Chapter 17
LAINE
They're fighting about me. Over me. Like I'm not sitting three feet away on this couch with my hands in my lap.
"—don't get to sacrifice yourself on some altar of nobility—"
"Maybe it is what I want!"
"Bullshit!"
I watch them circle each other, voices climbing, and something rises in me that I can't name. Not anger, exactly. Something stranger than that.
Reid wants Blake to date me. Blake refuses because Reid loves me. Reid insists he can't watch Blake disappear again. Blake shoves Reid's shoulder. Reid grabs Blake's arm.
They're both teary now, shouting about who loves whom more, who's willing to suffer more, who deserves happiness less. It's like watching two people fight over who gets to throw themselves off a cliff first while the cliff just sits there.
And nobody—nobody—has asked me what I want.
The absolute absurdity of it hits me all at once.
Two grown men, red-eyed, voices cracking, screaming about martyrdom and sacrifice while I sit here like a lamp they're arguing over who gets to keep.
Do I get a say? Does the lamp get a vote?
Or do I just sit here and look decorative until one of them unscrews my bulb?
A snort escapes before I can stop it.
They freeze mid-shout. Turn toward me in perfect unison.
The snort becomes a laugh. Then I'm gone—full-body, gasping, tears-streaming hysteria. My hand clamps over my mouth but it doesn't help. Everything I've been holding together for months just... breaks.
"Laine?" Reid drops to his knees in front of me. Blake follows instantly. "Are you okay? What's—"
Blake's hand presses against my forehead like I'm running a fever. "Talk to us."
I wave them both off, trying to breathe between waves of laughter that aren't entirely laughter anymore. They're kneeling there, these two beautiful idiots, looking up at me with identical expressions of worried confusion.
Fuck it, I think. And then I say it out loud: "Fuck it."
I cup Reid's face with my right hand. Blake's with my left. And I give into my baser instincts.
I kiss them.
Reid's kiss tastes like salt and familiarity. Home.
Blake's kiss tastes like possibility. Like jumping off a cliff and trusting someone to catch you.
I pull back. They're both staring at me, stunned.
"Why—" Blake's voice cracks.
"Because you're both adorable idiots." I shrug. "And honestly? It couldn't make anything worse." We're going up in flames. It's not like this disaster could get any bigger.
Blake's already seen me kiss Reid. Multiple times. So I focus on Reid instead—on those wide eyes, that shellshocked expression. He doesn't look angry, though. Which is all kinds of interesting.
Suddenly I can't live without knowing what's going on in Reid Garrison's head. "How did it feel?" My voice comes out breathy, but steady. "Watching me kiss Blake?"
He blinks, eyes a little glazed. "I don't know. I thought I'd hate it. It should feel like a fucking betrayal." He runs his hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in about six different directions. "But I didn't. I just... watched. And it felt..."
He trails off. His gaze bounces between Blake and me, jaw working, like he's digging around inside himself for something that's supposed to be there and coming up empty-handed.
"Fuck. I don't know. Fine, I guess."
The word just hangs there. Fine.
Blake goes rigid beside me. "Fine."
"Yeah."
"You just watched her kiss me. And you felt fine."
It's not a question. Blake's voice is flat. Dangerous in that quiet way he gets right before he either shuts down or blows up. Oh crap. But also, I was so not prepared for fine either.
"I can't explain it—"
"Try." Blake stands. The kneeling-at-my-feet thing is over. Arms crossed, jaw tight, looking down at Reid with the wall going up brick by brick in real time. "Because if this is you doing the martyr thing again—"
"It's not." Reid gets to his feet too. "I swear it's not."
"A minute ago you were offering me your girlfriend like a consolation prize. Now you're telling me watching her kiss me felt fine?" Blake's voice cracks on the last word. "You get why that's hard to believe."
"Yeah, actually, I do. Because I don't believe it either.
" Reid's hands go up, palms out. "I keep waiting for it to hit.
Like there's a fuse burning somewhere and any second I'm going to lose it.
But she kissed you and I..." He trails off, scowling.
"I didn't want to punch you. I didn't feel sick. I just watched it happen and it felt—"
"If you say fine one more time—"
"I don't have a better word!" Reid's voice pitches up. "You think I'm not freaking out about the fact that I'm not freaking out?"
They stare at each other. I stay on the couch, watching. Reading.
Reid's not performing. I've seen Reid perform — the big grin, the deflection, the joke that papers over the crack. This isn't that. He looks genuinely rattled by his own reaction. Confused by it. Almost scared.
Honestly, I'm a little rattled too.
"It wasn't nothing." Reid says it quieter now.
More to himself than to Blake. "There was a.
.. something. A flicker. But it was so much smaller than it should have been, and honestly?
" He lets out a shaky breath. "That scares me more than if I'd wanted to put my fist through the wall.
Because at least that would make sense."
Blake's arms slowly uncross. Not all the way. But an inch.
"What did the flicker feel like?" I ask. None of this is going the way I thought it would. We're all still on the edge of the cliff, but for some reason, I don't think we're going to fall…or heck, push each other off anymore.
Both of them look at me. Right. Still here. Still part of this.
Reid's quiet for a long time. Long enough that the house settles around us, the old pipes ticking in the walls.
"Like it made sense." He says it on a rush of breath. Almost a groan. "Watching you kiss him. It just... made sense. And I don't know what kind of person that makes me. And that's fucking me up worse than the kiss."
Like it made sense.
Yeah. It did. Both kisses — Reid warm and familiar, Blake desperate and new — and instead of guilt or confusion or the sick twisted feeling I was bracing for, there was just... oh. Right. Yes.
Both of them. At the same time. And it made sense.
My hands are shaking. I press them flat against my thighs.
Because I've been here before. This feeling. Hours ago at the night market — Reid clearing the crowd, Blake at my back, me moving in the space they made. This is how we're supposed to work. I thought that. I actually thought that and then spent two hours pretending I didn't.
Blake winning me the penguin. The look on his face when he handed it over, like he'd slayed something for me instead of throwing darts at balloons. Reid charging off to the basketball booth because he couldn't stand not winning me something too. Both of them. Orbiting.
Stop it. You don't get to want both.
That's been the rule since this whole mess started. You pick one. That's how it works. Wanting both is greedy. Wanting both is what broken people do so they never have to actually commit.
Except Reid just said watching me kiss Blake made sense. And I'm sitting here with the taste of both of them still on my lips thinking the exact same thing.
So either we're all broken, or the rule is wrong.
Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God.
I can't be thinking this. I grew up in church basements.
My parents build churches for a living. Literally.
Hammer and nails and steeples pointed at heaven.
I can't maintain one normal relationship — I've never even tried until this year — and now I'm sitting here thinking what if one isn't the right number?
But I am thinking it.
I've been thinking it for longer than that, if I'm being honest with myself, which apparently I'm doing tonight whether I like it or not.
In Costa Rica, Maria at the clinic break room table, shrugging like it was nothing: I just have two people I come home to instead of one.
Eight years. Groceries and mortgage payments and fights about the bathroom.
Real life. Boring, committed, real life.
That's not us, though. We are a disaster. Blake spent months making me feel crazy. Reid went off the rails after we broke up. I'm sitting between two emotionally wrecked veterans, heart beating out of my chest and I'm thinking about — what? A throuple? Is that even the word?
But what's the alternative? We all walk away.
Blake already said it — that ship has sailed and sunk and is currently rusting at the bottom of the ocean.
He's done. He'll never try again. And Reid, without his anchor, spiraling into whoever he becomes when the people he loves disappear.
And me. Packing my two suitcases. Finding the next city.
The next temporary everything. Because as much as I'm building a life here, I don't think I can stay here anymore with all of us broken. It's not healthy.
We've tried the normal options. Every single one ends with someone destroyed.
So maybe the question isn't whether this is crazy. Maybe the question is whether it's crazier than everything we've already tried.
I open my mouth. Close it. My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my teeth. This is insane. This is absolutely, certifiably—
Just say it. The worst that happens is they think you're nuts. And honestly, after everything that's happened tonight, the bar for nuts is already underground.
"What if nobody had to be the martyr?"
They stare at me. Blank.
"I mean—" Nope. I had the shape of it and it's already gone. "What if the reason we can't figure this out is because we keep trying to make it fit into something it's not? Two people. A couple. One or the other. What if it's not..." I trail off.
I sound insane. I actually sound insane.
"What if it's not a two-person thing?" I finish weakly.
Reid frowns. "What do you mean?"
Blake just watches me. Unreadable.