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I regret pressing her. I can see the hurt building in her mouth. “This is confusing. This whole thing.”
“What whole thing?” Nathan presses, joining my verbal assault. “Tell us what it is.”
“I don’t have to. You were both there, you’ve bothbeenthere.”
I smile. “Humor us, Laney.”
All at once, her composure bursts into something from another world, the volcano that’s been waiting to blow, releasing from the deepest parts of her. “You don’t think it’s fucking confusing when one second, I’m kissing you, and then the next, I’m kissing Nate? Literally within half an hour yesterday I’m kissing both of you, and it’s so fucking weird.”
“What’s weird about it?” Nate presses.
Here we go.
She shakes her head. “It’s wrong.”
Nate eggs her on. “Why?”
“Because I’m not supposed to kiss two guys within a half hour and like you both so much that I don’ know who to choose!” Laney yells.
Nate and I remain silent. Our feelings are warranted, the truth coming to light. The ease we’ve found in sharing her has a mutuality. That she wants us both. Needs usboth.
We can do this. I know we can.
“It’s wrong. It’s sowrong. And instead of choosing, I’m just going to walk away. I think that’s very mature of me, and I think you should both be grateful I’m sparing your feelings,” she says. “You two are best friends, and I’m tired of feeling like I’m coming between you two.”
Nate lunges forward a few steps. “So, what you’re saying is you like both of us?”
Laney opens her mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a wild laugh. A ridiculous one.
I love this laugh. Most days. Now, though, I want it to stop, want to know what’s on the other side of it. But I asked for her honesty. However brutal, however true.
I wait with utmost patience, throwing a look to Nate.
His expression isn’t very hopeful, mouth pursed in a thin line, blue eyes dulling.
“You guys are idiots!” she says through a laugh. “Ilikeboth of you? Are you crazy? Of course I like both of you. I like you both so much, it…” Her laugh takes a swan dive, shudders to a stop.
She seems to shrink before us. “I like you both so much it hurts me. Because every time I try to do the checks and balances, every time I try to figure out once and for all which one I choose, I remember something else wonderful about the other one that ruins everything.”
I smile. I love her so much. How pure she is. How she wants to get things right. “That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing.”
Laney shakes her head. “Of course it is, Mason. Because I’m supposed to be able to choose. And since I can’t, I’m walking away. Done and dusted.”
The room is quiet for a long moment.
She’s seemingly dropped the gavel on the situation. And I’m not sure what to say next.
Thank goodness Nate picks up where I falter. “What if you’re not? Coming between us?”
Laney frowns.
He takes a step closer to her. “What if that’s what we want?”
Laney leans away, until she’s cornered against the end of the bed. She grabs onto it to steady herself. “What the hell are you saying, Nate?”
Nate gives me one last look over his shoulder for permission.
I might not know the exact thing he’s about to say, but I trust him with everything I’ve got. So, I nod.
