What she needs is to understand whyher. And I have no answer to that—because Dane looked at her and liked her? Because of the lilt in her voice? How easy she is to talk to? Her blonde waves and spritely attitude?
Maybe the truth is that we’ve finally reached a point in our lives to fall in love, and the next half-way decent girl along would be the one.
I don’t think that, but even if it’s true, I still think that’s love.
Setting my drink on the bar, I cross the living room, sink onto my knees—thanking the universe that they don’t crack on the way down—and look into her eyes.
“Lucy,” I say, voice low. “These guys and I, we’re weird. Connected at the hip. I don’t think we ever realized it before, but if we were going to do this with someone, it was going to need to be a woman with a big enough heart for all three of us. Each of us wants you, but you have space forallof us in there—” I tap her chest, and her eyes well up. “That’swhy. We’ve always needed a relationship like this, whether we realized it or not. And then, you came, and you were perfect.”
And, just like that, I’ve admitted something like love, and implicated the other guys in it.
Lucy lets out a sob, and I worry for a second that I’ve fucked this up, but then she throws her arms around my neck and cries against me. “I’ve never really happy cried before,” she sniffles, and I wrap my arms around her, pulling her against me, breathing against her chest, feeling like two lives combined.
Four lives. Cole and Dane join the hug, as awkward as it is.
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Cole says, and I grunt out, “I know,” which earns me a punch from Lucy.
“Be nice,” she sniffles, pulling back and wiping at her eyes.
“So, okay?” Dane asks, looking between Cole, Lucy, and me. “We’ll file the termination paperwork? Start our new lives as… this?”
Lucy nods. Cole claps his hands and smiles.
In the kitchen, the timer for the salmon wellington goes off, and it feels like the start of something.
Chapter 37
Lucy
“Holy fuckingshit,Lucy. I’ve gone past living vicariously through you. I want to climb inside youractualskin right now.”
I dart a glance at Julian, feeling like I’m playing host in a home that doesn’t belong to me. In fact, this homedoesn’tbelong to me—it’s Nico’s house, outside Manhattan with a great view of the city over the water. From where we’re standing, we can make out the outline of the Empire State Building, partially obscured by others but rising up from the middle like a sentinel.
The city is coated in the finest dusting of snow, the first of the season. Nico muttered about it snowing now, but probably not on Christmas. Dane called him sentimental.
“Don’t be weird,” I laugh, closing the refrigerator with my hip and setting down the charcuterie board on the counter. It’s piled high with salami, prosciutto, plum jam and halved figs. It looks like something put together lovingly, and by hand. That’s how the cheese shop marketed it.
Julian looks at the board with wide eyes, shaking his head and plopping into a stool at the island.
It’s been two weeks since that conversation with my three men, them saying they want to be with me, and don’t want meto keep working as an assistant. And since that day, my life has been very weird.
Monday morning, Dane gave me a phone number and informed me it was for my new driver—a woman, because they thought that would make me most comfortable.
“You still have my card?” he’d asked, boxing me in against the wall, his voice low like talking about the credit card turned him on.
“Yes,” I’d whispered back, tipping my head up, head spinning in the way it always did when any of them got close to me. “I do.”
“Useit,” he’d said, tapping his index finger to the tip of my nose. “Take the car, bring your art things here. Better yet, go to the supply store and get whatever you need for here, so you have it both places. Get your nails done, hair, buy clothes, take your friends out to lunch.Use the card.”
Dane’s voice had dropped down into the timber he used when we were all in bed, directing us on what to do and forcing us to hold back, to keep from what we wanted. It was impossibly hot before, and in this moment, too.
“Okay,” I’d finally whispered, swallowing and not missing the way his eyes tracked the movement. “I will.”
And I kept my promise. I went shopping, putting together a gift basket for Mary with chocolates and cookies, her favorite goodies. At a fancy soap store, I picked out bath salts and fizzy bombs, lotions and creams I thought might make her feel better. Finally, I’d added gift cards to all her favorite restaurants, and some to streaming services and bookstores so she would have something to do on bed rest. Then I paid the ridiculous fee to ship it across the country.
Each time I swiped Dane’s card, my heart caught in my throat, and I worried that it would decline. That it would be rejected and a hulking security guard would appear, slap cuffs on me, and take me in.
But it was never rejected. I bought and bought—mostly gifts for other people, but also a set of lingerie for myself. It’s in the bedroom now, and my cheeks heat as I think of it.
