“Hada thing for us. Separately. We have no idea if he’d like us together. Or be okay with us as partners.” I climb out of the cab and head toward the front door with Jace on my heels.
“So, we invite him over and ask.” He shuts the door behind us as we step inside.
“Ask him what exactly?” I spin to face Jace. “To be the third wheel? Our fuck buddy? Even if I was into that idea, I like him too much to treat him that way.”
“Whoa.” Jace holds his hands up in surrender. “First off, I’m not suggesting we treat him like some toy for our amusement, although threesomes are seriously hot. Just saying. Second—” hereaches for the waistband of my shorts and tugs me to him so he can rest his hands on my hips, “—can you honestly tell me you aren’t a little torn? I mean, I know you want to be with me, and you’d be with only me if I asked you to. But the feelings you have for Kane will still be there, right? And you’ll feel guilty about pushing him aside.”
I must do something to confirm Jace is right because the next thing I know his fingertips are under my chin, forcing me to look into the depths of his soulful brown eyes. “You think I don’t feel the same way? I wantyou, but that doesn’t mean I can switch off what I feel for him any more than you can. And that’s okay.”
“How is that okay? How is it fair to either of you if I’m not committed to one of you?”
Jace cups the side of my face and gives me a gentle kiss. “What if the three of us could be committed to each other? Wouldn’t that be fair, if we’re all together?”
That statement is harder to dismiss than I expect.
It’s still hard for me to wrap my brain around, but what Jace says makes a certain amount of sense. I really like Jace. He gets me in a way that makes it seem like he was made for me, and everything about being with him feels right. I don’t regret the commitment I made to him because I can already envision a future with him, but if I’m being honest, brutally honest, a lot of that was just timing. He was here first. Had Kane been first to arrive, I could just as easily have made that commitment to him, and the idea that I’d have missed being with Jace because of something as arbitrary as a move-in date doesn’t sit well. But that’s what I’m doing with Kane if I choose to be faithful to Jace.
Maybe I’m missing out if I don’t explore things with Kane. Maybe we all are.
If this is fate, it’s playing a cruel trick.
“For argument's sake, let’s say I agree to this. What then?” I hold my breath, not sure I want to know the answer.
“Well,” Jace bites his lip thoughtfully, “I think you might be right about the wholebeing into us separatelything, so while I think he’s still interested, we might have to ease into the three of us actually dating.”
“And how the hell do we do that?”
“Sex.”
“You literally just said we wouldn’t do that to him.” I take a step back and cross my arms, giving Jace a hard stare.
“Calm down a second, okay? Think about it.” Jace runs a hand through his hair. “Even though we both think our time with Kane was about more than sex, that’s how it started, right?” He waits for my nod to continue, which I grudgingly give him. “Then that’s how we pick it back up. We tell him neither of us want that to be our only night with him, but we don’t want to put him in a position where he has to choose between us, so we’re willing to share if he is.”
“That sounds an awful lot like fuck buddies.” I rub my temples with a heavy sigh.
“It’s exactly how we ended up together.” Jace arches a thick brow in my direction as he draws a line between the two of us. “We didn’t entertain the idea of dating until after we’d slept together a handful of times.”
“Yeah, but things just evolved that way. What you’re suggesting is more like… a plan.”
“I’m suggesting we use sex as a starting point and see where it goes, just like you and I have. Since Kane still seems to be into both of us, I think it’ll naturally evolve into more.”
I take a steadying breath as I gnaw my bottom lip, uncertain how to respond. Deep down, I know Jace isn’t trying to be malicious, butI’m not sure I agree with his suggested approach. Hell, I’m not even sure I agree with the idea at all.
“Speaking of us, what do we tell Kane about this?” I draw a line between the two of us. “He’ll really feel like a third wheel if we ask him to joinourbed.”
“That’s why we leave out theuspart out until he gets comfortable with the three of us together.”
“You mean lie?” I pull my brows together.
“I mean do exactly what we’re already doing by keeping things between us behind closed doors.” He shoots me a pointed look.
Fuck, he’s got me there.
“So, roommates in public and what… fuck buddies in front of Kane?”
“Roommates in public, and maybe that’s the only label we have to use.”
“That’s still lying.”
