Chapter 10
There were very few dignified ways to discover your best friend had just had sex with the woman you were also sleeping with.
Standing in the driveway yelling about emotional complexity was not one of them.
Gray leaned against his truck beside me with both arms folded.
I looked at the locked front door.
He looked at the locked front door.
Neither of us used his key.
Growth was humiliating.
“You think they actually…” I started.
“Yes.”
I looked at him. “You answered before I finished.”
“You weren’t asking whether they alphabetized something.”
“You remain deeply hostile about that.”
“I do not alphabetize screws.”
The front door stayed locked.
My imagination continued working without supervision.
I hated my imagination.
It knew what Cole looked like without a shirt because we had spent twenty-four years swimming, surfing, fixing boats, changing in marina bathrooms, and living like men who did not generally find another man’s torso narratively significant.
It also knew what Piper looked like wet in an outdoor shower.
Combining those two sets of information was emotional terrorism.
“I don’t like this,” I said.
Gray nodded. “Neither do I.”
That helped.
Not because I wanted him miserable.
Because jealousy became less embarrassing when another grown man stood beside you looking equally inconvenienced by it.
I rubbed both hands over my face.
“I am happy for him.”
“Same.”
“I also want to throw something.”
“Not at him.”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Maybe near him.”
“Still no.”
I looked at Gray.
“You did things with her in the cottage.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Don’t.”
“I don’t need details.”
“Then stop requesting them indirectly.”
“I’m establishing that you have information I don’t.”
“You had shower sex with her.”
“How do you know it was sex?”
Gray stared at me.
“Right. Fine.”
The front lock clicked.
We both stopped talking.
Cole opened the door wearing cargo shorts and a T-shirt that was on backward.
I stared at the collar.
Then at him.
Cole looked down.
He closed his eyes.
I experienced a violent rush of joy.
“Oh, thank God.”
“What?”
“You have your shirt on backward.”
He looked at me like I had begun speaking another language.
“Why is that good?”
“Because if you had come downstairs perfectly composed, I would have had to reconsider our entire friendship.”
Gray looked at Cole’s shirt.
His mouth moved once.
Cole stepped aside.
“Come in.”
I did not move.
“Is Piper okay?”
Cole’s expression changed immediately.
“Yes.”
Simple.
Serious.
No male victory bullshit.
That mattered.
I went inside.
Gray followed and locked the door behind us.
Cole looked at him.
Gray said, “Children are gone.”
“I know.”
“Then privacy still exists.”
Cole nodded.
The house smelled like tacos.
Apparently while I had been teaching two terrified accountants how to stand on foam boards and Gray had been persuading a customer that rotted stringers were not a cosmetic issue, Cole had achieved both dinner and sex.
I resented his efficiency.
“You made food,” I said.
“Before.”
“Of course you did.”
Gray walked into the kitchen.
I stayed near the stairs.
Piper appeared at the top of them thirty seconds later wearing denim shorts, a clean black tank top, and the unmistakable expression of a woman who had recently had a better afternoon than I had.
Her hair was damp around her face.
She looked at me.
I looked at her.
My chest tightened.
Then she came downstairs.
No apology.
Good.
If she had apologized, I would have hated myself.
When she reached the bottom step, she stopped in front of me.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“You appear emotionally complex.”
I pointed at the front window. “You heard that?”
“The entire island heard that.”
“Excellent.”
Her mouth twitched.
I wanted to kiss it.
I also wanted to ask approximately forty questions I had no right to ask.
Piper touched two fingers to my wrist.
Tiny contact.
My whole nervous system behaved like she had grabbed my ass.
“You okay?” she asked.
I had asked her versions of that question before because it was easy when I was the one offering concern.
Receiving it was terrible.
“I’m jealous.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
“I don’t want you to feel bad.”
“I don’t.”
“Good.”
“I also don’t want you making jokes for the next six hours because you think jealousy becomes harmless if nobody can hear it breathing.”
Gray looked over from the refrigerator.
“That’s accurate.”
I glared at him. “You are not part of this conversation.”
“We discussed the same thing outside.”
Piper’s eyebrows rose.
“You two discussed feelings in a driveway?”
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Gray said.
I pointed at him. “Betrayal.”
Piper smiled.
Then she stepped closer and kissed me.
Not theatrically.
Not to prove something to Cole or Gray.
Just one warm, deliberate kiss that settled the loudest part of me before she pulled back.
I looked over her shoulder.
Cole stood beside the kitchen island.
He had watched.
His face was not neutral.
Good.
If I was suffering, everyone could participate.
Piper followed my gaze.
“Cole?”
He exhaled.
“Jealous.”
She nodded.
Gray opened the refrigerator.
“Also jealous.”
Piper looked at him.
“You weren’t even looking.”
“I don’t need visual confirmation.”
I started laughing.
The tension did not disappear.
That was the strange part.
It could exist beside the laugh.
Nobody needed to pretend this felt effortless.
Piper turned toward the kitchen.
“Are the tacos still edible?”
Cole looked at the clock. “Yes.”
“Great. I’m starving.”
I looked at him.
His expression did not change.
Piper caught me looking.
“Don’t.”
“I said nothing.”
“Your face requested information.”
“My face is an open book.”
“Your face is pornography written by a golden retriever.”
Gray shut the refrigerator.
“That is surprisingly precise.”
I put a hand over my heart. “I am being attacked in my own home.”
Piper walked past me toward the counter.
“Eat something. Your blood sugar is making you dramatic.”
“I was dramatic at breakfast.”
“You were dramatic in the driveway.”
“I contain multitudes.”
Gray looked at Piper. “You taught him nothing.”
We ate at the kitchen island because nobody had bothered setting the table.
Cole had made fish tacos, cabbage slaw, rice, and enough guacamole to suggest he had been expecting adult appetites.
For the first five minutes, we discussed completely normal things.
My late lesson.
Gray’s repair.
Piper’s Raleigh family session.
The fact that a tourist had asked me whether the ocean was “extra salty this year.”
Then the normal conversation ran out.
Piper put down half a taco.
“Are we going to pretend none of you are thinking about it?”
I immediately looked at my plate.
Gray said, “No.”
Cole took a drink of water.
Piper pointed at me. “Coward.”
“I am chewing.”
“You stopped chewing.”
I swallowed.
“Fine.”
She leaned her elbows on the counter.
I knew that posture.
Piper used it when clients gave her an answer she did not believe.
“I don’t want this turning into shifts,” she said.
Gray’s attention sharpened.
Cole looked at her.
I said, “Shifts?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
Unfortunately, I did.
She continued.
“I don’t want one of you waiting until another one clears the building like I’m a conference room.”
I choked.
Cole looked at the ceiling.
Gray said, “That would be inefficient.”
Piper pointed at him. “You are why I used that example.”
“I have never scheduled access to you.”
“I know. I’m saying I don’t want us drifting into three private arrangements where everyone politely pretends the others disappear whenever a bedroom door closes.”
Nobody answered immediately.
That was a large sentence.
I turned my water glass slowly between my palms.
“You want us in the same room.”
Piper looked at me.
Heat moved low through my body with horrifying speed.
“Sometimes,” she said.
Cole went completely still.
Gray’s fork stopped halfway to his plate.
I had made thousands of dirty jokes in my life.
None arrived.
Apparently there were limits to training.
Piper looked among us.
“That wasn’t an order.”
“No,” Gray said.
“It was not.”
She folded her arms.
“Thank you, minutes secretary.”
He ignored that.
Cole’s voice was quieter.
“You’ve thought about it.”
Piper looked at him.
“Yes.”
That one word altered the kitchen.
I did not need to ask whether she meant me.
All of us were sitting there.
My body understood before my brain finished catching up.
Jealousy and arousal made terrible roommates.
Both wanted the entire chest.
I leaned back on the stool.
“I have also thought about it.”
Gray looked at me.
“What?”
“Do not act shocked.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Your eyebrows moved.”
“One of them.”
“Exactly.”
Piper looked at Gray.
He set down his fork.
“Yes.”
Her attention went to Cole.
He rubbed his thumb along the side of his water glass.
“Yes.”
No speeches.
No pretending.
Four adults sitting around fish tacos admitting we had all mentally crossed the same line before anybody physically did.
Piper looked down for a second.
When she looked up, the confidence was still there, but something more vulnerable sat beneath it.
“I don’t want to manage everybody while it happens.”
That killed the last joke in my mouth.
She continued.
“If one of you gets jealous, say it or deal with it. Don’t make me stop wanting someone else so you can feel chosen.”
Cole nodded first.
“Fair.”
Gray said, “Yes.”
I looked at her.
“I don’t want you choosing me by not choosing them.”
Her face softened.
That sentence had cost more than I wanted anyone to know.
Piper reached across the counter and took my hand.
“Good.”
Gray pushed his empty plate away.
“Also, this doesn’t make the cottage communal property.”
Piper’s head snapped toward him.
He continued.
“If this happens there, it’s because Piper invites us. The room is still hers.”
I loved that irritating bastard.
Piper stared at him for a second.
Then she said, “Yes.”
Cole looked at her.
“Do you want this tonight?”
Every muscle in my body became very attentive.
Piper’s eyes moved from Cole to Gray to me.
“Yes.”
I stood so fast my stool scraped backward.
Gray closed his eyes.
Piper started laughing.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“That was an enthusiastic response.”
“It was furniture violence.”
“I can be both.”