Chapter 31

Sawyer

Reece didn't stay the night. After our cum eating moment, Asher returned to the patio with a washcloth and asked if we could wait until things got really physical between the three of us. He wanted us to take at least a few weeks to acquaint ourselves with this new situation. Do ‘normal' things, he said.

I said I was glad he didn't ask for six months.

Reece said he's not going to stay over at our place until he can share our bed, because that would just be torture, so he went home.

He refused for one of us to drive him, choosing to travel by cab.

So, here we are, getting to know each other.

Guess what that looks like?

I kiss him as soon as he lets me into his apartment, take a picture of us with my tongue in his mouth, and I send that to Asher. He isn't pleased in the way kids aren't pleased when they aren't allowed any ice cream. Then, since it's early and we have a few minutes before we need to be at the woodlot, I kiss Reece some more, biting down his neck. "I want to give you a hickey," I whisper against his hot skin.

"Give me a fuckin' hickey," he growls, and I think this man is going to be a hot motherfucker in bed. I tell him so, and he groans. "Don't confuse my need for you with me having any kind of skill," he pants, pulling me to his face for another kiss. "I'm really not any good. For one person, let alone two."

"Well, we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?"

***

We work all morning in silence. Except for the noise of the machines, there's nothing else. I watch Reece as he works. His concentrating face today involves pulling his lips into his mouth, and a sweet frown creasing his forehead.

When he holds the hatchet incorrectly, I walk over to help him. "That's too close to the blade," I tell him. He lets me move his hand back. "It may slip, and you could hurt yourself."

"Okay. Sorry. Terrible first try."

I want to kiss him right here. "Are you kidding? That was the best first try I've seen in a long time."

"Yeah?"

Fuck, that smile. I grin. "Yeah. Just keep your hand a little back."

He gets it right on his third attempt, and the pride in his face over his achievement warms my heart.

At lunchtime, as we eat, Reece adds food to my plate. He's done this before, sharing his food with me.

I consider telling him why Asher does it. It's hard to face that part of my life again, but if this is the getting to know Reece part, then maybe I should tell him about Faye. And my father. Maybe he won't be shocked and embarrassed to be associated with me when he finds out where I come from and what my life really was like outside of Asher.

In the end, I chicken out. He's too refined, and he looks at me sometimes like I'm his hero. Selfishly, I don't want to spoil his image of me. I don't want him to find out that I'm just a nobody who didn't even finish high school.

Reece places a third piece of steak onto my plate. He misunderstands my quietness for disapproval.

"Sorry. Your food was finished. I . . . you didn't want more?"

"Yes, I wanted more." My voice is softer than I mean for it to be. "Thank you."

He gives me that smile again. "You're an amazing person, Sawyer."

I look away. "I'm not amazing, Reece," I tell him even though I want to be – for him, at least. "I'm just me."

After a while he asks, "How did you and Ash meet?"

I laugh, and he looks at me curiously, tilting his head adorably. "Do you really want to know?"

"It's the thing I want to know the most."

"Okay. One day this guy walks into the bar where I'm working."

He laughs. "Really? That much of a cliché?"

"I'm not even kidding. So, this guy walks in. He has a cigarette in his mouth, and he's already drunk from a bar across town. He sits down and demands a drink. I ask him if he's sure, and he tells me gay bar drinks go down better than regular bar drinks."

"He wasn't the drinking or smoking type back then," Reece murmurs. "I hate that he changed so much after what my father did to him and his family."

"He was trying to cope," I say as gently as I can.

Reece nods quickly. "Then what happened?"

"Well, I poured him a gay drink and asked him if he wanted to talk about it. ‘I can't get over my boyfriend' was the first thing he said."

Reece maintains my gaze, but I can see it's hard for him. "When was that?" he asks.

"Seven years ago."

"He was – we were – twenty-one. That was four years after he left."

"For the first year, he came into that bar every night. He didn't drink every night, but he was there. And every night for a whole year, all he talked about was you."

"I hate how much I hurt him. His mom told me I could talk to him when I had more courage. There was never a time I felt like I had any courage. Even when I did call him. It wasn't because I had any courage. It was because I was so broken over losing my daughter, I was willing to do anything to make it stop. Asher was the only one who could ever make things right."

"I'm glad you called him," I say. "I would never have met you otherwise. And you were right to call him. He always makes things better."

"We came out to his Mom and Dad first," he says. "We were sixteen. It was June. The next day we went to my father's company's picnic. Mrs. Cameron baked a whole lot of cupcakes and among them were rainbow-colored ones. No one suspected a thing. It was our secret."

I smile, wishing I could reach out for my hand and entwine our fingers together. "Ash told me about that."

"He told you that?"

"Yeah, he did."

"Did he tell you about the first time we realized—"

I nod. "In a barn. At his grandparent's place." And when I see how sorrowful he looks suddenly, I add, "He loved you very, very much, Reece. It broke him to be away from you. He was still so broken, even after all that time."

"You're letting me make it right," he says quietly.

"I just believe in this thing between the three of us."

He gives me a bright smile. Then, inhaling deeply, he asks, "When did things change between the two of you?"

"It's hard to tell exactly. Over that first year we became friends. I started to look forward to him coming in. I watched his alcohol almost right from the beginning because I didn't want that for him. After the first year, he just came out and said that he thought he was in love with me. I'd fallen for him months before that, so it was easy."

"Who proposed?"

I lock my eyes with Reece. "He did." I watch his reaction carefully. "What's the real question?" I ask quietly.

Reece looks caught. But there is no decorum between us. "Was he over me by then?"

"He has never gotten over you. Not even when he proposed."

"How did that make you feel?"

"Are you asking if I felt like a second option?"

"Yes."

"No. Never. Asher's life before me meant a lot to him. I could never judge what we have by what he had before me. Even now, Reece, I know he loves you. I could never think of that kind of love as something to forget. I would never do that to him."

"What if you hadn't felt any attraction to me?"

"The fact would've still remained. Asher would still always love you, and it would still have been okay. The only difference is that he would've respected our love and the life that we share enough to remain in the present with me."

"None of this is believable," Reece says. "I mean, are you saying people can just go around getting married and still be hung up on their exes?"

"People leave old lives behind. Sometimes, because they have to. That doesn't mean that the life they build afterward is any less valid."

Reece nods. "Yes, I suppose you're right. For me it was different. I got married too, but my heart was always with Asher."

"Life is complicated. Love is complicated. We can all just do our best to make sense of it. This – the way things played out with us – is our complicated. We don't have to compare it to anyone else's. Nobody starts out having all the answers. We'll figure it out as we go along. But for me it's also simple. I met the love of my life when I was twenty-one. Married him and lived happily ever after. Then, I looked at his ex-boyfriend one day, and I was fucked. And I guess the rest is history."

He laughs. "You were fucked?"

"So fucked, Reece," I murmur. "You're so lovely it makes my heart ache with happiness to think that we have a shot at making something as crazy as this work."

"You're amazing, Sawyer," he says.

I laugh. "Let's hear you say that after you've lived with me for a month."

He's so curious. His questions keep coming. "What do you guys fight about?"

I laugh. "Not much. Maybe when I watch an episode of a series we started before him."

"So, like no actual fights? Like you don't get mad and not talk to each other for days?"

I shake my head. "No. I love him. I don't want to fight with him. And I think he feels the same. It's not that hard, you know."

He nods. "We never fought, too, when we were together. You know, before."

I almost kiss him for how free he seems, talking about all of this. "Yeah. So, you know how easy it is to live with Ash."