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Chapter Nine
Trent
I’m barely waking up when I hear pounding on the front door. I sit up out of bed, startled. Who the hell would be at our door at this hour?
I hear footsteps moving down the stairs before I can get out my bedroom door, but even as Mason heads down, I’m right behind him. “Any idea who that is?” I ask him.
“No clue.”
He heads for the front door and unlocks it, glancing out the window before swinging it open. “Lizzy, what’s going on? What are you doing here so early?”
He steps out of the way and she steps inside. She looks frazzled, her blonde hair unbrushed and smudges of makeup below her eyes. “I couldn’t sleep,” she admits, “River took me to this club and she put this crazy idea into my head and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it,” she rambles until she runs out of breath.
“Easy, slow down. What are you talking about, what club?” Mason asks her.
She paces back and forth. “Ecstasia. It’s this club where it’s all about ‘free love,’ I guess, they’re super LGBT friendly and they cater to a large polyamorous crowd.”
“Poly whatsit?” I ask.
“Polyamorous,” she repeats, “It means you can love and be in a relationship with more than one person at a time.”
There’s a term for that? It’s a real thing, not just my own selfishness?
“Ok, so what is this crazy idea you’ve got?” Mason asks cautiously.
“I’m in love with Trent,” she blurts out.
My jaw drops and I start to speak, but she holds up a finger, “And so are you, aren’t you, Mason?”
The words stun me, and I expect our friend to protest. When I look at him, he hesitates, but I think we’d both know if he was anything but a hundred percent honest right now. “Yes,” he says quietly.
“But I thought you…” I look from him to Lizzy, and he grimaces.
“Yeah. It’s…complicated.”
Lizzy looks confused, until Mason sighs. “It’s why neither one of us went after you back in college, we both knew the other had feelings for you, and we didn’t want to hurt each other,” he explains.
“Oh,” her voice is tiny when she replies.
“But where are you going with this, Lizzy?” Mason demands, looking embarrassed, “Trent doesn’t swing that way, and you’re not into me like that, so the pieces aren’t lining up.”
“I might-” I say, just as Lizzy also speaks up and says: “But I am.”
“What?” he asks.
Lizzy looks at me, eyes wide. “Um…you go first.”
I look at Mason. “Look, I don’t know what the hell I’d label it, I haven’t gotten that far yet, but I know that when I look at my future, I see you in it. I always have. I pictured both of us as old men in rocking chairs on a front porch somewhere with our wives at our side, but…”
I turn from him to Lizzy, “I also kind of pictured you being on that porch with us. Maybe I was wrong about the ‘wives’ part and we were always just meant to share the girl that we both love.”
Lizzy’s blue eyes welled with tears. “I kind of like that idea,” she admitted, then turned to Mason, “Because I’ve been in love with you just as long as I’ve loved Trent. I just never thought I stood a chance with you, especially once you told me you were in love with him, too.”
“And you wouldn’t date him, either, because you didn’t want to hurt me.”
“I still don’t,” she says, brushing tears from her cheeks, “I’m worried that by just crashing the party with no warning, I’ve messed up your whole life.”
Mason takes a step over to her and dries her tears with his thumbs, clutching her face in both hands. “Life wasn’t whole until you came back,” he tells her firmly.
