"I love you both," she whispered.
The stars listened as the only two men she wanted more than anything professed their love into the night, carrying their deep sounds onto the breeze.
Chapter twenty-eight
"Bothofthem?!"Finnpractically screamed. They were standing in an old, abandoned wooden pavilion located just off the main road. Besides the occasional car whizzing by on the narrow two-lane road, it was peaceful out.
Turning on her heel, Sapphire's pink and yellow sneakers scraped against the gritty cement foundation that ran the length of the pavilion as she turned to look at Finn, who was still not recovered from the shock of her confession.
"You had sex with both of them?!" Finn's face was slightly red, and her eyes comically round. "And they're—they're cool with that? I mean—fuck—I guess they would have to be if they did it, right?" Finn sputtered, now talking more to herself than to her. "Holy fuck."
Sapphire put both hands on her hips and stared at the girl. "Could you be any louder?"
Spreading her arms wide, Finn gave her an incredulous look. "There's no one here."
She was right. The pavilion was located a few miles from the main downtown Holter where the buildings petered out into occasional steel buildings belonging to farms or industrial workshops. Finn told her when she had picked her up earlier from the café that she was showing her the old farmers’ market. Looking around the long open-air building, Sapphire could easily imagine the market: various stalls set up on either side of the long pavilion. People pulling up in their trucks from the main road, their tires crunching on the gravel, which was now almost completely hidden by overgrown grass. It would have been nice.
"So, they used to use this place?" she asked, walking over to a particular knotted-looking beam. Though it looked pretty gnarled, it seemed to be in pretty sturdy condition.
"Yeah," Finn nodded. "It was for the monthly farmers market until the farmers market in Stardust kind of pushed it out of business, and our weak mayor just let it happen. People think he took some sort of under-the-table buy-out or something. Needless to say, a lot of local farmers were really sore about the loss of the place. Anyways," she said, stressing the word, "that is not the point. Get back to this…this…threesome thing you've got going on." She waved her hands at the words, eagerness written all over her face. "That's what I want to hear about."
Sapphire let out an aggrieved, if not overly dramatic, sigh. "If you must know-"
"I must," Finn urged, closing the distance between them.
Smiling at her friend's eagerness, Sapphire turned in a slow circle in the open pavilion and thought about her next words. "We kind of…" she paused and tried again. "Feelings between us just kind of cumulated," she finally said, satisfied with that explanation because wasn't that the most accurate? Didn't the want between the three of them kind of just boil over?
"And no one is jealous or left out?"
Sapphire stopped mid-turn with her back to Finn, hiding the smile that pulled at her lips. "No one is left out. We make sure of that," she added carefully.
Finn let out a whistle behind her. "You scandalous little slut-bucket. At the same time? Are you saying it’s at the same time?!"
Exasperated and more than a little embarrassed, Sapphire turned around, fists clenching at her sides. "I thought you would handle this better, but you're making me have some real regrets!" she yelled.
She could hardly make eye contact with Finn, and her face and neck felt like it was on fire as mortification so pure and bright stole up her body.
Holding out her hands, Finn gave her a soft smile. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she rushed out. "I'm just so shocked. Those two don't look like the sharing type. Hell, even as sexy as you are, you don't look like the type to have two dudes banging you." Sapphire could tell Finn was struggling to look contrite even as absolute amusement glittered in her eyes. "Damn," Finn continued. "I swear this makes me just want to step my game up, to be perfectly honest."
Sapphire tried not to imagine how Finn would be with two girls instead of the string of girls she was juggling off and on now.
Feeling some of the heat from her face die down at the amusing thought, Sapphire stared off into the distance at the large field surrounding the lone pavilion, her eyes stopping on a few hay bales a few yards off.
"It's not a game. It's real," she said slowly.
She thought of Joel whispering his words of love in her ear as he rocked into her body or the way Hayden held her in the shower and cleaned her up, telling her how much he loved her as well.
"We care for each other."
Finn nodded at that as she kicked a stray stick off the cement floor back onto the grass. "You know the town is going to implode when this gets out, right?"
Sapphire heaved a sigh. "Is it too naïve to hope it doesn't get out?"
Finn let out a harsh laugh. "Hell yes. It will come out. Not by me," she assured her. "But it will come out sooner or later, and people will start talking so damn fast it will be like a wildfire."
Sapphire didn’t want to think about that. "Come on, let's go to the beach."
Making their way back to the black scooter, Finn got on first, followed by Sapphire. With their beach bag crammed into the little cargo box on the back, they intended to spend the rest of the day at Vic's private beach.
