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Dmitri blinked at him. “Um.”
“Knox is probably over at my place firing up the barbeque, and Aksel’s probably making dick shadow puppets with his hand, and you look like you could use some beer.”
“I’m not really a drinker, and I don’t know if that’s a good idea with where my head’s at,” Dmitri argued, but he pushed himself to his feet, then grabbed Roman’s crutches for him while he put his orthotics back on. “Besides, you’re a government employee. Should you be encouraging me to imbibe?”
As he did up the straps, Roman looked over at him with a slight smile, and he shook his head. “I was high out of my mind for my first hand-job. It was under this dock. It was summer, and there was a record drought, and the lake had receded about twenty feet in. Aksel had a joint he stole from one of the lockers in gym, and he told me it was practice for when we met girls.”
“Him givingyoua hand-job…was practice?” Dmitri asked as Roman took the crutches and heave himself up.
Roman laughed. “Yes. And I was just in love enough, and just stupid enough, to believe him. Because not believing him meant knowing the truth—and I wasn’t ready for that yet.”
Dmitri let him walk, trying not to let the words hit him. Because maybe there was something there Roman was trying to tell him, but he wasn’t ready for that either.
* * *
When a prosthetic armdropped in his lap, Dmitri jumped, almost spilling his beer. He stared down at it with slightly horrified eyes as Knox laughed and plucked it off him.
“That’s a sign of affection,” he said, gently setting the arm on the coffee table. “It’s like when a cat kills a bird and leaves it in your bed. It’s a sign of them trying to take care of you.”
“That’s, uh,” he said, and stopped. Swallowing another long drink, Dmitri swiped his hand across his mouth and glanced across the room where Aksel walked over to whisper something into Roman’s ear. He didn’t think coming there was a mistake, but his heart was feeling battered, and it was making it harder to resist the temptation to text Raphael and make up vicious lies about Rian.
Because the moment he told the truth about Rian—that he was a nice guy, worth a shot—Raphael would say yes. He would say yes, because Raphael was lonely. He needed something new and different. Someone better than his exes, who only wanted bits and pieces of him and not him as a whole. And Dmitri wasn’t sure if Rian was that guy, but it wouldn’t surprise him if he was.
Taking another drink, Dmitri sat up properly and set the bottle down. One more and he’d be buzzed, and he couldn’t take the risk. “Are you happy? Being around these two so much?”
Knox blinked at him, then smiled. “Most of the time. Roman told me you know that we have a little…thing going on so you don’t have to be delicate. Why do you ask?”
Dmitri shook his head. “Just wondering if you ever get…I don’t know. Jealous or if it ever sucks?”
“Polyamory’s not for everyone,” Knox replied softly. “I didn’t know it was for me, and I think a lot of people buckle under the jealous moments.”
“Do you?” Dmitri asked.
With a soft laugh, Knox sat back and finished his water, holding the empty bottle pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “Look at them.” And Dmitri did. He looked at Aksel, who had his arm tight around Roman’s waist and was whispering something that was making Roman laugh with a full-body chuckle. Roman grinned, the way he never did at work. He eased back into Aksel’s grasp and went soft in ways Dmitri had never seen him do outside of that moment right there. “They have something that most people don’t—that most people never will. And it’s not ever going to be like that with us. They had so much history together before I came along, and I’ll never be a part of that.”
“Doesn’t that hurt?” Dmitri wondered. He sat back and tried to imagine what it would be like to share Raphael. To love him and be loved, but watch him love someone else too. It made him queasy enough he had to breathe through it, and when he looked up, Knox was staring at him. “Sorry.”
“We should get out of here.” Knox set his bottle down, then rose, extending Dmitri a hand. “You look like you need some actual fresh air.” He dragged Dmitri toward the door, stopping only when they heard Aksel’s voice calling out after them.
“Use protection, Sparky.”
Knox groaned and shut the door hard, pulling his keys out of his pocket. “I do like him. Even when he’s fucking obnoxious. But this isn’t like some magical paradise of non-stop sex that makes all of the rest worth it, so if that’s what you’re thinking…”
“That was definitely not on my mind,” Dmitri said quietly. He hopped into Knox’s car, and made a small, startled noise when Knox headed to the station. He parked around back, but instead of leading Dmitri inside, he took him to a tall set of iron stairs out back and gestured for him to go up to the roof.
Navigating it was treacherous in the dark, but Knox had his phone light pointed ahead of them, and when they came to the top, Dmitri’s breath caught in his throat. The city was aglow—softly, not like bigger cities with high risers and people who never slept. And above them was a sea of stars.
“Not too long ago, I had an existential crisis out here on this roof,” Knox said, leading the way to a couple of cheap chairs. “Fitz was out here, and he shared some of Wilder’s cupcakes with me, and I tried not to have a full-blown panic attack because I was feeling things for two men I had no right to be feeling.”
Dmitri’s face heated, and he clambered up next to Knox, clearing his throat when he was settled. “I wasn’t asking because I have a crush on Aksel or Roman. You know that, right?”
He could see the faint outline of Knox’ smile in the moonlight. “I didn’t think that was it.”
“And I’m not interested in some wild sex hook-up,” Dmitri added.
“I figured that out too.”
“I don’t even—” Dmitri started, and he stopped himself because apart from Raphael and his one very terrible birthday date, Dmitri hadn’t really talked to any of his friends about himself, and he wasn’t even sure Knoxwasa friend.
