“I play very specifically,” I correct. A small smile pulls at my mouth. “She was worried you would kink-shame me.”
He snorts. “As if. I’m grateful. One less logistical worry on my side.” His gaze softens. “Thank you for that, by the way.”
“We knew we were not exclusive,” I say. “She told me from the start. She told you too. That’s the point. She wants more than one person. She deserves more than one person.”
I nod. “Good thing we like each other.”
“Terrible thing,” he says dryly. “Makes it much easier to imagine how this goes very right and very wrong.”
I laugh quietly. “Come on. We shouldn’t leave her alone all night.”
He arches a brow. “You planning to ask, or just crawl in beside her and hope she doesn’t kick us out?”
“We ask,” I say. “We always ask. Even if she’s half asleep.”
We head back down the hall to her bedroom. The door is still cracked. The room is dim, lit only by the streetlight filtering through the blinds. She’s curled mostly on her side, one hand tucked under her pillow, the other splayed over the blanket at her waist.
I knock gently on the doorframe.
Her eyes blink open, heavy with sleep. “You’re still here,” she mumbles.
“We’re heading to bed too,” I say quietly. “Do you want us on the couch or in here? Your call. We can leave if you want.”
She squints at us, blinking through cotton. “I don’t want to be alone,” she admits.
The words hit me somewhere deep.
“In here is fine,” she adds. “No funny business. No touching anything that isn’t yours to touch.”
“Understood,” I say.
“Always,” Gideon echoes.
We strip down to our underwear in the half dark, folding our clothes over the chair. I’m in boxers. Gideon in boxer briefs.Nothing fancy. Just enough so that we’re not climbing into bed in suits like lunatics.
I move to the far side of the bed and slip under the covers behind her. Gideon takes the other side. The mattress dips and adjusts, cradling the weight of all three of us.
For a moment we’re careful not to touch too much. It feels almost clinical. Three inches of air between every limb.
Then she sighs and rolls back, fitting herself against my chest like she remembers the shape of me. Her hand reaches across the bed in her sleep, fingers brushing Gideon’s forearm.
His breath hitches softly.
I rest my arm lightly around her waist, hand on top of the blanket, nothing more. Gideon slides his palm over her hand, just enough contact to answer the unspoken request.
She settles, body relaxing between us, breathing slowly and deeply.
I stare at the ceiling for a long time, listening to the rhythm of her breath and Gideon’s, feeling the warmth of their bodies next to mine.
My nephew is out there making threats he doesn't understand. Abi is playing hostess while her true self rots under the floorboards. Minx is away somewhere she shouldn’t be.
There’s a lot to fix.
But right now, in this small bed with this stubborn, complicated woman between me and the only man I trust with my worst days, it feels like we have at least chosen our side.
We’re not going anywhere.
I close my eyes and let myself believe, for just a few hours, that choosing her and choosing each other is the first step in untangling the rest.
