Chapter 35
Jackson
“Jackson,” Kevin said, gentler now. “Do you?”
“I…” My voice cracked, and I hated that too. “Yes. Christ, Kevin, I’m sorry. I never meant to. This isn’t something I wanted to feel. I tried to stop it.”
Kevin looked down at the table.
For one awful second, the whole room went quiet around him.
“I’m not going to pretend what happened didn’t hurt me,” he said. “It did. Both of you hurt me.”
I went still.
Lauren’s face tightened, but she didn’t defend herself. She didn’t defend me either.
Kevin lifted his head. “But I don’t want the rest of our lives decided by the worst way this could’ve started.”
I blinked at him.
“What?”
Lauren leaned forward a little. “Why would you want to stop it?”
I looked at her, because that had to be a trick question. “Because you’re together. Because Kevin’s my best friend. Because people don’t just…” My eyes cut to him. “This isn’t how things work.”
“What if it could be?” Kevin asked.
I stared at him again.
Lauren’s voice was careful when she said, “We’ve been feeling it too, Jackson. Both of us.”
My hands went still on my thighs.
“No.” I shook my head once. “No, that’s not right. You’re together. You’re happy.”
“We are happy,” Kevin said. “And we think we’d be happier with you. If you wanted that. If you wanted us.”
I couldn’t breathe right.
This wasn’t something that happened to me. Not after months of choking it down and telling myself to be normal.
“I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”
“We’re asking,” Lauren said, slow enough that I could follow clearly, “if you’d want to try this. The three of us. Together.”
“Together,” I repeated, because my brain had apparently left me there alone.
“A relationship,” Kevin said. “All three of us. Equally. Only if you want it.”
My eyes burned.
“You’re serious.”
“Completely,” Lauren said. “We know it’s not conventional. We know it’s complicated. But we both want you, Jackson. Not instead of each other. With each other.”
I pressed my hands against my thighs under the table, because they were starting to shake.
“I don’t even know how that would work.”
“Neither do we,” Kevin admitted. “But we want to figure it out. If you do.”
I looked between them.
Kevin, who had been my best friend for so long I didn’t know who I was without him in the picture. Lauren, watching me like I wasn’t a problem they were trying to solve. Like I was wanted.
Both of them were scared.
Both of them were waiting.
“This could ruin everything,” I said.
“Or it could make everything better,” Lauren said.
“People will talk.” My laugh came out ugly and thin. “Small town, remember? They already talk about me.”
“We’ll handle it,” Kevin said. “Together.”
“What if it doesn’t work? What if we try and it falls apart?”
Lauren’s expression softened. “What if we don’t try and spend the rest of our lives wondering?”
“I’ve wanted this,” I said.
The words felt dangerous as soon as they were out.
I made myself keep going anyway.
“I’ve wanted you. Both of you. I thought I was losing my mind. I thought I was wrong for even thinking about it.”
“You’re not wrong,” Kevin said. “And neither are we.”
I swallowed. “So what happens now?”
Lauren’s thumb moved over the back of Kevin’s hand. “Now you tell us what you want.”
I looked at them. Really looked.
At Kevin’s face, open in a way he almost never let himself be, at Lauren’s small, nervous smile and at the space beside them in the booth, like they’d left it there on purpose.
“I want this,” I said, barely above a whisper. “God help me, I want this so much.”
Lauren’s smile broke wide open.
Kevin’s eyes shone.
“Then come here,” Kevin said.
I slid out of my side of the booth before I could get scared enough to stop myself. Then I moved into theirs.
Kevin’s arm came around my shoulders. Lauren’s hand found mine.
The tightness I’d been carrying since Chicago was gone.
“We’re really doing this?” I asked.
“We’re really doing this,” Lauren said.
“I have no idea how.”
“Neither do we,” Kevin said. “But we’ll figure it out. Together.”
I turned my head and looked at him.
My best friend.
Looking at me like I was something worth keeping.
Kevin kissed me.
Soft at first. Careful. Like he was giving both of us room to change our minds.
I didn’t.
When he pulled back, I was shaking.
Lauren’s hand came to my cheek, warm and steady, turning me toward her.
“My turn?”
I nodded because words were beyond me.
Lauren kissed me, and every loud, panicked thing inside me went quiet.
When we finally pulled apart, none of us moved away. We stayed there in the booth, shoulder to shoulder, breathing the same air.
I was still half-convinced I was about to wake up alone. Kevin’s hand tightened on my shoulder, and I let myself lean in.
Lauren
Two nights after we agreed to try, I stayed late at the bar.
Not because Jackson needed help.
Because I did.
The place was empty by then. Chairs stacked. Lights low. Counter wiped clean until there was nothing left to do with my hands.
The old version of us was still in this room. Kevin had stopped them once, and he’d been right.
But tonight was different.
Tonight Kevin knew where I was. Jackson knew Kevin was coming. Nobody was waiting to get caught. Nobody was pretending this thing between us had neat edges.
We’d sat at Kevin’s kitchen table until two in the morning, all three of us exhausted and raw and stupidly honest. We didn’t make promises we couldn’t keep or pretend we knew how to make it work.
We wanted to try. It scared all of us. And we were done treating wanting each other like the worst thing we’d ever done.
Kevin came through the back door a little after eleven, still in his clinic clothes. Tie loosened. Hair messed from dragging his hand through it.
Jackson looked up from the register.
For one second, none of us moved.
No customers.
No town watching.
No lies between us.
My pulse hit hard.
Kevin’s gaze moved from Jackson to me.
“You okay?”
I walked to him instead of answering.
His eyes darkened as I got closer. By the time I reached him, his mouth went tight, like he already knew what I was about to do and was trying not to react before I did it.
I put my hand on his belt.
His jaw flexed.
“Lauren.”
There it was.
Warning. Want. Memory.
I looked up at him. “Tell me to stop if this isn’t what you want tonight.”
His hand covered mine.
For one breath, I thought he was going to pull me away.
Instead, he pressed my palm harder against him.
“I didn’t say stop.”
Behind me, Jackson went very still.
Kevin’s eyes lifted past my shoulder.
“Lock the door, Jackson.”
Jackson’s breath caught.