“I’ll get to it,” he says easily. “Don’t worry about it. Beer?”
“It’s nine a.m.” I roll my shoulders to ease the tension in them and drain the rest of the water I’d brought up from downstairs. “What’s going on with you? Be honest. I know it’s not just the girlfriend thing.”
“It’s the girlfriend thing,” he reiterates, widening his eyes at me. “It’s been a long-ass time since Sharon, and I realize that whole situation wasn’t ideal, but youcannottell me you’re not feeling it too. Something is missing, bro. It’s grating at me.”
“Interesting how you can look back on that shit-show and refer to it as just ‘not being ideal,’” I say dryly, remembering how badly it’d ended. “Of course I’m feeling it. So is Boone, but what happened with Sharon was a cautionary tale. She’sexactlywhy we’re being so careful now.”
“So what if she got jealous?” He braces his hands on the counter and looks across it, directly at me. “That doesn’t mean we need to be so careful that we’re all going to be geriatrics by the time we get into another relationship.”
“She didn’t get it, bro. This time, we need to make sure that whoever we fall for really does understand our dynamic. We need to take it slow or risk getting our hearts broken. None of us want that.”
“I’m into novel experiences,” he says lightly. “I’d be open to getting my heart broken. Besides,you’rethe one she wanted to be with. It couldn’t hurt that much hearing that you’re the one she chose.”
“It hurt that she chose at all. That’s just not how it works,” I say pointedly. “And what about Boone? Have you thought of him in all this?”
Dillon winces, his tone softening. “You think he got hurt?”
“No, but I think he could’ve.” I watch as he pops the top off the fully stocked cookie jar on the countertop and sticks his hand in. “If you keep eating those things, you really are going to have to come on a run with me.”
“Cool it, Marine.” He raises his cookie in mock salute. “That’s not going to work for me any more than Sharon did.”
“Yourheartisn’t going to work for you any more than Sharon did if you keep going like that,” I joke, though only partially. “Just get the ad up and meet me outside in an hour. You’ll see. You’re going to feel like a whole new person once you’ve spent some time on the mountain. In a few hours, you won’t even remember what had you so worked up this morning.”
4
DILLON
There is a certain silence that came with focus, the good kind. The kind where the world falls away and it’s just me, the code, and the slow drip of the coffeemaker in the corner.
The rest of the house is quiet, which usually means Boone is out doing something responsible and Chance is probably beating the hell out of a punching bag downstairs in the gym.
Me? I’m my zone. My element. The only place where the world makes complete sense.
Six monitors glow in front of me, lines of code scrolling fast enough to make normal people dizzy, but this is my music. My masterpiece.
For a Fortune 500, this client’s firewall looks like it was built by a first grader watching a YouTube tutorial. I could’ve cracked it with a calculator and a spoon.
After an initial review, we’d decided their security needed to be rebuilt from the ground up, which is exactly what I’m doing. I’m providing them with an industrial-grade, unbreakable security system that is worth every cent we were charging.
Happily, they have more money than they know what to do with, and they’d accepted our fees without blinking. It still surprises me sometimes how well the company is doing. We don’t come cheap, but we don’t charge exorbitant prices either, and with our reputation, people are lining up for our services.
As my fingers fly across the keyboard, I make the magic happen. This is where I thrive. Boone handles the clients. Chance handles the systems. I make sure no one can get in unless we want them to.
We work like that in everything, each of us covering the other’s blind spots. Three pieces of a whole that shouldn’t make sense but somehow does. It isn’t just business, either. It’s in life, too.
Over the years, there is nothing we haven’t shared. Homes, fights, bad ideas, and even women. We simply haven’t found ‘the one’ yet.
No matter how good it’s gotten with a girl in the past, it’s just never stuck.
They’d start off curious, open-minded, and maybe even into the idea of the three of us together, but somewhere along the line, things always got twisted. Someone got jealous, or scared, or decided they wanted to claim only one of us.
Usually Chance or me. Rarely Boone. He scared off the clingy ones too fast. After everything that had happened with Tessa, I don’t blame him. He’s on high alert all the damn time, seeing red flags where Chance sees maybes and I see green lights.
I can’t even count the number of times he’s saved our asses with that sixth sense he’s developed, but the point is that as soon as things got twisted, they always fell apart. It’s baffling.
I’d thought it would be easy, but it turned out there weren’t many women who could accept being with three guys.
I lean back in my chair, eyes on the endless stretch of code in front of me and let out a slow breath. Maybe the right one doesn’t exist.
