There she goes, trying to erase herself from the equation—from us.Not because she doesn’t accept us, but because she doesn’t want to accept herself.
“I’ve got room for more than one person, and it isn’t a deficit—it’s capacity,” I say, and for once I don’t know if that’s the right answer.My therapist called it close enough.“I fell for you, and when I brought it up, he felt the same.You’re one of the few things we actually talked about after we figured ourselves out.I didn’t want to ruin anything for anyone—that’s my job.”I shrug, trying to keep light what never was.
“Caregiver and fixer,” Barret adds.“Though he’s going to start delegating some of those tasks, aren’t you, babe?”
The corner of my lip twitches.He hardly ever calls me babe.I don’t know when he chooses to, but I like how it settles into me, warm and unexpected.
“Which brings me back to why we’re revisiting the past.”I raise an eyebrow.“Why the origin story?”
“As I said,” Barret repeats, eyes on Cleo.“She wants to know how she fits into this—how we got to threes.”
I hate the way my answer tastes, but I give it anyway.“I wouldn’t let anyone touch him the way I did after he was mine.”I shrug, defensive.“Since we couldn’t stop Connor, I’d join in.I’d control how far everything went—how much they got to touch him, how much they were allowed to take.It had to be consensual for everyone.If he wanted a blowjob.If he wanted to fuck them—or go down on them.I made it good enough so they felt like they got the promise of having a go with the rockstar while making sure nothing happened to him.”
“He took charge of everything,” Barret says.“Connor liked that I was into orgies.Fucking asshole, he never understood our dynamic, and honestly, that suited us fine.”
“But then I started drinking and using,” I pick up.“Once pointed out, I had to quit managing the band.Find another way to pay the bills while caring for him.I wanted him to make music, not sell his soul.Also ...you were around a lot, and I—” I cut off, because I don’t know how to finish that without showing how much it hurt.
“What about me?”Cleo asks, her voice sounding small for the first time.
“You were barely eighteen and very pretty,” Barret finishes for me, blunt as ever.“Plus, my best friend’s little sister.Off limits.”
“So fucking off limits,” I agree.
“I was a consenting adult,” she says, looking like she surprised herself with the courage in her tone.“I liked you.I ...I?—”
“You?”I prod, because she’s flushed, and her eyes are bright with something embarrassed.
“Finish,” Barret says softly.“We’re listening.Use the safe word if you need to.”
“I wanted to be one of those women you took to your room,” she confesses, dropping whatever act she’d been carrying since she walked in.“I thought you wouldn’t because you just saw me as Roderick’s stupid little sister.”
“You are hislittlesister,” Barret insists, but not cruelly.
“I’m only four years younger than you,” she snaps, cheeks hot.
Barret shakes his head at me.“Almost five,” he corrects her.“But he was twenty-eight then.Not ideal.”
“Doesn’t matter now, does it?”I offer, because why fish in the rot of what we already survived?“Now we’re all consenting adults.We can choose to stay together or—” I don’t finish.Saying it aloud is a wound I can’t peel open.
“Which one of you decided I was old enough to play with?”she asks suddenly, blunt and sharp in a way that makes us all still.
“It wasn’t playing,” I say, flustered and commanding her, “I need you to take that fucking idea out of your mind.It was never a game.”
“Edgar, that voice,” Barret warns me.“I know you like to boss around, but it’s not the time right now.”
“Sorry.I’m so fucking sorry, princess.”I sigh, run a hand through my hair, and continue.“We wanted to see if you would accept us as we are.The us, while we courted you.”I watch her face for the way it moves when memories bloom.
She points at Barret.“A few times he’d be like, ‘Come with us.You know how much Eddie likes it when I bring you.He loves when you’re around—we both do.’”
I glare at B because what the ever-loving fuck.“Did you seriously say it like that?”
Barret grins at the memory.“Yeah.What else do you say when Kit Dempsey is standing in front of you?‘Would you like to come on a date with us?’‘What if we take you on a trip to forget your shitty family?”
“Fine, that’s nothing you say.Not back then,” I admit.“Now it’d be different.”
“Why different?”Cleo asks, genuinely curious.
“Kit knows,” I blurt.“She knows we’re together—and she saw us once.Right before you disappeared on us.”
