She awkwardly offers her foot to Kai, like she’s waiting for the demand or condition, the thing other men asked of her when they offered any kind of softness.
But my love doesn’t ask for anything.
He simply unties the laces of her scuffed-up sneakers, then sets them aside at the bottom of the bed. “I’ll leave them right here for whenever you want to leave.”
Her breathing is fast. I see it in the quick rise and fall of her chest. But she nods as Kai gently places his hands on both her ankles to squeeze them.
And I swear, watching him strip Isla’s armor away with that ridiculous tenderness of his hurts worse than any bruise on my body because he leads with his heart. And Isla has the ability to break it.
Isla sets the first alarm on her watch and settles flat on her back, arms folded across her chest, like someone just laid her out in a coffin.
The small chuckle wrecks my ribs. “Relax, Isla.”
“Easy for you to say,” she says like the little feisty kitten she is.
“Actually, it’s not.” I lift my strapped-up hand.
“Sorry.”
Kai puts the blanket over her, tucking her in tightly. “I sleep better when everyone is where they’re supposed to be.”
For a moment, Isla looks confused, like the idea of being wanted without expectation short-circuits her brain.
“Translation: If you don’t relax and do as he says, he’ll hover. And the man could write a goddamn thesis on hovering.”
Isla lets out the tiniest broken laugh.
I suppose when I look back at my life, I might think of this as the moment Isla truly became a part of our lives. Even the scent of her, the warmth I can feel through the thick bedding, it all reassures me nothing has been truer.
Kai removes his jeans and socks but leaves his boxer briefs and T-shirt on. He lifts up the same layers of bedding that I’m beneath, leaving Isla lying on top of them, as if in a hammock of our making.
Then, he turns off the light.
Heat spreads. The air shifts. Three people, all lying on their back, likely all wide awake.
And yet, it still stirs something beautiful and violent in me. My ribs are fucked, my head’s half a fog, but Jesus Christ, I feel every unspoken word and touch.
I feel Kai’s relief that she stayed.
I feel Isla’s shock that she is wanted here.
The two of them, without knowing it, are knitting themselves into the cracks I’ve been holding closed for years. Maybe I kept the part of Kai that could love someone other than me out. Protecting myself from the overwhelming jealousy I’d feel.
I shift, just enough to get comfortable, biting back a groan.
Kai hears it…of course, he does. As does Isla. Her hand touches my arm, first, then Kai reaches across Isla to place his hand there too, ever so slightly overlapping Isla’s. Neither of them squeezes or rubs. They just reassure. Letting me know they are there.
But in the half light, I see the way Kai has rolled onto his side and Isla has twisted to face me. Without intending to, they’re lying like they’re spooning, except there’s a slender gap between the two of them.
I let their warmth and presence anchor me in place and try to let the pain fade beneath the slow and steady breathing of the two other people in this bed.
One I love with my whole heart.
One who is creeping in there without diminishing what I feel for Kai.
I let myself want this. Fully. For now, for as long as we can hold it, for as long as Isla stays.
Perhaps, in the morning, we should talk to her. Remove some of her confusion. Tell her that we’re one polyamorous man, and one monogamous one who feels the world shifting beneath his feet. Tell her that we both want her to be part of that shift.
