Page 64 of My Favorite Secret
My shoulders tense. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what.” Felix sits on the couch and spreads his arms over the backrest. The look in his eyes is deeply entertained. In one hand, he starts tossing his poker chip.
“I wasn’t thinking straight. You were kissing my—” I groan and sit on the couch opposite him. “You were kissing Harper.”
“I was kissing your girl? Is that what you were about to say? Because you’re right, she is yours. But she’s mine too and you’ve always known it.”
“That’s not the point,” I shout. My frustration has taken a back seat these last few days while I faced these forbidden urges within me. But now, the anger is gushing out. “Youshould have told me you’re with Harper. You know how I feel about her.”
“I fucked up. I’m sorry.” He speaks the words genuinely, catching the poker chip and holding it still. “I wanted to tell you about us. Harper wasn’t ready. She’s learning about what she wants and it’s taking a lot of encouragement for her to not be ashamed. I’m not stealing her away from you. I would never do that. She hasn’t chosen me over you. She wants us both.”
I pull my Zippo lighter from my pocket, flicking the lid open and shut as I take a moment to sit with my thoughts. The sharpclinkof metal is a familiar rhythm that helps me think.
Felix is straight up apologizing. There’s no humor in his voice. No smirk on his lips. That’s one thing I’ve always appreciated about him. He owns his mistakes and is loyal. Despite this secret, I know Felix never intended to hurt me.
“We mean different things to Harper,” he continues. “She’s held out on you because you’re too important to her. I’m the one who hurt Harper and left her. The stakes weren’t the same. She has more to lose with you.”
“I get it. What you’re saying makes sense.”
He eyes me with suspicion. “Bro, I was expecting to work a lot harder for your forgiveness. Why aren’t you more pissed off with me? You want to marry this girl.”
“Because…” I groan and lean back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling, not letting the truth come out.
“You sick fuck,” Felix laughs. “You’re into it, aren’t you? The three of us. I knew you would be. Harper fucking loved what happened in that office too, even though she’s hiding now. I’ve never seen her come that hard. For Harper, you are delayed gratificationat its best.”
If that’s true…Fuck. I groan again and sit up, readjusting my pants to hide the hard-on.
“Of course I’m into the three of us,” I answer, frustrated again but for different reasons, having always resented that he left our trio. “Our childhood with Harper was good. You know it was. But you had to ruin everything by leaving us. Yes, I wanted to marry her when it was just the two of us. Butthis… what the three of us are doing now, it’s always been my preference. I’ve just never known how to voice it. Tell me you’re not wasting Harper’s time. You don’t do girlfriends. You barely fuck a girl twice. She’ll be broken if you leave her again.”
The look in Felix’s eyes shifts from being smug to dead serious. “Harper is different. I’m never leaving her. We’ll make this work with Harper.”
I sigh with relief and continue flicking my Zippo cap. “Will Harper go for this? She’s embarrassed and hasn’t spoken to us for two days. She’s grieving. Perhaps sex is a distraction from Clara’s death. Thomas would never allow?—”
“I’m sure we can all keep a secret. Harper is embarrassed because the situation between the three of us is strange. She wants it, though. She admitted it to me before Clara’s passing. She’ll move beyond embarrassment.”
I rub the back of my neck, finding this whole situation surreal. I’ve wanted this for years but never thought it would be possible.
“I do have one rule, though,” Felix says, tossing his poker chip again. “I’ve always lived by the motto that I’ll try anything once. But that moment in the office with you and Harper taught me I’m not as wild as I thought I was. I need to have boundaries regarding the three of us. No dicks are to come out during group activities. All the pleasure needsto be directed at Harper. Understand? Otherwise, it’s a little too intimate for me. I love you, bro. But not that much. When you’re alone with Harper, that’s when you fuck her however you want.”
His limits have me genuinely confused. My focus was on Harper when the three of us were in that office, but I know Felix enjoyed it. He was encouraging every moment of it, especially when she tried to jerk him off by grinding her ass.
“You’ve had a threesome with Theo. What’s the difference?” I ask.
Felix rolls his eyes then throws his poker chip, aiming for my head. “The difference is Theo is my friend, not my brother, you fucking degenerate.”
I duck just in time, laughing. “No dicks out in front of each other. Message received.”
It’s a shame, but I can live with the rules.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
HARPER
“Honey, can I have a word?” Dad calls me into the kitchen when I return home after visiting Cindy for the day.
He’s sitting at the island counter with a newspaper and hot drink. I pull up a bench seat and join him. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes. Of course. I wanted to let you know that we’ll be staying at the Blackwood beach house for the next few days, starting tomorrow. We need to collect all of your mother’s belongings she left up there. It will be a bit of a job, considering her art supplies.”
