Page 47 of Misadventures of a Curvy Girl
“Ireland,” I say, and my voice is lower and sharper than I want it to be, but seeing her upset like this has me on edge. “He’s a fucking idiot. You’re beautiful and perfect.”
If my words were arrows, they’d be bouncing hopelessly off her armor now and dropping uselessly to the floor.
“Of course I am,” she says with more of that false, hard brightness. “I know that. Well, I think I’m going to head back to the farmhouse now—I should probably get some work done before dinner, and I thought I could make dinner tonight since you guys usually make it, so I should also head out to the store…”
She’s babbling, talking fast and lively, as if worried that if she doesn’t, we’ll try to comfort her again. She gets her things, and I grab my things too, deciding to call it a day at the tavern. I don’t want to be apart from her even in the best of situations, but especially not when some shitbag has said something awful about her.
We all head outside together, Ireland still chattering until the moment we get into separate cars and drive home. And once we’re in the kitchen—Caleb and I taking over dinner preparation by unspoken agreement—with her working at the table, Caleb tries to bring it up once again.
“I don’t like that he said those things,” he says while stabbing his fingers through his hair. “I hate even more that they’ve upset you. Tell me how to fix it, peach. Tell me how to make you feel better.”
She looks up from her laptop, and when she does, her eyes are hard and her mouth is set in a mulish line. “You can make me feel better by not talking about it.”
Caleb opens his mouth, and she holds up a hand. “I mean it, Carpenter.” Her voice is truly serious, absent any fake cheeriness or falsely casual confidence now. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
A limit is a limit is a limit. An entire adult lifetime of polyamory has taught us that. Caleb gives me a helpless look, and I give him a small nod, telling him I understand his frustration, his need to protect our woman from any and all pain, but also that we can’t do that if she doesn’t want us to. And hell, maybe it would be impossible anyway, because I’m not sure how to comfort her. How can she not see how fucking beautiful she is? How devastatingly sexy that body is? How much we want to love and cherish it and her?
We make dinner, and then we make love, shower, and make love again. As I watch her pretend her way through a normal evening, I see the waves of hurt and anger flicker through her like electric currents. I see her swing between the unfocused and unconscious real confidence I’ve grown used to from her and the almost-harsh forced confidence she had in the tavern after we heard Lyle. I see her move from happy and sexy to insecure and worried and then back to happy and sexy again.
And I realize something about myself as I watch her. Something not even years of therapy could teach me—something that seems painfully obvious now that I see it.
People aren’t just one thing.
People aren’t just confident and then that’s it, there’s nothing that can dent that confidence. People aren’t just brave and then free from fear their entire lives. We exist in tangles of virtue and weakness simultaneously—we are the best and worst of ourselves all at the same time.
A soldier who faced bullets and bombs but is now afraid of the dark.
A scared, sensitive boy who made himself so tough he’s forgotten how to be vulnerable.
A man who is fierce possession and cold reserve all at once.
And maybe all that is okay—maybe words like best and worst or virtue and weakness are misleading. Maybe they incorrectly assign value to things that aren’t good or bad in and of themselves; they’re simply human.
And it’s with this epiphany that I climb into bed with the people I love. I wrap my arms around Ireland, one of my hands finding Caleb’s and lacing with his fingers, and I close my eyes against the darkness. For the first time, I don’t fight the fear. I don’t struggle with it. I allow it just to be, bobbing on the surface of my mind along with all the other things I’m thinking and feeling. Like that I love Ireland and Caleb, that I want this to be for the rest of our lives, that I want them inside every wall or gate I’ve ever erected. That Greta-dog is almost out of dog treats, and that once I get the next insurance check, I should be able to order stuff for the new tavern kitchen.
That actually it’s okay to be afraid, okay to be anxious, and it would be okay no matter what, but it’s especially okay with the woman I love nestled against my chest and the man I love snoring gently beside her.
Somehow, by some magic, as I trace the oval glow and shadow of the nightlight on the ceiling, I manage to fall asleep.
And I sleep the whole night through.
Chapter Seventeen
Ireland
He did it.
I wake up wrapped in the world’s warmest, best-smelling blanket, and when I open my eyes to see Ben’s face all open and young-looking as he sleeps, a spike of joy goes right through my chest.
He did it.
He did it for me—for all of us—and suddenly, with a crest of dizzying happiness, I can see the future ahead for the three of us. Me moving in, us sharing sex and sleep every night. Maybe someday we could share even more…weddings and babies and all the things everyone else gets to have. Why not us? It may look different, it may take figuring out, but to share forever and more with these men would be worth it. So fucking worth it.
I slide out of bed and take a quick shower as they doze on. Dawn is breaking and they’ll be up soon, and I want to have a big breakfast waiting when they are. I’m already smiling to myself as I imagine giving them the news. I’ll tell them I’m going to move in, and then they’ll grin—even my broody soldier will be smiling—and then they’ll start thanking me with their mouths and their fingers and their cocks…
With a full-body shiver of anticipation, I gr
ab my phone to go downstairs and the screen goes bright. Notification after notification are stacked—some from social media, some from email—but what strikes me first is a text from my boss, looking like it came in right after my three-hour fuckfest with Ben and Caleb began last night.
