Chapter 31
LAINE
"Don't laugh," I warn them as I put the pillow on the kitchen chair and ease myself down.
Reid holds up both hands. "Wouldn't dream of it."
But Blake's face goes tight, that worried crease between his eyebrows deepening. "Did I—"
"No." I cut him off before he can spiral. "Don't even start. You didn't hurt me."
He doesn't look convinced, so I reach across the table and grab his hand. "Blake. Look at me."
Those gray eyes meet mine, still clouded with concern.
"I am not used to having this much sex." I say it plainly because apparently subtlety is lost on this man. "That's all. I enjoyed every single second of it. All of it. With both of you." I squeeze his fingers. "I'm just a little sore. In a good way. A very good way."
The tension in his shoulders releases, inch by inch, and something like pride flickers across his face. He glances at Reid.
Reid grins.
They high-five each other across the table.
Over my head. While I'm sitting right here. On a pillow.
I should be offended. I should say something pointed about male ego or caveman behavior or the general audacity of high-fiving over a woman's sexual soreness.
Instead a laugh bubbles up and I shake my head at both of them.
"You two are ridiculous."
"You love it," Reid says, shoving a taco toward me.
The thing is — God help me — I really do.
We got tacos. Or rather, Reid got tacos, because apparently he and Blake had an entire negotiation about it while I was unconscious.
There was only one taco place, but Reid insisted there were "two versions" of that place, and the wrong version almost ruined his life last time, and honestly I stopped listening after that because Blake's face during Reid's taco monologue was the funniest thing I've seen in weeks.
The tacos are good. Really good. I'm on my third one and I'm not even a little sorry about it.
They've been like this all evening. Not pampering exactly — more like.
.. gravitating. Reid refills my water before I notice it's empty.
Blake keeps checking if I want more salsa.
When I shivered once — once — Blake disappeared and came back with the wool blanket from the couch and draped it over my shoulders without a word.
It's almost overwhelming, being the center of this much attention.
Almost. Let's be honest. It's pretty great.
"You've got—" Reid gestures at my face. "Sour cream. Right there."
I swipe at my chin. "Gone?"
"Other side."
I swipe again.
"Still there." He's grinning now. Enjoying this way too much.
Blake reaches across the table and wipes it off with his thumb. Casual. Like he's been wiping sour cream off my face his whole life.
Oh. That's... something. The domesticity of it. The ease.
"Thanks," I manage.
He nods. Goes back to his taco.
Right. Normal. This is just normal now. A man I had earth-shattering sex with this morning is wiping condiments off my face at dinner. Totally normal.
After dinner we migrate to the living room.
Reid drops into the corner of the couch first and pats his lap.
I curl up with my head there and my legs stretched toward the other end, where Blake settles and immediately pulls my feet into his lap like he's claiming territory.
Reid throws the blanket over me — well, over most of me.
My feet are sticking out on Blake's side because the blanket isn't designed for a three-person couch arrangement either.
Blake tucks the edges around my ankles anyway and my heart does a little happy twist in my chest.
"What are we watching?" I ask.
Reid already has the remote. "Something with explosions."
"That's not a genre."
"It's absolutely a genre. It's the best genre."
"Blake?" I appeal to the reasonable one.
"Explosions are fine."
I glare at him, but he just smiles. Traitor.
Reid queues up something with a lot of cars and guns and a plot I'm definitely not going to follow. His fingers find my hair and starts scraping through it absently — this slow, rhythmic thing that makes my scalp tingle and my thoughts go soft around the edges.
Blake's thumb traces circles on my ankle. Small. Steady. His other hand rests warm and heavy on my shin.
I should be watching the movie.
I am absolutely not watching the movie.
My brain is doing that thing where it replays the day in fragments. Not in order. Just... flashes.
Blake's hands gripping the edge of the dresser.
The sound the drawer pull made when it snapped.
His voice saying I love you like it was being torn out of him while he tried to leave the kitchen.
The way he shook when he pushed inside me — actually shook, like his body couldn't contain what was happening.
God.
And then there's last night. Reid. Completely different.
Reid hums during sex. Like, actually hums. Little sounds against my skin that are half melody, half vibration, and it should be ridiculous but instead it made me want to crawl inside him and live there.
Reid made me feel weightless. Held. Like I could let go and he'd catch every piece.
Blake made me feel like gravity just tripled. Like every atom in my body was being pulled toward him and resistance was not an option.
So different. So completely, absurdly different. And I want both. I want the hum and the silence. The weightlessness and the gravity.
I'm in love with two men who could not possibly be more different in bed and I want them both forever.
Which is probably the most dangerous thought I've had all week. And there's been some stiff competition.
On screen, a helicopter explodes. Neither of them flinches. Military boys.
"That's not how helicopters work," Blake mutters.
"Shh," Reid says. "Art."
"That's not art. That's not enough money spent on research."
"Blake. Shh."
I smile into Reid's thigh. This. This right here.
The bickering over bad movies while someone plays with my hair and someone else holds my feet.
This is what I was so afraid of losing when I was lying in Blake's bed this morning, staring at the ceiling, wondering how any of this could possibly work.
It works like this. Tacos and blankets and arguments about helicopter physics.
Okay but eventually we have to leave this couch.
The thought pokes at me. I try to shove it away. It comes back.
We've been in a bubble. This house. This weekend. Nobody watching, nobody judging. What happens when we leave?
The world is going to have opinions. So many opinions.
We've been lucky so far — Blake and I went on dates and nobody we know saw us.
We weren't making out in the middle of a crowd, but we definitely looked like a couple.
Holding hands. Kissing. And that's just one pairing.
What happens when all three of us go to the grocery store?
Do I hold both their hands? Walk down the cereal aisle like some kind of throuple parade?
Stop it. You're spiraling.
But my brain's already off the leash.
My parents.
My stomach tightens.
Mom and Dad are the best people I know. And they operate within a very specific framework about how love works. One man, one woman, sanctified by marriage. That's it. That's the whole menu.
Hey Mom, remember how you prayed I'd find a good Christian man? Funny story. I found two.
I almost laugh. Almost.
Part of me wants to just send an email. A long, carefully worded email explaining everything. Hit send. Turn off my phone. Move to a different country.
Coward.
Yeah. I know.
But the alternative is sitting across from them — probably at some folding table in a half-built community center in Guatemala — watching their faces as I explain that their daughter is in a relationship with two men.
Watching the confusion. The concern. The way Mom's hand would find her cross necklace, the way Dad would go very quiet, which is somehow worse than yelling.
They wouldn't reject me. I know that. They love me too much and too stubbornly for that. But they'd worry. They'd pray. They'd lie awake wondering where they went wrong.
You didn't go wrong. I went right. For the first time in my life, I went right.
"You're frowning." Blake pokes the bottom of my foot.
I blink. Pulled out of the spiral.
How does he do that? The man is basically a human seismograph for my emotions.
"Nothing's wrong, exactly." I shift so I can see both of them. "I just... I love this. All of it. Being here with you two. This whole weekend."
"But?" Reid prompts, fingers still moving through my hair.
"But I was thinking about telling my parents." I say it out loud and it feels both better and worse simultaneously. "Like, eventually we have to tell people, and my parents are..."
"Missionaries," Blake supplies.
"Conservative missionaries who've spent forty years believing there's exactly one way to do relationships. At least when it comes to me. Other people, they can accept." I sigh. "And I'm about to tell them I've gone completely off-menu."
Reid's hand pauses in my hair. "Have they ever surprised you? Reacted differently than you expected?"
I think about it. "When I told them I wasn't going into mission work, they took it better than I thought. But that was a career choice. This is—" I gesture at the three of us, the couch, the blanket, the general situation. "This is a little bigger than choosing nursing over church-building."
"You think they'll reject you?" Blake asks quietly.
"No." I'm sure about that, at least. "They love me.
They'll always love me. But I think they'll be hurt.
Confused. Worried." I stare at the ceiling.
"And honestly? The worst part isn't the initial conversation.
It's the image of my mom lying awake at night, praying for God to 'deliver' me from this 'sinful situation.
'" I put the air quotes in with my voice because my hands are trapped under the blanket.
"This doesn't feel like a sin. This is the happiest I've ever been. "
"What about your dad?" Reid asks.