Chapter 46
REID
My hand finds Blake's across Laine's stomach. I squeeze.
He squeezes back.
You good?
I'm good.
We let go.
That's it. Twenty years of friendship and we've got the whole language down to a grip and a release. Works in a firefight. Works in a hospital waiting room. Works in a bed where we just —
Holy shit.
My brain is doing that thing where it tries to process something massive by running the highlight reel on a loop.
Her face when Blake pushed in. The sound he made — that broken, wrecked sound I've never heard come out of him in twenty years.
The way she reached for my hand while he was inside her.
The way Blake shook apart at the end like something structural gave way.
I've seen Blake take a bullet graze without flinching. Tonight a woman told him she wanted him and he shook like he was coming apart at the seams.
You stubborn idiot. Took you long enough.
Laine's breathing is slowing against my chest. Her body warm between us. One hand on my chest. The other resting on Blake's arm.
Even half asleep she's holding onto both of us.
The sheets are wrecked. I'm sticky with sweat and probably smell like a locker room and honestly, if someone told me I had to stand up right now or die, I'd just accept death.
Solid way to go, though. Reid Garrison, died horizontal. No regrets.
Blake's on her other side, his breathing still a little uneven. Coming down. His hand rests on Laine's hip like he's not ready to stop touching her yet.
I stare at the ceiling. Moonlight doing a stripe across it. My heart rate is almost back to normal but there's this hum under my skin that won't quit. Not adrenaline. Not the post-call buzz I get after a bad run. Something else.
The room is quiet.
I don't like quiet. Never have. Quiet is the space between the tones dropping. Quiet is the gap between the blast and the screaming. Quiet is the flat line on a monitor when you've lost them and there's nothing left to do.
But this quiet has breathing in it. Two sets of lungs. The rustle of sheets when Laine shifts. The creak of the house settling around us.
This quiet is full.
Which is great and poetic and I'm going to ruin it in three... two...
"Maybe we should set some ground rules around the dick touching. Like a tit for tat, or dick for dat kind of thing”
Silence, then, "Why are you like this?"
"I'm just saying. I don't want you to feel like it's not reciprocal. I'm a generous person, Blake."
"I'm going to suffocate you with a pillow."
"I'm extending an olive branch here —"
"You can stop talking anytime now, asshole."
Laine's giggling between us, so of course I keep going.
"Like I said, your callouses would be a problem, I'll admit that. But I'm willing to work through it."
"Reid."
Laine elbows me weakly. "Oh my God. Sleep. Now."
"I'm just trying to foster open communication in our relationship —"
"Sleep."
I grin into her hair. Blake's laughing. That low, shaking kind he does when something catches him off guard — the laugh he tries to hide because I think some part of him still believes he doesn't get to find things funny. But I can feel it through the mattress. Through Laine.
Got you.
That's my job. When the room gets heavy, when the silence starts pressing in — I find the release valve. I crack the joke. I take the heavy thing and make it light enough to carry.
It's not that I don't feel the heavy thing. I feel it right now — this warm, enormous pressure sitting in my chest like my ribs are too small for what's inside them. But I know what happens when you let that pressure build without a release. Things crack. Things break.
I've been broken. I know what it costs.
So I make the joke. And then I can sit with the feeling without it swallowing me. I'm so self-aware that I impress even myself sometimes.
Quiet settles again. The good kind. The kind I made safe.
Laine's fingers curl against my chest.
"Hey," she says softly. "Thank you. Both of you."
"For what?"
"For not giving up on us. While we figured our stuff out."
Blake's arm tightens around her. "Never."
"Never ever," I echo.
"This is what I wanted," Laine says. Her voice is thick now. "Not just the sex — though, obviously —"
"Obviously," I say. We are fucking awesome.
"— but this. Us. All three of us." She pauses. "I know this isn't going to be easy. The three of us — this isn't exactly the kind of thing that comes with a manual."
"I'd read that manual," I offer. "Might even follow the instructions."
"You've never followed instructions in your life," Blake mutters.
"Fair. But I'd read them. Out of respect."
Laine huffs a laugh, but when she speaks again the humor is gone. Just her voice, quiet and steady and sure.
"I know who we are. I know we're complicated. I know there are going to be days where this is really, really hard." She takes a breath. "But I've never wanted to fight for anything the way I want to fight for this. For us. Both of you."
The pressure in my chest builds. My eyes are burning.
Nope. Not doing this. Not crying. Absolutely not.
"I didn't know it could feel like this," she says, quieter now.
"Like what?" Blake asks.
She's quiet for a long moment. I feel her breathing change against my chest. Careful. Deliberate.
"Like I found the thing worth being brave for."
Fuck.
Okay I'm crying. This is happening.
A tear slides sideways across the bridge of my nose and into Laine's hair. I press my face harder against the back of her head and breathe in and my chest is cracking open and I don't even care.
Because she just —
She looked at all of it. The mess. The complication. The two broken men who come with more baggage than an airport carousel. And she decided we were worth the fight.
Not despite the hard parts. Including the hard parts.
Blake makes a sound. Low and rough and not quite a word. He pulls Laine closer and she burrows into him and I tighten my arm around her waist and press my forehead against the back of her neck and we're —
Three people. One bed. Holding on.
Nobody moves for a long time.
I listen to them fall asleep. Blake goes first — which never happens. He's always the last one down, always standing watch. But tonight his breathing drops deep and steady within minutes. Like his body finally got permission to stop.
Laine follows. She does this thing where she twitches once — full body, like a dog dreaming about chasing something — and then she's out. Dead weight against my chest. Mouth probably open. She's definitely going to drool on one of us tonight.
Adorable. Disgusting. Mine.