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“It’s okay to hurt, Lucien,” Cort continued calmly. “I’ve been watching you since Calder arrived, and I think you’ve been hurting almost since he appeared. You’ve been dealing with all these emotions you don’t know what do to with. And all that pain comes out of you in the form of anger. It’s why you have been snapping endlessly at Calder. It’s the only way you can deal with the pain you’ve associated with him.”
“Whatever,” Lucien grumbled, trying not to think about how right Cort might be.
“Except, when Gio came into the picture, all those other emotions associated with Calder became okay. They stopped being confusing and wrong. The pain went away and with it, the anger.”
“Well, that’s all over now. Gio rejected both of us.”
“You’re hurting because you’re sure you’re going to lose what you’ve gained with Calder and what you found with Gio.”
“He rejected us!” Lucien snapped. “Do you know what that feels like? To be rejected in front of your family? To be tossed aside when you thought you had something?”
Cort shook his head. “No, not quite like that, but yeah, rejection sucks. You have a right to feel hurt and betrayed by Gio. Even as someone who has said time and again that he’s not interested in relationships and is an incurable playboy.”
“Fuck off,” Lucien muttered without his earlier heat. He paced away from Cort, his hands shoved in his pockets.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have teased. Baer might have told me his story of shopping with you and running into one of your past conquests. Since I fell for Grey, I think I’ve been looking forward to you finding your mate and falling just as hard.”
Lucien spun around to face Cort, holding his hands out to his sides. “This is what you were looking forward to?”
“No, not this,” Cort corrected with a gentle smile. “No, I was more thinking about the part where you look at the person who is the other part of your soul with the sappiest smile on your face and everyone can see it, but you don’t give a damn. Or maybe the part where you turn into a puddle of goo when your mate thanks you for some insignificant thing.” Cort made a little scoffing noise. “Should have known you’d require two mates.”
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter what Grey sees, because right now I don’t have any,” Lucien muttered throwing his hands up in the air.
“You’ve still got Calder, unless you’re intent on fucking that up now.”
“What?” Lucien gasped. He marched toward Cort, his fists balled up at his sides, but the man didn’t back down. He merely crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Lucien in the darkness. “Are you saying Gio’s rejection is my fault?”
“No, I’m saying that you’ve got your head in your fucking ass and not listening to what Gio’s said. Same way you didn’t listen to your heart when you were in pain with Calder. You just opened your mouth, spouted a bunch of angry shit, and nearly ruined what you could have with that very wonderful man.”
“What do you mean I didn’t listen to Gio? I fucking heard what he said. He didn’t want to be in a poly.”
“Again,” Cort added.
“What?” Lucien snapped.
“Again. He said he didn’t want to be in a poly again.” Cort held out his hands to Lucien, his eyebrows raised like the pieces should be fitting together. Like Cort was handing him the most precious gift of all. A second chance. But Lucien didn’t see it.
Cort sighed and rolled his eyes. “I can’t think of too many people who’d be game to try polyamory. It’s hard enough to make a relationship work with only one person, but Gio’s clearly done this already. He knows all the problems that could occur, and somewhere along the way, he got burned. Yeah, you got rejected today by him. Now imagine if he was involved in a relationship with two or more people and they rejected him. Would you jump into another with two relative strangers?”
It felt like someone had kicked him in the stomach. A queasy wave of unsteadiness washed over him. How had he missed that? Lucien smoothed both hands over his bald head and left them there, trying to catch his breath again.
“And on top of that, we’re trying to drag him into a bunch of crazy, dangerous shit,” Lucien murmured softly to himself.
“Have you and Calder done anything to prove that you’re not going to be anything like the people who hurt him in the past?” Cort added.
“What? No. But…we didn’t know. When we saw Gio before, it was just for sex and laughs. We weren’t thinking about soul mates and forever.”
Cort shrugged. “But tonight, you tried to convince him to take something that was string-free and laughs and turn it into something that’s supposed to last forever.”
