Suddenly, the timers on both my watch and phone vibrate, causing the phone to slide face down onto the counter where I perched it. I press pause on the video and hurry across the street to check on Garrett.
Their house looks cozy from the street, and a steady stream of smoke trails from the chimney.
I let myself in and head straight to the family room off the kitchen to stoke the fire and throw on some more logs. Then, I take the steps up to the bedroom like I’m walking the Green Mile.
I knock, twice. So tentatively, it’s as if I don’t want him to hear so I can leave but say I did my duty.
“Door’s unlocked,” Garrett says, his voice low and gravelly.
When I step inside, he’s sitting perched up a little in bed. His hair is a mess, his eyes a little glazed, but he looks like some of the edges of his pain smoothed out overnight.
“You came back,” he says, sounding oddly relieved.
There’s a laptop and a tray of dirty dishes on Kai’s side of the bed, and I walk around to grab the tray and place it on the floor by the door. “I did. How are you feeling?”
“Probably how you’d expect to feel if you came off your bike.” He huffs at his little joke.
“That’s not funny. You scared us all.” I hover awkwardly in the doorway, arms wrapped around myself, suddenly uncertain. He’s wearing a plaid shirt, and I have no idea how Kai got him into it.
“I’m sorry I scared you, Isla. Wasn’t my choice to come off the bike, but the end is the same.” He pats the side of the bed, encouraging me to go sit with him. “You wanna come sit here and talk to me about your kiss?”
I choke on pure air.
Garrett smirks, barely. Just the corner of his mouth lifting in a traitorous twitch. Such a micro-movement, but it completely changes his face.
“I’m not…I didn’t…I mean, I did…I…”
And then, the last of my attempted words withers on the vine.
“Come here,” Garrett says, and this time, there’s something in his tone that has my feet moving before my brain catches up. “It’s easy to kiss Kai. Always has been. I get it.”
“You say that like it’s an ordinary sentence.”
Garrett shrugs. “It is, really. I don’t blame you for kissing him back. He’s kinda hard to say no to sometimes.”
“That’s not…it wasn’t like…” I inhale hard and then sit. “He told me to talk to you.”
“I know.” Garrett reaches for my hand and holds it gently. His hands are calloused, his fingertips rough, his nails perfectly trimmed.
“He told you?” I ask, my mouth wide.
“Mm-hmm.”
“And what did he say?”
“If you want to know what Kai told me, you need to talk to me, about all of it.”
Heat climbs up my neck. “He said you’re a couple, but also both interested in…well, me. I told him I can’t do casual. I wantsomething real. But he suggested we could all do that. With each other. I guess you’re open to finding someone who you could both love and who would love each of you while you continue to love each other. And that you’d want to talk about it, which is…odd.”
Garrett laughs. Like, full-on belly laughs and then winces as he tries to bring it back down to a chuckle. “He’s right, that’s the truth of it.”
He calms himself and takes a few deep breaths. His thumb runs over the back of my hand. “We’ve been monogamous, at my request. But you’ve changed how I think about that, now. Because you’re not just some generic person who would fit with us, who we could trust. You’re the someone we hope is open to the idea of loving us both, not just as a couple, but as individuals.”
My throat tightens. “That’s a lot to take in, Garrett.”
“It is. Kai has always been poly. It’s a…newer thing for me. Because of you. So, yeah, we don’t just want another someone. My boundary is it’s you.”
Tears burn my eyes. “Then, why didn’t you do something when I was still at the club? Did you have the whole ‘club girls are good for fucking and nothing else’ mentality? Because I’m still that girl, Garrett.”
