10. Wes
10
WES
“We need to talk,” Ez said in a hushed tone.
I hung my head. I’d been waiting to hear those four words for weeks now. “Okay,” I mumbled.
“Look at me.”
I raised my eyes.
Ez was staring at me with a mix of fear and despair in his eyes. That was so much worse than anger, which is exactly what he should have felt.
“Wes.” He put his hand on mine where it rested on the table.
Instinctively, I pulled away. Not because I didn’t want to touch him, but because I didn’t deserve his kindness or his soft touches right now.
“Babe.” His voice was filled with so much anguish my heart broke.
Fuck. I was hurting the man I loved because I couldn’t get out of my own damn head and talk to him. I was a terrible person for everything I’d done to him.
“I’m sorry.” I tucked my hands under my thighs so I wouldn’t be tempted to reach for him. I didn’t deserve his comfort after I’d brushed him off like that.
“Why are you sorry?”
I shrugged and looked away.
I knew exactly why I was sorry, but I couldn’t tell him without ruining everything.
Tears filled my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I was the asshole here. I had no right to be upset.
Ezra sighed and busied himself with stacking our dinner dishes and pushing them to the other side of our small kitchen table so they weren’t in the way.
“I didn’t mean to,” I started, my voice scratchy and rough.
“You didn’t mean to develop feelings for him?” Ez asked point blank.
A wall of crushing despair came crashing down on me. Of course he knew what I’d been trying to hide. Ez knew me better than I knew myself most days.
“Do you have feelings for him?” he pressed when I refused to meet his gaze.
I nodded. I couldn’t lie to him. Not about this.
“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me? Why you’ve been punishing yourself since that night with him?”
“Yeah.”
“Wes.” He put his hand on the table, palm up.
Slowly, and half expecting him to slap my hand away, I rested my palm against his. He held on tight, and his touch helped clear enough of the guilt I could look up at him.
“I love you,” he said, his voice so full of emotion it made my heart ache. “I’ve loved you since before I knew what love was.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Stop apologizing. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I did. I cheated on you.”
“No, babe. You didn’t.”
“I did,” I insisted. “We promised we’d never cross that line with our play partners, and I broke that promise. I knew even before that second night that he was different. I knew it, but I still went along with it. I cheated on you.”
“Babe.” He squeezed my hand. “You didn’t cheat on me. I knew you had feelings for him before we started.”
“You did?” I asked, trying to ignore the hope that mixed in with my disgust and despair.
He nodded. “And I went along with it knowing those feelings were there. None of this is on you. We made a choice. I’m just as responsible for everything as you are.”
“But—”
“You didn’t cheat on me,” he insisted. “I knew things with him would be different the moment I wanted to kiss him. You’re the only person I’ve ever wanted to kiss. The only person I’ve ever wanted to make love to. Sex, fucking, that’s whatever. But I knew that whatever we were going to share that night would never just be sex. So if you’re a cheater, then so am I.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
I’d spent the last month and a half twisted up in knots because I’d assumed I was the only one who felt something. Knowing Ez did too made all the difference in the world.
But instead of talking to Ez and trusting that we’d be okay, I’d been so caught up in my own head that I hadn’t even noticed Ez was going through the same thing. I’d assumed he was giving me space and that he was trying to figure out a way to end things between us.
But he’d been just as twisted up and struggling with the same thing.
“Don’t do that.” He rubbed his thumb over my knuckles.
“Do what?” I asked hollowly.
“Blame yourself for shit that isn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. I need you to believe me.”
“I do,” I whispered, my throat too tight to talk normally. “I believe you.”
“Good.” He lifted my hand and brushed a soft kiss against my inner wrist. “Now we need to figure out what we’re going to do about it.”
Nervous energy filled me, but I refused to shut down again. Ez was right. We needed to figure this out.
Somehow the three of us had gone back to pretending like we’d never seen each other naked. We joked and chatted at work, falling into an easy friendship with not just Jett, but everyone on the crew.
I’d hoped my feelings would fade the more time I spent with him. That I’d be able to pack the romantic feelings away and focus on building a platonic friendship.
But that hadn’t happened. In fact, it had made things ten times worse.
I liked Jett, and not just as a friend. He was smart and sassy and a bit of a brat when he was comfortable with you. He was also kind, empathetic, and had a huge heart.
I could have gotten over my feelings if we hadn’t had that second night together. That was what I couldn’t come back from, and I’d spent the last several weeks trying—and failing—to forget about how amazing it felt to be with him.
Nothing about that second night should have felt right. We had strict rules for a reason, and we hadn’t just broken them. We’d shattered them.
The only way our arrangement worked was that we made sure to keep our private sex life separate from when we played with others. We fell into roles and acted out the fantasies we wanted to explore. Nothing was completely off the cuff or spontaneous. Not until Jett.
That first night had skirted the line between fantasy and reality. I felt a connection with him, and instead of terrifying me, it intrigued me, and I let myself get swept away by the moment.
That second night, we went mask off with him. We let him see the real us, and it was perfect.
He was perfect.
Seeing his wide eyes and flushed cheeks after I kissed him had excited me almost as much as watching Ez kiss him because I knew exactly how good those kisses felt. It should have made me insanely jealous to see my boyfriend kiss another man the way he kissed me, but it didn’t. It aroused me.
But only because it was Jett.
The thought of Ez kissing anyone else was like a knife to the heart. But Jett was different.
Sucking Ez off together, kissing him as we pleasured Ez, was hands down one of the hottest things I’d ever experienced. The same as kneeling for him so he could watch Ez get me ready.
Maintaining eye contact with him during such an intimate moment should have been weird and awkward. It should have made me feel dirty and uncomfortable. Especially when Ez flipped me over and made love to me with Jett only a few feet away.
But it hadn’t. Not even a little bit.
It turned me on and made everything that much hotter, and I’d come to thoughts of how much I wished Jett were between us. I’d thought about another man, been on display for him, while my boyfriend made love to me.
And instead of dealing with things the way we always did, I shut Ez out and made everything worse.
“Babe.” He held my hand in both of his. “Wes. I know this is a lot, but I need you to know that we’re okay. We will always be okay.”
“I love you,” I blurted.
“I love you too.” He gently stroked my wrist with his fingertips. “What do you want to do about things?”
“Quit our jobs and become homesteaders?” I half joked.
He chuckled, a soft smile on his lips. “That’s one option. But how about we put a pin in that for now and think of a solution that doesn’t involve us going off the grid.”
“Probably a better plan.”
“I think the big question is, do you want to explore things with him, or do you want to decide together that we won’t act on our feelings again?”
“I don’t know.” I chewed on the corner of my lip. “My gut is telling me to explore things, but my brain is saying we should shut it down and forget about it.”
“Mine too.” He sighed. “Hell, we don’t even know if he’d be open to any of this. He might have already decided he doesn’t want a repeat and that he only wants to be friends.”
“That’s true.” I stared at our hands, at how Ez’s touch could be so soft and tender when he had such big, strong hands that were as rough as mine. “It would make our lives easier if he did.”
“It would.” He threaded our fingers together, then unthreaded them. “But based on how he’s been acting, I don’t think he’s over it. I have no idea if he feels anything for us, but he’s not ready to forget.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah. I noticed that too.”
“I think we need to explore this,” Ez said.
I lifted my eyes. His were filled with sincerity and trust, the same way he always looked at me.
“But we need to be very careful with how we proceed,” he said. “Not just because we all work together, but because I don’t want any of us to get hurt. This is going to be messy, no matter what we do.”
“Yeah.” I nodded slowly, my mind spinning off in a completely different direction. “I think we need to make a new set of rules.”
“I think so too. The first is no playing with others until we get this settled. Even if nothing comes of it.”
“I agree,” I said quickly. I hadn’t even considered the possibility since that first night with Jett.
“Another is that we need to be honest with each other about everything from now on. No matter what we feel or think. No hiding from each other.”
“Deal.” I squeezed his hand. “And I think we need to start slow. Get to know him better and spend time outside of work and the bedroom.”
“I agree.” He smiled. “And I’m going to add that we can do that together or separately. We’re a couple, but we’re still individual people. We need to look at this situation from all angles.”
“Yeah.” I paused. “What about being physical together? Is that something we’ll only do when all three of us are together?”
“I’m fine with you and him exploring things on your own. Obviously I’d love to watch.” He waggled his eyebrows, breaking the seriousness of the moment. “But all I ask is that you tell me about it after. Share as much or as little as you want, just don’t hide it from me.”
“Same for you.” I paused. “I think that’s it for me.”
“Me too, and I think it’s best we take things as they go. Trying to plan things or predict them will only drive us crazy. I never thought we’d be in a place where we’d ever consider bringing someone into our relationship, so we need to be mindful of that and remember that we’re navigating something new and confusing.”
“Agreed.” I knew that was his way of saying not to overthink everything and get stuck in my head again. “I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all I ask.” He grimaced. “And we need to be more open with Jesse. We really hurt him. No more shutting him out either.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I feel like shit for dodging him these past few months.”
Ez had told me he’d spoken to Jesse and he knew the truth about us now. I was glad everything was out in the open, but it would be a while before the guilt of lying to him for so long faded.
“Come on. Let’s clean up our dishes and put on a movie. I think we need some couch time after this.”
“Hell to the yeah.” I smiled, the weight that had been dragging me down finally lifting.
Ez still loved me, and he was just as confused as I was about everything.
We’d figure this out together, the same as we always did.