Chapter 31
Kevin
I was in bed, not sleeping.
That had become its own routine. Lie down. Stare at the ceiling. Listen to the house settle around all the spaces she used to fill without even trying. Pretend the mattress didn’t feel too wide when she stayed downstairs or worked late.
My phone lit up on the nightstand.
Lauren: I’m still at the bar. Jackson is here. Can you come by?
A second message came in before I could answer.
Lauren: I don’t want anything to feel hidden anymore.
That one stopped me cold.
Before, Jackson was the one texting me while she ran late. Decent of him. Careful. Miserable. It still made me feel like I was standing outside my own life, getting updates from the man who knew where she was while I lay in bed imagining the worst.
This was different.
Lauren had texted me.
She named him.
She asked me to come instead of making me guess.
I sat up and rubbed both hands over my face.
Downstairs, the house was dark. Her mug was in the sink. My hoodie was still folded over the back of the couch where she’d left it before work. She stopped leaving pieces of herself all over the house like she belonged here.
Every room she’d stopped filling felt bigger than it should.
I typed back.
On my way.
Then I deleted it.
Too eager. Too clean. Like I hadn’t spent days half-hating the idea of walking into that bar after closing.
I tried again.
I’ll come by.
Sent.
I got dressed before I could talk myself out of it.
The drive to Hayes took seven minutes. I knew because I watched the clock the whole way, like the numbers could explain why my pulse had kicked up hard enough to make my hands tighten on the wheel.
The bar lot was mostly empty. Lauren’s car sat near the side door. Jackson’s truck was parked by the alley. The place was empty, the lighted front sign off. Just the dull yellow light over the back entrance and the low hum of the ice machine through the wall.
I sat there with the engine off.
This place had been mine once, in the way a place could be yours without actually belonging to you. My stool at the end of the bar. Jackson sliding me a beer without asking. Ball games I didn’t care about. Late nights after clinic when I needed noise and Jackson knew not to ask too much.
Then it became the place where I got made a fool of before I even knew the joke had started.
One night and I couldn’t look at the bar the same way. I still wanted to go inside anyway.
The back door opened before I moved.
Lauren stood there in jeans and a black bar T-shirt, hair twisted up, face pale under the alley light. She looked at my truck, then at me through the windshield.
She didn’t wave.
She just waited.
That was what got me out of the truck.
Just Lauren standing in the doorway, asking me to step into what we had all been circling.
I crossed the gravel.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
Her eyes moved over my face. “You didn’t have to come.”
“Yes, I did.”
She swallowed, then stepped aside.
Inside, the bar had been stripped down for the night. Chairs stacked. Lights low. The whole place smelled like lemon cleaner, fryer oil, old wood, and bourbon buried too deep to scrub out.
Jackson stood behind the bar with both hands braced on the counter.
He looked at me once, then down.
“Kev.”
My name sounded rough in his mouth.
I shut the door behind me. “Jackson.”
Lauren moved between them. Just there, not taking sides.
“I asked him to come,” she said to Jackson.
“I figured.”
“I didn’t want another night where one of you knew more than the other.”
Everything landed both ways now — good and bad at the same time.
I stepped farther into the bar. “So why am I here?”
Lauren folded her arms, then dropped them again, like she realized what it looked like. “Because I can’t keep going home to you and working beside him while we all pretend this is only guilt.”
Jackson’s shoulders dropped.
I looked at him. “Is that what we’re doing?”
He gave a short laugh. No humor in it. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore.”
Honest, at least.
The room went quiet around that.
Lauren looked at me then. Really looked.
“I know what I did hurt you,” she said. “I know what we did hurt you.” Her voice shook, but she didn’t stop. “But something was already happening before that night. Between all of us. And I don’t know what to call it without making it sound cleaner than it is.”
My hand closed around nothing.
I wanted lies once. Easy ones. Something simple enough to hate.
This was harder.
Because she was right.
The worst part was that she was right.
Lauren
Kevin didn’t answer right away.
He stood by the back door, shoulders tight, face doing that doctor thing. Blank. Calm, if you didn’t know him. Like he wasn’t bleeding somewhere nobody could get to.
Jackson stayed behind the bar.
I hated the counter between us.
I hated that I knew exactly why he needed it there.
“You think this started before Wednesday?” Kevin asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”
His eyes shifted to Jackson. “Do you?”
Jackson stared at the bottles behind the bar like the tequila had a better answer than he did. “Yeah.”
The word came out low.
Kevin’s mouth tightened.
I waited for him to get angry. Part of me wanted him to. Anger had edges, it told you where not to step.
But Kevin didn’t yell.
He just looked tired.
Jackson finally looked at him. “I should’ve told you before it happened.”
“You should’ve stopped before it happened.”
“Yeah.” Jackson’s throat worked. “I know.”
The silence after that had teeth.
I stepped closer to Kevin, slow enough that he could move away if he wanted.
He didn’t.
“I’m not asking you to forgive us tonight,” I said.
His gaze dropped to my mouth, then snapped back up like he hated himself for looking.
“Then what are you asking?”
“I don’t know.” I hated that answer, but it was the only honest one I had. “Maybe I’m asking us to stop lying about the fact that it wasn’t only betrayal.”
Behind me, Jackson made a sound that was between a breath and pain.
Kevin heard it too.
His eyes cut past me.
“What part is that?” he asked.
Jackson’s hands curled around the edge of the counter. “Don’t.”
Kevin’s voice went quiet. “I’m asking.”
Jackson shook his head. “You don’t want me to answer that.”
“Yes,” Kevin said. “I do.”
The room seemed to close in around us.
Jackson looked at me first, then at Kevin. “I wanted her. I still do.” His voice rougher. “And that’s bad enough. But it’s not all of it.”
Kevin didn’t move.
I stopped breathing.
Jackson looked down at his hands. “I missed you before you were even gone.”
He looked stripped down in a way I hadn’t seen before — unguarded.
“You think I don’t know that feeling?” Kevin said.
Jackson’s head came up.
For a second, neither of them looked at me.
Good.
Let them have that.
Let them finally say what they’d been circling for months.
Kevin took one step toward the bar. “I spent days trying to hate you.”
Jackson gave him a humorless smile. “How’d that go?”
“Badly.”
The word cracked something open.
Want.
It moved through the room so fast I felt it on my skin.
I should have stayed still.
I didn’t.
I crossed to Kevin and touched his chest. His heart slammed hard under my palm. He closed his eyes for one second, then opened them again.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to hide from you anymore.”
His hand came up and covered mine. “Then don’t.”
I lifted onto my toes and kissed him.
For one second, it was careful.
Then it wasn’t.
His hand slid to my waist, and he pulled me in with a low sound that went straight through me. I gripped his shirt and kissed him harder, with all the ugly, aching things we still hadn’t said pressed between us.
When he pulled back, his eyes were dark.
Jackson was staring at us from behind the bar.
He looked a mess.
Kevin turned his head toward him.
“Come here,” he said.
Jackson didn’t move.
“Kev.”
“Come here.”
Jackson came around the bar like he expected the floor to drop out before he made it to us.
He stopped close enough that I could feel him behind me.
Kevin looked at him for a long moment, then reached out and grabbed the front of Jackson’s shirt, not rough but not gentle either.
Jackson’s breath left him.
“This only happens if all of us choose it,” Kevin said. “No drinking enough to blame it. No secrets. No pretending it was an accident because nobody wanted to be the first to say yes.”
Jackson swallowed. “I’m saying yes.”
Kevin’s hand tightened. “To what?”
“To you.” Jackson looked at me. “To her.” His eyes came back to Kevin. “To whatever the hell this is, if you still want me anywhere near it.”
Kevin’s face shifted at that.
Something raw.
Almost young.
“I do,” he said.
Then Jackson kissed him.
I didn’t know who moved first. Maybe both of them, maybe it had been moving toward them for years and one of them finally stopped holding the door shut.
Their mouths met, and the room tilted.
Jackson kissed like he was trying not to need it.
Kevin kissed like he was furious that he did.
I stood between them, Kevin’s hand still locked at my waist, Jackson close enough that his arm brushed mine, and for the first time since everything blew apart, shame wasn’t the loudest thing in the room.
When they pulled back, both men were breathing hard.
Jackson looked at me.
I touched his jaw, and he went still under my hand.
Then I kissed him too.
This time, Kevin watched.
That changed everything.
As Kevin watched, his fingers flexed against my waist.
Jackson’s hand slid to my hip.
For a few hot seconds, all three of us were touching.
Then Kevin said, “Stop.”
Jackson let go so fast it almost hurt.
I stepped back, pulse hammering.
Kevin dragged both hands over his face and turned toward the main bar.
Toward the counter.
Toward the place none of us could unsee.
“No,” he said, quieter now. “Not here.”
“Kevin.”
He shook his head. “I want this. I think I do.” He looked at Jackson, then at me. “But not in this room. Not tonight. Not with that still right there.”
Jackson’s face went pale. “Okay.”
“No one did anything wrong just now,” Kevin said.
I nodded. “Okay.”
“But if we keep going here,” he said, “I’ll wake up tomorrow and hate it.”