25. Cole
COLE
“What the hell are we doing here, man?” James asks, as he leans back from the desk and looks up at me expectantly. Beside him, Ross seems to be just as confused, and shit, I can’t say I blame them.
But there’s something I need to get off my chest. Something I know I won’t be able to disguise any longer. And if there’s anyone who deserves to hear about it first, it’s these guys.
I push a hand through my hair, standing there for a second, and glance to make sure the door is shut before I come out with it.
“I’m in love with Millie.”
There it is. Shit, saying it out loud heaps the words with a whole lot more meaning than they had inside my head, and I can hardly make sense of all the weight that comes with saying something like that out loud.
I’ve been turning it over and over in my mind, trying to figure out if it’s the truth, if I really could have fallen for her so hard and so fast without realizing it, but every avenue of thought I follow brings me back to the same conclusion.
I want her. And I will do just about anything in my power to have her.
It’s been at the back of my mind since the night we had dinner with her. Not just the food or the company or the domestic sense of comfort around it, but the realization that I care for her more than I could ever have imagined.
All those years since we were first together, and there’s still a part of me that longs for her, a part of me that always has. A part of me that has held back from going after anyone else, because I know for damn sure that they would never be able to match up to her.
And now, she’s going to be the mother of my children.
Fucking hell, even thinking that, it feels like I’ve bonded to her in a way I could never have imagined. This time last year, I wasn’t even thinking about having kids, only for her to come back into our lives and show me the kind of life that I could be living.
A life with her. With our son. With my best friends at my side.
On paper, it might look like the craziest shit in the world, but I stopped worrying a long time ago what other people think of me. Better to take your hands off the wheel when it comes to shit like that, and just accept that lift will take you anywhere it wants to.
“You’re in love with her?” Ross asks, leaning forward. James sits there in silence, clearly too stunned to respond.
I nod. “I know how it sounds,” I reply. “I know that we’ve shared her pretty much since the day we met her.
But I can’t carry on pretending that I don’t feel something more for her.
For that boy too. I want to be part of their lives, even after the contract is wrapped up, and I know I won’t be able to settle for less.
I can’t let her walk away again, not after I lost her the first time. ”
James shakes his head slowly, taking it in.
It’s clear that this is the last thing he expected.
With his reputation, the way he’s gone through women for so many years, I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that he can’t wrap his damn head around this.
He’s never settled with anyone, and it’s hard to picture him ever letting go of the life that he has lived for so long to be with a single woman.
“Jesus, Cole,” he mutters. “You know how complicated this is going to make things?”
“Fuck, I know,” I reply, rubbing a hand over my face.
“Trust me, I’ve tried to think my way out of this a few times, but it’s not happening.
I…I want her. If I could switch it off and pretend otherwise, you know I would.
I don’t want to let this shit come between us, but I don’t see what choice we—”
“It’s not going to come between us,” Ross cuts in firmly.
He sounds sure of himself, and I wonder how he can be so certain that everything is going to come together exactly as he wants it to—he can’t really believe that this is going to run smoothly, given everything that has already happened.
The chaos with Matt, the pregnancy, the son that she already had, there are so many secrets that have come to the surface in the last few weeks.
I doubt that we’ll ever be truly able to wrap our heads around them.
I sigh. “I know you don’t want it to,” I reply. “And trust me, neither do I. I’ve worked too hard at this business to let it slip away—”
“No, it won’t come between us,” Ross corrects me, as he looks up at me once more. “Because I feel the same way.”
For a second, none of us say a word. Both of us?
Both of us in love with her? It’s one thing for us to share her physically, since she has shown herself to be entirely capable of keeping up with us in those terms, but emotionally?
Does she have room enough to love both of us, the way both of us so clearly adore her?
“So do I,” James cuts in, and suddenly his shock makes some more sense. It wasn’t just because he hadn’t expected me to feel that way about her, but because he clearly adores her the same way I do.
“We all…?” I mutter, looking between the two men before me.
But I can’t muster the amount of shock I know I should be feeling right now, not when it comes to them.
Because the three of us, shit, we’ve shared so much of our lives over the last decade.
We built this business together, we stayed firm friends since we were in college, and we even decided to raise our children together as siblings.
Of course it makes sense that we would all fall for the same woman.
We share the same values, the same lifestyle, the same worlds, and we’ve all seen as clear as day that she fits into those things perfectly.
“So what the fuck do we do about it?” Ross demands.
He’s always the one to focus on the solution, even when we should really be taking a moment to make sense of the enormity of the conclusion that we’ve all just come to.
Shit, I don’t know what to say, where to even start when it comes to making sense of all this.
“We need to tell her about it,” James replies, his eyes narrowing with certainty.
“She needs to hear from all of us where we stand on this. Then, the ball’s in her court.
She wants something with us, she can have it, and if she doesn’t, we see out the rest of the contract and forget that this ever happened. ”
“You think we could just forget like that?” I reply softly, and a quiet settles over the room, like all three of us are trying to figure out what it might look like for us to just be done with her.
She found her way back into our lives with such ease; it’s hard to imagine letting her slip through our fingers again, no matter the circumstances, no matter the mess that comes with it.
Even if I have to dig my heels in, I can’t just let her go, not when there’s so much between us that hasn’t yet been put into words.
“No,” Ross adds, his voice laced with sureness. “I know I sure as hell couldn’t. So we need to make this choice as easy as we can for her…”
“Which means talking to her brother about it first,” James finishes up for him, glancing between us, as though daring us to argue.
Now, see, that’s the part I’ve been trying to dodge, the part I want nothing more than to just forget about.
Matt. He’s been avoiding us since the incident at the clinic, and I doubt he’s exactly keen to have this conversation with us anytime soon—let alone hear that we want to be with his sister, not just now, but in the long term.
“You think he’ll hear us out on this?” I mutter.
Ross shakes his head. “He’s not going to want to,” he concedes.
“But he can’t keep his distance forever.
He loves Lewis, by the sounds of it, and he doesn’t want to miss out on being a part of his life.
And if that means putting up with us as the fathers to his nephew…
” He shrugs. “He’s going to have to find a way to live with it. ”
All of us fall quiet for a moment as we consider the matter at hand.
Of course, none of us wants to hurt Matt any more than we already have, and God knows the damage has already been done with all the secrets we’ve concealed from him over the years, the lies that Millie crafted to make sure that he didn’t know who the father of his nephew was.
But there is something to be said about coming clean, the feeling of divesting yourself of all the things you’ve hidden.
It might not be easy, but sometimes, going after what you know you need isn’t easy.
And when it comes to Millie, there’s little I’m not willing to sacrifice to make it happen.
“And what happens after that?” Ross wonders aloud. “I mean, if he’s somehow okay with it—”
“Shit, don’t make me think that far in advance.” James laughs, breaking some of the tension between us.
“But I mean, if she says yes, and if Matt can live with it…if it all comes together,” Ross continues, “could we share her? The three of us, I mean? Do you think we could really pull something like that off without getting jealous or having it turn into some huge fucking mess?”
I pause for a moment, considering my answer. It’s a fair question. God knows that we have worked hard to maintain our friendship through all these years. But dating the same woman, pouring all our love into the same person, that’s an entirely different thing.
“Between Lewis and the babies and work and everything else,” James reasons. “It’s not like we’re going to have a whole lot of time, right? All three of us, we’ll pretty much add up to one decent boyfriend for her, if we play our cards right.”
I smirk slightly. Yeah, there it is.
With as busy as our lives are, and as chaotic as they’re going to be in the coming months once the children are born, I know that time is going to be a scarce resource. And the thought of spending it with her, stealing whatever time I can at her side, that’s everything I want right now.
“I don’t care what it takes,” I add. “I don’t care how much time I have her for. As long as I can have her. As long as I can call her mine.”
“Ours,” Ross corrects me, grinning. “She’ll be ours.”
“Yeah, ours,” James echoes, as though he’s just letting the notion settle into him too.
I know there’s still a whole lot that stands between us and actually getting what we want, but now, here, we have taken the first step together.
And I can’t think of anything more exciting than taking the next one.