sofa and try to watch True Blood.
I flick through episode after episode, watching unseeing, strictly forbidding myself from thinking longingly of sliding around on a hideous porn sofa with two sexy dude-bros.
I order pizza and, for the first time ever, dread going to work.
I’m feeling no better today. It was late when I got home last night, and I called my cousin, Jessie, in a fit of pique and left him a garbled message about my woes and asked if we could meet up today.
Now it’s today, and all I want to do is bury myself under my sofa and not move for three to five business days.
Instead, I drag myself up and out to where we’re meeting for brunch.
It’s a pretty crap place, to be honest. It looks okay.
The storefront is decent, with lots of white and wood, and there are tables outside with plants hanging overhead, which is nice if you like that kind of thing.
It’s overpriced though. Way too try-hard.
Everything is organic this and organic that, and no matter what I order, it always tastes vaguely like kale.
So yeah, the food is shit, but we come here all the time because they bring out a bowl of water and a little organic snack for Adrian.
Despite what Jessie and his fiancé, Luke, would lead you to believe, Adrian is, in fact, a dog, not a human infant.
He’s a cockapoo—that’s not a euphemism or anything dirty, by the way, no matter how much it sounds like it should be.
Adrian is a mix between a cocker spaniel and a poodle.
He’s incredibly cute. Abnormally cute if you take Jessie’s or Luke’s word on the matter.
And I have to admit, whenever I spend time around him, I do come away with the feeling he very well might be.
“Trouble!” yells Luke, bounding over and wrapping me in a hug so big it lifts me off my feet for a second. He sets me down and looks at me earnestly, big blue eyes searching my face for clues as to what’s wrong. “Have you heard anything?”
“No, not yet. I’ll probably hear sometime this week.”
I punctuate my sentence with a sunny smile intended to distract him and get him to change the subject. It works, kind of.
“Jess was really worried about you last night. He struggled to get to sleep after you called.”
“Sorry. Sorry, I shouldn’t have called so late. It won’t happen again.”
“You’re family, Trouble. You can call anytime. You know that,” says Jessie once we’ve found a table. Adrian runs around him in small circles, leaving Jess in a bit of a quandary as to how to untangle his legs from the leash that’s been wound around them in a frenzy of excitement.
“Adrian, sit!” says Jessie.
“Adrian, come!” says Luke.
Adrian lies down and rolls onto his back.
I order a large pitcher of margaritas and two sides of bacon.
I sit and watch the circus that is Luke and Jessie trying to wrangle themselves into something that seems vaguely like two grown men in control of their dog.
“Did you only order two sides of bacon?” asks Jessie when he’s got the situation in hand.
“I-it’s tasting bacon,” I say feebly.
They both give me a blank look, and I choose not to explain that a pair of blunt instruments have infiltrated my life in so many weird little ways that I can’t even fully explain it to myself.
Jess pats Luke gently on the shoulder. “We’ll order more food when they bring it out.” He looks over at me and explains, “Blue hasn’t even had his first breakfast yet.”
Luke’s built like a brick shithouse and has an appetite to match, and yes, Jessie calls him Blue. And no, I don’t know why. It’s been five years, and I’ve managed to resist asking him why thus far. Mark my words, today won’t be the day I crack on that particular matter.
The jury is still out on whether I crack on any other matters though.
“So, what’s up?” Luke asks. “Is it the dude-bros?”
I’m humiliated he even knows about them. Ordinarily, I don’t allow myself to stoop to this level, but I’ve become increasingly unable to stop myself from talking about them. My mom and Cara ask about them by name when they call. I can’t possibly say how much I hate that for me.
I don’t answer for a while, but I do give a terse nod.
Jess reaches across the table, taking my hand. His blue-green eyes are filled with concern as he asks, “Hey, what’s happened?”
I give them a quick rundown on things, interrupted to the point of losing my train of thought when the server brings the margaritas and bacon, and Luke and Jessie get into a flurry of ordering more food.
“I’ll have the chia superfood bowl and the banana protein pancakes, thanks,” says Luke. “And he’ll have the breakfast tacos.”
He confidently orders for Jessie without needing to check what he wants. He points to Adrian, and his face breaks out into a smile that’s a good deal too wide to be considered cool. “And he’ll have a puppachino and one of those little beef snack things you guys have.”
“Can you make the puppachino with two percent?” Jessie adds.
“Yeah,” agrees Luke. “Two percent, please. He’s not all that great with dairy, and we find two percent works so much better for his little tumm…”
“I’ll have french toast, thank you,” I say firmly, cutting Luke off on purpose. The last thing on earth this poor waiter needs is some guy prattling on about his dog’s inability to digest milk.
“So,” says Jessie when the waiter leaves, “lemme see if I’ve got this right. The two guys you’ve been encouraging to fool around with each other called and asked you if they could fool around with each other, and you’re very, very upset about it?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“Troubs, I think you might have to give us a little more to go on,” Luke says kindly.
I’d cheerfully murder anyone else if they so much as attempted to call me Troubs, but somehow Luke’s been getting away with it for years.
“Well,” I explain, “up until now, they haven’t messed around when I’m not there. Until they met me, they’d never done anything physical together. Ever.”
“But isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that what you have a thing for? Isn’t that what your whole finding a pair of bi guys who don’t know they’re bi and waking them the fuck up thing is all about?” He repeats the words I’ve happily spewed for years back to me, almost verbatim.
“Yes, but…I…I just…” My voice falters and then trails off. Can’t say I’m too sad about it, as I have no clue what I was trying to say anyway.
“Ah,” says Luke, concern flickering across his features as he scoots his chair closer to mine and drapes a heavy arm over my shoulders, “you’re feeling insecure, aren’t you?”
“No!” I exclaim, and then pause because, holy shit, that’s exactly what’s happening here. “I mean, yes. I mean, maybe.”
Their faces fill with worry and two pairs of caring eyes blink at me, gently approaching, creating a safe space for me to talk. It makes me furious. I’m me. I don’t need concern. I don’t need sympathy. I don’t get affected by this kind of shit. I rise above it.
Usually.
I rise above it usually. But when I think how I’ve been feeling since Will and Mat called, and when I think how I felt sitting on that stupid fucking chair at Destresso, I realize that’s exactly what’s happening here. I’m affected. Sweet Jesus. I’m affected as fuck.
“I just…They’ve known each other for a long time.
They’re very close. And I guess I’m worried that if they’re together like that when I’m not there, they probably won’t want me around for much longer.
” Now that I’ve started talking, words spew out of me with total disregard for my dignity.
“I feel kind of…scared because I don’t know what I’ll do if that happens, but I’m also kind of scared of what will happen if it doesn’t, you know, ‘cause how the fuck would that even work? How the fuck do you be in a relationship with two people at the same time? What are the rules? Who does what? How do you decide? How do you know whose job it is to buy groceries and who the hell cleans the bathrooms?” I pause dramatically, taking a couple of beats to try to get myself under control.
It doesn’t work. “I-I just don’t know how the fuck I got myself into this situation.
I was fine, one minute, just having a good time, you know.
Having a really sexy good time, actually, and then the next minute, I’m like this.
” I wave around expansively at the beige slacks and white T-shirt I’m wearing.
There’s nary an accessory on me and not so much as a hint of mascara.
It’s giving basic biatch does brunch. And not in a cute way.
“How did this happen?” I wail when the full extent of it hits me.
“How on earth did I get myself into this predicament?”