“Rude.” He deadpanned, “I was already going to do them. And I don’t do bondage. Unless you’re asking for a repeat of last time, in which I’ll tie those pretty thighs open anytime you ask. As long as you say please.”
“You said,” Goldie interrupted with a stern look on her cute little face. “That Rhea was my girlfriend.”
Something in my chest tightened immediately, as a million worst-case scenarios ran through my mind.
“Isn’t she?” Tanner asked with wide eyes.
“Obviously.” Goldie spat out without a care in the world for the panic she set off and settled in my chest in the mere span of seconds.
“Girl.” I scoffed with alarm. “Are you trying to hurt my feelings? I’m a little raw right now.”
She pursed her lips at me and my dramatics before turning her attention back to Tanner, who was standing with his arms crossed. “You called hermygirlfriend.” She repeated pointedly, “But notyourgirlfriend.”
“Ah,” Tanner replied, and my heart fell to my stomach again as my entire body went through an emotional roller coaster.
“I’m gonna go—” I stood up, but Goldie and Tanner both simultaneously pulled and pushed me back down onto the table.
“Can it, Hotshot.” Goldie glared at me sweetly and then turned her attention back to Tanner as she crossed her arms over her chest and raised one eyebrow at him. “Tanner, do you have something you’d like to ask Rhea?”
“No.” He replied instantly, and my cheeks burned with embarrassment. Years ago, I found myself in a situation similar to this one where I was passed over and forgotten, as if I didn’t matter, and I knew deep down in my chest that it would happen again. I wasn’t what Tanner wanted. He wanted Goldie.
And I had been okay with that.
Truly.
But then?—
Damnit. Goldie had pushed and pushed until we acted on our mutual sexual attraction to each other, and now I was sitting there, like a dumbass, about to hear Tanner say in his stupid calm and easy going voice how he didn’t want me to be his girlfriend and I was going to freaking cry like a teenage girl because I had been through a shit ton of emotions today and they were going to make this so much harder on me than I ever wanted and?—
“I don’t have anything to ask, because at this point, I don’t really think there’s an option.” Tanner said, drawing my attention to him. He was looking down at me with those steady eyes I once hated. Now I hung on every reliable emotion in them like a lovesick puppy. “Not for me at least, I’m in this Rhea. All in. With you and Goldie both.”
Goldie squeaked one of her adorable cheerful noises and took my hand, “So can we make this official? Can we mark today as the day this was real? Like, really real.”
“I—” I stammered, shaking my head and trying to figure out what had just happened. How had we gone from the worst day ofmy life, the day that I suddenly worried I didn’t have the guts it took to do what I did for a living, to this? To then solidifying the very reason, it had all changed for me. Them.
It was them.
Tanner and Goldie were the reason I hesitated and worried inside that inferno today. They were the things outside of those flames that I envisioned not getting back to alive.
They were important to me.
Really fucking important.
“Yes.” I replied firmly, looking between the two of them as it clicked in my brain in a way it never had before. “I mean, I would like to. I’m in.” I looked at Tanner. “All in.”
“Me too!” Goldie clapped her hands and then got on her knees in front of me. “Girlfriend.” She said wistfully and looked up at Tanner with his cocky but never arrogant smirk. “Boyfriend.”
“Girlfriend.” He replied evenly, before turning to me. “Girlfriend.”
A stupid, pathetic smile pulled my lips back, even as I fought it before giving into the corny moment. “Boyfriend.” I said to Tanner, before looking down at Goldie and smoothing my fingers over her pink cheek. “Girlfriend.”
Was that moment one of the goofiest and uncool moments of my life?
Yes.
Did I feel ridiculous labeling human beings with trivial, modern-day names that were overused and undervalued every single day in society?
Yes.
