Chapter 17: Chapter 17

Grayson and I barely speak on the flight back to New York. The silence isn’t exactly fraught, but it’s a sign of things changing. Things I desperately don’t want to change. I manage to make it until we’re back in our apartment before I burst. “Are you mad?”

My husband looks at me with something akin to shock. “What? No. Not even a little bit.” He pulls me into his arms and wraps me up tight. “I’m sad. It feels like we opened Pandora’s box on Christmas Eve, and it’s going to take time to put things back into their place.”

I press my face to his chest and breathe in his clean scent. “What if we can’t?”

“Then we go on differently than before.” He strokes my hair and presses a kiss to my temple. “Let’s unpack and I’ll order in some Thai. You pick a movie tonight.”

“Okay,” I whisper. It’s a blatant olive branch in the middle of something that isn’t really a fight, but that doesn’t change the feeling of the ground shifting beneath my feet. “We’re okay, right?”

“Yeah, baby. We’re more than okay.”

But as the days pass, I start to worry that we’re both lying about our level of okayness. It’s nothing overt. We spend the remaining days between arriving home and New Year’s Eve like we’d planned; painting the living room, but skipping organizing the storage.

I’m a bit superstitious about getting life in order during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I believe that how a person enters into the new year makes a difference. It’s why we are always fucking when the clock strikes twelve, why I go a little planner crazy with things I want to make sure happen in the next twelve months. Grayson has indulged me since we started dating, and this year is no different.

Except it different.

It feels like we’re missing part of us, like we left it back in Colorado in that cabin with Derek. There’s nothing with Grayson and I, but I keep looking over like I expect Derek to magically appear. And when Grayson and I have sex, it’s pure fucking. He drives my pleasure like if we can just orgasm enough times, we can purge this feeling of away. I don’t know if it works for him, but every time I stir on the other side of coming, the memories of those few days crash over me in waves.

It’s not just missing the sex with Derek, though. Interspersed in those memories are ones from farther back. We’ve spent so much time together over the years, and it never really occurred to me that we could be a throuple instead of a married couple and Derek playing the comfortable third wheel. But we . Every piece of evidence points to us fitting.

It’s a damn shame Derek doesn’t agree with us.

New Year’s Eve feels more bittersweet than any year past. Grayson chats with me while I set up my new planner, putting on the designing show marathon on television and referencing his digital calendar as we work through each month.

When we finally reach December, I stare at it. “Are we doing another trip with Derek for Christmas?” It wouldn’t be a question I’d ask normally; our annual Christmas trip with Derek is tradition. It’s a given. Until it’s not.

“I don’t know,” Grayson says softly. “Mark it in pencil or washi or whatever temporary option you have.”

My chest tries to close and I blink rapidly against the burning in my eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Baby, no.” Instantly, he’s up and around the table, bending down to cup my face. “I’m sorry it’s hurting now, but I’m not sorry we did it.”

“How can you say that? You’re friendship with Derek is changed forever.”

Grayson shrugs a little. “Friendships change. We’ll figure it out once he’s had time to think. I’ll take him however I can get him, even if that means it’s not what we wanted.” He strokes my cheekbones with his thumbs. “Are okay with that?”

“I’m not going to sleep with him again.” I catch his frown and rush forward. “It doesn’t feel right without you involved. And no matter what games I like to play, I already have feelings for Derek. Being confined to only sex will make me resent the hell out of him, and it’s not worth it to add bad feelings to confusing ones.”

He finally nods. “Okay. But my offer remains open if you change your mind.” He glances at my planner. “I think we’re good?”

“Yeah. We’re good.” For a moment, it even felt like it. No matter what else is true, Grayson and I will find a way forward through this. Our foundation is too strong for the outcome to be anything different. I wrap my hands around his wrists. “I didn’t say this before, but if you want to be with him, I’m okay with it.”

He goes perfectly still. “What?”

“If you want to keep having sex with Derek.” I study his face. I didn’t feel threatened at all when they were fucking with me nearby, and I can’t ignore the sliver of doubt that tries to worm its way into my heart. They’ve known each other so much longer than Grayson and I have, have been nursing an attraction to each other in addition to their friendship. Sending Grayson into Derek’s bed might be a mistake. But I want him happy, and if we can’t have Derek in our bed and in our life in a permanent way, then this is something I can give Grayson. “I’m okay with it.”

Grayson pulls me to my feet and kisses me hard. “Thank you for offering that, but I’m not going to take you up on it for the same reasons you won’t.”

“The offer stands, though.”

He smiles down at me, the first real smile I’ve seen on his face since we left Colorado. “I love you, Emma.”

“I love you, too.” I go up on my toes to kiss him again.

The buzzer sounds.

We look at each other. “Did you order food all sneaky-like?”

He shakes his head. “I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. I was waiting until you finished with the planning marathon.”

The buzzer sounds again. I step back from Grayson, my heart doing something fluttering and worrisome. “Better see who it is.” I have no business hoping. Absolutely business letting that feeling blossom in my chest.

He presses the button to call down to the front door. “Yeah?”

“I’d like to talk.”

The blood rushes out of my head at the sound of Derek’s voice, even tinny from the speaker. He’s here. I turn back to the table with my planners and start to put them to rights. Anything to keep my hands busy as Grayson buzzes him up. I can’t believe this is happening. Except I don’t know is happening. He might be stopping by to tell us to our faces that he never wants to see us again. That we broke our friendship with him irrevocably when we crossed the line Christmas Eve.

By the time Grayson opens the door for Derek, I’ve got all my things picked up. It feels like a mistake because now I have nothing to do with my hands. I wrap my arms around myself and drink in the sight of him.

He looks good. Really, really good. He’s trimmed his beard and he’s wearing his customary jeans and T-shirt that’s just fitted enough to show off his shoulders and chest and presses lightly to the curve of his stomach. He looks at Grayson and then at me, his expression carefully guarded. “I was hoping we could talk.”

Grayson motions to the living room. “Sit.”

Derek takes the chair. Grayson and I sink onto the couch across from him. My husband’s hand finds mine, and I give him what I hope is a reassuring squeeze. The silence stretches out for several long beats, a tangled messy thing that none of us seem all that inclined to break.

Finally, Derek curses. “What would it even look like? If we went for this?”

The rushing in my head nearly drowns out Grayson’s careful response. He’s holding my hand tightly enough to hurt, but his body language is otherwise relaxed. Like he’s afraid of spooking Derek. “We feel it out as we go. We keep communication open and talk to each other.” A brief smile touches his lips. “We fuck.”

Derek looks at me. “That’s too simple. There’s no way it’ll be that easy.”

Grayson takes a slow breath. “No one says it’ll be easy. It won’t. Relationships can be challenging with two people, let alone three. But I’m willing to work through it in order not to lose what we started in Colorado. I can’t promise that things won’t be hard, but I can promise I’ll work through whatever comes up.”

“And if it blows up in our faces?”

That startles a ragged laugh from me. “Have you been enjoying the last few days since Christmas, Derek? Because we sure as hell haven’t.”

His eyes go soft. “No, Emma. I haven’t enjoyed the last few days, either.”

“We crossed too many lines to go back.” I hate that it’s true, but it true. “The only way is forward. Can’t we at least try? Would that be so bad?”

Derek scrubs his hands over his face. “What about the future? I want kids.”

“So do we,” I say slowly. I hadn’t even considered how would look, but the thought of raising kids with the three of us sends a jolt through me that’s entirely too intoxicating. “Eventually.”

Grayson snorts. “Probably sooner, rather than later.”

“And what about events for work and all the shit that goes with raising a kid. You don’t think people are going to notice that there are three of us?”

I shake my head slowly. “Derek.”

“What?”

“Since when do you give a fuck what anyone else thinks? If we make it work, if we’re happy, then the rest of the world can jump off a bridge for all I care. Our household is the only thing that matters.”

His shoulders slump a little. “It won’t be that simple.”

“No, probably not.” Grayson shrugs. “But we won’t know until we try.” He hesitates the briefest of moments. “Do you to try?”

Derek leans forward and props his elbows on his thick thighs. “Yes. I want to try.”

The air seems to rush out of the room. We stare at each other for a long moment before Derek continues. “I can’t go back to being on the outside looking in. This wasn’t the plan I had for my life, the partner and equivalent of white picket fence and kids and dog and all that shit. But if I haven’t found someone who can compare to the two of you in the last eight years, I’m not going to be able to.” He shakes his head. “No, that’s a fucking copout. I don’t anyone but you two. I…love you both.”

“Come here.” Grayson’s voice is rougher than normal.

Derek rises and walks around the coffee table. We part for him to sit between us, and it seems the most natural thing in the world to bracket him in and press against him from either side. I slip under his arm and cuddle close. “I love you, too.”

“We both do,” Grayson murmurs.

“This is a terrible idea. You know that, right?” Derek looks between us.

I laugh and give him a squeeze. “We’ll find our way through.”

We begin talking almost hesitantly, but settling into the conversation quickly. What it will look like for us to try. How we can adapt our lives to accommodate for three. If things go well, maybe Derek will move in with us before too long, though that will mean a larger apartment. Maybe a house with a yard and the full nine yards. Kids.

.

But all that is in the future.

My alarm goes off at eleven-thirty. Derek looks at me with surprise, but Grayson is grinning. He nudges his friend. “Emma’s superstitious about New Year’s Eve.”

I push to my feet. “It’s as much tradition as superstition and you know it.” I hold out my hand to Derek. “I’m a firm believer in starting the year how you intend to move through it, and I want this year to be the three of us.”

Derek snorts. “So what you two are doing at midnight every year.”

“Guilty.” Grayson stands. “And now it’s the of us.”