Chapter 17 Shade
SHADE
Pain grinds in every part of my body. It’s a dull, bone-deep ache that pulses in time with my heartbeat. Every breath drags raw across my ribs, and every shift of muscle feels like being ripped asunder.
Everything about this handpicked mattress feels wrong. It’s too soft, too hard, and too hot, all at once.
Yet, I can’t ask Isla to go get me the pain relief, because then, she’ll move. And my fingers will slip from hers, and I’ll lose the tenuous physical connection I have with her.
God knows how my body needs it right now. A grounding touch that tethers me here and makes the pain bearable.
Greer offered me stronger pain relief, but I refused.
Getting injured in Afghanistan led to a painful period that bordered on addiction.
Fuck, it was addiction. Took me six treacherous months to get it under control, but I’m not fucking with that shit ever again.
Kai deserves better than dealing with me like that.
So, I bounced on the drugs.
Instead, I’m relying on a boost of some gas and air combo that makes me feel sick as I escape the pain. No way I could get addicted to that shit.
Even with my eyes closed, I can see Isla. Can feel her. The faint catch in her breath. Like she’s thinking way too hard about the choices ahead of her. There’s the slight scrape of denim as she wipes a hand on her jeans.
Maybe it’s the fact she’s still here that’s helping me rest.
The bed shifts as she finally stands, her slender fingers slipping from mine.
Footsteps don’t lead away from the room, though.
They lead to the window. I crack open one eye, and in the light from the small lamp on the bedside table, I catch sight of her side profile as she looks up at the stars.
Her arms are wrapped tightly around her chest, as if she’s trying to keep the world from seeing her.
But there’s a real wistfulness to her gaze. As if she still has hope and optimism that things might get better. That there’s a bigger and better life for her somewhere, even though she hasn’t found it yet.
And the thought lands heavier than the pain that it might not be with us. I could kick myself for not seeing her sooner. For not reaching out to her vulnerability and providing a safe place for her to put it.
Footsteps hit the top of the stairs, and I would know the sound of my man anywhere. I hear him pad to Isla. “Hey,” he mutters. “Sorry for falling asleep like that.”
“It’s okay,” Isla replies, equally softly. “You obviously needed some rest.”
“How’s he doing?” Kai asks, thinking I’m asleep. His voice is worn thin.
I probably shouldn’t listen to their conversation, but I can’t help myself.
I want to hear Kai fall in love. I want to watch him do it.
I’ll always lead us in the bedroom, but in truth, he’s always known more about how to love and be loved than I do.
I need him to show me the path to follow in this, because without him, I’m sure as fuck gonna get lost.
My cock stirs at the idea of getting lost in Isla’s body. It will feel unfamiliar, so different to the men I’ve been with in the past. So soft and lush and breakable.
“He ate a whole bowl.”
Kai lets out a slow, shaky breath, and I open my eyes. Finally, he notices and crosses the room, moving slowly, like every part of him hurts. When he reaches me, he puts his hand on the headboard and leans so close, our foreheads almost touch.
“You good, Wild?” I ask.
He snorts. “It’s been a day. You need the bathroom? I brought this up.”
I look down at the plastic canister we use on long rides if we need to piss and there’s nowhere appropriate.
It feels humiliating to use it in my own bedroom.
Isla hurries and grabs the bowl and spoon from the side table. “I’ll go wash this up,” she says before disappearing down the stairs. Both of us watch her go for long after she’s disappeared.
“You need help with this?” Kai asks. “Because you know how much I love handling your cock.”
“Fuck you,” I say with a chuckle. “It’s already hard enough to piss into this thing without my cock being hard at the thought of you manhandling it.”
Kai wanders to the curtains to close them while I do what I need to do.
When I’m done, he comes over to me and holds out his hand. “Let me go deal with that for you.”
I shake my head. “Don’t need you emptying my piss. I’ll do it in the morning when I feel better.”
Kai shakes his head too. “Just give it to me. I swallow your cum, you think pouring your piss down the toilet is going to bother me?”
“Fuck’s sake,” I mutter as I hand it to him.
I hate being dependent on anyone. I’ve long learned that the best way to live your life is to be so utterly independent, you could roll at any time.
It’s something Kai has grappled with, and while he accepts it, he doesn’t understand it.
Every now and then, I feel myself slipping into relying on him for emotional fulfilment, and I know it hurts him when I force myself to pull back.
When Isla reappears, she has her trainers on and her keys in her hand. She doesn’t look quite so much like a startled rabbit. More at ease around us.
“Don’t forget to check on him every hour,” she says as Kai comes out of the bathroom, wiping his hands on a towel that he hangs over the door handle.
I shake my head and look to Kai. “Don’t you be doing that. You need some sleep too. I’ll be fine.”
Isla puts her hands on her hips. “You won’t be fine. At the vet’s, when an animal has a suspected concussion, one of the nurses will check them every hour, to be sure. Greer didn’t say that just to be annoying.”
Kai groans as he pulls his hoodie over his head. The T-shirt rolls up an inch, revealing the ripped muscles of his abdomen. I’ve spent many a night licking those ridges, and it’s distracting. “I’ll set an alarm to wake up every hour.”
Isla looks between the two of us, and I can see the indecision on her face. “What’s on your mind, Isla?”
“Kai needs his sleep too. And I’m just trying to think of another solution.”
She hesitates, looks at him, looks at me, then back at him. Something is opening in her, and I don’t know how to hold on to it without crushing it. I also don’t know if this is her doing it because she wants to or doing it because she feels like she should.
“I’ll take the next four hours,” she says, then turns to Kai. “It’s ten o’clock, now. I’ll stay until two. Then, you set your alarm for three o’clock. That way, you can get five uninterrupted hours.”
“You don’t need to do—”
“Okay. On one condition—”
Kai and I speak in parallel, then stop when we realize we’re saying different things. “We can manage,” Kai says.
“And I want you to get some rest, Kai” I insist.
“Yes, this way we’ll all rest,” Isla says. “Plus, my watch vibrates; you won’t even hear it. I’ll just hang out downstairs, if you don’t mind. Or, I can go home and just come back if you give me a key.”
“The stairs creak,” I say suddenly.
Kai raises an eyebrow. They don’t especially. But he quickly figures out what I mean.
“Yeah, the stairs,” he offers unhelpfully.
Isla looks back at us with a furrowed brow. “If you’re worried about me waking you, I can stay up here somewhere.”
Kai steps toward her, and she doesn’t step away.
Progress.
“I’m worried about you losing so much sleep. You said your watch vibrates?” Kai asks.
Isla nods as she shows him the sleek black wristband. “I’ve found it better than a noisy alarm.”
Kai takes her hand gently, as if he’s studying the watch closely. “In that case, I think it’s okay for you to do this.”
He scoops her up into his arms and then lays her down on the bed next to me. “Wait, Kai, what are you—?”
He reaches for her foot and attempts to remove her sneaker as she tries to fight him off. But the jostling hurts my ribs, and I wince. “Easy, tiger.”
“Sorry,” she says, immediately stilling. “But I can’t stay—”
Kai turns on the lamp on his side of the bed, then rounds the bed to switch mine off.
Then, he opens one of the cardboard boxes of our unpacked stuff and pulls out a thick throw.
“I’m gonna sleep in a T-shirt and boxer briefs.
I’ll be under the covers at all times, just like Garrett.
You can sleep under this on top of the bedding.
Should be plenty warm enough. You set that alarm of yours every hour, and when it goes off, you can just roll over and check on Garrett.
I’ll sleep through it. At three in the morning, I’ll take over and do the same but with the alarm on my phone. ”
Kai glances at me. And in the moment our eyes lock, I know that whatever happened downstairs has her trusting him enough to listen to his words.
“We do it like this, or we don’t do it,” Kai says, punctuating his sentence with a yawn.
Isla makes us wait for her answer. “Fine.”
She awkwardly offers her foot to Kai, like she’s waiting for the demand or condition, the thing other men asked of her when they offered any kind of softness.
But my love doesn’t ask for anything.
He simply unties the laces of her scuffed-up sneakers, then sets them aside at the bottom of the bed. “I’ll leave them right here for whenever you want to leave.”
Her breathing is fast. I see it in the quick rise and fall of her chest. But she nods as Kai gently places his hands on both her ankles to squeeze them.
And I swear, watching him strip Isla’s armor away with that ridiculous tenderness of his hurts worse than any bruise on my body because he leads with his heart. And Isla has the ability to break it.
Isla sets the first alarm on her watch and settles flat on her back, arms folded across her chest, like someone just laid her out in a coffin.
The small chuckle wrecks my ribs. “Relax, Isla.”
“Easy for you to say,” she says like the little feisty kitten she is.
“Actually, it’s not.” I lift my strapped-up hand.
“Sorry.”
Kai puts the blanket over her, tucking her in tightly. “I sleep better when everyone is where they’re supposed to be.”
For a moment, Isla looks confused, like the idea of being wanted without expectation short-circuits her brain.
“Translation: If you don’t relax and do as he says, he’ll hover. And the man could write a goddamn thesis on hovering.”
Isla lets out the tiniest broken laugh.
I suppose when I look back at my life, I might think of this as the moment Isla truly became a part of our lives. Even the scent of her, the warmth I can feel through the thick bedding, it all reassures me nothing has been truer.
Kai removes his jeans and socks but leaves his boxer briefs and T-shirt on. He lifts up the same layers of bedding that I’m beneath, leaving Isla lying on top of them, as if in a hammock of our making.
Then, he turns off the light.
Heat spreads. The air shifts. Three people, all lying on their back, likely all wide awake.
And yet, it still stirs something beautiful and violent in me. My ribs are fucked, my head’s half a fog, but Jesus Christ, I feel every unspoken word and touch.
I feel Kai’s relief that she stayed.
I feel Isla’s shock that she is wanted here.
The two of them, without knowing it, are knitting themselves into the cracks I’ve been holding closed for years. Maybe I kept the part of Kai that could love someone other than me out. Protecting myself from the overwhelming jealousy I’d feel.
I shift, just enough to get comfortable, biting back a groan.
Kai hears it…of course, he does. As does Isla. Her hand touches my arm, first, then Kai reaches across Isla to place his hand there too, ever so slightly overlapping Isla’s. Neither of them squeezes or rubs. They just reassure. Letting me know they are there.
But in the half light, I see the way Kai has rolled onto his side and Isla has twisted to face me. Without intending to, they’re lying like they’re spooning, except there’s a slender gap between the two of them.
I let their warmth and presence anchor me in place and try to let the pain fade beneath the slow and steady breathing of the two other people in this bed.
One I love with my whole heart.
One who is creeping in there without diminishing what I feel for Kai.
I let myself want this. Fully. For now, for as long as we can hold it, for as long as Isla stays.
Perhaps, in the morning, we should talk to her. Remove some of her confusion. Tell her that we’re one polyamorous man, and one monogamous one who feels the world shifting beneath his feet. Tell her that we both want her to be part of that shift.
And hope it doesn’t ruin what today has started to build.