Chapter Sixteen #3
“Because she was upset,” Knox repeated, and since his jaw was sore, clenched his hands on the steering wheel instead. “Mo in her face like that, threatening to fire her. I mean, what the fuck?”
“I know.” Jesse dragged a hand through his hair, the way he often did when frustrated or annoyed. “It was a shit show.”
“Call her again.”
“She’s probably not even back yet—”
“Just fucking call her, all right?” Knox shouted, the truck fishtailing as he took the turn into their driveway too fast, then jerking to a stop when he stomped on the brakes.
“Do not fucking yell at me,” Jesse growled, straining against the seatbelt to shove his face into Knox’s. “And calm the fuck down.”
Knox wanted to shout, to scream, but knew Jesse’s response to that would be to get out of the truck and walk away, and then he’d have two apologies to make. So he sucked in a breath, then another, repeating the process until he no longer felt like his head was going to explode.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally, in a voice that if not exactly calm, was at least restrained. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
Jesse eased back against his seat with a nod. “Thank you.”
“Can you call her? Please, Jess. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
Jesse sighed and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Fine.”
He put it on speaker, and they listened to the rings. When voicemail picked up, Jesse cut the call.
“We’ve already left three messages,” Jesse said when Knox began to protest. “That’s edging into creepy-stalker territory.”
Drained, heartsick, Knox dropped his head back and closed his eyes. “What if she’s done with us, Jess?”
“She’s not,” Jesse said, and the absolute confidence in his voice opened Knox’s eyes.
“How can you be so sure?”
“I guess I’m not,” Jesse admitted, a flicker of doubt glinting in his dark eyes. “But I know she doesn’t want to be. You saw her face, her eyes, before Mo came in.”
“Yeah, I did,” Knox murmured, remembering. Everything he’d ever wanted had been in those soft blue eyes. But then… “Mo scared her.”
“She did,” Jesse agreed, and a touch of the anger Knox felt shimmered in Jesse’s voice. “Fuck, I never would’ve expected that from Mo.”
“I think she was scared, too, for Chloe.” Knox rolled his head on the seat to look at his husband. “She’s not wrong that people will be shitty about this.”
Jesse grimaced. “I know. I just didn’t think Mo would be one of them.”
“Me neither.” They sat quietly for a moment, then Knox’s lips twitched. “Carrie was something, wasn’t she?”
“Oh, man.” Jesse let out a soft laugh. “She was like a hurricane in a chef’s coat.”
“With the mouth of a sailor,” Knox agreed. “By the time she was done, Mo looked like a puppy who’d left a puddle on the floor.”
“At least we know we have one family member in our corner.”
“That’s something, I guess,” Knox murmured. He looked up at the house, looming dark in the falling snow. “You hungry?”
“Yeah, but I’m not cooking.”
“Pizza,” Knox decided and turned off the ignition.
They trudged up the walk through the freshly fallen snow and let themselves into the house. They shed coats and boots, and Knox switched on lights as he walked through, wanting to banish the gloom.
“The usual?” Jesse asked, pulling out his phone.
“Yeah.” Moving to the stairs, Knox started up. “I want a shower first, though. Order it for an hour from now.”
“It’ll be at least that with the snow,” Jesse said, following him up the stairs. “And you had a shower earlier.”
“Yes, but that was for grooming.” Topping the stairs, Knox reached for the hem of his sweater. “This is for brooding.”
“Want company?” Jesse asked.
“The more the broodier,” Knox quipped, dragging his sweater over his head, then stopped dead.
Jesse slammed into his back, knocking him forward. “What the fuck, Knox?”
“She’s here,” Knox whispered, pointing, and Jesse looked at the bed. In the center, curled into a ball under the duvet, was Chloe, fast asleep.
“Shit.” Eyes wide, Jesse stared. “What’s she doing here?”
“I don’t know. Sawyer said he was taking her home.”
Beside him, Jesse fumbled for his phone. “I don’t have anything more from him.”
“He must have brought her here,” Knox said.
“Did she want to come here?”
“She must have,” Knox said, his heart lifting at the thought. “She probably wouldn’t be asleep in our bed otherwise.”
“I’m not asleep,” she mumbled, not moving. “I was, but you guys whisper really loud.”
“Shit,” Jesse muttered, and Knox winced.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Yeah, sorry,” Jesse said, and gave Knox a what do we do now? look.
He answered it with a beats me shrug.
“It’s okay,” Chloe said and sat up, letting the duvet fall away. She wore a dark sweatshirt Knox recognized as Jesse’s, and her hair was mussed, her cheeks flushed. She didn’t look like she’d been crying, but she didn’t exactly look happy, either.
Knox took a step forward, then stopped, unsure of his welcome. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I’m fine. Sawyer and Lou dropped me off.”
“He told us he was going to take you home,” Jesse began.
“He was going to, but I asked him to bring me here.” Unease clouded her gaze for a moment. “He had a key, and let me in. I hope that was okay.”
“It’s fine,” Knox assured her. He’d never been happier that Sawyer had an emergency key.
“We’re sorry,” Jesse blurted out, dropping down to sit on the end of the bed. “About before, at the pub.”
“Not your fault,” she said, and though her smile was shaky, it was there. “I knew Mo wouldn’t be thrilled if she found out that, well, that the three of us…”
“Still,” Jesse said when she trailed off. “We probably could’ve handled it better.”
“Me, too,” she murmured and lifted her eyes to Knox. “I’m sorry I took off like that.”
He shook his head. “It’s okay, Chloe.”
“We get it,” Jesse chimed in. “Really.”
“I appreciate that.” Her gaze flicked to Jesse, then back to Knox. “See, I’d had this kind of, epiphany I guess, and I was caught up in that, and when Mo came in and started talking about image and consequences I got so overwhelmed so fast, I just couldn’t think.”
“It’s understandable,” Jesse soothed.
“Epiphany?” Knox repeated.
“Yeah.” She swallowed, her throat bobbing. “About us.”
“The three of us?” Jesse asked.
She nodded, that uneasy look coming into her eyes again. “I was trying to figure out how to tell you when everything…”
“Went to shit?” Jesse offered.
A smile ghosted over her lips. “Yeah.”
Lowering himself to sit on the end of the bed next to Jesse, Knox kept his eyes on Chloe’s face. “What were you going to tell us, Chloe?”
She took a deep breath, her hands twisting together in her lap. “That I’m sorry.”
“For what, darling?”
“I screwed up.” Pulling her hands apart, she lifted them, then let them fall. “I ruined everything.”
Jesse’s gaze flicked to Knox, then back to Chloe. “I don’t think you ruined anything, sweetheart.”
“That’s because you don’t know that…”
“Don’t know what?” Jesse prompted.
Her head fell forward, shielding her face for a moment, then she looked back up. “That I’m in love with you.”
The breath Knox had been holding burst from his lungs with a woosh. “What?”
Cheeks blazing, eyes dark with regret, she said it again.
“I’m in love with you. With both of you.
And I know it screws everything up, that this was supposed to be just you guys helping me with my birthday wish, which we haven’t even really gotten to yet, and this is way more than you bargained for, especially with Mo being such a dick about it, and you probably don’t want anything more to do with me after this—”
“Chloe,” Jesse tried to interrupt, but she kept going.
“And I wouldn’t blame you, because it’s all such a mess, and Mo’s right, people will be assholes if we were all together, like together together, and you might lose business because of it, and I don’t want to be responsible for that, so I’m going to call a ride share, but I wanted to tell you how sorry I am, and that I’ll stay out of your way at the pub until the restaurant is finished, and you don’t have to worry about me telling anyone anything about this—”
Knox tried to get her attention. “Chloe.”
“Trust me, I’d just look like an ass, the idiot who fell in love with not one, but two married men, who wants to be known as that girl, right? Well, Bailey and Gwen, they’ll know, because they already know and I tell them everything, but they’ll keep it between us, because they’re my best friends—”
“Fuck this,” Jesse decided and, rising up, knee walked across the mattress, put his hands on her face and cut off the stream of babble with a hard, fierce kiss.
When he lifted his head, her eyes were wide, her mouth in a shocked O. “What was that for?”
“To shut you up,” Jesse said, and kissed her again, longer and sweeter and with a lot more tongue. “That,” he said when he stopped, breathing hard, “was because I’m in love with you, too.”
She blinked, her eyes going wider. “You are not.”
Jesse just grinned, the dimple popping in his cheek, and Knox choked back a laugh of pure joy. “Am so. So’s he.”
Chloe swiveled her head around to stare at Knox. “You are?”
“I really fucking am,” he said and snatched her out of Jesse’s arms for his own kiss.
When he’d finished, she looked up at him with wide, hazy eyes. “But…it was supposed to be no strings.”
“I never said no strings,” Knox said. “Jess, did you say no strings?”
“Uh-uh.” Jesse nuzzled the nape of her neck. “I like strings. I want strings.”
“Oh. You’re not mad, then?”
Knox shook his head. “Nope.”
“The opposite of mad,” Jesse assured her.
“That’s good,” she said and let out a shaky sigh. “So what happens now?”
Knox cocked an eyebrow at Jesse over Chloe’s head. “Makeup sex?”
Jesse grinned. “Makeup sex.”
“I’m good with that,” Chloe decided.
* * * *
After makeup sex, there was a makeup shower, and then makeup pizza, which they devoured in the middle of the big bed. And Chloe asked the question that had been turning around in her head ever since the makeup orgasms had faded.
“Um, question.”