I knew Spencer was looking at me. I couldn't meet his gaze though. I was the oldest, the calm one, the one who thought things through. I should never have kissed Spence, before we all knew the score. Or if I had—because seriously, when Spence looks up at me with those melty brown eyes he's so worth kissing—but if I had, I should have said something to Adam when he caught us. Something right. Something that would have kept Adam's face from that expression of shock and pain and disappointment that still made my gut ache. I should have been faster. Better.
I said, “He'll come back.” Because that was what Spencer needed to hear.
But I wasn't so sure. Adam's the kind of guy who would be best man at his dream lover's wedding and never say a word. And he was smart, he noticed things. I knew what kind of emotion he must have seen on my face, when I was looking down at Spencer. Love.
Holy hell, I loved both these guys. Spencer's a fireball, always moving, a little motor mouth with a heart bigger than the whole outdoors that he keeps well hidden. He's had kind of a hard life, raised by his aunt and uncle, so he's guarded. He doesn't always understand where Adam, with his supportive parents and eternal optimism, is coming from. Sometimes Spencer can be harsh or seem like he doesn't care about anything.
But with the two of us, Spence is different from the way he is with anyone else. He opens up and he has these dreams. It was Spencer who said it to me a week ago, when I was sitting with him in my room, looking back and forth at his face and then the picture of Adam on my cork board. Wringing my heart out until I ached with wanting both of them and not able to choose. It was Spencer who put his hand on mine and had the guts to say, “I feel the same about both of you. Have forever, seems like. So how about all three of us, together?”
“Like, all of us being boyfriends?” The idea wasn't new, but the thought that he might go for it gave my heart wings. “You'd do that? Seriously?”
“We could think about it.” He gave me his wonderful grin, the one that's twisty where his lip has a little scar and shows that chipped tooth, but that lights his eyes all the way to their depths. “We're bucking the system anyway. We should think about it.”
And I definitely had. In fact, I'd nearly flunked a math test, cruising the Internet looking for info on threesomes and polyamory, when I should've been studying. Then today I'd had the nerve to reach for the stars.
And I'd had the stupid, moronic, selfish, damn impatience to take what I wanted, just a minute too soon. And Adam had found us, and taken it wrong, and run.
I pulled out my own cell phone. Spencer had texted Adam the second we'd failed to catch up with him. You'd think with all my training, I could have outrun that nerd-boy. But I was in sock feet, and he'd caught us by surprise. He was on his bike before I moved, and gone before I got properly started. Spence's thumbs were in motion on his phone before I could even catch my breath. And I let him take point with the messaging.
But maybe Adam needed to hear it from me too. I texted, with no abbreviations, to show I was serious:
“Adam, we love you. I know that's a big little word, but we mean it. Both of us. We've all been going around and around, trying not to be two boyfriends and a spare wheel. And it sucks. So we decided, it has to be all three of us together. Three boyfriends. Spence and I were celebrating that idea. If you'd just stuck around for one freaking minute, I'd have kissed you too. And so would Spencer. And yeah, I know it's complicated. But we both want it. Want you.” I sent that.
But maybe that wasn't enough. I wasn't proud. After more than two years of ignoring and stuffing my feelings down, and waking up hot from dreams of both of my guys, I could beg for this chance. I added, “Please. Come back. We'll prove it to you.”
I waited, waited, but there was no answer. I stared down at the street. A car went by. A bicycle, but not big enough to be Adam's. A UPS truck. Another car. Spencer's leg was warm over my thighs and when he started to move it away I reached back without looking at him and held it there. I needed that touch. Because I figured the next few hours would either make us a threesome, or break us. It was up to Adam now.