Boundaries （15）

When she made her way back through the apartment door, Ryan was standing there waiting for her. "Hey," he said. "Where were you?"

She didn't respond.

"Listen, I'm sorry I didn't…"

She put her hand up and waved him off. "Don't. I don't care." She stormed off toward her bedroom, with him in tow.

"Can we talk for a minute? Look, I screwed up tonight, OK? I was angry and I took it out on you. I should've responded and met up with you and your friend afterward. I'm sorry."

She spun around to face him as she got to her door. "What you should've done was gone out with the guys and met up with some of your little Instagram slut following."

"What are you talking about?"

"Save it. I have internet access. I see all the comments. I see the list of who you're still following on there. Out of 800, 750 are fake blondes with huge tits and OnlyFans links. I knew this would never work, that I couldn't compete. And the worst part?" She threw her hands up. "I'm not even that upset about it."

"Well, you sure seem upset. So, I haven't cleaned up my follows. But Amara, it's not even like that. Do you think I'm screwing around? Because for the three weeks we've been together, you're the only girl I've touched. The. Only. Girl."

"Wow, you made it a whole three weeks!" She clapped sarcastically in his face. "Congratu-fucking-lations!"

"What…where is this coming from?"

She flung the door to her room open and tried to shut it behind her, but he pushed it back open and followed her inside. She pulled her phone from her back pocket and typed furiously for a few seconds. He instantly got a notification, which when opened, was a link to the Bridgeport Islanders subreddit.

"Happy reading. I think you'll find some of it very interesting. I know I did, especially the post ‘Ryan Baylor Is Straight-Up Trash.' Here, you like it when I read to you, right?" She clicked a few things on her phone. "Now, I can't take credit for writing this one, but regardless, I think you'll enjoy it."

Fuck.

"Mar, don't do this."

"I'm so glad Dani showed me this on Reddit. I had no clue, but, wow, what a goldmine. So, this is dated exactly two weeks ago: ‘Ryan Baylor Is Straight-Up Trash: Don't bother with this douche. He claims to have a girlfriend, but he's all over my Insta DM's, likes all my stories and pictures. He'll get a little raunchy with his flirting if you push him or send him a sexy pic, but if you try to meet up, he ghosts you. I have a friend who got with him about a month ago and said he fucks like an absolute porn star, but I've gotten nowhere. I feel bad for his girlfriend. She probably has no clue that he's such a piece of shit.' Wow, Ry."

"Um…"

"Oh wait, there's more. Someone replied: ‘Agreed. Total trash bag. Like, how can you claim to have a girlfriend in one sentence and then tell me you just jerked off to my tits in the next? If she was smart, she'd get the fuck away from him. He's clearly got issues.' This is just…I don't have words."

He sat down on the edge of her bed. "So, I'm guessing online flirting is frowned upon?"

She looked at him, wide-eyed. "Are you a complete fucking moron?"

"Yes!" he yelled, throwing his hands in the air. "I told you I've never done this before! I don't…it's just social media. Is this a big deal? It's not like I'm meeting up with any of these girls. Amara: I'm not meeting up with any of them, I swear to God."

It was times like this that snapped her back to the reality she'd often avoided confronting: he was young and clueless, not to mention a sex addict.

"Ryan, that's still technically cheating!"

"It is?"

She put her hands over her face. "Oh my God. I know you're young, but please tell me you're not this stupid."

"No, I'm definitely this stupid. That's cheating? Liking someone's stories and some playful flirting?"

"If I told another guy I just got myself off to a picture of his cock, would you consider that ‘playful flirting'?"

"Fuck." He rested his forehead on his hands. "Oh, I'm such an asshole."

She sat down next to him on the bed and put a hand on his lower back. "And this," she said softly, "is one of the main reasons why I didn't wanna commit to anything serious with you. Despite the fact that I'm not ready, Ryan, you're not ready. Someone like you can't just change overnight."

He snickered, not lifting his head. "Someone like me, huh? Let me guess, I'm not ‘boyfriend material', right?"

"Perhaps those girls were onto something. Ryan, before we got together, how many chicks were you hooking up with a week?"

"Usually two, maybe three on a good week."

"The first day I met you, you got sucked off by two different girls within like a 10-hour period. Tell me your body count."

He lifted his head up and looked at her. "Impossible."

"I'm at 12, 13 including you. And that includes all the dicks, even the ones I just sucked. There. So what number am I?"

"I don't…"

"Listen, I don't actually give a shit. I just wanna see if you're gonna start being honest with me at some point, or with yourself. That'd be a start."

"I, um, don't…know. I was blackout for a ton of them."

"Ballpark it."

"Um. Somewhere around…wait, oral shit too, or just sex?" She rolled her eyes, and he took the hint. "OK, oral shit included? Probably somewhere in the ballpark of, and I'm estimating here: five…maybe five hundred-ish, maybe?"

She got up off the bed and put a hand over her mouth. "Wow. OK. I was not expecting that. Oh my God. Yeah, that's just not normal behavior. Over how many years?"

He held up five fingers.

"That's almost 100 girls a year, Ryan."

"Not exactly."

"Huh?"

"Guys, too."

"Jesus Christ, Ryan!"

"You think I'm proud of this?" He got up from the bed. "I'm sorry. I fucking hate me. So much."

She reached out and grabbed his hand, noticing the tears welling up in his eyes. "I kinda feel bad for you, Ryan. You're clearly searching for…something."

"Yeah. She's standing right in front of me. You hate me, too, don't you?"

She shook her head. "No, Ryan. I don't hate you. Am I disappointed in your behavior? Yeah. But I think you and I just have to…if we're gonna do this, we may have to rethink things a bit."

"So, you're not done with me?"

"Ryan, this is the most fucked-up relationship I've ever been in. And I'm divorced from a man who got his coworker pregnant. It's obvious neither of us knows what the hell we're doing here. A conventional relationship isn't gonna cut it for us. Nothing about us is conventional. We just might need to, I don't know, play around with some other options."

"I don't follow."

"What if we try an open relationship?"

He made a face. "Explain it to me like I'm an idiot. Because clearly, I'm an idiot."

"It's where we're ‘together', but not limited to just each other." She could see the wheels turning pretty hard. "Ryan, it's where we can both fuck other people but still come home to each other. I've always thought I'd be up for it with the right person. Looking back, my ex apparently thought we were already in one."

"Um, Amara? I kinda don't want you fucking other guys."

"Yeah, well I'm not crazy about you fucking other girls either, Ryan."

She saw the sadness in his eyes. "What if I just try harder?" he said softly.

"It's not that easy. You're not gonna be able to keep it in your pants, and maybe…I shouldn't ask you to."

"I kept it in my pants for three weeks. Just worth noting again. Yes, there was some inappropriate online activity, but I kept it in my pants. I mean, I may have smacked it a few times…"

"Ryan?" she interrupted.

"Yeah?"

"Stop talking."

"Got it."

"Great. So, you didn't fuck someone else for a whole three weeks. But it was a struggle. With this? It doesn't have to be."

"Amara, two of my strongest personality traits are jealous and anxious. You know that. Like, if you're off with other guys, there's no question I'm gonna lose my fucking mind."

"It's not a free-for-all. We have to establish ground rules. Boundaries. Certain acts might be off-limits, or we have to clear it with the other person before going for it, or maybe we do threesomes or group stuff instead of going off one-on-one."

"You into girls?"

"I can be. I'm into experimenting with you if that's what it takes."

He ran his hands through his hair. "You're blowing my mind right now."

"And apparently you're into guys, so it could work."

"I'm not..." He paused, shaking his head. "I mean, I'm not into guys. Willing to experiment is a better way to put it."

"Same difference. Think about it, OK? Anyway, you should head back to your room. I wanna sleep alone tonight."

He walked over to her, wrapped his arms around her upper back, and squeezed. "I'm sorry I'm so broken. I don't know why, but you need to know that the way I feel about you isn't bullshit. I meant every word of everything I said to you. Amara," his voice cracked, "I'd take a fucking bullet for you. I'm not real good at sorting out my feelings, but I know I still want this. Whatever we decide to do, whatever happens, you're my number one and that's not ever going to change. Ever. I just…needed you to hear that."

"The only reason I'm even suggesting this is because it's this or I lose you. And Ryan, losing you isn't an option."

???

You'd have thought Ryan Baylor was cramming for the most important final exam of his life. He'd stayed up into the wee hours of the morning researching ‘open relationships' and came to the kitchen for coffee in the morning as prepared as he'd ever been for anything.

Amara walked in, stretching her arms over her head, as he sat at the counter glancing at his phone and scribbling something in a notebook. "Hey," she yawned, grabbing a mug out of the cabinet. "Are you…are you taking notes?"

"So, I haven't really slept that much, but I thought about what you said last night. I've been doing a ton of reading, and I think I have some ideas."

"Wow. Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously. Look: I'm not gonna fuck this up, too. But if this is how you wanna move forward, we have to be on the same page with some things."

She sat down across from him and took a sip. "OK, fine. This should be interesting. Let's hear it."

"So first," he started, looking back through his notes, "it's important that we're upfront and honest with whoever we decide to, you know. They have to know what they're getting into. And I think for us, threesomes, or like, group stuff might be the way to go."

"Oh, do you, now?" she smiled. "And why's that?"

"Because Amara, the thought of you getting off on another guy without me makes me wanna kill myself. And I know I wouldn't feel comfortable getting off on another girl without you. At least if I'm there and I see it, that might cut down on some of the jealousy for me. It's gonna be really weird, but I don't know, I'm trying to keep an open mind here. Like, it might suck, but maybe…it might be kinda hot, too."

"Agreed. So, what else?"

"Both of us need to agree on the person. If one of us is uncomfortable, for any reason, it doesn't happen." He turned back a page in his notebook. "Another thing: if either of us catches feelings for someone else, that needs to be brought to the other one's attention immediately. Don't hide it. This would obviously apply mostly to you since I can't see myself ever catching feelings for anyone but you, like, ever."

"That'll change."

"No, it won't. Oh, and so before we get into any situation, we pull each other aside and set some quick ground rules. If there are certain things we don't want the other one doing with a certain person, that needs to be laid out very clearly before anything goes down."

"Wow, you've really put a lot of thought into this. Impressive."

"Check out my Instagram follows when you get a chance. Down to under 350, thank you very much."

"Weeded through the ‘spank bank' follows, did you?"

"Yep. I'm not making excuses, but most of them were left over from juniors and college. I couldn't even tell you the last time I followed some random girl. It definitely hasn't been since we met. But I still deleted them all. All of them. Gone."

She looked at him; he seemed so proud of himself. "I underestimated you, Baylor. And nice work on the notes. I wasn't sure if you'd be on board with this or run screaming."

"If it's what you want, then it's what I want. You said it: losing you isn't an option. I'll do whatever I have to do to keep you."

She reached across the counter and grabbed his hand. "Anything else you wanna add?"

He glanced at the microwave clock. "I've gotta head out for dryland in a few. It's gonna suck so bad. I got like, no sleep. But there's one more boundary, and I don't think you're gonna like it."

"And what's that?" she asked.

"We both have to approve of the other person, right? Amara, this arrangement doesn't include Hayes."

She let go of his hand. "How'd I know that was coming?"

"I just can't. I went back and forth about this for hours, but I just can't. Amara, if I had to watch you with him…" his voice trailed off.

"You're afraid you might like it?" she finished for him. "You know, Ryan, if I didn't know any better, I'd swear you had a thing for him."

He furrowed his brow. "Amara, no Hayes. That's a boundary I won't budge on. I...I just can't." He got up, gave her a quick kiss on the top of the head, and went to get ready.

"Yeah, well. We'll see about that one," she said quietly to herself, finishing her coffee.