Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Kincaid
The knock on the door made him frown. Then he sighed in exasperation when it was immediately followed by Mitch’s voice, muffled but recognizable.
“Little pig, little pig, let me in!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kincaid muttered, but he pushed himself up from the couch. He’d finally turned on the television but then immediately turned it back off again when it offered the next Marvel movie. Just thinking about watching a movie without Zach and Amy made his stomach turn over.
He’d only been sitting here for… okay, half an hour.
Sighing, he answered the door. “Or what, you’ll huff and puff and blow me?”
Mitch grinned broadly and winked at him.
“If that’s what gets you off… no, wait, I know that’s what gets you off.” Mitch chuckled and shoved past Kincaid, not waiting to be invited inside. Pushy blond bastard.
“Who called you?” Kincaid asked dryly. He wondered where Zach had gone that it had gotten this kind of response. Actually, wait, that answered his question. “It was Brian, wasn’t it?”
“You know Daddy gets worried when we’re fighting.
” Mitch sauntered over to the armchair and flopped down.
Looking at him, stupid grin on his face, totally relaxed with one leg hanging over the arm of the chair while he lolled against the back of it at an angle—the ultimate manspread—it would be hard to believe he was a sadist who enjoyed making his fiancé scream on a regular basis.
He was like a sadistic golden retriever.
Proof that appearances could be deceiving.
“Well, I’m glad Zach has someone with him.
” The words came out with more bitterness than he’d meant, and Mitch raised his eyebrow.
To give himself time to collect himself, Kincaid moved over to the couch and sat back down.
This time, he deliberately sat down on a cushion that was not the one he’d been sitting on.
“What happened?” Mitch asked once Kincaid was settled in.
Kincaid snorted. “What didn’t happen?”
Closing his eyes, because it was somehow easier to talk about it that way, he leaned back against the couch and went through the events.
Granted, he had to make some suppositions about how things had gone down with Zach’s parents from things Amy and Zach had said, but everything from the moment he’d returned from his run was pretty much indelibly imprinted in his mind.
When he finished, he let out a huge sigh and opened his eyes to see how Mitch was taking it. His friend had a thoughtful frown on his usually smiling face. Then he hopped up from where he was sitting.
Kincaid blinked as Mitch went past him, heading into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” he asked, surprised out of the melancholy that had settled back over him while he’d been talking. He sat up, turning to watch Mitch.
“Daddy texted and said Zach hadn’t eaten lunch, so I’m assuming you haven’t either.”
“I… No. I’m not really hungry.”
“Mm, well, I am. I haven’t eaten either. I was… busy this morning.” Mitch smiled the blissful smile of a happy Dom who’d had a happy morning.
Why can’t that be me?
It almost had been. This was the part he hadn’t told Mitch.
While he was on his run, he’d been thinking about how to broach the idea of trying to be a real threesome to Zach and Amy.
He wasn’t sure if they’d be interested, too, but he was pretty sure.
And after seeing Jessica, Justin, and Chris at Marquis… he’d realized he wanted that.
The three of them fit together. They worked well together. But he wasn’t willing to pretend to be the housemate while Zach and Amy were the couple. He wasn’t a damn third wheel.
“What’s that face for?” Mitch asked, pausing as he looked at Kincaid over the refrigerator door.
“I…” He sighed. He might as well tell Mitch all of it. Why not, at this point? “I’ve been thinking about me and Zach… and Amy.”
“Huh.” Mitch’s blue gaze unfocused for a moment, then he nodded his head, his lips forming a little half smile. “Yeah, I could see that.”
“Sure, if I’m okay with Zach shoving me in the closet every time his parents come over so he can pretend Amy is his only partner.
” This time, Kincaid knew exactly how bitter he sounded.
“He can’t even handle telling his parents he’s bisexual.
Can you imagine him telling them that he’s both bisexual and polyamorous? ”
Mitch closed the refrigerator door, his hands full of sandwich meat and cheese. He’d been over often enough that he didn’t need anyone to tell him where to go. He turned to the pantry to get out the bread.
“You know what your problem is? You’re too sure of yourself.”
“How is that a problem?” Kincaid asked, amused. Sometimes, Mitch’s mind worked in interesting ways. “Especially for a Dom.”
“Most of the time, it’s not,” Mitch admitted. “But sometimes, it is. Like right now. In a conceptual way, you understand what Zach’s afraid of, but it’s not something you really fear, so you can’t really understand where he’s coming from. You sort of get it, but it pisses you off at the same time.”
“This sounds a lot like the talk we had the last time Zach and I broke up.” Kincaid tapped his fingers on the back of the couch.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong, which is why we ended up getting back together in the first place.
I needed to be more understanding of the fact that he’s a very different person from me and isn’t going to act the same way that I would.
But exactly how long am I supposed to be willing to wait? ”
“See, that’s the thing. You’re going to have your timetable.
He’s going to have his. They might not match up.
” Mitch opened up the bread bag and started pulling slices out.
Then he paused and turned, leaning over to open the cabinet where the cutting board was before Kincaid could even say something to him.
“Yeah, I know. Food on the cutting board, not the counter.”
“Thank you,” Kincaid said, though it made his heart hurt a little because that was Zach’s rule, not his. “I don’t want to wait forever.”
“You shouldn’t have to wait forever. I won’t lie… Zach fucked up pretty big. He hit some trigger points for you, for sure. But… you’re also not very understanding when someone doesn’t do what you think is the ‘right’ thing.”
That grated a little because what? He was supposed to be okay with people doing the wrong thing?
“I see that face,” Mitch said in the kind of sing-song voice that he sometimes used with his soon-to-be six-year-old stepdaughter.
“I didn’t say the ‘right’ thing. I said what you think the right thing is.
Sometimes, in some situations, there’s more than one way to do the right thing, but you have a tendency to choose what you think is the one ‘right way,’ and woe betide anyone who doesn’t choose the same way. ”
“Are you saying Zach did the right thing today?”
“No, but I am saying that he’s not doing anything wrong by working on the timetable that he’s comfortable with.
Unfortunately, today that timetable bit him in the ass.
You have every right to be pissed. But he also has every right to have waited this long.
It’s up to you whether or not you can deal with his timetable, but being mad that his is different from yours isn’t going to help anyone. ” Mitch’s tone was matter-of-fact.
Kincaid frowned.
Shit. He had been doing that, hadn’t he?
“Also, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be nearly as pissed at him if you hadn’t been working up a whole throuple scenario in your head while you were on your run, only to come back and find that he’d tried to implement what you would feel was the worst-case-scenario of that arrangement.
If you weren’t afraid of exactly that happening, you probably would have been able to deal with everything better.
” Mitch grinned when Kincaid flinched at the direct hit.
“Ow,” Kincaid complained, putting his hand on his chest. “Why don’t you just punch me in the face next time? It would hurt less.” He huffed. “I still don’t think it’s right that Zach hasn’t told his parents about us.”
“I agree,” Mitch said calmly, plating the sandwiches. “I also don’t think it’s right that you keep pressuring him to. Mostly because it’s not helping anyone; it’s making Zach more insecure, and it’s making you resentful. None of that is good for a relationship.”
“Get a girl to agree to marry you, and all of the sudden, you’re a relationship expert,” Kincaid muttered.
“Hey, if anyone knows about what it takes for a relationship to fall apart, it’s me.
You want to end up like my parents?” Mitch wrinkled his nose.
“I mean, they’re blissfully happy now, but I don’t think you want to spend ten years in a ‘will they, won’t they’ situation while y’all get your shit together. ”
Having heard the entire story about Mitch’s parents’ divorce and reconciliation, Kincaid had to agree.
Deep down, he’d already known that. Which was why he hadn’t broken up with Zach immediately.
He hadn’t wanted to do anything rash while he was angry.
He wasn’t sure Zach could handle another breakup, especially after he’d accused Kincaid of leaving him once.
He wasn’t ready to take that step.
“So what do I do?” he asked. Having to ask that wasn’t normally his thing, but he truly didn’t know what to do.
“I think you have to wait and see what Zach does.” Finished putting the ingredients away, Mitch walked back into the living room and handed Kincaid a plate.
“I hate waiting,” Kincaid muttered.
“Don’t we all.” Mitch snorted. “If you could wrap this up today while I’m here, so that I can tell Domi all the good, juicy gossip when I get back home, that would be much appreciated.”
Taking a big bite of his sandwich, Kincaid flipped off his best friend with his free hand.
Amy