Page 44 of Party of Three

“And if he says this was just a one-time thing?”

Buckley lifted his head from Mateo’s chest and gazed up at him with a wistful smile. “We’ll always have zucchini.”

Shaking with laughter, Mateo slapped Buckley lightly on the ass with one hand.

15

The business center was a glorified closet. When Jeff had first found the place, he’d worried someone might accuse him of hogging the room’s single computer. But in the two hours or so since he’d let the glass door drift shut behind him, no one had so much as poked their head in. The age of Docusign and personal devices for toddlers probably spelled doom for hotel business centers in general, and in another year this space would be commandeered by the fitness center next door.

At any rate, he was grateful for his solitude. No prying eyes or curious questions. No need to put a polite spin on what he was working on.

I’m coming up with a battle plan for how to make a throuple work with a guy I’ve been in love with for years and another guy who makes me feel like I’m flying whenever he touches me.

He changed the font again. From Times New Roman to Optima this time, wondering if a less rounded typeface might make the whole thing feel less like word salad tossed by a fear-addled mind.

Objective 1

Action Items to Define Terms

1. Buckley defines what “poly” means for him.

2. Buckley experiments with Mateo and another third, see if a “closed throuple” is what he wants.

3. Mateo does same.

4. Up to Buckley and Mateo to define whether these experimentation sessions will include the other partner.

5. Buckley and Mateo must complete at least two experimentation sessions before reporting back to Jeff with results of their findings.

6. Three of us to see each other one day a week when Mateo comes down to San Diego for his therapy session.

Results of their findings?

Jesus, what was wrong with him?

He was talking about something that was supposed to be an affair of the heart like it belonged in cargo bays and equipment lockers.

Wasit an affair of the heart, though? Or was it little more than the gyrations of three very horny male bodies over the course of a single weekend? That’s clearly what all three of them needed to talk about. Instead, here he was in a lightly air-conditioned closet, tapping away on a three-generations-out-of-date Mac.

Maybe phrases likeobjectivesandaction itemswouldn’t have seemed so cold and inappropriate if he hadn’t included about twenty-five mentions of each in a single three-page document. He’d meant to write something focusing, clarifying. Lean and to the point. Instead, what he’d typed up read like a list of a dozen things Buckley and Mateo had to do on their own before Jeff could feel comfortable risking his heart.

The wordsclosed throuplestared at him accusingly from the screen. A bright, shining diamond of truth amidst the swirl of anxious proclamations.

He’d come undone last night. For the first time, he’d felt the power and force of a physical connection flowing through three people at once, with equal and shattering force. Like he’d plugged himself into some new power source for the first timeand it had rocketed him out of his skin before he’d returned to a body that felt stronger, more powerful, save for one mixed-up head and very confused heart.

He didn’t want to be their guest star or the sex toy or their visiting dick.

He wanted them, both of them. He wanted the three of them together, feeding off each other. Feasting on each other. But who was he to ask them to make that kind of commitment?

He was in his mid-forties and they were barely out of their twenties and discovering their polyamorous sides for the first time. Buckley’s big realization that weekend seemed like the beginning of something—for him. HimandMateo.

In the Marines, this level of strategic overthink had always helped him.

In his personal life, it ruined things before they’d begun.

And that’s what he felt on the verge of doing now.

Ruining something amazing, unexpected, and wonderful.

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