Chapter 6
Chapter Six
After all my talk of lamps, when the last of the light dims to darkness, Ethan lights candles and we sip wine, our faces lit only by the soft flickering flames. And though there’s a fridge full of pizza for dinner, we’re so enraptured in conversation that none of us even thinks to eat.
Juniper curls up with Ethan while I chuck another log on the fire. My feelings for them are both soft and fuzzy—or maybe that’s the wine going to my head.
Juniper eyes me as I approach them, top up my mug, and raise it.
“To us?” I announce, and they clink their mugs to my own.
“To us.” Ethan grins while Juniper simpers.
“So, a pretty shit year then?” she asks later as we drunkenly recount the chaos that has been going on with our families. “You know, I had cancer.” She gazes down at the dregs of her wine.
“You did?” I take her hand, and she smiles up at me.
“Ovarian,” she says in that same dreamy tone, as if she’s talking about something else, or someone else.
I put down my mug, trying to ignore the buzzing in my head so I can listen and be there for her.
“They um—” She looks down again, swirling her mug now so the last of her wine licks around, making patterns inside.
“In the end, they sort of just … whipped it all out.” She chuckles darkly.
“And I um …” She swallows. “It was a lot. Yeah.” She looks up, eyes glazed, but then she throws on a smile.
“But I’m all better now!” She takes a breath.
“And since we appear to be out of wine—” She eyes me playfully, and I smile back. “We better start on the tequila!”
Several hours, half a bottle of tequila, and one large packet of Tangfastics later, we find ourselves in a conga-line cuddle puddle on the sofa.
Ethan sits at the end, and I lean back against him, the back of my head resting on his chest. My legs are sprawled along the length of the sofa, with Juniper nestled between them, lying back on me and using my chest as a pillow.
“Miaaaaa? Truth or dare?” Juniper slurs.
“I dunno,” I murmur back. “If I choose dare, will that involve me moving?”
Ethan’s soft laughter vibrates through my body, and I grin up at him. He kisses my forehead, and I relax further into his embrace.
Lying here, sandwiched between them both, I’m so damn comfy.
“Not sure,” Juniper says, reaching up behind her to stroke my cheek.
“Truth,” I say, smiling, content.
“When did you know you were bi?” she asks.
I close my eyes and pause to think. “I don’t know when exactly it hit me,” I say. “But it was only once I’d turned … well, thirty”—I sigh—“that I was able to really, truly accept that I was. That I am,” I clarify.
“Mmmm,” Juniper’s soft rumble of a reply goes right through me, sending a tingling sensation through my chest, down to my toes.
“What about you?” I ask.
“I kissed my sister’s best friend in eighth grade.” She shakes her head, and I look down at the movement on my chest. “And it turns out, even though I definitely was, she definitely wasn’t.” She sighs, heaving herself up then turning to face me.
I sit up more too and nudge Ethan, who may have drifted off to sleep for a second.
“For a long time, I actually thought I was gay.” She shrugs then eyes Ethan. “But I was dead wrong about that.”
We all giggle.
“So, eighth grade is …?” I ask.
“Oh, right. Yeah.” She looks up for a second, calculating, then flicks her gaze back to me. “I must’ve been thirteen, fourteen?”
I nod, then this unexpected wave of emotion washes over me. “I wish I’d known back then,” I say. “Like, for sure I mean.” I grow quiet, and for a while we all sit and stare at the embers of the dying fire.
“When Mia first realised,” Ethan starts, glancing over to me as if asking my permission to continue.
I nod. Go ahead, I think. He knows this story as well as I do.
Juniper looks between us both, and listens, and waits.
“When Mia first realised she was bi, she went through this sort of … sad phase?” he says, and I nod again. “She told me she felt like she missed out on a lot.” He looks down at his hands, feeling the moment, as I had when telling him all this back then.
“I was sort of …” I take over. “It almost felt like I was …”
“Mourning,” Juniper says, as if she’s known all along.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Yeah,” Ethan agrees.
“And don’t get me wrong.” I take Juniper’s hand but set my gaze upon my wonderful, perfect husband.
“I would never change what I have now,” I tell him.
I look to her and affirm, “What we have. But sometimes … Just sometimes …” I sigh.
“I kinda wish I’d had the chance to explore that other side of me, y’know? ”
Juniper nods and gives my hands a comforting squeeze. “So, what’s stopping you doing that now?”
I swallow. My head is spinning. “Well …” I try to laugh it off.
“If I just so happened to stumble across the perfect woman, who Ethan and I both liked, and she just so happened to like us back, and—” I throw my hands up to the snowy skies above.
“It’s just … it’s hardly likely,” I finish, quieter now, as I come down, down, down again.
I bite my lip then reach for the tequila, but Juniper puts her hand on my arm, stopping me.
“I like you,” she says, staring right into my eyes, into my soul. Then she turns to Ethan. “And I like you.”
My eyes grow wide.
Ethan looks at me then back to her. Then, with a lopsided grin, he says, “We like you too.” He sits back, arms folded behind his head. “Now, I dare you two to kiss.”
“Ethan!” I throw a cushion at him and he bats it away, laughing, but it hits a candle, which then teeters and tips in its holder, spilling wax and bringing the flame near the fur blanket.
“Fuck!” Juniper launches herself off the sofa to blow it out then collapses on the blanket, where we swiftly slide down to join her.
“You nearly burned the house down!” I gape at Ethan, who, to be fair, looks truly mortified.
“You started it!” he rebuffs, the apples of his cheeks taking on a bashful glow.
“Lucky I saved the fucking day!” Juniper bellows, and we all look at each other in disbelief.
Then we laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
“I think I need to go to bed,” I say once I’ve somewhat regained my composure.
“Me too.” Ethan groans, though neither of us make any attempt to stand or even crawl towards the bedroom.
“I might just sleep here.” Juniper curls up on the blanket then reaches for that cursed cushion to lay beneath her head.
“Oh no,” I slur, patting her shoulder. “Oh, no, no, no,” I slur some more, and Juniper sleepily sits back up. Smiling now, she lets me take her hand as I shuffle to standing. “You can sleep in our bed tonight.” Then I freeze in place, turning back. “If you want to?” I ask, almost soberly.
She giggles and holds my hand tighter then reaches back for Ethan’s. “I’m game if you are.”
Ethan stands on shaking legs, and we sway and snake our way along the corridor.
We stop outside the bedroom, hovering there like there’s a hidden barrier or a no entry sign we must navigate first. Then—
“It’s more than big enough for three!” Juniper charges in, flings the covers back, and dives onto the bed, beckoning us both to join her. “Well, come on then!” she says. “I’m getting cold!”
Ethan squeezes my hand. Then he closes the door behind us and follows me into bed with Juniper.
I have never been so hot.
Sunlight fills the room, and I wake with Ethan’s long hard body curled around me from behind and Juniper’s soft, supple figure at my front.
One arm stretches beneath the lower ridge of the pillow, where Juniper rests her head, and the other I curl around her soft middle, holding her as she sleeps, her hand clutching mine at her centre.
I want to move, but I don’t want to move.
Actually, my right arm is completely dead, and I’m uncertain whether I can move.
I wriggle my bum back into Ethan, trying to create a little space between us all, but of course my unintentional gyrating only causes him to hold me firmer against him and his stiff morning glory, which now presses against my backside. Fuuuuck.
“Mornin’, gorgeous,” he croons in my ear, and maybe I’ll stay here a little longer … Except—
“Morning, sweetheart,” I say then heave a sigh. “I really need a wee.”
With what I think is a rather impressive level of acrobatic skill, I manage to climb out of the bed, both without waking Sleeping Beauty and without tantalising my beast of a husband too much more. Though he turns towards the door just in time to give my bum a cheeky pat as I vacate the room.
I squeal, dancing across the hall to the bathroom, where I promptly have the longest darn wee of my life. I sit there a while longer, looking up at the skylight and the wondrous blue above. What even is this place? Will all this bright sunshine melt away our snow? I hope not. I look down. Not yet.
I shift on the seat, stomach churning. My thoughts whirl around and around.
Did Juniper really say she likes us?
And did Ethan really tell her we like her back?
Oh, god. My head pounds.
We all slept in that bed together last night. And it wasn’t even weird. Heck, it wasn’t even weird when I woke up, but …
My stomach churns, and suddenly I’m regretting drinking on an empty stomach.
I swallow. I have a sour taste in my mouth, and I don’t think it’s the Tangfastics. I don’t regret it. Any of it. I don’t regret telling her all we told her. We shared so, so much, it was like … it was like we completely unburdened ourselves, and Juniper did too.
Last night, we told her things we’ve only ever told each other, and I’d like to think the same could be said for the things she told us.
We were inexplicably there for one another, but it wasn’t just that, it was …
something else. Like we connected, all of us, all together as a three.
Of course, I can’t tell how Juniper feels about it, or how she felt in the moment, but it was like we were all on an equal footing.
It was like, instead of inviting Juniper into our shared life, she invited us both into hers.