20. Amara

Wren's eyeskeep finding mine and I know what they're trying to say: it's just breakfast. And I hate it. Because nothing about this moment is "just breakfast". For one thing, there is a beautiful woman with hair the colour of fire sitting at our dining table, sipping a coffee Wren made her. And I am flitting around the kitchen, assembling a plate and cutlery while Wren makes us all omelettes.

"Go sit with her," Wren whispers to me as I find a vase and pull a rose out of the larger arrangement on the island. "She looks lonely."

I give Katja a quick look but I can't ignore this opportunity, I lean into Wren, gripping their arm. "She doesn't have to be lonely, ever again."

"It's not up to us," Wren hisses.

"But we are going to talk to her, aren't we?"

"We will talk to her, we will ask her," Wren says gently before their voice hardens. "But we will also respect her answer if it's no."

It's not going to be no.That's my immediate response but it remains unspoken, because I can't explain why I know this so confidently, so innately. It's the same way I felt when I first met Wren – heck, when my friend first told me about them and showed me their photo – and it's the same confidence I felt when I started my company. I don't embark on things to fail. And today, Katja, is going to be no different.

"We will respect her answer," I say simply.

"I've nearly finished." Wren nods at the pan and the omelette that is turning golden. "Go check she's okay. But wait to ask until I'm there. Please."

"I can wait," I say and it almost feels like a lie. Because I can't wait to start this new life of ours. My new life with Wren and Katja.

I find my coffee and walk to the table.

"May I join you?" I ask.

Katja looks up at me a little stunned. "It's your table, your house."

"It could be yours too," I blurt out and I freeze, shocked at what I just said.

"Was? What?" Katja says and I can't tell if she's asking because she didn't hear me or because she too is in shock.

I turn my head slightly and see Wren is studying us both and I just know that they know I've already put my foot in it. I give them a quick shrug and after they give me a short, closed-eyes nod, I take a seat at the table.

"Katja," I say, leaning towards her. "Have you ever… Would you ever… Do you know much about polyamory?"

The briefest, most rueful smile dashes across Katja's beautiful lips which are still a wonderful rich pinky-red colour even without the lipstick. "I grew up in Germany, not prehistoric times."

I smile back and blush a little. "Wren and I have been… polyamorous in the past."

"In the past," Katja echoes and this is not the part of my comment I thought she would cling to.

"Yes," I confirm. "And we are still open to it now."

I'm so confident Katja is going to lean closer to me, take my head in her hands and tell me this is music to her ears. But that's not what happens. Katja doesn't say anything. Instead, she sits unsettlingly still and studies me, only the pupils of her eyes shifting slightly as if they're searching my face for something.

Fine. If I have to spell it out, then I will.

"Katja, I—" I begin but a hand and a plate invade my vision and steals my chance.

"One spinach, feta and sun-dried tomato omelette," Wren says to Katja kindly.

"And one cheddar, onion and chilli omelette for you," they say to me with much more of an edge in their voice.

I pout at Wren as they sit down opposite me, with Katja between us at the end of the table. When they shake their head at me, I loosen my lips but still give them a doe-eyed look.

"Thank you, Wren," Katja says looking at her plate. "This looks, and smells, fantastic."

"It's a little intimidating cooking for a chef," Wren admits.

"I am not a chef now," Katja says and points to her chef's shirt which is not fully buttoned up. "I'm just Katja."

"You are not just anything," Wren says and that makes Katja's hands stop slicing into the omelette. "You are an incredible human being, which I think is what my wife was trying to say earlier."

I watch Katja's throat work as she swallows. "Actually, she was asking me if I know about polyamory, because she thinks I live under a rock."

My mouth falls open as Wren chuckles.

"I do not think you live under—" I try to explain but am silenced by Katja's hand reaching up and stroking the side of my face.

"You"re the prettiest, dumbest little whore, aren"t you?" Heat fills my cheeks and I should recoil or revolt at the insult but instead I melt willingly into Katja's hand. And she's not surprised in the least. In fact, I wonder if that's why she said it.

"I didn't mean to insult you, Chef," I say as my body relaxes into sub mode all too easily.

"I know." Katja's thumb strokes my chin, making my lips part a little. "But you were treating me like I am a business acquisition. And while I'm a lot of things – chaotic, creative, a very competent chef – I am not a business acquisition."

"No, you're not, Chef," I purr. "You're wonderful. You're full of heart and hope and human kindness."

Katja's hand drops. "You don't know that. You don't know me."

I miss her touch instantly and I scramble for the right words to save this conversation, but there's no need. Wren comes to my rescue.

"We know enough," Wren says firmly. "And all we ask is that you let us get to know you more."

Katja's eyes narrow on my spouse. "And what would that look like?"

"Dating," I answer. "We want to date you. We want to get to know you. We want to find out if last night was the beginning of something beautiful."

"Last night was something beautiful," Katja says and hope sparks inside me like a match being lit. "It was the beginning and the end of that something beautiful. I'm leaving London. Today."

"Do you have to?" I ask before I can stop myself.

"Amara," Wren warns but neither Katja nor I turn to them.

"Yes, I have to leave today. I want to leave today. I've wanted to leave London for a long time. I'm ready to go."

I mentally repeat her words a handful of times.

"You want to leave London," I acknowledge. "But you don't want to leave us. Am I right?"

"Ama," Wren cautions me again and it snaps something inside me. I spin to look at them.

"Don't pretend you don't want this too," I aim at them. "I know this is exactly what you want, you're just too afraid to say it."

My words leave a bitter taste in my mouth and I immediately know I've gone too far, that maybe Wren and I have much more work to do before I completely shed the resentment I feel towards them after the last year or two. I open my mouth to apologise but then I see how unfazed Wren is. And how they're not looking at me, but at Katja.

"She's right," Wren says. "I do want this, but she's not right that I'm too afraid to say it because I'm going to say it now. We want you. We want you in our lives, in our relationship, in our bed. And in our hearts." Wren shakes their head. "No, you're already in our hearts. We just want to know if you want to stay there."

"That!" I shout and point at Wren while looking at Katja. "That's exactly what I was trying to say."

Silence falls between us all and I realise then that not one of us has touched our omelettes, but I'm so far from hungry now. At least not for food. I'm hungry for Katja's words. Katja's answer. Katja's love. I feel Wren's eyes fall on me but I don't look at them. This moment is for Katja, and I wait patiently – or as patiently as I can because my foot is shaking up and down under the table – for Katja to respond.

"I… I am in your hearts," she finally confirms. "And you are both in mine. I don't know how you got there, but you're there." She places a hand on her chest as if to touch us there, and I sigh, relief starting to crest inside me. "And I want to stay in your hearts, I really, really do. But I can't."

Those last three words feel like three precise gun shots.

"What?" I gasp, my eyes still fixed on the woman I think I'm falling in love with.

"I want to leave London. I want to have a new life, a fresh start?—"

"We can be your fresh start, your new life!" I protest.

Katja shakes her head. "No, I need to leave. I want to get a dog, a rescue dog, one of those big slobbering ones that nobody else wants, and I always said I'd never get a dog in London, that it's not fair."

"We'll get a dog! A big slobbering one. And look how much space we have here." I wave my arms around.

"Amara," Wren's voice interrupts but there's no warning in it this time, only something sad and slow, like defeat.

"We haven't even shown you the roof terrace. A dog would love it up there."

"It's not just the dog," Katja says with a thoughtful smile. "It's me. I need to get out of London. I need to prove to myself that I can do this. Start over. That I can make friends and find work I enjoy and feel at peace after feeling very unsettled for a long time."

"We'll give you all that!" I tell her. "What could make you feel more settled than living with two partners?"

I mean it as a small joke but there's no laughter.

"Ama, listen to?—"

"No, Wren." I turn to them. "We have to fight for her. We have to show her we don't want to lose her. We nearly stopped fighting for each other until she showed us what was at stake. Well, now Katja, our Chef is at stake and we have to fight for her."

Wren slides their hand across the table to touch my fingertips and I'm only partially surprised when a single tear falls onto the back of my hand.

"We will fight for her," Wren tells me before turning to Katja. "We are going to fight for you."

"You don't have to do that." Katja stares at our hands, joined in the middle of the table. I itch for her to place her palm over them but I'm starting to think, to panic, that she really, really won't. "You have to fight for each other. If all I've done is give you the gift of finding each other again, then I will never regret what happened here last night."

A second tear falls, this time landing on the table with a small splash.

"We are going to do that too," Wren says softly and I have no idea how they can keep their voice so calm, so level. "We're going to do that while we fight for you too."

"But…" Katja begins but she seems to run out of words.

"Because everything Amara says is true. We want to fight for you, we want to make it work with you, we want to be with you for as long as is humanly possible. But we also want you to know we don't want this because you fix us. You're not our crutch or our medicine. We don't need you, even if it feels like we do, we want you. We want to love you."

Another tear falls, but it's not one of mine. I watch it slip out of the corner of Katja's eye and slither down her face before falling off the edge of her jaw.

"But I can't stay… After next week, I don't have a place to live in and I can't afford a short-term rent and?—"

"Move in with us!" I offer.

Katja tilts her head to me but her expression tells me that's not the solution she's looking for and I feel it then. I feel her start to slip through my fingers. An unusually rational and logical part of my brain steps up unexpectedly and it starts to explain how I have to let her go. I have to respect her wishes, just like I promised Wren. But, my God, it hurts so much.

"She can't move in with us," Wren explains, apparently also joining me in reluctantly, so very reluctantly, letting her go. "You can't stay in London if that's not where you want to be. You must go to Margate today and start your new life."

Katja nods at Wren with something like a resolute smile, but another tear falls, and another. I close my eyes and do nothing to stop myself crying with Katja.

"But we are coming too," Wren adds so softly I almost don't believe I've heard it.

"Was?" Katja slips into German.

"We are coming with you. We will move to Margate too and we will get to know you better. We will date you. We will come walk your big, slobbering dog with you. We will show you in all the small and the big ways how much we care for you, how much we want you, how much we love you."

"Yes," I say in a sobbing, smiling whisper. "Yes."

"You'll leave London? But you have your whole lives here. Your companies and this beautiful apartment."

"Which will feel empty and lifeless if you're not here sharing it with us," I explain.

"But your company, Amara." Katja leans towards me, her eyes dryer now but her face is still a playground of strong emotions.

I wave my hand in front of my face. "I could run that company from Mars so Margate will not be a problem."

"And they'd still be able to hear her bark out orders," Wren adds and as we all laugh, some of the tension between us breaks.

"I… I don't want you to move your whole lives for me."

"We want to move our whole lives for you," I explain.

"And they do have couples' therapists in Margate, right?" Wren asks.

"I'm sure they do, but I'm not sure how many ‘couples' therapists will take on a… a throuple."

"Well, it would be for me and Amara first, because we still have a lot to work on, but if you want us to go to therapy to figure out how we can make this dynamic work for all of us, we will, won't we Ama?"

"Yes," I say. "A thousand times, yes."

"You really want to change your relationship, ruin how it is effectively, for me?" Katja's head flies from Wren to me and back again.

Wren shrugs. "You can say change and ruin. I can say enhance and complete."

"Complete?" Katja questions.

"Yes," I agree. "Maybe you are what we didn't know we were looking for."

"Well, I certainly didn't know I was looking for you both," Katja says.

"Triangle," I blurt out. "We're a triangle. You complete us and we complete you."

Wren nods at us both. "And triangles are the strongest shapes."

"They are?" Katja asks.

"Absolutely. Any weight put on any side, the burden is shared evenly among all three points," Wren tells us confidently, stretching out their other hand to Katja. A second later, Katja and I reach for each other with our other hands. I see how our arms make a perfect triangle.

"Wren knows what they're talking about." I sniff, because my tears are returning or maybe they never went away. "They did a degree in Engineering."

"But you work in computer programming?" Katja asks.

"My first degree was in Engineering. My second was in Computer Science."

"They're so greedy," I comment as I look at Wren, love and tears pouring out of my eyes. "And too clever for their own good."

"Says the woman who runs a multimillion-pound company," Wren teases back. "And then sits on the board for four other companies and non-profits."

A sharp tutting noise comes from Katja's mouth and it surprises me. "You're both so… so smart and so accomplished. I don't even own my own home."

I squeeze her hand and see Wren doing the same thing. It's almost like it squeezes more tears out of her. "And yet you were the one who knew exactly what we both needed to help us come together again last night. I'd sell all my earthly possessions to have that kind of emotional intelligence."

"And you may not own a home, Chef," Wren says, a little hoarsely. "But you own our hearts."

Katja lifts our hands to her mouth and covers our knuckles with kisses. She starts muttering in German and I vow there and then to learn her language so I can understand what she's saying, so I can understand her and her family and her home and just her better.

"Are you saying yes?" I ask tentatively.

Katja nods.

"Really?" Wren asks and I see then that their eyes are full of tears too.

"I'm saying yes." Katja keeps our hands close to her mouth. "If you'll really move to Margate and start a new life with me?— "

"Don't forget a big slobbering rescue dog," I interject.

Katja smiles at me. "And the dog. If you really will do that, then yes, yes, yes."

"Try and stop us," Wren confirms.

"Not in my wildest dreams." Katja shakes her head and stands up. Wren and I stand up too, and when Katja steps back from the table, we are both there, rushing into her arms and holding her as close as we can get, our arms enveloping each other at the same time.

We are a triangle, the strongest shape in the world. And then we start kissing, all three of us, and we are nothing but tongues and sweetness and a future filled with love.