None of this made sense. It wasn’t normal by any means. It all came down to whether he wanted it or not. Silence stretched again.
“And you’re just okay with this?”
“I’m not okay with losing her,” I replied.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s what matters. We both understand that, right?”
He sneered under his breath. “Sharing the woman I—” He cut himself off, but it was too late.
“The woman you want?”
He didn’t waver. “The woman I love.”
She shifted between us, her fingers tightening where they rested on both of us.
“I’m right here,” she said softly, making us both look at her. “I’m not someone you pass back and forth. I’m not someone you fight over. I’m not asking any of us to figure everything out right now. I just know that I don’t want it to stop.” Her gaze shifted between us. “I’m asking you to please not tear this apart before we even understand what it is.”
“This isn’t how relationships are supposed to work.”
“No,” I agreed. “It’s not.”
He was caught off guard, his eyebrows pinched together. “So you’re not even going to argue with me?”
“There’s nothing to argue about. It's true, nothing about what we’re doing is normal.”
“Then why are you acting so nonchalant about it?”
“Because we’ve never been fucking normal,” I snapped. “Our whole lives have been one big clusterfuck of ‘this isn’t normal.’ How can you not see that?”
“Kraven—”
“You know I’m right. You’re just going to try to make excuses that I’m not. Normal isn’t something I’ve ever cared about as much as you have. I just want to be happy, Julius. If that means this is our new normal… then so be it.”
“To share her?”
“Okay.” Isla abruptly stood. “I’m literally sitting right here, and you guys are talking about me like I’m not even in the room.”
Julius asked, “What do you care about, then?”
I didn’t falter. “Her.”
“And you think this is what she needs?”
“I think this is what she already chose.”
“It is,” she firmly chimed in. “This is what I want. I want both of you.”
“And the baby?”
She smiled. “We raise it together.”
“That’s going to be one fucked-up kid.”
“Julius…” she coaxed. “With everything we’ve endured, I would have chosen being raised in this life.” She pointed between us. “With three people who’d love me over everything I went through with not having any stability or guidance and being thrown away from home to home like I was nothing more than a paycheck.”
She was right, and he knew it.
