Page 67 of The Rest is History
After dinner, we move to the back patio, a part of the house I haven’t seen before. There are three single patio chairs and each of us takes one. The night is warm, the sky bright with stars.
Asher is the one to break the ice. “Reece,” he says, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. I watch, fascinated and shocked, because Ash was always such a by-the-book guy. I never would’ve taken him for a smoker.
Sawyer reaches across to a side table near him and retrieves a lighter. He tosses it to Ash, who catches it midair and lights his cigarette up, inhales and then blows out a puff of smoke. It’s the sexiest, most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. He holds the cigarette between his thumb and index finger and grins at me. “Life is stressful sometimes,” he says, holding up the cigarette.
“When did you start?” I ask.
He holds my gaze. “Just before I turned eighteen.”
I almost drop my gaze, but I have to be brave. I maintain eye contact. “I’m sorry,” I say. He acknowledges my apology with a dip of his head.
“You look hot doing it,” I blurt out.
Sawyer laughs and Ash joins him. Like it’s an inside joke. “That’s what Sawyer says after he tells me how awful a habit it is, and I need to quit.”
“Well, you should quit but . . .”
“But it’s still hot,” Sawyer fills in.
He puts the cigarette to his lips, inhaling again. “Yeah, I should quit.”
He regards me through a cloud of smoke. “Reece, love. There was never going to be an easy way to do this. And hardly any of it makes sense but it’s happening, and I want to trust my instincts. Sawyer too. After last night . . . is this still something you want? A relationship with Sawyer and me?”
“Yes,” I answer immediately. And then, because I’m ashamed of my eagerness, I add, “If it’s still okay with the two of you.”
“We want you with us,” Sawyer says. “In every way possible.”
“The answer is yes,” I repeat.
“We’ll learn each other’s ways as we go along,” Asher says. “But there are some things we have to get out now.”
I nod.
“Sawyer and I have a rule. There is no decorum between us. There is nothing we can’t bring to each other. Which means there’s no shame, no matter how shameful we think it is. We want that with you too. No matter what, and no matter how hard it is, we need you to be honest with us about how you feel. And we’ll do the same with you.”
“Yes,” I say.
“We’ll be exclusive, but as soon as you feel like it’s too much, you have every right to walk away. No questions asked. All we want is for you to be honest about it.”
“And if you decide it’s too much for you?” I ask.
“Then we’ll be honest with you about it.”
Taking their lead with this honesty rule, I ask more questions: “What if you start to think that I want this only because of my history with Asher?” I direct the question at Sawyer.
“If it turns out to be true, I’ll feel betrayed.”
Then to Asher, “What if you start to think that Sawyer is capable of cheating on you because he has feelings for me?”
“Sawyer has never given me a reason to think he would betray me like that. Even now, with this. He could’ve gone behind my back, but the first person he came to when he realized what he was feeling was me. I trust him more now than I ever did before. And the reason for that trust is because there’s no decorum between us. We don’t allow our shame or the things we struggle with to come between us.”
I love this man so much. And his husband . . . I could easily love him like that too.
“What if I get jealous when you’re together, just the two of you?” I ask, because that could happen. “Or if Sawyer gets jealous or feels left out when it’s us. Or you, Asher, when . . .” They get the picture.
“It goes back to being honest with each other,” Sawyer says. “Our starting point is that we all want this equally.”
Asher says, “The intention is to have an exclusive relationship with each other. If it doesn’t work out then we should all be able to walk away having more good memories than bad. That’s all we can really work toward.”
