“When did you know you were bi?” she asks.
I close my eyes and pause to think. “I don’t know when exactly it hit me,” I say. “But it was only once I’d turned … well, thirty”—I sigh—“that I was able to really, truly accept that I was. That I am,” I clarify.
“Mmmm,” Juniper’s soft rumble of a reply goes right through me, sending a tingling sensation through my chest, down to my toes.
“What about you?” I ask.
“I kissed my sister’s best friend in eighth grade.” She shakes her head, and I look down at the movement on my chest. “And it turns out, even though I definitely was, she definitely wasn’t.” She sighs, heaving herself up then turning to face me.
I sit up more too and nudge Ethan, who may have drifted off to sleep for a second.
“For a long time, I actually thought I was gay.” She shrugs then eyes Ethan. “But I was dead wrong about that.”
We all giggle.
“So, eighth grade is …?” I ask.
“Oh, right. Yeah.” She looks up for a second, calculating, then flicks her gaze back to me. “I must’ve been thirteen, fourteen?”
I nod, then this unexpected wave of emotion washes over me. “I wish I’d known back then,” I say. “Like, for sure I mean.” I grow quiet, and for a while we all sit and stare at the embers of the dying fire.
“When Mia first realised,” Ethan starts, glancing over to me as if asking my permission to continue.
I nod. Go ahead, I think. He knows this story as well as I do.
Juniper looks between us both, and listens, and waits.
“When Mia first realised she was bi, she went through this sort of … sad phase?” he says, and I nod again. “She told me she felt like she missed out on a lot.” He looks down at his hands, feeling the moment, as I had when telling him all this back then.
“I was sort of …” I take over. “It almost felt like I was …”
“Mourning,” Juniper says, as if she’s known all along.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Yeah,” Ethan agrees.
“And don’t get me wrong.” I take Juniper’s hand but set my gaze upon my wonderful, perfect husband. “I would never change what I have now,” I tell him. I look to her and affirm, “Whatwehave. But sometimes … Just sometimes …” I sigh. “I kinda wish I’d had the chance to explore that other side of me, y’know?”
Juniper nods and gives my hands a comforting squeeze. “So, what’s stopping you doing that now?”
I swallow. My head is spinning. “Well …” I try to laugh it off. “If I just so happened to stumble across the perfect woman, who Ethan and I both liked, and she just so happened to like us back, and—” I throw my hands up to the snowy skies above. “It’s just … it’s hardly likely,” I finish, quieter now, as I come down, down, down again.
I bite my lip then reach for the tequila, but Juniper puts her hand on my arm, stopping me.
“I like you,” she says, staring right into my eyes, into my soul. Then she turns to Ethan. “And I like you.”
My eyes grow wide.
Ethan looks at me then back to her. Then, with a lopsided grin, he says, “We like you too.” He sits back, arms folded behind his head. “Now, I dare you two to kiss.”
“Ethan!” I throw a cushion at him and he bats it away, laughing, but it hits a candle, which then teeters and tips in its holder, spilling wax and bringing the flame near the fur blanket.
“Fuck!” Juniper launches herself off the sofa to blow it out then collapses on the blanket, where we swiftly slide down to join her.
“You nearly burned the house down!” I gape at Ethan, who, to be fair, looks truly mortified.
“You started it!” he rebuffs, the apples of his cheeks taking on a bashful glow.
