Page 36 of Washed Up
“Probably yes, please, and thank you, I’ll have some of that,” Reid predicts.
He’s not wrong. I’d pay to see that. I’d pay to photograph it.
Fuck it. I want this. I do.
Wynter’s right. The only person getting in my way is me. It doesn’t matter what Lucidity’s fan base think, or the press, or the world. It doesn’t matter what the lady in the corner shop thinks, or the guy in the garage, or Harrison—. Itespeciallydoesn’t matter what Harrison thinks. He doesn’t get to dictate how I love or behave. Those are my choices to make. So why the fuck am I making decisions that are the very opposite of my own best interests?
Yes, I might get hurt. Yes, it might fall apart, but not giving it any chance at all is a way worse option. I’m a fool. All week, I’ve been hoping for a miracle, but I don’t need one. All I need to do is believe in it, in us.
When I’d get bogged down in everything, my dad would tell me that none of it mattered. So what if I got a C in English instead of an A? So what if I needed stuff printed on pink paper to make it easily comprehensible to me? He’d say: let go of thoseexpectations you’re putting on yourself, Iris. You’re building them up in your mind as things you have to do to make people accept you, but none of that is coming from them. All I want is for you to be happy, and you do that by being you. That’s it. You do it by being you and not letting anyone else dictate who that is or what it is you want.
And what I want right now is them.
I may not know them perfectly after a week, but I know them enough, love them enough to know that life without them will be a thousand times less… well… everything than it’ll be with them.
“She’s not blind, Wynter. She knows I share your bed.”
“Yeah, are you sure she knows that what happens in there isn’t just sleeping?”
“She does now,” I say, loudly enough to make sure they hear me. “And she’s not mad about it.”
“Told ya.”
The pair of them emerge from the kitchen, Reid with his arm hooked around Wynter’s throat. Lucidity fans would be whipped into a frenzy by this knowledge. Me? I’m almost relieved. I no longer feel like the base of some sort of fork. I don’t have to worry about spreading myself too thin. They can be happy shagging one another, as well as me.
Assuming they want to keep on shagging me and I haven’t screwed things up.
Believe in it, Iris.
I look at Reid. Then Wynter. Then Max.
I want this. It’s time to make it happen.
I smack a kiss on Reid’s lips, before moving on to crush Max in a hug and kiss him too, then to Wynter. He cocks a brow. “Yes, flirt?”
“You want one of those, too?”
For a heartbeat, I’m afraid he’ll say no.
“Yeah, Iris. Yeah, I do.”
He opens his arms, and I throw myself into his embrace.
“Fuck!” I hear Reid gripe. I pull away from Wynter, enough to turn my head, though he keeps on kissing my throat, and making me all jelly-limbed. “The cruel prince strikes again.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Wynter always gets the girl in the end,” Max says returning to the fireside. He bends and sets about lighting it. “It’s just the way it is.” He strikes a match and applies it to the kindling.
“Oh,” I say, and back up a little. Wynter just follows.
“It’s okay, Iris. We get it. He’s hot. And he’s new and exciting,” Max continues.
“Wait…. No. I mean…” I look to him and then across to Reid. “This isn’t me choosing him over you, either of you.
“Maybe we should sit down and talk.” Max herds us all towards the sofa, which is still not big enough for all of us. I wind up perched on the arm with my feet in Max’s lap, while Wynter and Reid occupy the other end.
“It’d be cool if we could negotiate this sensibly,” Max says.
