I alternated between the dishes, letting him taste everything. He kept coming back to the chicken and rice, so I swapped his plate for the container and fed him a few more forkfuls before he declared himself full and in need of another lie down.
I ate quickly as Spencer cleaned up, and then we retreated to their bed, Brayden in the middle of us, the little spoon to Spencer’s big one.
“You blushed before when you said your mum was taking Hannah overnight,” Spencer commented. “Does she know about us?”
I flushed once more, and Brayden chuckled. I playfully swatted his chest and laughed. “She told me to get onto it and snag you both so I can join the throuple squad. My mother is envious of me.”
“She sounds like a freaking hoot,” Spencer declared.
“She’s a handful.” I grinned and added, “She wants to be there when I tell Simon, my ex, that we’re together.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized exactly how it sounded—it was a big assumption to make on my part that they’d even want to come out to anyone, much less my ex.
“Not that we have to or anything. I’m not… I’m not saying I want to go public or even be out at all.” I sighed. “She just hates my ex. She wanted to see the look on his face when I told him that I wouldn’t be in his little harem.”
“What the fuck?” Spencer asked, his brows hiked to his hairline. “A harem?”
“It’s a long story.” I waved him off, but he slid his hand to my hip and squeezed.
“Maybe it’s one we need to have, and we have time.”
I nodded and pursed my lips together. “Yeah.” I ran my thumb over Brayden’s chest, my palm pressed firmly to his pec. I could feel his heartbeat, strong and steady. It grounded me. “About a year ago I got the call from LaShelle, our contact at the fostercare agency. Hannah needed an urgent placement. Her mom had been killed in a car crash, and there was no other family who could care for her.”
“So Hannah’s not your bio daughter?” Brayden confirmed. “I thought maybe Simon was African American.”
“No to both. I got Hannah when she’d just turned one.” I went back to tracing Brayden’s pec with my fingertips and finally continued, “We’d fostered lots of kids before her, but we’d known they were all temporary. Hannah started out that way, too, but when they realized she had no one who could look after her, I became her permanent carer.” I blew out a breath, the pain and guilt of those early days eating me alive even now.
“I went home that night so excited to tell Simon the news, but he was there with Amanda, his junior agent, and had news of his own. Amanda was six months pregnant with his baby. They’d been together for a year and a half. He’d been lying to me, pretending to travel for work, when really, he was staying at her place. Half our marriage had been a lie.”
“What a cu—” Spencer muttered before cutting himself off.
“Yeah, pretty much,” I agreed. I’d been hurt and angry, but now there was nothing. It was just a void where he used to live in my heart. No, that wasn’t right either. I just didn’t love him anymore. The hurt had healed, and Hannah was the number one cause of that. Now I had Brayden and Spencer, too, in whatever form this thing between us took.
“He told me he still wanted to stay together. His plan was to move in with Amanda until the baby was a few months old, then he was going to swap between houses. His endgame was for us to sell my place and the three of us buy one together. He had this delusion that I’d actually be happy about sharing a bed with the woman who he cheated on me with. It was a ruse for him to get his dick wet without having to drive to two places.”
“I… I’ve got nothing,” Spencer said haltingly. He was silent a moment, then asked Brayden, “You don’t seem as surprised. How come?”
“I’ve heard parts of this before.” He grasped my hand and brought it to his lips, kissing my knuckles softly. “Not the whole thing, but enough now to understand why you were so upset that first time we were together. Y’all, I’m sorry you felt like the other woman even for a moment.”
“What?” Spencer asked a little too loudly.
Brayden winced, and I touched his temple, then ran my thumb down his face.
“Sorry, Texas,” he murmured
“S’okay,” Brayden mumbled, his eyes falling closed as I repeated the move.
“Brayden found me at my worst,” I explained. “Simon had put it on me that it’d be in Hannah’s best interests for us to be a family. He said solo parenting her wasn’t good for her when she could grow up with her father. He pressured me to sell my place and get something with them. I was pretty down and struggling with everything. I was thinking about it for Hannah’s sake—”
“You were trying to do what’s best for your daughter,” Spencer surmised.
“Yeah. He didn’t want to get back together. Not really. He just wanted the deposit that my abuelita and abuelito had given me.”
“But you said no,” Brayden added.
I nodded. “I did. Thanks to you.”
We were quiet for a moment, me thinking about just how grateful I was that Brayden had reminded me exactly what was at stake—my happiness.
“You’ve never asked for a commitment from us,” Spencer stated gently, and I shook my head. They were married. I wasn’t entitled to any form of commitment from them, no matter how much I now wanted one.
