We aren’t the first couple that Connor’s been involved with. With the first, the boundaries were unclear and lines got blurred. When he fell too hard too fast for them, it was made clear that he was only in their lives and in their bed as a tool, not as an equal.
Our couch was his home for nearly a month while he searched for another place, and it was the first time that I think I’d ever seen him really, truly heartbroken over another person.
I think he knows that he doesn’t have to tell us; but I also think it gives him peace of mind to say it out loud. He’s afraid of being used again, and this is higher stakes than anything we’ve ever done as a group.
“Two,” Tripp adds, “If we can’t make it work, we don’t force it. There’s been enough shit between all of us that we need to know when to walk away.”
I signal my agreement, poking my fork into a piece of sausage while I consider everything that they’re saying.
“So…” My eyes move between them, scanning, until they land on Connor’s. “Are you…what does this make you to us?”
He looks to my husband, another wordless conversation happening between them before both of their eyes settle on me to pin me in place in my seat.
“I’m a person that you’re seeing,” he answers.
“And we’ll just take it from there,” Tripp adds.
“Wait,” I say, setting my fork down at the side of my plate. “Rule three, we talk to each other. Secrets and lies made a mess of things. So…we talk.”
Their chins bob in agreement, each of them wearing warm smiles as they look at me.
If I were to visit my past self, that insecure girl in a Catholic high school surrounded by people that she felt so inferior to,she’d never believe me when I told her that she’d be sitting across the table from two beautiful men who love to please her.
That girl looked at all of her peers, and she would go home and cry while she looked in the mirror. All she could do was compare herself to them. She was certain she’d wind up alone, with no one to love her. She never wore a bathing suit in the pool, only a large t-shirt and a pair of shorts that covered her thighs. She didn’t appreciate the things that would come to be something that her husband adored about her.
If I told her where she would be today, if I told her that she’d wear that crop top or that new bikini, that she would be kissed and held and told often that she was beautiful, she’d call me crazy.
If I told her that she’d grow up to love the reflection in the mirror, she’d think I was lying.
She just wanted to be loved – really, truly loved for who she is and not for who someone hoped she might be one day, how they hoped she might look one day. And now, she is.
My gaze moves to Tripp as he reaches for another serving of bacon strips to stuff into his mouth, and all I can do is stare at him.
We’ve both lost pieces of ourselves; from the moment that we were born to now, every mistake, every judgment, every loss. Piece after piece has been stolen. I think that, for him, there was a quiet piece hidden away that he’d never gotten the chance to nurture or explore.
There are still pieces that he may never get back, but that one piece has a place to land, now. It has a home. Because of that, he looks so much brighter this morning.
And Connor; he’s been hurt time and time again, denied opinions and feelings in a place where he should have been able to feel freely. Now able to nurture a once-platonic loveinto something quickly becoming something so much more than that.
We’ve been family since the first night Connor spent at our house with conversation had over one of Tripp’s homemade dinners. We’re still family; the way that family looks is just shifting.
It’s scary, but I also think that it also has the potential to be the best thing that’s ever happened to any of us.
Chapter 28
CONNOR
This day feels like any other: wake up, walk Koda, stop for a cup of coffee on the way to the shop - though today, I go a little wild and opt for an energy drink, instead of grounds. Nearly every day, it’s the same thing.
To anyone on the outside looking in, today and every other day for the past week would look the same, too.
My mouth quirks into a half smile at the sight of Tripp’s bike, sandwiched between the cars of two other guys in the lot. I offer a gentle tap to the pendant hanging off of his side mirror, like I have every time I’ve seen it since he told me what’s held inside of it.
After walking into the shop and saying my hellos, Tripp greets me with the same clasped-hand gesture we’ve shared since the early days of our friendship; only now, it’s met with a spark that lights up behind his eyes as the corner of his mouth pulls up.
We’re not telling anyone about thisthingthat we have between the three of us; not until we know what it is, and maybe not even for a while after that. Tripp hasn’t kissed me since the night that he pushed me so hard against a tree that I could feel the bark digging into my back through my riding jacket.
Part of me thinks that he wants to right now; another part thinks he may never do it again.
