3. Parameters, Not Rules
Chapter three
Parameters, Not Rules
Ronan
As they say, the best laid plans .
I had very specific ones for the first time I had Cami to myself. What just happened between us doesn't ruin that—because it absolutely can and will still happen.
But none of tonight went according to plan.
And somehow, it was perfect anyway.
Even more than the plans I had for this, I really needed to have a conversation with her first. It’s a conversation I’ll need to have with Dex and Micah as well.
“How is your blood sugar?” I ask as I guide her to sit on the edge of the bed and take my desk chair across from her.
It’s almost exactly how we sat when I proposed my birthday plan to her.
Somehow, sitting across from her feels considerably more vulnerable now.
She leans over and grabs her pants from the floor to pull out her phone and then smiles at me. “It’s fine, we’re good.”
I drag both hands down my face and pull up the speech I’ve rehearsed for this conversation more times than I care to admit.
“Are you okay? What happened with your family?”
“I’m doing better than I was before,” I admit. “Not completely okay, if I’m honest. But my family believed what Ben did—even his wife. So at least the problem is isolated to just him.”
She nods slowly, but her eyes stay on her dangling feet.
“Cami,” I say quietly and wait until she looks at me to continue. “Are you okay? That is my biggest concern.”
“I’m doing better now too,” she says with a soft smile.
“I think, from talking to Alexis, which I’ll tell you about later—but she’s been doing this a little longer than we have—she has gotten some comments and situations like that as well.
I hate to say it, but it might be something I need to anticipate and learn how to respond to as we tell more people about us. ”
“You shouldn’t have t—”
She cuts me off. “No, I shouldn’t have to, but if it’s a known reaction to this from some men, I need to be prepared to deal with it.”
I hate that. I hate it for her.
And a thought I don’t particularly like follows immediately—Dex may need to be prepared for the same thing.
Then I have to examine why Dex is the first person my mind supplies. Because he’s the most flamboyant of us? Because he’s so openly pansexual? Because he presents differently than Micah or me?
That’s an assumption worth examining on my part.
And probably another conversation we need to have as a group.
“Before I get into this next conversation with you, do you need to check in with Griffin?” I ask, seriously. “He was pretty upset, and I’m sure he wants to make sure you’re okay.”
She smiles softly. “No, he’s good. I talked to him.” I nod, and then she adds, “And he knows where I am.”
It surprises me for half a second. Then it doesn’t. She’s been almost aggressively transparent with Griffin about all of us, and I think she figured out before any of us did that information settles him.
“You hungry or thirsty?”
She smiles slightly, probably because she knows exactly what I’m doing. But I’m not starting this conversation with low blood sugar, dehydration, or anything else avoidable muddying the water.
“I’m okay for now; I will probably need something in an hour or so, though,” she answers.
“Okay, so talk first, eat later,” I confirm, and she smiles in response.
I lean forward, forearms braced on my thighs, fingers steepled against my mouth.
The speech is there. I’ve rehearsed it enough.
Somehow, actually saying it to her is harder.
“Cami, you know I’m autistic, but I want to talk to you about part of that which might explain some things,” I begin.
“I have what is generally called touch aversion or tactile defensiveness, but mine is selective. Intimate touch is where it becomes much more complicated.” I pause, because the clinical explanation is easier than the personal one.
“Which is why I needed you to keep your hands to yourself.”
She nods in contemplation.
“I’ve learned, over time, to mask my response to everyday touch—handshakes, occasional hugs, someone placing their hand on my arm during conversation—without overtly reacting to it,” I explain. “That doesn’t mean my brain stopped reacting. I just got better at making sure no one else could tell.”
My eyes study her, making sure she’s listening.
“I want you to know—I want all of you to know—that it isn’t that I never want to be touched.
It’s more that if I’m touched unexpectedly or in a way or a place I’m not expecting, it can completely pull me out of the moment.
It’s like being overstimulated. My brain suddenly has to process the touch instead of everything else that was happening, and sometimes my body just shuts down. ”
“Like your whole body?” she teases.
I laugh softly. “Yes, it definitely can cause… performance issues.”
“Good to know,” she says quietly, but there’s still some humor in her voice.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t like touch,” I offer more gently.
I reach for her hand before I can overthink the decision and place her open palm against my chest.
My attention snaps immediately to the contact.
But I chose it. I know exactly where her hand is.
And that makes it okay.
“There are plenty of kinds of touch I like very much. It means I need to know it’s coming. Or initiate it myself. Once my brain has categorized it as expected, it’s different.”
“Sooo, the bondage is not just fun?” she asks playfully.
“No, it’s not,” I answer with a smile, still holding her hand on my chest. “When I bind someone, there are very few surprises. I know where they are. I know they can only touch me if I plan for it and allow it to happen. There’s very little sensory input I haven’t already anticipated.”
Her eyebrows lift. “So control really is your love language.”
“Predictability,” I correct with a smile. “Control is just significantly more fun.”
I release her hand but leave it resting against my chest.
Immediately, part of my attention locks onto it.
She could move now. I don’t know exactly where.
I try to make myself stop thinking about it.
“I like fun,” she says seductively.
“Oh, I know,” I reply. “And I think you like not knowing what is going to happen to you—where you’ll be touched, how you’ll be touched… who will touch you.”
Her thumb moves—a short brush against my chest.
My attention catches on it instantly, but nothing inside me recoils. I watched it happen. I knew where she was.
It’s good.
“It’s okay, Cami,” I answer carefully.
“Can I move my hand?”
The corners of my lips turn up a little more. “You can.”
Her fingers move slowly enough that I can track every inch—up my chest, over my shoulder, down my upper arm, then back again.
My brain follows the path automatically.
But instead of competing with everything else, the sensation becomes the thing I want to pay attention to.
The urge to kiss her becomes impossible to ignore. I catch her hand, loop my other arm around her waist, and pull her into my lap.
She laughs softly, and I kiss her tenderly.
I take her hand again and place her palm against my cheek.
Her eyes widen.
Mine almost close.
This touch is different—warmer, more concentrated, impossible to ignore—but because I put her there, my brain doesn’t treat it like an intrusion.
Her eyes find mine again, and she leans in and kisses me. I pull her closer, wanting to feel her body flush against mine.
She breaks the kiss and studies me for a moment. “So do I always need to ask?”
I think about the question before answering, “No. That would probably get annoying for both of us.”
Her mouth twitches, but she doesn’t quite laugh.
“I think both individually and as a group, we’ll need to set up parameters,” I clarify. “If I know what kind of touch to expect, I don’t necessarily need to know every individual movement before you make it. I just can’t be caught off guard.”
She kisses me again.
When the kiss breaks, I say, “I think when I’m not trying to perform…
sexually, and we’re in moments like this,” I deliberately let my gaze travel down her body before returning to her eyes.
“You can touch anywhere I can track your hand, and it’ll be okay.
But don’t come up behind me and don’t surprise me.
Those are the main things I need from you.
” I pause and add, “There may be times when I’m already overstimulated or dysregulated, when I can tolerate less, but we can cross those bridges if we need to. ”
Her smile is mischievous. “You gave me touch rules.”
“I gave you parameters.”
“Those are rules with a sexier name.”
“They’re objectively and factually not.”
“Can I touch your hair?” she asks with a wide smile.
I sigh.
Her grin widens.
“Yes, Cami, you can touch my hair.”
Her fingers thread through the hair above my ear, slow enough for me to follow.
It’s more sensation than her hand on my chest. More movement. More variables.
But I know it’s coming.
I know it’s her.
And I like it.
She watches her fingers at first, then looks at me. A question without words.
I smile.
A silent keep going.
Then she tips up and kisses my forehead, and peppers kisses across my brow to my temple, all while her fingers continue playing with my hair.
She pulls back and looks me in the eye. Her hand moves back to my cheek, and she brushes a thumb over my lower lip before she kisses me again.
Eventually, she settles against me, her head on my shoulder and her face tucked into my neck.
One arm stays around her waist. My other hand rests on her bare thigh. Hers settles against my chest.
Nothing about it feels intrusive.
Nothing needs to be catalogued or managed.
It just feels natural.
More and more, I’m grateful things happened the way they did, rather than the way I planned.
I don’t know exactly where she’ll touch me next.
And right now, I don’t need to.
Both of our phones chirp, cutting through the quiet, letting us know her blood sugar is trending down.
“Guess it’s time for food,” she says casually.
Slowly, I release her, and she climbs off my lap, finding her pants while I find my shirt, and then we head to the kitchen.
Dex and Micah are there, which shouldn’t surprise me—Dex would have left the bar about half an hour ago.
Dex isn’t talking—that’s the first problem.
Micah isn’t smiling—that’s the second.
“You two look grim,” I manage to say, mostly joking.
“Okay, Dungeon Daddy,” Dex says with a lot of attitude, “we were just worried about the two of you.”
I smile, but Cami walks up to him, puts a hand on his arm, and leans up to kiss his cheek.
“We’re okay, don’t worry about us,” she says softly, but with an edge of mocking in her tone.
Dex’s eyes stay on me for a minute before he turns his head and looks down at her. “Yeah, Dollface?”
“Yeah,” she says with another soft smile.
Micah tips his chin at me. Normally, that’s enough.
Tonight, I have no idea what that means.
I don’t know what Cami told them. I don’t know what they heard. I don’t know what they assume.
There are too many unknown variables.
And suddenly I understand that losing control of when tonight happened also means losing control of how everyone else learns about it.
“You need juice?” Micah finally manages to ask Cami, breaking the awkward silence for at least a moment.
“Please,” she answers and hops up on the counter, perching herself there like she normally does.
“How was the bar?” I ask Dex.
“Oh, are you trying to make small talk so we don’t talk about what just happened?” he retorts.
“Not necessarily,” I answer with a smile.
“And you,” he turns to Cami, “I heard what happened, and it’s unequivocally not okay that you were basically assaulted.”
Micah gives him a sharp look and shakes his head as he grabs the orange juice from the fridge.
“There was no ‘basically’ about it,” Cami says quietly. “But I’m okay now. We can all talk about that later, I think—at least in parts—it’s something we’ll all have to worry about and consider moving forward.”
Dex’s expression is more serious than I’ve seen it in a long time.
He looks from Micah to me to Cami before he steps up to her. She opens her knees slightly, inviting him closer. He steps between her thighs and—in a move I’m not sure I thought he was capable of—he tips her chin up with his knuckles until she’s fully looking at him.
Dex studies her face for several seconds. Longer than I expect him to.
Cami’s smile falters.
Then her eyes fill with tears.
“Shhh, dollface,” Dex whispers as he wraps his arms around her. “We’re all here. You’re safe.”
I knew she hadn’t processed what happened. I knew that intellectually.
But I believed her when she said she was okay for now.
Dex didn’t.
Or maybe he saw something I didn’t.
That realization lands harder than I expect.
I look at Micah.
He looks back.
Neither of us moves.
I am always the confident one.
Always the one who knows what to do.
But right now?
Right now I’m fucking lost.
I didn’t have a plan for what happened at my parents’ house.
I didn’t follow the plan I did have for having Cami to myself.
There are too many pieces moving at once.
Ben. My family. Cami. What happened between us. What happened to her. Dex seeing something I missed. Micah waiting. Everyone looking for what comes next.
My thoughts stop lining up correctly.
Noise from the refrigerator suddenly feels too loud. The overhead light is too bright. I become aware of the seam inside my shirt against my shoulder.
Fuck.
I’m dysregulating.
I can’t let it take me all the way under.
Not tonight.
Tonight is too important—for so many reasons.
Too many people need me present.
I take deep breaths, timing and counting both the inhales and exhales.
In for four.
Hold.
Out for six.
Again.
I give my brain the pattern because patterns are something it knows what to do with.
I step beside them and put my hand on Cami’s back. I don’t know what pattern will comfort her, so I don’t try to create one—just slow passes of my palm, enough to tell her I’m here.
Dex looks over Cami’s shoulder and catches my eye.
Then the little menace winks at me.
And somehow I understand exactly what he means.
I’ve got her. We’re okay. You don’t have to fix everything.
My shoulders finally begin to loosen.