“Talking is fine,” said Kingston.
“Showing is better,” Jake countered. “I’m not good with my words.”
Riley shook his head in an attempt to remove Allen’s hand, but Allen grabbed him in a chokehold to keep him still. “Can I like…watch? I don’t want to invite myself, but I’ll be good, I promise.”
So…Allen wasn’t against his man having a weird teaching lesson in the bedroom; he just didn’t want to be left out.
Fair.
“We’re not doing this,” Riley said the second he pulled Allen’s hand away. “I’m not a virgin, teenage boy anymore. I don’t need you to hold my hand, or my fucking dick.”
Jake’s head tilted, but his expression didn’t change. “If that were the case, Kingston wouldn’t have come to us for help. It shouldn’t take two weeks for you to find the courage to fuck someone as pretty as Sloan, especially when he’s asking for it.”
It was a lot of words for the quiet man, and all of them were accurate. At this point, Kingston didn’t care if the sex was shit—he just wanted to get it over with so he didn’t have to obsess over it anymore.
“Allen will get jealous,” Riley tried again. “Wait, fuck that,you’llget jealous, Jake. What if Allen takes his shirt off or something?”
Jake shrugged, bumping Kingston with his shoulder. “I feel safe with you and Kingston. I’ll strip Allen down to his underwear and have him pose for you if it makes everyone more comfortable. You’re the one who’s possessive and jealous. Always have been.”
Not jealous enough to care about sharing his girlfriend, apparently.
“For the record, Jake and I have already talked about monogamy and our opinions on orgies,” Allen interjected before Riley could pile on more excuses. “Orgies are a no-go, which sucks because they’re fun, but we agreed that sharing isn’t off the table. We came up with a very small list of names that got the green light, and you two were on it.”
Kingston’s heart felt like it was doing flips, but he was smiling. “What were the other names on the list?”
Allen’s smile quickly matched his, eyes brightening with mischief. “George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr., and Brad Pitt—but only the Troy movie version of Brad Pitt.”
All actors. All straight men.
“No hockey players?” Kingston asked.
Allen rolled his eyes. “We have a separate list for that. I could only agree on Harrison Killinger, but Jake’s down for fucking a full roster of NHL players.”
“More than a roster,” Jake muttered, and then he stood and turned on them, holding eye contact. “Come on, let’s go to the bedroom.”
Allen was on his feet before Riley could stop him, bouncing after Jake and giggling excitedly. Kingston watched them leave, eager to join, but he wanted to talk to Riley first—to make sure there wouldn’t be a meltdown.
One look at Riley said that there was no meltdown on the horizon, but he definitely looked deflated. He was sitting lifelessly on the couch, cheeks red and hair mussed from where Allen had grabbed him. He stared back at Kingston, his blue, green, and sometimes brown eyes boring into him.
“If you’re really not comfortable with this, we can leave and text them that we changed our minds,” Kingston offered, not wanting to push the guy over the edge. “I didn’t think they would give us an interactive course, but it sounds like you and Jake have done this before.”
Riley sighed and swept a hand through his hair, fixing the messy strands. “Iamcomfortable with Jake. He’s my best fucking friend, and yeah, we had one threesome when we were teens, but I wanted to do this on my own. He’s going to end up pushing me away if I keep relying on him like this.”
Kingston barely knew Jake and Riley, but he did know that was bullshit. Friends didn’t look at their friends like Jake and Riley did. That was why he thought they were a throuple with Allen until Riley snapped at him.
“Do you ever wonder if you overthink things?” Kingston asked.
Riley twisted his hands together and squeezed them until the skin went white. “All the goddamn time.”
Kingston waited—letting the silence sink in before he spoke the words that he knew Riley didn’t want to hear.
“You’re in love with Jake. Probably have been for a long time,” said Kingston. “You just got tangled up in all the thoughts spinning around in your head, and now that he has Allen and he’s happy, you’ve given up.”
Riley gave a sarcastic huff and shook his head. “You figured that out in the three times you’ve seen us together?”
Kingston didn’t want to come out and say that he clocked it the first time he’d met them at the rink for Jake’s beer league game, but they had been pretty obvious.
“I had friends in Edmonton,” said Kingston. “One of my teammates, who was dating his two childhood best friends—a guy and a girl. I guess they were some fucked up love triangle until the girl got tired and told them to kiss each other, or she wasn’t kissing either of them. You three gave off the same vibes, so I made a guess.”
