Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 119852 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119852 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
“It’s still a big step. For her. For us.” Under my breath, I mutter, “For me.”
This up and down, back and forth is feeling uncomfortably familiar, like sticking your hand to a fire you know is going to burn you because it always has before. It can’t help it, that’s fire’s nature, and I’m the idiot who keeps going back for more.
Maybe we should let sleeping dogs lie? Go home, let Kayla settle things with her family, and just… I don’t know… go back to casual fucks on the rare occasion Maddox and I agree on a woman? The mere idea of that turns my stomach. I don’t want that. I want Kayla.
Fuck.
“You freaking out on me?” Maddox is always a bit too astute with his assessments, like he can sense the thunderstorms in my mind when it gets too twisted and dark. When I don’t answer, he glances my way once more. “Get it together, man. This is a good thing. We’re gonna be okay.”
I haven’t been okay in a long time.
Actually, though that’s the fault-finding self-critique my internal narrator immediately offers, I’m able to second-guess it now. Therapy can do that, help you figure out if it’s your voice or someone else’s in your head. And I know who just told me I’m not okay—Eliza.
But is that voice right?
I don’t think it is. I was content before meeting Kayla, satisfied with my team and my play in games, comfortable with my friendships and family, and felt settled and grounded. And now, I’ve had some moments of actual, true happiness with her. Bright spots of laughter, playfulness, and connection, and yes, some amazing sex.
I am okay. Maybe I’m even better than okay, and that old voice needs to shut the fuck up and leave me alone as I take another scary step toward healing. Progress is scary enough without an obnoxious naysayer in my own head.
Kayla’s invitation is a big deal. It means she’s decided that I’m worth the risk, and though the weight of that rests heavily on my chest, feeling dangerously like hope, I want to earn the trust she’s placing in me.
“I’m good.” I’m using one of Maddox’s tricks, speaking it into existence. “I’m ready.”
And I am. Ready for more, for deeper, for realer.
“Do they still think we’re coming to dinner? Or you’re coming?” Maddox asks as Kayla shows us to a dining table set with three fancy-looking silver plates, a disturbing number of forks, and softly flickering candlelight.
Her condo is a study of the woman who lives here. Everything is precisely placed, from the pillows on the couches to the sculpture on a pedestal with an overhead spotlight.
The colors are cool and icy, primarily in tones of white, beige, and a pale blue that reminds me of the dress she wore over the lingerie we sent her. To the untrained eye, it probably seems anonymous and designer-curated, but there are touches of Kayla, like the stack of books on the coffee table that might be décor, but the bookmarks peeking out tell me that Kayla actually reads them.
She excuses herself to the kitchen, instructing us to sit while insisting that she can manage, which she does, making two quick trips for cloche-covered plates and a bottle of wine. I pull out the chair at the head of the table for her before sitting back down, me to her left with Maddox on her right.
“I told Mom I wouldn’t make it, fulfilling my headcount promise, but the rest of them? As far as they know, they’re expecting a melodramatic dinner-and-show situation, where I’m going to get the disappointed parent lecture I have coming to me.” Her lips press into a flat line, making me wonder how many of those lectures she’s already received. “But they should really know better by now. Trying to strongarm me into doing something? Never going to work, and there are consequences for that. Dire consequences.” Her face is expressionless, the blankness intended to read as a cold-blooded threat, and if I were her family, I’d be scared as fuck about whatever she has up her sleeve. But though she’s good at throwing up a frosty façade, her eyes betray her, shimmering with something raw as though she’s reliving the betrayal of her brother’s underhanded maneuvering.
“Won’t Kyle tell your parents what he saw?” I only met the guy for a few minutes, but he seems the type to throw an absentee Kayla to ‘the wolves’, as she called them, and happily eat popcorn while the carnage plays out.
She shakes her head, saying, “He’s smarter than that.”
“The guy we met? Smart?” Maddox teases, not really insulting Kyle’s intelligence, but his choices for sure.
“If he tells Mom and Dad, they’ll be horrified—”
“That’s where you’re supposed to say ‘no offense’,” Maddox interjects with a grin, showing he’s not offended in the slightest at her parents’ supposed horror over our semi-throuple situation.