“But—” Dell couldn’t help his frown. “Do you not—are we not—” He sighed. “Fuck, Mae, help me out here.”
Mae only smiled again.
“Tell me something,” she whispered. “Dell, in an ideal world, would you want to keep seeing him? While we start…” She let a hand escape the weight of her body, pressed a palm against Dell’s chest. “This?”
Dell’s body tensed beneath her fingers.
“In an ideal world,” he eventually repeated, dumbstruck.
“Yeah.” Her eyes sparkled at him. “I think I’m finally realizing that what made all those other relationships feel so bad was thelying. I lied to Becks, should have told her I was developing an attraction for that asshole far before I kissed him. Eden lied to me and to her family for five whole months. It’s the lying that’s the betrayal, right?” She shook her head again. “Maybe having feelings for multiple people at the same time is just the way the world works sometimes, because love is fucking messy. Maybe we don’t have to feel shame about it if we’re honest about how we’re feeling.”
Dell felt like he was losing his mind. He pushed himself up on an elbow, needing to…break the intimacy of the moment even an inch, needing to pierce a needle into the riot of things he was feeling.
“You’re telling me you’d seriously be okay with it. Us dating, while I’m still sleeping with Luca once a month.”
Mae shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t know. I’ve never tried it. Do you think he’d be okay with it?”
Fuck. He couldn’t believe they were talking about this. Maybe Mae had lots of friends who were into open relationships—shit, Jacksonhadbeen super flirty with him, and Vik had seemed fine with it—but Dell had never truly contemplated anything like this before. Up until a couple months ago, he’d considered himself a simple being, the holder of a life structured around the boundaries he needed.
“I…don’t know.”
Mae sat up too then, brushing stray hairs behind her ears as she rearranged her body, pretzeling her legs to sit across from him. At the last second, she seemed to remember she wasn’t wearing any pants; she hurried to shuffle the sheet over her thighs. It was a second too late. Dell had already seen her silky purple underwear. It made Dell’s stomach swoop, being below her like this. He went ahead and gave in, giving his elbow a rest and flopping all the way onto his back again.
Dell’s stomach was a real fucking mess.
“Sorry, Dell. I don’t mean to, like…pressure you into polyamory here.” Mae gave a nervous laugh, a flush entering her cheeks. “We could not start anything at all. I could…” She swallowed, visibly uncomfortable. “Move out, get out of your hair, and?—”
“No,” Dell said shortly. Mae tucked more hair behind her ear, the flush on her face deepening.
“Okay. So then if you want to break it off with Luca, and give it some time, before…starting something with me, I’ll still be here, living in your backyard, working in your town. If that’s what feels right to you, I totally understand. But it just…” She shook her head, averting her eyes as she messed with the sheet in her lap. “I don’t know. It feels wrong. Making you give up someone you care about so that you can be with me.”
“To me,” Dell said slowly, “It feels selfish to not do so. If I got to keep youandLuca…” He looked over at her. “It feels imbalanced, for you.”
“What?” Mae tilted her head and threw him a grin. “You wouldn’t invite me to take part?”
Dell’s face immediately flushed hot.
“I—I don’t—I’m not sure he?—”
“Sorry!” Mae practically screamed, throwing her hands over her face. “Sorry, I got excited and ahead of myself. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
And after he’d had a second to get over his shock, Dell’s skin was still overly warm, but he found himself grinning. Like the selfish bastard he was. Even if Mae was somehow acting like he wasn’t.
“But…you’d be into that, huh?”
Mae dropped her hands, face still red, but an impish smile on her lips.
“I mean, all I truly know of threesomes is what I’ve seen in porn, but…I don’t know, just something about the name Luca already kind of turns me on. Lots of things turn me on, though. Is he hot? I bet he’s hot.”
A small, unexpected laugh rumbled through Dell’s chest. Fucking Mae Kellerman.
“He is…extremely good looking.”
Mae swatted at his shoulder. “Of course he is! Do you have a picture?”
“Only the profile picture from the app.”
Mae’s jaw dropped. “You, Dell McCleary, use anapp? This alters my whole perception of you somehow.”
