Chapter Twenty-Three Kai
A cacophony of dishes and screaming from the chef behind a thin wall ring through the restaurant. The scent of lemongrass and fresh herbs dances through the air as servers place colourful dishes on the small tables throughout the restaurant.
It feels a little serendipitous being back at the small Thai restaurant with Cole and Levi and not with James. After everything they said yesterday, maybe I should feel a little more apprehensive, but I don’t. All I feel is relief, that none of it was in my head, that they fell right along with me, and it stopped being just about sex a long time ago.
“Our entire apartment smells of roses and peonies,” I say. “I’ve never received flowers so thank you.”
Across me, Cole smiles. “Glad you liked them. It was a debate between roses or peonies—”
“Well actually, it was a debate between Paris or flowers, but Cole said that was too much so,” Levi interrupts with a shrug.
I stare at them. “You’re being serious, aren’t you?” But Levi’s smirk is all I need to confirm.
Once the waiter takes our orders, I take in a quiet breath, all the questions I have flying through my head. What if they changed their minds this morning?
“I’ve thought about what you said yesterday,” I start, holding the back of my neck. “And uh, I think I want to give this a shot. I like you both. I think I’ve been into you since that first day and no matter how hard I tried to suppress it; it wouldn’t go away. I’ve been terrified it would never work because you two already know each other so well. Honestly, a part of me still thinks that but I want to try. I’ve never been happier than when I was with both of you so if you still want what you said yesterday then I’m in. Fully.”
The words leave my mouth so quickly I’m not sure if they caught any of it but Levi’s mouth parts slightly and Cole’s eyes soften. Butterflies launch in my stomach, frantically batting their wings inside me and for a moment, it’s like time stops and it’s just us in the restaurant.
“We still want you, Kai, that’s never changing,” Cole says. “And maybe this isn’t the best time to talk about it, but we want you to know everything before we continue this.”
My stomach falls but I nod anyway, bracing myself for something awful just in case. “Okay,” I whisper.
Levi gives me a soft smile. “You may have noticed I haven’t been to the office in a while. When you ended things, it set off a few realisations for me. I’ve always struggled with my head, especially when I was younger. It would get intense up there and before Cole, I was on a pretty destructive path. After I met him, it all seemed to go away but I think you ending things triggered it again.” He pauses and half smiles, half winces.
“Oh, I’m—”
“Woah don’t apologise. It was a good thing,” Levi stops me. “It made some things about me and our relationship pretty obvious. I knew I had to figure that out before any of this could happen.” He gestures between the three of us.
Levi launches into everything that has happened since that night. I never realised they had taken a break. He tells me about therapy and Adam. The taste of bile taints my mouth as I listen, remembering the way Levi had gone stiff at Anant’s party when Adam was speaking to him. I’ve never been violent but right now, there’s nothing more that I want than to punch the smirk off his face.
Cole picks up where Levi stops and when he tells me about Nick, his parents, the rabbit and the fire, I know I should be terrified. Warning bells and red flags should be going off in my head, but surprisingly, they don’t.
If anything, it all makes sense. From the moment I laid my eyes on him, there was something that I was desperate to understand, a barrier I wished I could break through. And when he cut me that night and looked at me like I was some sort of revelation, something clicked inside me.
I wanted to belong to him.
To both of them.
“We’re both a little messed up and maybe that complicates things, but we thought we wanted to be honest,” Cole says. “Start this off on the right foot.”
For a second, I consider telling them about Kenny, but I don’t know how. He’s still somewhere out there and I know eventually he will want to hurt me. I don’t want to put them in his gaze. I don’t want him to take them away from me.
“I’m not perfect either,” I say instead. “I don’t know how to do this but thank you for trusting me with all of it. None of it scares me away.”
Around us, the restaurant drifts as we eat our food. I find myself laughing, the butterflies in my stomach settling down.
“I can’t believe I didn’t know about this place,” Levi says through a spoonful of sticky rice. “The food is so good.”
“Seriously, Kez would love it here, but I know she’d post it on Instagram and thousands of minions will have this place booked out for months,” Cole says.
I laugh, remembering the night in The Marionette with Kez and her friends who were desperate to be seen with her. I get it. She’s gravitating.
“Let’s gatekeep it then,” I say.
“To gatekeeping,” Levi says, holding up his glass. We all clink them together.
“I had fun tonight,” I say. “Thank you for coming and for trusting me with everything.”
It’s a cool early May evening and a soft breeze blows past us. Levi inches closer to me until he’s just a breath away. My heart stops for a second as I look into his eyes surrounded by long eyelashes that make him prettier than should be legal. His hand curls around my waist and pulls me closer. Heat spreads over my skin, my lips part slightly just as he leans in and kisses me gently. A quiet sound leaves me as I kiss him back. I’ve missed those lips. I’ve missed him.
“You’re so pretty, baby and you’re all ours,” Levi says when he breaks away. The glint in his eyes is full of nothing but lust.
“And if we were perfect gentlemen, we would drop you off at home, leave you at your door and call it a night,” Cole says.
He’s in my space in a second, grabbing my neck and kissing me hard before I have time to recover, and this is not the kind of kiss anyone should witness in public. I’m melting against him, balling his t-shirt in my fists. My dick twitches in my pants when his jeans rub against my pants, and I outright moan into his mouth.
When he lets me go, I’m left breathless. “But we aren’t perfect gentlemen,” he finishes with a smirk.
A part of me thinks we should take things slowly. I have no idea how this is supposed to work but the other—louder—part of me needs them. It’s been a month since we had sex, and my body is begging for them at this point.
For the entire night, I tried to keep my less-than-PG13 thoughts at bay but looking at them now, in the middle of the street with the sun setting on the horizon, those thoughts rear their head again.
“Good thing perfect gentlemen are not my type.”
Again, I think how fucked I am, but this time, I don’t mind.
It’s past midnight and I look out onto the back garden and take a sip of my water, my limbs feeling a little loose and my mind hazy. Outside the large glass windows, the sky is made up of a deep purple, lights from the city almost making it a milky purplish grey. The rain has stopped for now and for the first time in a while, I feel calm.
My life six months ago is so different from today. It still feels unreal that I am here, that half a year ago, I stumbled into Levi’s office on the brink of passing out because of nerves. So much has happened, and I know I still have to worry about Kenny, and about what it means to date two guys who are already in a relationship but unlike the usual me, I don’t feel so anxious.
Somehow, I think being with them makes everything okay.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been in love but the ache in my chest when they were gone makes me think I might be. This is what love must be like. Someone having the ability to cut and heal at the same time and you hoping they choose not to cut.
Figuratively, of course.
I smile at the irony of that.
When I head back upstairs, Levi is sitting in Cole’s lap, kissing him deeply, his hair a mess on his head, tattoos tracing up his body. My body is exhausted but seeing them like this, both bruised and freshly fucked, my dick is waking up again. You’d think it would be uninteresting after coming twice already. Guess we’re making up for lost time.
I stand there for a second, too mesmerised to do anything, until Cole takes a fist full of Levi’s hair and pulls him back, revealing a line of tiny bruises on his neck. I smile, knowing some of those bruises are from me.
“Are you joining, or do you want to watch?” Cole asks.
It takes a second for my mouth to catch up with my brain. I might pass out at that idea, and I sit on the bed, and a brilliant idea comes to me.
“Want you both,” I say, my voice quiet. “I mean, I want you both at the same time.”
Levi slides off Cole. He’s wearing those sweatpants now and the lines of his body have my mouth watering just a little. He kneels before me and lifts my chin with his index finger. “When did you become such a slut?”
My heart rate quickens but I stamp down shy and shrinking Kai and give him my best smile. “When we started this, didn’t you promise to turn me into your personal slut?”
Levi lifts an eyebrow and behind him, Cole laughs. "Looks like we did a little too well, Evie.”
Levi leans down and presses a small kiss on my lips. “Ever had two dicks inside you, Kai?” he asks, eyes dark under the dim lighting of the bedroom.
I shake my head, but the idea of both of them inside me has my mouth watering. Maybe I have become some sort of slut. For them, I am.
“Jesus,” Coles groans, his head falling back on the headboard.
“Hmm,” Levi hums, letting go of my chin. “That takes a lot. We’ll need to train your pretty little hole first, but don’t worry we’ll both fuck you together soon, baby.”
Sometimes I forget that out of Levi and Cole, Levi is the more experienced. Before Levi, Cole identified as straight and I’m pretty sure I’m only the second guy he’s slept with. It’s interesting, even if Cole usually controls everything, Levi doesn’t submit to him like I do for them.
For me, when it comes to both of them, it’s become terrifyingly easy to let go. I never knew how much I wanted that until I met them. All my life I’ve felt the need to be on constant guard but with them, I don’t need to be. The level of trust is unbalancing, like you can walk into traffic with your eyes closed and you’ll be totally fine as long as you’re with them.
“I’d say we can start practising now but I’m exhausted,” Cole says, running a hand through his dark hair.
“Boring,” Levi mutters but he yawns, and we all laugh.
When I fall asleep that night, nestled in Levi’s arms, I can’t help but smile. Despite the questions and boundaries we still need to set out, I feel good—safe.
My eyes crack open around seven in the morning, and silver morning light spills into the bedroom. Cole is gone, probably to work out but I’m still safely in Levi’s arms. I turn, watching him. His eyelashes are long and despite the tattoos, he’s the kind of pretty that would lead you straight to hell. I burrow myself further into him and he makes a quiet sound of protest, letting me adjust before resting his arms around me again.
When I pull out my phone to check the time, my eyes land on a message from an unknown number.
Unknown Number: Hello, Kai. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you.
Unknown Number: See you soon.
Kenny.