Page 22 of Lying Lainey

She took a moment to clear her throat and met my gaze. “The way you left the elevator had me wondering if I’d done something to upset you and wanted to apologize. I realize I’m an extrovert and don’t always notice if someone isn’t interested in conversing or wishes to ride the elevator by themselves. In the future, I’ll make sure to be more aware.”

Not even waiting for my response, she turned and left, not acknowledging Halstead. Looking from the door where she’d been back to H, I scowled. “Now you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on between you. She seems just as upset with you as you are with her.”

Halstead sighed and released me, backing up a step to slide his hands in his pockets. “I stopped by her home last night.”

“Excuse me?” I snapped. “Why in the world would you go to her place?”

He met my gaze with a grim set to his mouth. “I went there with the purpose of talking to her about looking into the project Reuben has Kerian working on. As for why I did that outside of work was because I didn’t want to upset you or risk that someone might overhear me asking her to do it. Reuben is a touchy subject with you, as you clearly displayed when she simply mentioned Cyclone, so I felt it was best to have the conversation off-site.”

“You make it sound like I’m the only one who has issues with the man, but here you are going behind our back asking someone we barely know to look into the company. After what they did to Kerian, I don’t know how he can even consider doing this for them,” I fumed.

“They played on his love of coding, gave him a taste of the project to get him interested, and he couldn’t say no,” Halstead answered. “Reuben mentored him, put him through college expecting to have this perfectly trained programmer prodigy who flipped and turned on him the moment Kerian realized how shady they are. I need to know this code won’t bring him down or harm him.”

“I understand that, but why go to Elaine to do it?” I challenged. “How do you even know we can trust her?”

“Because I reached out to her previous employer and Mitch who told you about her in the first place. They used her to do the same thing for their companies, but she wanted out of corporate espionage so she moved here. Now I’m asking her to do the one thing she was trying to leave,” Halstead explained. “Not only that, I… I kissed her.”

Stunned at his confession, my jaw fell open. I didn’t even know how to process what he was saying.

“Wh…” I couldn’t even finish the question with how blindsided I was.

“There is no excuse for my actions, and I won’t even begin to give you one other than to say I royally fucked up. There we were talking in her apartment, she’d just made dinner… fucking fettuccine alfredo, which made her home smell so comforting,” he shared, hanging his head. “If I could explain to you what happened and how we ended up in that situation, I would. Her scent wasn’t at all how you described being astringent. No, everything about her, from the messy bun and baggy sweats to the spicy sweet fragrance I caught a whiff of, drew me to her like nothing I’d experienced before. The second I realized what I’d done, I backed away and explained to her that I was in a relationship. That would be the moment she looked at me like I was scum, and that fucking hurt way more than it should have.”

“Did you tell her who you were in a relationship with?” I questioned, folding my arms, trying to deal with the hurt and disappointment I felt in Halstead. Then my mind spiraled, wondering if she was being so kind to me because she knew my partner had kissed her making her feel bad for me.

“No, I told her that I was going to have a conversation with you and Kerian but didn’t name names. My goal at that point was to make damn sure she wouldn’t say anything to anyone before I got the chance to tell you the whole story,” he answered.

“I see,” I commented. “So when she walked in just now seeing us together, it wasn’t the fact she couldn’t bear to look at us because we were men, but because she realized who you were in a relationship with.”

“Everything about this has been handled wrong. I own and accept that,” Halstead said, finally looking me in the face again. “How do I fix this?”

“Are you looking to add to our relationship?” I inquired.

We’d never really talked about a situation like this. Kerian happened so naturally as we worked together just like things with Halstead and I had. It was normal and natural in our society to have polyamorous relationships which is why we lived in family units or packs as many referred to them. With our schedule and workload, I’d never considered that any of us would find someone they might develop feelings for. While my initial reaction was to be shocked and hurt, I knew that was coming from a place of selfishness and insecurity. Kerian had fit so seamlessly into our lives that it was almost as if he’d always been there. Who’s to say there wasn’t another person out there who could do the same thing?

Truthfully, when I look back on how things developed, Kerian and I bonded over our love of jazz music. He’d managed to talk me into joining him at an outdoor concert at the arboretum, drawing me in with my love of nature. Then by the end of the night, we were dancing under the stars and have been ever since. Once this started to become more serious, he went to Halstead, and the two of them had an open conversation about the situation. They started working out together to build a friendship outside of work. Soon working out turned into spending time doing the various physical activities that I did not find enjoyable, meeting a need I couldn’t for either of them.

All of this started off with Kerian pursuing only me, but in the end, we all became friends and fell in love. Such is the nature of being open to loving more than one person. Before any of us realized it, Kerian had practically moved into our home. Shortly after that, we made it official, creating our family.

“I honestly don’t know,” Halstead answered. “Even if I was, the way things unfolded wasn’t fair to my existing relationships or her. I lashed out, ashamed of my actions, and I don’t think that went over well.”

“Sounds to me like you need to have this conversation alone with Kerian to allow him the chance to process how he feels before we talk about it as a family,” I pointed out. “It might also be wise to smooth things over with Elaine if you want a chance. That was an incredibly frosty interaction.”

“Yeah,” he said more as a groan. “I gave her the option to quit, and I’d find her someplace else to work if she didn’t want to be around me. However, if she decided to come back, I’d show her I’m not the ass I was last night. Looks like I’m not doing such a great job there either.”

“Sit, I’ll make us both a cup of tea, and we’ll start this day over,” I offered, gesturing for him to take a seat in my seating area.

“What about you?” Halstead asked.

I dumped out the now cold tea I’d been making and washed the mixing cup. “What about me?”

“Do you have any interest in adding to our relationship? If you’re feeling protective enough over Elaine for you to get so worked up about it, that leads me to believe you might have an interest,” Halstead reasoned.

My hands stilled as his words hit me like a ton of bricks. Was I interested in Elaine?

“I will need time to consider that question,” I answered. “Speak to Kerian, and I mean today, H, and then we can all see how we feel.”

“Done and done,” he agreed. “Now hand me this magic tea so I can see if it will help me pull my foot out of my mouth.”