AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Youshouldn’t be surprised.” I scoop her up off the floor and into my arms again.
Our lips tangle together again in kiss after kiss…And I’m still not used to this. Not used to being able to kiss her in the living room without fearing she’s going to run away.
This is my reality now. And it’s my everything.
“So, you’re saying–” Laney mumbles against my lips between kisses. “If I got my hands on a cheerleader uniform, you’d–”
“Fuck the hell out you, yeah.” I’m so close to taking her back to my bedroom it’s not even funny.
A throat clears from the doorway of the living room.
Dad.
We really need our own place.
I drop Laney to her feet. She scrambles to make herself look presentable. “Hi, Edwin,” she greets in a high pitch like we’re teenagers having been caught making out in the broom closet at school.
“I don’t mean to…interrupt,” he says with a grimace. “But Mason is here to pick you up, Nate.”
I check my watch. “Right on time.”The bastard.
Laney tips forward onto her toes. Her excitement is palpable. You’d think he’d come to take her on a date. That was last night, though. Tonight, it’s guys’ night.
Mason and I tried to negotiate with Seth and Jack to have Laney come along, but of course, to them, that was the exact opposite of guys’ night so.
“I’ll go say hi, if that’s okay?” Laney squeaks, looking over her shoulder at me for permission.
I roll my eyes. “Laney, you don’t have to ask me to go say hi to your boyfriend.”
“I know, I just…” She flushes.
It’s the early days, so I get it. We’re still learning and adjusting. Figuring out how sharing works, what hurts, what works. I appreciate how eager she is to make sure that no one’s feelings are hurt.
However, that means Mason and I have to work hard to reassure her often.
This is something I hope will fade with time, though I wouldn’t trade our period of discovery for the world.
I shake my head. “You’re silly.”
That’s all she needed. Laney disappears from the living room in a flash.
The greeting is audible throughout the apartment, Laney shouting Mason’s name, the barrage of kisses to follow.
My dad crosses his arms and leans against the archway into the living room. “I can’t say I understand it–”
“But you don’t have to.” I give him a “it is what it is” kind of shrug.
Dad smiles. “You’re right. I don’t.” His eyes darken, a serious tightness to his lips. “As long as you’re happy.”
It’s been a more difficult sell to some people than others.
Sonia’s been great about it, so have Abigail and Bridget. Jack doesn’t know how to talk about it while Seth acts like it’s always existed. Meanwhile, my dad sees things in a more old-fashioned way. Doesn’t get the “sharing” aspect, doesn’t get that I don’t want to lay down a flag and stake my claim, keep the woman I love away from the other man in her life who loves almost as much as I do. My best friend.
My response is always that he doesn’t have to get it. It’s my life, not his. And after the way we almost lost each other nearly four years ago, my dad is learning to take that as an answer. That I am my own person with different philosophies and ways of operating in the world.
We don’t have to understand each other to love each other without condition.
“I’m so happy.” I’m unable to hide the way I beam. Because it’s everything.
