“We had a meeting of the minds,” Dylan replied.
“And of the hearts,” Rus added with a twinge of a playful smile growing on his face.
He always looked so much softer, sweeter when he smiled. Though he certainly rocked the default stern scowl he had most of the time.
“You’ve been avoiding us,” Rus continued.
“No.” Kaiden stuffed his phone into his pocket, then went back to reviewing documents on his computer. “It’s just been hectic lately.”
“So, about our little make-out session,” Rus said, bluntly moving them right into the awkward conversation Kaiden had tried his best to avoid.
“We’ve been talking about what happened between us the other night,” Dylan said, standing oh so close to Rus.
Kaiden could practically feel the chemistry oozing off them, the sizzle of their barely tamed passion, and he knew they’d shown up at his job to break the news to him. They were into each other. It was so obvious. In fact, Kaiden couldn’t believe it’d taken him this long to realize Dylan had a thing for Rus. Well, usually Dylan didn’t dance around feelings. He just sort of made a move on someone and then moved on. Clearly, Rus was special.
Who was he kidding? Of course, Rus was special. There was this passionate and powerful energy constantly flowing off him. Kaiden would be jealous if he weren’t so entranced.
“I already know you two have a thing,” Kaiden said dismissively. “I’m not trying to avoid you because of it. I really have been busy, but also, I didn’t want it to be weird between us. The whole kiss-off thing. It was fun. But it was just—”
“We like you,” Dylan and Rus blurted in unison.
Kaiden paused, confused and concerned. They liked him? Why? Were they messing with him? Was he misinterpreting the meaning? Like could mean a million different things. Positive for sure, but not necessarily attraction.
“We all needed a little time to process our feelings,” Rus said. “Figure things out, see where we all stood.”
“Uh-huh.” Kaiden blinked.
“It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway,” Rus said with a smirk. “We’re friends. We want to stay friends. But now we find ourselves in this potential entanglement.”
“Meaning?” Kaiden needed Rus to just spit it out, say what he meant, what they meant. He looked to Rus, then Dylan, then the precarious space between them.
“We want to date you,” Dylan said. “Assuming you want to date us.”
“Huh? How in the hell would that even work?”
“Poly,” Rus said rather aloofly.
“I’m sorry, but we’re all supposed to date at the same time?”
“Yes,” Rus said. “Of course, that is only if there’s a mutual attraction toward us.”
“Wait, what?”
“We don’t want to pressure you,” Dylan said. “But we didn’t really have much choice since you’ve been dodging us.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I was confused.” Kaiden grimaced. “Still am, sort of. Mostly.”
They both skirted around the counter, easing their way to the same side as Kaiden, removing his buffer.
“Okay, I get you guys wanting to date, I really do,” Kaiden said, gesturing to and between them. “And I kind of sort of get why you’re trying to include me.”
“Oh?” Rus cocked his head.
It was not a curious tilt but a confident one. He already had some annoying rebuttal to whatever Kaiden planned to say. Kaiden could feel it in his bones. The most irritating part was that Kaiden wasn’t even sure what his next words were going to be, so it made Rus so damn smug.
“You don’t want to ruin our friendship,” Kaiden said, stumbling over his own thoughts. “I get that, really, I do. So, you’re trying to include me as you guys pursue your thing. But I’ll be fine, honestly.”
“If we liked each other and didn’t like you, don’t you think it’d be easier for us to just not include you?” Rus asked.
