Chapter 33
33
Zach
When he finally left his parents, Zach still wasn’t sure they completely understood. His dad had been really quiet for the whole conversation, though before they’d left, he’d given Zach a hug and told him he loved him, no matter what. His mom wanted to ask more questions, and Zach had made her promise to ask him or Krista and never Kincaid. Or Amy.
“You going to be okay?” Brian asked, giving him a pat on the shoulder as he walked Zach to his car.
“Yeah, I just feel wrung out. And now I need to go home and tell Kincaid that I’ve told my parents and see what he says. Then I need to talk to him about Amy. Then we can hopefully figure out where Amy went.”
“Good luck.” They’d reached the cars, and Brian stepped in to give him a bro hug—hands clasped between them, pulling each other in for mutual slaps on the back. “If you need me, call me.”
“I will.” Though he really hoped not to. He’d already pulled Brian away from enough of his day. Still, he appreciated knowing that Brian was there for him, no matter what. And if things went horribly wrong, Brian was exactly who he would call.
Getting into his car, Zach took a deep breath. That had been… hard. Though not as hard as he’d thought it would be. And his parents had taken it a hell of a lot better than he’d thought. Nothing that he’d been afraid of had come to pass. Now, he just had to talk to Kincaid to see if he felt the same way about Amy, then they could talk to Amy.
Those were all conversations he wanted to have in person.
On the way home, however, he had one more conversation to have, and that one he could do on the phone.
He started the call before starting to drive.
“Hello?” Krista’s voice was amplified through the car dashboard.
“Hey.” Zach pulled out of his parking spot and started heading home. “I just wanted to call and let you know that I just told Mom and Dad about me and Kincaid.”
“Huzzah! Finally!” Even though he couldn’t see her, it wasn’t hard to imagine Krista throwing her hands in the air—or at least one hand if she was holding the phone with the other—as she cheered. “Took you long enough!”
“Yeah, yeah… a little too long, actually.”
“What does that mean?”
Since he didn’t know whether or not he still had a boyfriend, Zach wanted to prepare Krista for the possibility that Kincaid was going to dump him after this morning. It was no less agonizing going through it for a second time. Maybe a little more agonizing because his sister was a much less sympathetic listener than Brian.
“Oh my God, you are such a stupid little shit sometimes,” she groaned when he got to the part about telling their parents that Amy was his girlfriend.
“Yes, just keep kicking me while I’m down, thanks.”
“That is my job as your sister. If I don’t tell you when you’re being a dumbass, who else is going to?”
“I can tell myself plenty, thank you.”
“Apparently not, since you’re still doing dumbass shit.”
“Anyway. I got them out of there as quickly as I could before Kincaid got home, but then as soon as they were gone, Amy started yelling at me about using her as a beard.”
Krista groaned. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me. Kincaid came home then and heard her.”
“At the worst possible time.”
“Maybe not the worst possible time. The worst possible time would have been if he’d come up and heard you telling Mom and Dad that Amy was your girlfriend. Hearing about it secondhand is probably less painful than hearing you actually do it. Plus, this way, Mom wasn’t there to make things even worse. And you know she could have.”
“You know, that’s a good point,” Zach admitted. He could only imagine how that would have gone down, and to be perfectly honest, it was worse. His mom definitely would have tried to get involved, both trying to understand and attempting to play peacemaker without actually understanding.
He wasn’t sure how his dad would have reacted.
Maybe by hiding in the car until it was all over.
Huh. Maybe he was more like his dad sometimes than he thought.
“I’m glad you told them, though. Maybe that’ll help make things up to Kincaid a little.”
“Fingers crossed.” Zach sighed as he pulled into his driveway. “Things probably can’t get worse, right?”
“Dude, never say that. Things can always get worse.”
“You’re such a ray of sunshine. Thanks,” he said dryly.
“You sure Mom didn’t beat you over there to reintroduce herself to Kincaid?” Krista joked, making Zach shudder.
“Don’t say that, even as a joke.” He wouldn’t put it past his mom to do something like that with the best of intentions. Crap. The likelihood of her doing something wildly outrageous to ‘welcome Kincaid to the family’ was a lot higher after today’s debacle. She was probably going to feel the need to try to make up for the misunderstanding, even though it wasn’t her fault. “Have you ever thought about the fact that our mom is the definition of chaotic good?”
“Good intentions, questionable methods? Oh, yeah. That’s her all over.”
At least he wasn’t the only one who saw it.
“I’m home. I’m going inside. Wish me luck.”
“Don’t fuck it up again!” Krista responded cheerfully, which was her very big sisterly way of saying ‘good luck.’ Strangely, it made him feel better.
“Thanks.” He shoved his phone in his pocket and headed to the door, wiping suddenly clammy hands on his pants as he approached. His chest tightened, and he took a deep breath, giving himself a little shake to try to release the tension from his muscles.
Punching in the code to the lock, he opened the door and stepped inside… and nearly tripped over himself when movement on the couch caught his eye, and he turned to look.
Amy had returned.
Her car must have been out front, but somehow he hadn’t noticed.
Amy had returned, and she was sitting on Kincaid’s lap.
Amy had returned, and she was sitting on Kincaid’s lap with his arms around her, and she’d just pulled away from him, and her cheeks were flushed and…
And they’d been kissing.
Without him.
Amy
What am I doing?
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to kiss Kincaid, but… it felt wrong. Zach wasn’t here.
Kincaid must have had the same thought, or something, because they both pulled back from the kiss at the same time. His arms remained locked around her, though, holding her securely. Though their lips had pulled away from each other, they leaned against each other, foreheads touching.
“We can’t do this before I talk to Zach,” Kincaid said before Amy could catch her breath, proving that he had been thinking the exact same thing as her. “I don’t even know what he wants yet.”
“I know… I…” Something beeped, and Amy frowned. What was that?
It wasn’t until the door opened that she realized she’d been hearing the keypad.
She jerked away from Kincaid, but when she turned her head, Zach was standing in the doorway, staring at her and Kincaid, white as a sheet.
“Zach!” She and Kincaid said his name at the same time, her trying to roll off his lap at the same time he stood up, which sent her tumbling to the floor. He stood beside her while she was on the ground.
“Shit.” He reached out his hand to help her up, though his eyes were still on Zach. “I didn’t know you were coming home.”
Zach looked between Kincaid and her as she got to her feet, releasing Kincaid’s hand as soon as she could.
“Clearly,” he said in a hollow voice.
She felt Kincaid stiffen beside her, and she looked up to see him scowling.
“Nothing happened. Well, we kissed, but we both immediately realized that we shouldn’t until we talked to you.”
“Well, that’s something at least.” Zach didn’t look at all reassured, and his words came out more sarcastic than sincere.
“It’s better than telling someone that she’s my girlfriend without talking to you about it first,” Kincaid shot back.
“Hey, hey!” Amy was not having any of this. Zach had come back. That was good. She did not want anyone storming out again. “You are not to use me as a weapon between you or a way to get back at each other.”
“I’m sorry,” Kincaid said immediately, shamefaced. “That’s not… If I did do that, it wasn’t my intention. That’s not why I kissed you, and it’s not why I said that, but I can see how it could come off that way.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Zach sighed, the fight visibly leaking out of him. He shut the front door, which helped Amy to relax. He’d gone from freeze to fight and, thankfully, had now shut down the avenue to flight. Hopefully, they could just talk now. The way they should have in the first place. “I really don’t have room to talk today. I just…” He took a deep breath and looked at Kincaid. “It hurt feeling left out. I know I did it to you, and in a much worse way, and I was blindsided. But so were you, and I’m sorry. I’m the one who was out of line.”
“No, like I said, Amy and I were both just saying that we couldn’t do anything without talking to you. If our relationship is going to change, that can’t happen if you aren’t part of the conversation.” Kincaid ran his fingers through his hair. “I do think we need to talk, though. Maybe just the two of us at first, then we can bring in Amy?”
Damn. Her heart sank a little, but it made sense. They were the original relationship. If they were going to bring her in, they needed to talk about it first. She wanted it. She knew Kincaid wanted it. She thought—hoped—Zach wanted it, too.
Her heart sank more when Zach shook his head.
“Amy might as well stay because I’m pretty sure you and I both want the same thing.” He cleared his throat. “In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell both of you that I’ve been at my parents, telling them that Kincaid is my boyfriend and that I was not cheating on him with Amy the way my mom accused me of, then having to try to explain polyamory to her.”
Her heart rose back up with every word he said, then the pained expression on his face when he talked about trying to explain polyamory to his mom made Amy laugh. Not just because it was funny, though it was, but because all the tension was bursting out of her and needed somewhere to go.
It was a laugh of relief, of joy, of hope.
Fingers closed around hers. Kincaid was holding her hand. He reached his free hand toward Zach, who took the steps to close the gap and take it. Amy breathed out a sigh of contentment.
Yes. This felt right. This is how they were supposed to be.
“So, everyone’s in agreement that we want to be in a relationship with each other?” Kincaid asked with barely suppressed amusement.
“Yes. But only if we’re in this together. I never want to be Zach’s beard.” Amy narrowed her eyes at him, joking but not really joking.
“You won’t be. I promise I won’t hide either of you. Which is going to make my company holiday party this year really interesting, but we’ll have fun with it.” He grinned at them. He looked so much more relaxed than he had in months, and Amy realized how much keeping the secret had been weighing on him. Now that the weight was off, he didn’t seem eager to take it back up again.
“Well, I still have to tell my parents,” Amy said, though considering her mom’s reading habits and her suggestion at Amy’s wedding, perhaps it wouldn’t go too badly. “Um, which… I would like to wait a little before telling them, if that’s okay. Just to make sure that we don’t change our minds.”
Zach smiled warmly at her, washing away her worry about him. Kincaid’s expression was more serious, but he nodded.
“I’m not going to change my mind, but we can wait until you’re more comfortable.” He looked at Zach again. “I’m working on my patience.”
“You were already really patient,” Zach told him. “You had every right to be upset that it was taking so long to tell my parents.”
“And you were working on your own timetable. You shouldn’t have had to adhere to mine, and you would have every right to be upset that I was pressuring you.” Kincaid sighed.
“So, both of you were in the wrong, and I’m the good girl,” Amy quipped, looking to break up the pity fest a little bit. They’d just gotten things sorted out; she didn’t want them arguing about who had done the other one more wrong.
Both of them laughed, just as she’d meant them to.
“You are the good girl,” Kincaid said, his dark eyes lighting up. “And I think you deserve a reward.”
“I feel like I’m getting off easy,” Zach murmured.
Kincaid turned to look at him with a wolfish smile. “Trust me, you won’t feel that way by the end of the night.”