“Shit, I’m down,” Shaw says.
“I am too,” Vaughn adds. Suddenly, I feel so much better. There is space between “forever alone” and sprinting down the aisle and I deserve to occupy that space for as long as I want, with whomever I choose.
“Okay great. How does next weekend look?” I ask. It wouldn’t hurt to get something in the books.
“Next weekend works fine for me,” Vaughn says.
“Me too,” Shaw adds.
“Great. Saturday morning at your place, Shaw?”
“See you then.”
A sudden shyness washes over me and I hate how much it feels like first-date jitters. I need to go. I need to end this call before they experience the panic attack that's rushing for me.
“Wonderful. It’s on my books. Well, I need to get off this phone. I’ll let you guys know if anything changes.”
We say our goodbyes and I collapse back on my cushions, suddenly unable to breathe. Tears rush up to my eyes and all I can think isnot again. Not again. I shouldn’t have agreed to this. This planned meeting between the three of us feels different than before. It feels foolish this time. Dangerous, especially for me. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to change my mind and cancel. I know I won’t. I want to see them, and I fucking hate just how badly I want to see them. How badly I crave their touch.
I let out a few shaky breaths and pick up my phone. I dig up my last conversation with Claudia and send her an SOS.
I need an adult.
Thank god her kinky-ass husband doesn’t have her tied to a chair or a tree or something because she responds right away.
I’m an adult, sort of.
What’s going on?
I’m about to do
something stupid.
How stupid are we talking?
Very stupid.
Give me a minute.
And I’ll call you.
A minute later my phone rings. My breathing has slowed, kinda, but odd tears are still leaking from my eyes. I hate this feeling so much. Claudia skips the pleasantries and gets right to it.
“Like stupid stupid or stupid illegal?” she says.
“Not illegal, just exponentially foolish.”
“Okay. Shep’s out with the dog, so I got some time. Go for it.”
I tell her everything. Well, mostly everything. I don’t rehash the intimate details of each time I’ve been with Vaughn or Shaw, together and separately.
“Okay,” Claudia says. “And you called me ’cause I made my own personal trauma buddy into my husband.”
“Jesus, I hadn’t thought of that. I called you ’cause I knew I could tell you the truth. You—”
“I lost someone I love in a super fucked-up way.”
“Yes. I was thinking of Miles.” It sounds almost made up, but Claudia and her brother were hunted through a national forest by literal serial killers and her husband Shep was the one who saved her. Poor Miles wasn’t so lucky. She has experience with moving on and finding love after something so extreme. It didn’t even dawn on me that she found love with the one person who also survived that night, maybe ’cause I’m not looking to fall in love. I just want permission to be a little reckless. I want someone who I know will hear me. “Noa is being too nice and Rayna—”
