Page 29 of Love Triangle
Those three words hang in the air between us despite the incredible weight of them. There are infinite possibilities there, how I could react, how things between us can change. In the end, there’s really only one way it can go.
“I love her, too.”
I sit on the floor in front of Cliff, my knees pulled to my chest. He towers over me like this, a king and his supplicant. I beg him with my eyes for a touch of his grace.
“Then I suppose we have some things to discuss. More than Crystal, I know.” He swallows hard and looks away from me. The room is silent for a long moment.
“You left me alone again. For weeks. Why?” I can only whisper my question.
“I had to think. It wasn’t… I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry.” He still won’t look at me. He swallows hard again.
“Please don’t do it again.” My question is small and soft. If I ask louder and bigger I’m afraid it will scare him away.
He swallows and nods before looking at me with his dark eyes, and I break.
I spring forward, reach for his face, and kiss him with everything I have. There are tears running down my cheeks but I don’t care and I don’t think he does either. Some situations allow for ignoring vulnerabilities.
Cliff pulls me away by my hair, making me gasp. He doesn’t look angry, his eyes are hot with lust and his breath is quick, but I still look back at him with confusion.
“What now? What do you want, Trig? When she wakes up, and I feel it in my heart that she will, what will you choose?” His eyes move quickly, searching my face for answers before my mouth can move. They don’t need to search long because my answer is right there.
“We don’t need to choose, Cliff. There’s more than one way to live a life. Why choose? What good would that do?” I gently untangle myself from his fingers and lay my head on his chest. “We can have it all. The whole freaking triangle.”
Cliff is silent for a moment before he begins to stroke my hair. My whole body relaxes with his blessed touch.
“If you’re sure, then I have no trouble with it. I’ve been in much stranger relationships with people I care for much less. There was the dominatrix and the clown I spent a month in France with, for one. It was all fun and games until her ex-girlfriend, the astronaut, began making trouble during Slappy’s balloon time. I’ll never eat freeze-dried ice cream again.” After he tells that bombshell of a story, he continues stroking my hair in silence.
As soon as I can pick my jaw up off the floor, I turn my head to look up at him. “You’re joking, right? You’re the guy who won’t ride a city bus because sometimes the numbers on the seats are peeled off and it makes you uncomfortable to see them missing. And you went to France to date someone named Slappy the Clown?”
“Slappy didn’t like the bus either.”
“Is there– are there more things I don’t know about you?” My brow scrunches in disbelief. He’s gotta be fucking with me.
Cliff’s lip lifts at one side. “So very many things. Would you like to discover some of them?”
He lifts me by both sides of my face and the grin he gives me tells me thatfuck yesdo I want to know them.
“I very much would like to, yes, please.”
“Such a good boy, so polite.”
My cock begins to swell at the praise.Yep. That’s the stuff right there.
“Now, sit back.”
I do as he tells me and watch as he unbuttons first his cardigan, then his shirt. He removes both, leaving him in only his white undershirt. I haven’t seen him dressed in this little clothing in many years, and I have to say that I don’t remember him being this fit. Or maybe he was but I just wasn’t looking at him this way. Either way, hedefinitelydidnothave all of the tattoos.
“What the fuck?” I whisper under my breath. He might as well have just turned into a unicorn.
He grins wider as he pulls off his shirt, revealing even more tattoos on his gorgeous torso. He’s so beautiful, not some sculpted muscle bro, just lean and toned. Someone who got their body from working out for their health and not their vanity. I want to kiss every part of him and thank whatever god or force of nature brought him to me.
I tentatively bring a hand up and touch one of the tattoos on his stomach, smiling when his abs twitch. I trace along the myriad geographical formations in wonder. This must have taken so long and been so much work and pain, and he’s kept it hidden. Such a shame. It’s then that I see his chest. The tattoo that doesn’t belong.
He sees me see it and sighs.
“Yes, I got it because of you. Don’t make a big thing of it.”
“I’m going to make a big thing of it. I’m totally making a big thing of it.” I smile so wide I’m sure my face will split in two.
