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My lawyer is his dad. I'm in my lawyer's house. And he's married.
Juanita's gonna be so sad.
“Okay, so…” Licking my lips nervously, I eye Owen up and down. “Don't freak out, but your stepdad is kind of my public defender. For the drug shit.”
Owen gazes at me in surprise for half a second before bursting into laughter. “Oh my god, you look like you're going to puke. Why are you so scared? He's not here, remember?”
“Yeah, but… you're not gonna kick me out? Or anything? Isn't this like a conflict of interest? Will I get in trouble?”
Fuck, do I need to tell my PO that I'm here?
Owen pushes off the wall, laughter dying down. “Dev, relax,” he says quietly. “You’re not his client right now. You’re my guest. He doesn't know that I know, and we can keep it that way.”
I let out a slow breath as my shoulders loosen just a fraction. “Still. Small world. Of all the houses I could end up in.”
“Well, let's just put it to the back of our minds.” Spinning around, he marches over to the couch and plops onto a cushion. “Pepperoni sound good, or are you one of the weirdos with pineapple?”
I hesitate briefly before following him. “Pineapple on pizza is superior and those who don't like it are weak.”
“I don't trust anyone who mixes sweet and savory on purpose.”
“Yeah?” Taking up the spot beside him, I smirk, almost feeling like my old self again. “You know what pineapple does to cum, right?”
Owen winks playfully. “Your cum tasted just fine without it, at least the small amount I got before you ran away.”
An uncomfortable feeling settles in my gut, and I look away to watch him scroll through movies on the flat-screen. Awkward silence settles between us.
Logically, I know I should say something to make it less… weird, but I don't know how to address the elephant in the room.
He ends up doing it anyway, thank god.
“It's okay, you know,” he says, putting on some old zombie movie. “That you didn't want a blowjob from me. I'm not mad about it or anything.”
“So, like… How does this all work anyway? With you, Logan, and Salem? I've been curious.”
He doesn’t look away from the screen when he answers. “A lot of talking and trust. A lot of checking in. It's not as complicated as people assume.”
I pick at a loose thread on my jeans, processing his words. “So there’s, like… rules?”
“Oh, tons. Not in a controlling way, but more like… boundaries. What’s okay, what’s not. What needs to be shared. Everyone's boundaries are different in their dynamic.”
“And you’re cool with Logan being married?”
“Yeah,” he says easily, shrugging again. “None of it threatens what’s actually mine.”
That catches my attention. “Which is?”
“Logan chooses me every day. Even when he’s choosing Salem, too. Our relationships are separate, but no less important.”
“And you don’t get jealous?” The thought of someone I love giving more attention to someone else makes me feel physically ill.
Owen pulls up a food delivery app on his phone, seeming completely at ease with my questions. “Sometimes. Jealousy’s a manufactured response, though. It usually means I need reassurance, which Logan is quick to give. Everything balances out.”
It’s such an… odd concept to grasp. I mean, I get it—you can't put it all on one person to fulfill every single need and all that, but one person is all I want. There’s nothing against polyamory, I just don't think it's for me.
The movie drones on in the background, zombies shuffling through grainy streets, but my thoughts drift somewhere else entirely—to the tour last year when Christian was sharing Arya with whoever wanted to join in.
“What about you?” Owen eventually asks, his eyes on the side of my face. It takes me a moment to answer.
