Page 67 of Better When Shared
I swallowed hard, forcing myself to be brave, to lay my heart bare before the two people who held it in their hands. "I want you. Both of you. Not just for weekends or holidays or whenever I can fly in from London. I want to wake up with you, argue about whose turn it is to do the dishes, fall asleep watching bad movies on the couch. I want—I want everything."
My voice cracked on the last word, and suddenly Julian's mouth was on mine, hungry and desperate. His hands fisted in my sweater, pulling me closer as if afraid I might vanish if he loosened his grip. When we broke apart, both breathing hard, his eyes were wet.
"I love you," he said fiercely. "I've loved you for so fucking long, you idiot. And Nish loves you too."
Nisha was crying openly now, tears tracking down her cheeks even as she smiled. "We both love you. So much it hurts sometimes."
I gathered them both against me, one arm around each, holding the entire world in my embrace. "I love you too. Both of you. More than I know how to say."
Julian pulled back just enough to meet my eyes. "Promise me you won't disappear again. Even when it gets hard, even when we fight or I'm an ass or—"
"I promise," I cut him off, sealing the vow with another kiss. "Never again."
Nisha wiped at her tears, practical even in this emotional moment. "But how do we make this work? Your life is in London, ours is here."
I'd thought about this more than I cared to admit, lying awake in my London flat, staring at their faces on my phone screen, calculating time differences and flight costs and visa requirements.
"We move in together," I said simply. "Even if it means trading off weeks between Portland and London, working remotely, or quitting my job. We make it work."
"You'd do that?" Julian asked, wonder coloring his voice. "Upend your whole life?"
I laughed, the sound lighter now, freed from the weight of secrets too long kept. "My life is with you two. I wouldn’t be upending it, I’d be setting it right."
Nisha rose on tiptoes to kiss me, then Julian, her smile brighter than the sun glinting off the waves. "Can we really? The three of us?"
"The three of us," Julian confirmed, his arm tightening around my waist. "Fuck what anyone else thinks."
I looked out at the endless expanse of ocean, then back at these two beautiful people who, against all odds, had chosen to love me as I loved them. For the first time in years, perhaps ever, I felt completely, utterly at home.
"Well," I said, unable to suppress my grin, "I suppose we should go back and tell our hosts they're not the only throuple on this beach trip so I can move out of that damn guest room.."
Julian laughed, the tension finally melting from his shoulders as he took my hand in his left, Nisha's in his right. "Let's give thema few more minutes in that hot tub first. I think we interrupted their fun."
I looked around the beach, my heart a million pounds lighter, then pulled both of them into a tight hug. “No one is around, maybe we can have some fun of our own.”
Epilogue
Caleb
The Bancroft Hotel loomed before us, all Georgian limestone and family legacy, its massive columns flanking the entrance like disapproving sentinels. I felt Nisha's hand tighten in mine as we approached, her usual confident stride faltering beneath the weight of Bath's oldest and most prestigious establishment. On my other side, Julian walked with the careful neutrality he adopted whenever he sensed tension, his fingers brushing against mine in silent support. Six months into our official throuple status, and here we were, crossing the threshold of my family's empire—the place I'd fled from nearly a decade ago, now returning with not one lover but two, both of whom I'd claimed as mine with a ferocity that would make my conservative parents apoplectic.
"Breathe, darling," I murmured to Nisha, whose pulse fluttered visibly at her throat. "It's just a bloody hotel."
"A hotel your family has owned for generations," she whispered back, adjusting the collar of her silk blouse for the third timesince we'd climbed out of the cab. "What if they hate us? What if they think I'm corrupting you both?"
Julian snorted softly. "If anyone's doing the corrupting, it's this one." He nudged me with his elbow, trying to lighten the mood. "Mr. 'Let's-Try-It-In-The-Coat-Closet-At-Thanksgiving.'"
"That was one time," I protested, though the memory sent a pleasant warmth through me. "Your parents never found out. And you weren't exactly reluctant."
Nisha's lips twitched despite her anxiety. "Boys, focus. We're about to meet Caleb's terrifying family."
"They already know," I reminded her, squeezing her hand as we passed through the revolving doors into the marble-floored lobby. "I've been living with you both since June. They know I've taken the West Coast position. They know everything."
Well, perhaps not everything. They knew the sanitized version—that I was in a committed relationship with a married couple, that we'd established a home together in Portland, that I'd arranged to oversee all my firm's West Coast hotel projects to make our arrangement work. They didn't know the raw, beautiful truth of us—the way Julian arched beneath me when I filled him, the sounds Nisha made when we both took her at once, the tangle of limbs and hearts we'd become in the small hours of morning.
"Knowing and accepting are different things," Julian murmured, his eyes scanning the opulent lobby with its crystal chandeliers and antique settees. "You barely mentioned your parents' reaction."
Because there hadn't been one, not really. Just my father's stiff silence on the phone and my mother's brittle inquiry about whether I'd be home for Christmas. "They've sent their regrets," I said, the words sour on my tongue. "Too busy with some social gathering in Monaco."
