Chapter Sixteen #4
Knox bit into his second slice. “Shoot.”
“What happens now?”
Jesse groaned. “Jesus, woman. Haven’t you ever heard of a refractory period?”
“That’s not what I meant,” she scolded and plucked a slice of pepperoni off his pizza as punishment. “I mean, how do we do this?”
“You mean, the three of us, in a relationship?” Knox asked. “That is what we all want, right?”
Jesse stole his pepperoni back. “That’s what I want.”
“Me, too,” Chloe said, ignoring Jesse’s unrepentant grin. “I just don’t know how to do it.”
“Why don’t we start with a date?”
She blinked at Knox. “A date?”
“I like dates.” Jesse popped the pepperoni into his mouth. “Especially if there’s cuddling.”
“I was thinking more an outside date,” Knox told Jesse, his watchful gaze trained on Chloe. “Something traditional. Dinner, maybe a concert.”
“We could go dancing,” Jesse pointed out. “That’s traditional.”
“You just want to show off,” Knox accused.
“Well, yeah. I’m an excellent dancer,” Jesse informed her with a grin. “He’s not.”
“I can dance,” Knox protested.
“You stand and sway,” Jesse said with a snort. “That’s not dancing, it’s…”
Knox’s smile turned smug. “Publicly acceptable cuddling.”
Jesse’s jaw dropped, then he grinned. “Well, you sneaky shit.”
“A date,” Chloe repeated.
Knox’s gaze settle back on her. “How do you feel about that?”
“Nervous,” she admitted, one hand pressed to the butterflies in her stomach. “People will see us together.”
Knox nodded. “They will.”
“They’ll make assumptions. Judgments.”
“They’ll do that, too.” Knox’s voice was quiet. “I wish we could shield you from that, but if we want to be together…it’s something you’ll have to handle.”
“I know. I know that.” She blew out a breath. “Lou said something to me tonight.”
Jesse groaned and closed his eyes. “Oh, God.”
“No, it was good. I asked her how she handled being married to a sex worker—”
Knox’s eyebrows shot up. “You did?”
“Well, not in so many words,” Chloe admitted. “I just said how they had an unconventional relationship, and how did she manage that.”
“And what did she say?”
She looked at Knox. “She said she remembers what matters is what’s between the two of them, and the rest isn’t her problem. That other people’s opinions are just noise.”
Jesse blinked his eyes open. “Huh. That is good.”
“It is,” Knox agreed. “Though their situation is a little different. Most people don’t know what Sawyer does for a living, and the ones who do are loving and supportive. Public perception doesn’t matter as much, because the public doesn’t see that.”
“Sawyer said the same thing.” Chloe bit her lip. “It matters to me what my family thinks. I know it shouldn’t, but it does.”
“Of course, it does,” Knox said as Jesse leaned over to take her hand.
“We get that, Chloe,” Jesse said. “We’ve both had that fear, that our parents, our families wouldn’t accept us for who we are, who we love.”
Chloe curled her fingers around Jesse’s. “They did though, right?”
“Yeah, they did.”
“It was a little bumpy in the beginning for me,” Knox confessed. “I come from a Southern military family, and my dad was as old school as they come. But he loved me, and that always came through. He was my best man at our wedding.”
“I don’t think my family will be like that,” she said, voicing her biggest fear. “My mom…she has really specific ideas about how my life is supposed to go. She was so mad when I quit my job to make jewelry.”
“You don’t talk?” Jesse asked.
“We talk all the time,” Chloe said, then shrugged. “She came around.”
“So maybe she’ll come around again.”
“Maybe,” Chloe allowed, then sighed. “But there’s gonna be drama first.”
“We can handle drama,” Knox promised. “And if it makes you feel any better, I think Mo’s already come around.”
Hope bloomed in Chloe’s heart. “Really?”
Jesse squeezed her fingers. “After you left, Carrie kind of went off. Reminded her that the crap she was feeding you was the same crap other people laid on them when they fell in love thirty years ago.”
Chloe’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”
“It got heated,” Knox admitted. “But Mo was looking pretty shame faced by the time Carrie wound down.”
“Did you let them know you’re safe?”
Chloe winced. “I didn’t even think of it. I left my phone in my apron.”
“Well, at least you weren’t ignoring our calls on purpose,” Knox said dryly and picked up his phone from the nightstand. “Here. Call the pub, let them know where you are.”
“Okay.” She took the phone. “We’re doing this, right?”
“You, me, and the old man?” Jesse asked. “Oh, hell yes, we’re doing this.”
“We’re going to fuck up.”
“Probably,” Knox allowed.
“Definitely,” Jesse declared.
“It’s going to be complicated.”
Jesse plucked another slice from the pizza box. “Yep.”
“And sometimes hard,” Knox warned.
“Hard as balls,” Jesse agreed.
Chloe looked at them, Jesse devouring pizza like it was about to be banned and Knox watching her so patiently, that soft smile on his lips. “I think it’ll be worth it.”
Knox’s smiled deepened, his eyes twinkling. “I know it will.”
“Make your call,” Jesse urged, tossing his crust back in the box, “so we can show you just how worth it it’s gonna be.”
She did, and they did. And it was.