Chapter 17 #2
"Okay, just—" I press my palms against my face. Breathe. Regroup. "There were these people I knew. In Costa Rica. Two women and a man. Maria, Sofia, and Andrés."
The words come out jumbled, half-formed thoughts tumbling over each other.
"They weren't roommates. They weren't some casual thing.
They were together. All three of them. They'd been together for years.
They shared a home. Maria was a teacher, Sofia worked at the clinic with me, Andrés ran a fishing charter.
They had dinner together every night. Argued about whose turn it was to clean the bathroom.
Sofia used to complain that Andrés left his socks everywhere and Maria never replaced the toilet paper roll. "
I'm babbling now, but I can't stop because if I stop I'll lose my nerve.
"They were more committed to each other than half the married couples I've ever met.
More stable than my parents, honestly. When Sofia got sick — appendicitis and emergency surgery — Maria and Andrés were both there.
They took turns sitting with her. Argued about who got to sleep in the hospital chair. "
"Laine." Blake's voice cuts through my rambling. He looks frustrated, jaw tight, eyes blazing. "What are you actually saying?"
Reid just seems exhausted. Lost. "Yeah, I'm... I'm not following."
Say it. Just say it.
"I'm saying maybe there's another option." My voice shakes. "One where nobody walks away."
The room goes dead quiet. Their eyes are locked on me, unblinking. Okay, I'm really doing this.
"I'm not talking about something casual. I'm not talking about sex." I take a breath so deep it hurts. "I'm talking about what Maria and Sofia and Andrés had. A relationship. A real one. Committed. Exclusive. The three of them."
Reid's mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
Blake looks like someone's hit him with a board.
"They'd been together eight years when I met them," I push on. "They were building a life. Together. All three of them."
"People do this," I continue, and God, the more I say it out loud, the more it feels possible. Real. "It's not some fantasy. It's not just about sex. It's about choosing each other. All of each other."
I look between them — Blake with his guarded intensity, Reid with his bewilderment. Shoot. Am I actually hoping for this? How selfish am I? Wanting both of them. Wanting all of it.
"I'm not saying I know how." My voice cracks.
"I'm not saying it would work. I don't even know how I feel about it, honestly.
But I've seen it work. I've watched it be real and boring and normal.
And right now the alternative is all three of us walking away and being miserable forever, so.
.." A little melodramatic maybe, but that's where we are.
I throw my hands up. "It's a possibility.
That's all I'm saying. It's a possibility. "
Reid's face does something complicated. "So we'd all be... together. Like, together together."
"Would we have to—" Blake gestures vaguely between himself and Reid. "You know."
Reid's eyes go wide. "Wait, would we?"
"Cross swords?" Blake's voice cracks on the second word.
"I didn't even think about—" Reid turns to me, slightly panicked. "Would we have to... with each other?"
They're both looking at me now. Expectant. Like I have a manual hidden somewhere.
"Why are you asking me?" I throw my hands up. "I'm not the expert on threesomes! I kissed you both five minutes ago and now suddenly I'm supposed to have a PhD in polyamory?"
Blake snorts. Actually snorts. Then Reid's mouth twitches. And suddenly we're all laughing — not hysterical this time, just... release. The tension that's been coiled in my chest for months loosens another notch.
"Okay." Reid scrubs his face with both hands. "Okay. Let's just... talk about this. Actually talk."
Blake drops onto the couch beside me. Reid takes the armchair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
"So what would this actually look like?" Reid asks. "Day to day, I mean."
I think about Maria's kitchen. The way she'd hand Sofia a coffee cup without looking, knowing exactly how she took it. Andrés reading the newspaper while Sofia braided Maria's hair.
"I don't know exactly. I think we'd figure it out as we went." I pull my knees up to my chest. "But it would be real. Not casual. Not just... physical."
"Exclusive?" Blake's voice is careful.
"Yes." That part I'm sure about. "Just us. The three of us. Nobody else." Crap. Does that make me a hypocrite? I want both men, but they have to settle for me?
Reid nods slowly. "What about... what people would say?" Oh my god, they're actually considering this. Am I happy about that? Yeah, I have no idea. What a freaking confusing night.
"Your crew," Blake adds. "The hospital. Laine's yoga friends."
Oh God. What would they say? Jamila probably knows people in all kinds of relationships. But would she support me being with these two men?
"Some people wouldn't get it." I swallow. "Some people would think we were weird. Or broken. Or just horny."
"My crew would have a field day," Reid mutters. "Tony alone..."
"Does that matter?" Blake asks quietly. "What they think?"
Reid and I both look at him.
"I spent three months in Afghanistan trying to outrun what I felt." Blake's jaw tightens. "Damn near got myself killed because I was too scared to want something that didn't fit the rules. And you know what? The rules didn't give a shit about any of us. They just... broke us anyway."
Reid exhales. "He's not wrong."
"Would it be weird?" I ask. "For you two? Living together, sharing..." I trail off.
"Sharing you?" Reid finishes.
The word hangs there. Sharing. Like I'm a dessert they're splitting. My stomach flips.
"I don't love that framing," I admit. "That doesn't feel great."
"Sorry. I didn't mean—" Reid winces. "I just meant... Blake and I have shared a house for years. Shared Jared. Shared grief. This would be different, obviously, but..."
"We already know how to live together," Blake says. "We already know each other's worst days."
"You've seen me at three AM after a bad call," Reid adds. "You've held my head over a toilet."
"You sat with me through the nightmares." Blake's voice drops. "The bad ones."
They're looking at each other now. Something passes between them — years of history I'll never fully understand. They need each other. And this may be the only way that happens.
So much pressure.
"Would it be weird?" Reid repeats my question back at Blake.
Blake considers it. Really considers it, rubbing his palms over his thighs.
"Probably sometimes. Yeah." He shrugs. "But weird isn't the same as wrong."
"Are we really doing this?" Reid's voice is barely above a whisper. "Actually considering this?"
"I think we are," I say slowly. "But that doesn't mean we're ready. Or that it'll work."
They were just shoving each other. Now we're discussing relationship logistics. There is a very real chance we're all having a collective breakdown right now.
But it doesn't feel like a breakdown. It feels like the first honest conversation we've had in months.
It feels…possible.
Blake shifts beside me on the couch. "So what are we afraid of? If we're going to talk about this — really talk — we should know what we're walking into."
Reid laughs, but there's no humor in it. "How much time do you have?"
"All night if we need it."
The room goes quiet. Outside, a car passes. Someone's dog barks in the distance. Normal sounds from a normal world that has no idea what's happening in this living room.
"I'll go first," I offer, because someone has to. And I have a lot of fears. "I'm afraid of not being believed."
Both of them look at me, waiting.
"When Blake was..." I search for the right word.
I don't want to bring up the past, but we have to.
"When things were bad. I told Reid something was wrong.
Multiple times. And every time, I got explanations.
Excuses. Blake just needs time. Blake's protective.
Blake's working through stuff." My throat tightens.
"I started thinking I was crazy. That I was imagining it. That maybe I was the problem."
Reid's face crumples. "Laine—"
"I know you're sorry. I know you didn't mean to." I hold up my hand. "But if we do this — whatever this is — I need to know that when I say something feels wrong, you'll both actually hear me. Not explain it away. Not tell me I'm overreacting. Actually listen."
"We will," Blake says quietly. "I will."
"You say that now." The words come out sharper than I intend. "But you're the one who made me feel like I was losing my mind. For months. You looked me in the eye and told me I was pathetic. Desperate. Nothing special."
Blake flinches like I've slapped him.
"I'm not saying that to hurt you." I force myself to meet his gaze. "I'm saying it because it's true, and because I'm still careful around you. I still brace myself a little when we're alone. I still wait for the other shoe to drop."
"That's fair," he manages.
"And there's something else." I pull my knees tighter to my chest. "I don't... I'm not there yet. With you. With feelings."
Blake goes very still.
"I care about you. Obviously. I kissed you. I think about you. But love?" I shake my head. "I don't know. And I'm scared of what happens if I never get there. If Reid and I have this history, this foundation, and you're always... waiting. For something I can't give."
The silence stretches. Blake stares at the floor. I hate that I hurt him. But honestly, there's so much hurt swirling through the three of us, I don't think it can make anything worse.
"Okay," he finally says. "That makes sense. You can't make someone love you."
Reid clears his throat. "My turn, I guess."
We both turn toward him. He's hunched in the armchair, fingers laced together, knuckles white.
"I'm scared of the dark." He laughs bitterly. "Not literal dark. The place I go when things fall apart. After Jared died, I barely functioned for a year. Blake knows. He was there. And after you left..." He looks at me. "I turned into someone I didn't recognize."
"Reid—"
"Let me finish." His voice cracks. "If this goes wrong — if I lose both of you at once — I don't know what I'd become. I don't know if I'd come back from that. If it ended now, I might recover. But to hope again? That shit's dangerous."
Blake leans forward. "You wouldn't be alone. Even if—"
"Let me finish." Reid cuts him off. "I'd built this whole life in my head.
Me and Laine. Marriage. Kids maybe. A future that looked a certain way.
And now I have to let that idea go. Mourn it, almost. Even if we do this, even if it's good, that version of my life is dead.
I'm grieving something that never existed. "
I hadn't thought about it that way. The life he'd imagined. The one that was just us.
"I'm sorry," I whisper.
"Don't be." He shakes his head. "It's not your fault. It's just... real. And scary."
We all look at Blake. He's been quiet, jaw working, eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance.
"Blake?" I prompt gently.
"I'm afraid I'd always be on the outside." His voice comes out rough. Like he's dragging each word through gravel. "You two have history. Inside jokes. A rhythm. I'd be the addition. The third wheel who's technically invited but never quite fits."
"That's not—" Reid starts.
"Let me finish." Blake says it the same way Reid said it to him earlier, and the deliberateness of that lands somewhere behind my ribs.
"And I'm afraid I'd be too much. For Laine especially.
I feel things... intensely. I know that about myself.
My ex said I was exhausting. That loving me was like drowning.
" He swallows, and I watch his throat move.
"What if Laine never loves me back? What if she tries and can't? I don't think I could survive that. "
His voice cracks on the last word, and I have to look away.
In relationships you're supposed to take care of each other.
But with Blake, with both of them, there's a real possibility of losing myself if I'm not careful.
Of focusing on their well being and their happiness, and letting mine fall by the wayside.
"And yeah." He finally looks up. "I'm worried about what people would say. We all are, right? Tony's jokes. Joyce's questions. Explaining this to anyone. Ever. I don't give a fuck what people think about me. But I don't want you two hurt."
Reid nods slowly. "My Dad would have a stroke."
"My parents would pray for my soul," I add. "Literally. With a pastor."
"Hatch would probably just shrug," Blake admits. "But Reid, the guys at the station..."
We sit with it. The fear. The uncertainty. The weight of other people's opinions pressing against something fragile and new.
"So we're all terrified," I summarize.
"Completely," Reid agrees.
"Shitless," Blake adds.