There was something Hayden wasn’t saying, but I trusted him to tell me anything that pertained to us or Katie and Jackson’s safety. As much as I wanted to cuddle up to him, I kept some space between us. We were trying our damnedest to keep things professional when we were the two on guard duty, but fuck it was so damn hard.
He looked at me and said, “Are you struggling as hard as I am?”
I laughed. “Depends. But if you mean keeping our distance while we’re working, then yes.”
“Good. I suck at enough shit in life, I didn’t wanna be alone in how hard I sucked at this too.”
“I don’t consider you having a hard time keeping at arm’s length a bad thing.”
“Any clue when they’re gonna release him?”
“No, but it can’t come soon enough for me. I hope we fly to Nashville next.”
“If we aren’t, she’s meeting us wherever we end up. I’m over being separated.”
I nodded, chewing my lips because the way I felt about her being in Nashville and us here in New York seemed more ridiculous than I wanted to admit. We just met the girl. We’d known her for less than two weeks. We’d not slept in the same bed together. Yet, I felt like part of my soul was missing.
“It’s jumping the gun to feel like part of us is missing, right?”
My head swiveled. Hayden stared straight ahead, a faint blush painted the cheekbone I could see.
“What?” I asked, wanting to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood him while I stood to check the nurse’s badge who asked for access to Jackson’s room.
When I came back over to him, his gaze caught mine, his upper lip tucked between his teeth. When he released it, the nervous habit he had of running his tongue over his teeth, first upper then lower, gave him away.
“You heard me.”
“Yeah. I did. What you call jumping the gun, I called ridiculous when a similar thought ran through my mind.”
“So you feel it, too.”
“If you mean the pull I felt toward you that wouldn’t let me shove you into the hookup box, yeah. I’ve felt it since she ran into me in the hallway after you and Jackson fought at Conrad’s.”
“Yeah. It was the same for me. The minute her eyes met mine. Confused the fuck outta me.”
“Same. Made me feel…”
“Like you were cheating?”
I nodded, and he huffed a soft barely there laugh before saying, “I’d already wrecked our home, cheating… well, it’s not like it was a possibility because my dick is a one man guy or he was until I saw her. As if I didn’t feel bad enough about where we were at, popping wood for a gorgeous stranger while on a protection detail certainly cemented how big a piece of shit I felt like I was.”
“God, we’re fucked.”
“I thought we were. I thought we were on the path to destruction that night in the kitchen. But when I looked around… you kissed her on the head, and I realized you were on the same path I was, and it led right to her.”
“And you don’t think…” he stopped and took a deep breath, then continued, “you don’t think it’s cheating, though, right?”
“No. I don’t. She’s ours. And we’re hers for as long as she’ll have us. We’re together. The three of us.”
I sighed. “Good. That’s how I see it, too.”
“Vato, do you feel like what we’ve done without her is cheating? On her, I mean?”
“No. Oh, fuck! Do you think she considers us being together without her cheating?”
“The only way to know what she is thinking is to ask.”
I pulled out my phone to call her when Katie walked out of Jackson’s room.
