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Then he’d tried to move past the useless merry-go-round of missed opportunities, knowing it was pointless to rehash what he’d already done wrong and thinking about what he should have done instead. Too late for that. What he needed to do now was figure out if he should try to fix it.
He wanted to. Not just because he wanted Maria, but because he hated thinking things might be uncomfortable when they ran into each other from now on. Even if she didn’t want him anymore, he didn’t like the idea that their future interactions would be so far removed from the flirtatious friendship they’d been forming. That he’d killed any chance of anything with her. But he didn’t know what the best move to make was.
Even though part of him wanted to just show up at her door and force her to talk to him—hell she’d done it to him often enough—he knew it wasn’t the best tactic to take. Not with something like this. But when was it time to stop giving her space and start pushing? He was a Dom, and right now he was a Dom out of control of the situation. It was his own fault, but he sure as hell didn’t like it.
When he finally got out of the pool, his muscles felt achy, which was not the best way to start his day. At least it was a Sunday and he didn’t have anything going on other than meeting up with Jared and Chris. Marissa was out of town doing something, Rick didn’t really care what she was doing, he was just glad she was away from Jared. Even though he knew her constant absences were a large part of Jared’s initial issues with their relationship, Jared always seemed happier when she was away. It meant he could spend more time with his friends without her souring it, so it wasn’t surprising the big man had wanted some company.
Something Rick was happy to give. Plus, maybe Jared and Chris could give him some advice. Both of them were in complicated relationships, after all, and one of them was miserable and the other completely happy. He could get pointers from both sides.
It didn’t take too long to realize maybe everything in Chris’ life wasn’t great either. For one, he barely ribbed Rick about Maria, and that was because (for two) he was definitely completely distracted. Staring off into space, eyes wandering around the room, but not actually looking at anything.
They were all sprawled out on Jared’s furniture. Jared took up most of the space on his small couch while Rick and Chris were both comfortably ensconced in his leather recliners. The television was on, but no one was watching, and Jared had put out some chips and salsa, but no one was eating. Another sign there was something wrong with Chris. Jared wasn’t a big snacker, but Chris sure as hell was. Rick could go either way, but despite his extended workout that morning, he didn’t really feel like eating.
His stomach was too full of unaccustomed anxiety.
Looking over at Chris, it was almost like looking at Justin. Except Justin would never sit draped over both the chair and the armrests like Chris was, but at least then the serious, almost brooding expression wouldn’t be an anomaly. Chris was the one who was usually smiling.
Picking up the throw pillow he’d removed from the recliner when he’d first sat down, Rick had it live up to its name and he lobbed it across the room at Chris’ head.
“Hey,” Chris barely batted it away in time to keep the pillow from catching him directly in the face.
“Hey,” Jared repeated, frowning at Rick over the top of his beer bottle, his brow knitting together in offended dignity. “Stop throwing my cushions around.”
“It’s a throw pillow.”
“Whatever. They’re decorations, not artillery.”
“You have issues,” Rick said, feeling slightly lighter as the absurdity of the conversation lifted his spirits a bit. That was more like it. None of this sitting around sullenly. Chris had picked the pillow back up and looked like he was contemplating whether or not it was worth Jared’s possible ire to try and return fire. “I know why I’m down, and I know why Jared’s down—“
“I’m not down,” Jared said, lifting his beer and smiling, as if to show how not-miserable he was. “I’m drunk.”
“—but why are you so down?” Rick finished, ignoring Jared. The big man was looking a bit under the hatches, to use one of Hilary’s phrases, but he figured Jared deserved it. After all, he couldn’t get drunk Friday or Saturday nights since he was usually working. Being a bouncer, he tended to have off Sunday and Monday evenings. So it made sense he’d choose today to get drunk, especially since he finally had an empty apartment to do it in.
Chris sighed, dropping the pillow back onto the floor, earning a dark look from Jared that he ignored. “Liam’s going to propose to Hilary soon.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Probably within the month.”
“Still not understanding what this has to do with you...”
“It’s girl-pressure,” Jared said solemnly, looking like a sage old wise-man. He nodded his head at both of them. “She’s Jessica’s best friend, and Jessica started dating Justin and Chris before Hilary and Liam got together. So now the pressure is on Justin and Chris, because once Hilary gets engaged, Jessica’s going to be wondering when her ring is coming.”
“How are you in such a crappy relationship when you know so much?” Chris asked, looking a bit disgruntled at the rather cavalier breakdown of his relationship problems. Jared shrugged.
“Does it really matter, if you guys aren’t at the same place Hilary and Liam are?” asked Rick. “I mean... your relationship is entirely different. A lot more complicated.”
Rubbing his hand over his face, in a tired kind of motion, Chris groaned and leaned back in the chair, letting his upper body hang off the edge of it before coming back upright. Kind of like a kid facing questions from his parents that he didn’t want to answer. “It just brings up all sorts of questions we don’t have the answer to. Like... should we have some kind of commitment ceremony? If we do, should one of us actually marry her? If so, who does? Will that change things? What about kids, parental rights and how they’ll feel about having three parents? What do we do if one of us marries her and, God forbid, there’s some kind of accident and the two who are married are in the hospital and the third one doesn’t have any kind of visitation rights?”
Rick whistled, while Jared let out a kind of grunting ‘huh.’
Truth be told, once Chris had brought up Hilary and Liam, Rick had suspected it might be something along the marriage issue lines, but honestly, he hadn’t thought it out as well as Chris and Justin obviously were. To him it had seemed a simple problem of deciding to have some kind of ceremony and, if they wanted to have one of them legally married to Jessica, to play rock, paper, scissors to figure out who got to do the deed. But there were definitely considerations beyond a wedding, which he hadn’t considered, but which were serious and substantial.
Actually, out of the three of them in the room, his own issues were looking a heck of a lot better. At least that was something.
“Have you talked to Jessica about it, yet?” he asked, knowing Justin and Chris had been trying to work everything out between themselves, but if there was really so much to consider then he doubted Jessica would take being left out of the conversation very well.
“Where do you think half of these questions came from?” Chris asked grumpily. “She got downright morbid when it came to accidents and deaths. I don’t think she actually wants to marry either of us.”
