Chapter 31
31
Kincaid
The knock on the door made him frown. Then he sighed in exasperation when it was immediately followed by Mitch’s voice, muffled but recognizable.
“Little pig, little pig, let me in!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kincaid muttered, but he pushed himself up from the couch. He’d finally turned on the television but then immediately turned it back off again when it offered the next Marvel movie. Just thinking about watching a movie without Zach and Amy made his stomach turn over.
He’d only been sitting here for… okay, half an hour.
Sighing, he answered the door. “Or what, you’ll huff and puff and blow me?”
Mitch grinned broadly and winked at him.
“If that’s what gets you off… no, wait, I know that’s what gets you off.” Mitch chuckled and shoved past Kincaid, not waiting to be invited inside. Pushy blond bastard.
“Who called you?” Kincaid asked dryly. He wondered where Zach had gone that it had gotten this kind of response. Actually, wait, that answered his question. “It was Brian, wasn’t it?”
“You know Daddy gets worried when we’re fighting.” Mitch sauntered over to the armchair and flopped down. Looking at him, stupid grin on his face, totally relaxed with one leg hanging over the arm of the chair while he lolled against the back of it at an angle—the ultimate manspread—it would be hard to believe he was a sadist who enjoyed making his fiancé scream on a regular basis. He was like a sadistic golden retriever. Proof that appearances could be deceiving.
“Well, I’m glad Zach has someone with him.” The words came out with more bitterness than he’d meant, and Mitch raised his eyebrow. To give himself time to collect himself, Kincaid moved over to the couch and sat back down. This time, he deliberately sat down on a cushion that was not the one he’d been sitting on.
“What happened?” Mitch asked once Kincaid was settled in.
Kincaid snorted. “What didn’t happen?”
Closing his eyes, because it was somehow easier to talk about it that way, he leaned back against the couch and went through the events. Granted, he had to make some suppositions about how things had gone down with Zach’s parents from things Amy and Zach had said, but everything from the moment he’d returned from his run was pretty much indelibly imprinted in his mind.
When he finished, he let out a huge sigh and opened his eyes to see how Mitch was taking it. His friend had a thoughtful frown on his usually smiling face. Then he hopped up from where he was sitting.
Kincaid blinked as Mitch went past him, heading into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” he asked, surprised out of the melancholy that had settled back over him while he’d been talking. He sat up, turning to watch Mitch.
“Daddy texted and said Zach hadn’t eaten lunch, so I’m assuming you haven’t either.”
“I… No. I’m not really hungry.”
“Mm, well, I am. I haven’t eaten either. I was… busy this morning.” Mitch smiled the blissful smile of a happy Dom who’d had a happy morning.
Why can’t that be me?
It almost had been. This was the part he hadn’t told Mitch. While he was on his run, he’d been thinking about how to broach the idea of trying to be a real threesome to Zach and Amy. He wasn’t sure if they’d be interested, too, but he was pretty sure. And after seeing Jessica, Justin, and Chris at Marquis… he’d realized he wanted that.
The three of them fit together. They worked well together. But he wasn’t willing to pretend to be the housemate while Zach and Amy were the couple. He wasn’t a damn third wheel.
“What’s that face for?” Mitch asked, pausing as he looked at Kincaid over the refrigerator door.
“I…” He sighed. He might as well tell Mitch all of it. Why not, at this point? “I’ve been thinking about me and Zach… and Amy.”
“Huh.” Mitch’s blue gaze unfocused for a moment, then he nodded his head, his lips forming a little half smile. “Yeah, I could see that.”
“Sure, if I’m okay with Zach shoving me in the closet every time his parents come over so he can pretend Amy is his only partner.” This time, Kincaid knew exactly how bitter he sounded. “He can’t even handle telling his parents he’s bisexual. Can you imagine him telling them that he’s both bisexual and polyamorous?”
Mitch closed the refrigerator door, his hands full of sandwich meat and cheese. He’d been over often enough that he didn’t need anyone to tell him where to go. He turned to the pantry to get out the bread.
“You know what your problem is? You’re too sure of yourself.”
“How is that a problem?” Kincaid asked, amused. Sometimes, Mitch’s mind worked in interesting ways. “Especially for a Dom.”
“Most of the time, it’s not,” Mitch admitted. “But sometimes, it is. Like right now. In a conceptual way, you understand what Zach’s afraid of, but it’s not something you really fear, so you can’t really understand where he’s coming from. You sort of get it, but it pisses you off at the same time.”
“This sounds a lot like the talk we had the last time Zach and I broke up.” Kincaid tapped his fingers on the back of the couch. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, which is why we ended up getting back together in the first place. I needed to be more understanding of the fact that he’s a very different person from me and isn’t going to act the same way that I would. But exactly how long am I supposed to be willing to wait?”
“See, that’s the thing. You’re going to have your timetable. He’s going to have his. They might not match up.” Mitch opened up the bread bag and started pulling slices out. Then he paused and turned, leaning over to open the cabinet where the cutting board was before Kincaid could even say something to him. “Yeah, I know. Food on the cutting board, not the counter.”
“Thank you,” Kincaid said, though it made his heart hurt a little because that was Zach’s rule, not his. “I don’t want to wait forever.”
“You shouldn’t have to wait forever. I won’t lie… Zach fucked up pretty big. He hit some trigger points for you, for sure. But… you’re also not very understanding when someone doesn’t do what you think is the ‘right’ thing.”
That grated a little because what? He was supposed to be okay with people doing the wrong thing?
“I see that face,” Mitch said in the kind of sing-song voice that he sometimes used with his soon-to-be six-year-old stepdaughter. “I didn’t say the ‘right’ thing. I said what you think the right thing is. Sometimes, in some situations, there’s more than one way to do the right thing, but you have a tendency to choose what you think is the one ‘right way,’ and woe betide anyone who doesn’t choose the same way.”
“Are you saying Zach did the right thing today?”
“No, but I am saying that he’s not doing anything wrong by working on the timetable that he’s comfortable with. Unfortunately, today that timetable bit him in the ass. You have every right to be pissed. But he also has every right to have waited this long. It’s up to you whether or not you can deal with his timetable, but being mad that his is different from yours isn’t going to help anyone.” Mitch’s tone was matter-of-fact.
Kincaid frowned.
Shit. He had been doing that, hadn’t he?
“Also, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be nearly as pissed at him if you hadn’t been working up a whole throuple scenario in your head while you were on your run, only to come back and find that he’d tried to implement what you would feel was the worst-case-scenario of that arrangement. If you weren’t afraid of exactly that happening, you probably would have been able to deal with everything better.” Mitch grinned when Kincaid flinched at the direct hit.
“Ow,” Kincaid complained, putting his hand on his chest. “Why don’t you just punch me in the face next time? It would hurt less.” He huffed. “I still don’t think it’s right that Zach hasn’t told his parents about us.”
“I agree,” Mitch said calmly, plating the sandwiches. “I also don’t think it’s right that you keep pressuring him to. Mostly because it’s not helping anyone; it’s making Zach more insecure, and it’s making you resentful. None of that is good for a relationship.”
“Get a girl to agree to marry you, and all of the sudden, you’re a relationship expert,” Kincaid muttered.
“Hey, if anyone knows about what it takes for a relationship to fall apart, it’s me. You want to end up like my parents?” Mitch wrinkled his nose. “I mean, they’re blissfully happy now, but I don’t think you want to spend ten years in a ‘will they, won’t they’ situation while y’all get your shit together.”
Having heard the entire story about Mitch’s parents’ divorce and reconciliation, Kincaid had to agree. Deep down, he’d already known that. Which was why he hadn’t broken up with Zach immediately. He hadn’t wanted to do anything rash while he was angry. He wasn’t sure Zach could handle another breakup, especially after he’d accused Kincaid of leaving him once.
He wasn’t ready to take that step.
“So what do I do?” he asked. Having to ask that wasn’t normally his thing, but he truly didn’t know what to do.
“I think you have to wait and see what Zach does.” Finished putting the ingredients away, Mitch walked back into the living room and handed Kincaid a plate.
“I hate waiting,” Kincaid muttered.
“Don’t we all.” Mitch snorted. “If you could wrap this up today while I’m here, so that I can tell Domi all the good, juicy gossip when I get back home, that would be much appreciated.”
Taking a big bite of his sandwich, Kincaid flipped off his best friend with his free hand.
Amy
“I’m a homewrecker,” Amy moaned into her hands while Morgan rubbed her back with one hand. She was sitting on Morgan and Asad’s couch—where she’d probably be sleeping tonight—trying not to totally dissolve into tears.
As crazy as it was, this felt worse than being left at the altar.
“No, you’re not,” Morgan said soothingly, still rubbing her back.
“By the legal definition, you’re definitely not,” Asad said from behind them. “Kincaid and Zach both invited you into the relationship, you’re living with them, and they both knew about you.”
When Amy and Morgan both lifted their heads to glare at him, he put his hands up in front of him in a placating gesture and took a slow, careful step back.
“So, um, I’m going to step out and let you ladies have the house,” he said. “Uh… I hope you’re feeling better soon, Amy.” He sidestepped to the front door and yanked it open, disappearing as fast as he could and causing both Amy and Morgan to dissolve into giggles. Amy’s ended a lot faster than Morgan’s did.
Technically, Asad was right. She wasn’t a homewrecker. Not in the sense that Noelle had been. But she’d still messed up Kincaid and Zach’s relationship, even inadvertently, which was the last thing she’d ever wanted to do. She felt like she’d wrecked things with her mere presence.
If she hadn’t sprayed Zach with water, they wouldn’t have been in the position his parents found them in. If she hadn’t been there, if she hadn’t taken over their guest room, they wouldn’t have agreed to the club relationship, and it wouldn’t have spilled over to real life. If she hadn’t started yelling at Zach in the street, maybe he would have found the right time and way to tell Kincaid what had happened with his parents. Or, at least, a way that didn’t involve her, so she wasn’t partially responsible for that awful expression on Kincaid’s face. No matter which way she looked at it, everything started with her.
“He is right, though,” Morgan said delicately, returning to rubbing Amy’s back. “I don’t think we can call you a homewrecker. It was just a fight. A bad one. But you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I… I shouldn’t have yelled at Zach in the street.” That was one she was pretty sure Morgan couldn’t argue with.
“Sounds to me like he deserved it. And you were upset.”
“Yeah, but I also wasn’t thinking.” Amy rubbed her face. “I should have thought about the fact that Kincaid was out on a run. That he might be back soon. That anyone could hear us.”
“You weren’t thinking because you were upset.”
“That’s no excuse,” Amy said stubbornly, even though she knew she’d say the exact same thing to any of her friends.
Thankfully, she was saved by the bell.
“That must be the others,” Morgan said with a sigh of relief as she got up to go answer the door. Amy had texted the group chat, and Morgan had immediately told her she could come over. She’d been the first to respond. Carolyn had been second—she was out of town with her husband. Marissa hadn’t responded at all, but she was also on the other side of the country. Sam had texted back that she wanted to come help, but she was with Iris, Avery, Rae, and Domi… could she bring them?
After the humiliation at her wedding, such a small audience was hardly going to faze Amy. She’d said, ‘sure.’ Plus, she’d realized how nice it was to have so many people supporting her when she’d burned her wedding dress. She felt like she needed the support even more now, as crazy as that was, especially with both Carolyn and Marissa being unavailable.
When everyone came in, all of them immediately moving to her with sympathy and hugs and greetings, her heart felt so happy and warm, it was hard not to feel calmer. The support, even from newer friends she hadn’t known for as long or as well, bolstered her in a way that she desperately needed right now.
“Okay, honey,” Sam said, sitting Amy back down on the couch beside her, with her arm around her. Morgan was back on Amy’s other side, and the others all arrayed themselves around the room with sympathetic expressions. “What on earth happened?”
Amy took a deep breath and started from the beginning—this morning when she’d started gardening with Zach and Kincaid had gone out for his run. Thankfully, everyone at the club knew Kincaid and Zach’s history, so there was no need to explain any of that. They all listened quietly until Amy got to the part about Zach’s parents showing up and being told that she was his girlfriend.
“No…” Iris gasped.
“What did you do?” Domi asked.
“What was I supposed to do? Out him to his parents?” Amy wrung her hands. “I don’t know, maybe I should have.”
“No, you definitely shouldn’t have,” Rae said, shaking her head.
“Might have deserved it for making Amy his beard,” Sam muttered. Then she shook her head, too. “No, because he’d just slapped your ass, right? And you were over his shoulder. They saw that.”
“Kind of hard to claim ‘just friends’ after that,” Avery agreed. “Though he could have still tried if he really wanted to.”
“Do you think he didn’t want to because he does want you to be his girlfriend? I mean, not just his, but his and Kincaid’s,” Morgan hastily added on the second part when everyone turned to look at her. “Sorry, that’s probably wrong. I’m not good at reading people.”
“Oh, I think you might be better than you think,” Sam said slowly. “I could totally believe that’s part of it.”
“Y’all, I do not need you to give me more problems,” Amy said, shaking her head. “Besides, I don’t think that’s true. Even if it was, I’m not done. I started yelling at him as soon as his parents left when I should have just let us go inside to talk about it… but I was so mad?—”
“Were you mad because you wanted it to be true?” Sam interjected.
Amy elbowed her in the side and ignored her, even though everyone else’s expressions appeared to agree with her assessment.
“And while we were yelling, at some point, Kincaid showed up. And we didn’t notice him.” More gasps around the room. Iris actually lifted her hands to cover her mouth in shock. “I have no idea how much he heard, but enough to know that Zach told his parents I was his girlfriend.”
“Oh, no…” Domi breathed out the words. Her husband was Kincaid’s best friend, so she probably knew him pretty well. “What did he do?”
“Started yelling at Zach, which is when I realized what I’d done, and I ran into the house to get my stuff and get out of there before I could cause any more damage.”
“And… what did you do exactly?” Avery asked, looking confused.
“Other than moving in and ruining their lives with my very presence, you mean?” she asked, throwing her hands up in the air.
Morgan looked pained. “See what I’ve been dealing with? I don’t understand why she thinks it’s her fault.”
“Because she always blames herself for everything that goes wrong,” Sam said. “Don’t look at me like that. You do. You even blamed yourself for Jeremy being a huge jerk and leaving you at the altar.”
“I should have realized he was a huge jerk before we ever got to the altar.”
“Well, he was, but no one ever expected he would do that. We didn’t suspect. I would have told you. Morgan definitely would have told you.” Sam reached over and hugged her shoulders. “Carolyn would have told you. Marissa would have told you. Worst-case scenario, we thought he might not be as good of a husband as you deserved. And hopefully, if he was bad enough, eventually, you’d get divorced. But his behavior is not on you.”
“Neither are Kincaid and Zach’s,” Rae said, picking up the thread. “They were messed up before you came along. There was some drama at Domi and Mitch’s Jack-and-Jill weekend away, then they broke up, and then they got back together… all before you were doing anything with them other than an occasional scene with Zach.”
“And none of those issues they were having had anything to do with you.”
Amy opened her mouth. Closed it. That was true. She knew she had nothing to do with any of that. She’d been deep in wedding prep with Jeremy.
So, why did she still feel like it was her fault?
“I should have still been able to do something instead of running away,” she said stubbornly. “If I hadn’t been yelling at Zach, Kincaid wouldn’t have heard what happened like that, and he might not have been upset.”
“Pretty sure that he was going to be upset about Zach using you as a beard, regardless of how he found out,” Iris pointed out. “And, again, Zach’s behavior isn’t your fault, and he deserved to be yelled at.”
Rubbing her forehead, Amy frowned. “I just feel like I should have been able to do something.”
“That’s because you like to fix everything,” Sam said. “But you can’t always fix people or a situation, and sometimes, there’s nothing you can do to help.”
Ugh. She didn’t like the sound of that at all. Especially because she realized it was true. As much as she was kicking herself over everything, the thing she was kicking herself over the most was running away instead of staying to try to help them. At that moment, she’d felt like she could help the most by getting out of there.
Now, she wasn’t so sure, and she was feeling the urge to go back and try to put what she’d broken back together.