Chapter Three
Nolan
Motherfucker.
BillMotherfuckingWebb.
God, I hate that motherfucker.
I know Arlo and Zoey aren’t fond of my ex-wife, Jerilyn.
That’s also amassiveunderstatement.
But as much as they hate Jerilyn, IdespiseBill Motherfucking Webb at least twenty times more.
I hated Bill even before I’d ever laid eyes on him. When Ar told me how the fucker tried to step into my guy’s face not long after Arlo and Zoey started dating, I wanted Arlo to take me over there with them so I could meet Bill right then.
My hatred for Bill Webb only grew when I found out he’d put hands on Zoey.
Right now, however, my stomach’s knotted so tightly that I’m close to puking. Lucas doesn’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to being reliable in terms of trusting him. If he decides to say something to or around Jerilyn—or to or around his father—I could possibly lose custody of Katie, if Jerilyn comes after me.
While things have smoothed out between me and my ex lately, I don’t want anything rocking that boat more than necessary. She makes way more money than I do, and the only reason I could afford my divorce attorney was because I went to high school with him and he let me make payments.
If she decides to come after me again, I’d be hosed. I already had to make a massive withdrawal from my retirement account as it was.
I wish I could trust the kid. I do. I love Lucas like a son.
But I donottrust Lucas. Not yet. Plus he hurt Arlo, and devastated Zoey, which is an additional hill for him to climb, in my opinion, before he totally wins me back as a friend.
Lucas made hercry.
Hebrokeher frickingheart.
It was me and Arlo comforting her after Lucas changed his mind and decided to live with Bill full-time. The gut-wrenching way her sobs shook her as she cried in our arms makes me understandably bitter. I’ll never be able to erase that sound from my memory.
“What do you mean by that?” Lucas finally asks Zoey after digesting her admission for a long, heart-stopping moment. “What’s poly mean?”
“First, do you promise not to say anything to or around Jerilyn, or around Katie, when she’s here? This is serious, honey.”
Lucas nods. “No offense, but I don’t like Jerilyn, anyway. I think she’s a stuck-up bi—eh, witch.”
Zoey smirks. “Sheisa stuck-up bitch, but that’s another rule: no bad-mouthing her around Katie. Understand?”
He nods. “Sure.” He glances at Arlo, then to me, and back to her. “But what do you mean? What’s poly?”
“Arlo and Nolan are both bisexual. They had a relationship when they were in high school and college. Then life happened, deep closets happened, and then…” She sighs. “Then Arlo and I met. Their previous relationship wasn’t a secret to me. Arlo told me about it when we started dating. And I really liked Nolan, too. But you now understand at least a little of his fear. About why this has to stay a secret, yeah?”
Lucas nods but doesn’t interrupt, so she continues.
“Nolan ended up meeting and dating Jerilyn before we could really talk him into trying to date both of us. When they broke up, we approached him and told him we wanted him in our lives. But then Jerilyn sucked him back in again and got pregnant.”
Lucas looks from Arlo to me. “Sooo…the three of you aretogether?”
“Yeah,” Arlo says. “We are. Since he divorced Jerilyn. We love each other and want to spend the rest of our lives together. And this week, we started talking about building a house on the Nokomis property and moving in together.”
Lucas studies the food on his plate for a moment. “What about Katie?” he asks.
“The plan was to build it with a split layout,” Arlo says. “We were going to tell you guys Nolan had his own bedroom next to ours, and you’d both each have your own bedroom. Since we’d be at the opposite end of the house, we figured it wouldn’t be an issue, as long as we were careful when you guys were home.”
