“Loved,” I correct.Automatically.Because it’s safer to believe in past tense.
He doesn’t even blink.“We still love it—and love you.Right now we’re learning what you need, though.”
My voice is too thin.“What does that mean?”
He shrugs.“If I knew, I wouldn’t have to learn.”
“I don’t know what I need,” I confess.
“Then we’ll learn together.The three of us.”
My breath catches.Because he says it so plainly.Because he means it.
“But you two are together,” I say, the words feeling like an old bruise I keep pressing.“I know how much you love each other.”
“So fucking much,” he agrees without hesitation, without performance.“As much as we love you.But the love we have for each other and the love we have for you aren’t in competition.They’re different.They don’t cancel each other out.And we like the dynamic of three.”
I sit with that, staring at the tray.Wondering if eating now will allow me to swim right after or if I even have a swimming suit in that closet which magically has all the clothes I could ever need, including fussy socks that I didn’t know I needed but I’ve learned to love.Which, if I have to guess, is all Eddie.The man who wants to give everything to those he loves.
But how can he love me and Barret at the same time?I wonder if I love them both, but before I can answer if there’s any love from me to them, I have to find love for myself, don’t I?
And then I ask, without meaning to: “How did it start?”
He looks at me puzzled.
“Not the love,” I say quickly.“But you two of you.How can it exist and still make room for ...me?”
His eyes drift—not away from me, but inward, like he’s reaching for something fragile at the back of his mind.He sets the guitar beside the couch, then shifts to the floor in front of me, crossing his legs slowly, the way someone does when they know this won’t be quick.Elbows resting on his thighs, hands loose between his knees, gaze locked on mine—like he’s about to hand me something with edges.
“You know how Connor liked to exploit the bad-boy-playboy image,” he says.
I nod.“Which is why Rod cheated on Kit.”
He sighs.“Cheating isn’t the word, Cleo.He was too drunk and high to know what was really happening.”
“That was?—”
“Grooming,” Barret cuts in.“Connor hurt too many people.There’s still a lawsuit pending.More musicians keep coming forward.It’s turned into a movement.”
His voice is rough.“The point is, I was breaking down while Connor paraded his curated collection of women in front of us.It felt like each night shaved off a piece of me.”
He swallows.“Eddie started bringing me to his room to do some aftercare.He’d rinse the stink out of my hair, talk to me until my body remembered it belonged to me.One night ...he joined from the beginning.To keep me safe.To make sure I wasn’t a body just going through the motions.”
He goes quiet then.Not absent.Just folding the memory carefully so it won’t cut either of us when he offers it.
“Do you want the version with dates and hotel names and the moment I learned to breathe into a kiss without disappearing?”he asks, eyes never leaving mine.
I’m not sure I’m ready for the whole story.But I want the first sentence.
“Start at the door,” I say.“The first one you closed, so the world had to knock.”
He nods.Fingers curl around a guitar pick, slowly turning it like a prayer bead.His gaze tips past my shoulder like he’s watching a hallway open in real time.
“It was a night with a penthouse and too much perfume,” he says softly, voice thick with memory.“And that’s where it began.”
Then he pauses, as if he’s holding the door open.Waiting for me to step through.
ChapterFifteen
