Page 54 of Three of Us

“We weren’t together then.” I shook my head, rubbing a hand over my buzzed hair. “We’re pretty new. Still trying to work my way back to what it was like with Sam, but things have changed a bit. It’s not straightforward anymore.” I sighed, wishing that we were back to normal. Or maybe a new normal. “You seeing anyone?”

“Nah, I did have a girlfriend. More of a friends-with-benes type arrangement, but there was a certain redhead that I couldn’t stop thinking about.” He motioned to the house where Macca had gone to check in on Scottie and Ally. “When all the shit went down with work, he was the only person I wanted to talk to.” He shook his head. “He talked me off a ledge I wasn’t sure I could come back from. Then when he invited me here, I felt like I could breathe again. Being back in the country was exactly what I needed.”

“Where are you from?”

“Bit west of the Gold Coast. The ’rents own a small farm. They used to be pretty self-sufficient, but now that they’re older, they rent the barn space out for weddings and parties, that kind of thing. I hated it. Moved away from the Coast as soon as I could. Straight to Sydney so I could be a judge by the time I was forty and hang out on Oxford Street in my spare time.” His laugh held no humour, and his grimace told me that things hadn’t quite gone to plan. “As if I’d have spare time.” He shifted, resting both elbows on his knees and looked at the ground. “Had a position with one of the best firms in the country learning the ropes in court with plans to do an internship with a top QC—a barrister. It all went to shit when he busted me in bed with his son while his daughter-in-law watched us.”

I sputtered out a shocked cough. “What? How?”

“They arrived unannounced for Sunday brunch.” Even though he wore a flippant smirk, I could see the pain that lurked below the surface. He wore a sadness like I’d recognised in Sam. There was a healthy dose of disappointment too. “I worked hard for that position, but it wasn’t supposed to happen that way. That one night was worth it though, even if I did have to divert into another field.” He looked off in the distance and bit his lip, hiding a smile that was more genuine. “She was beautiful, and he had a dick that hit my tonsils when he topped me. I had no idea who his crusty old dad was. We didn’t exactly exchange family names when we met.”

I cleared my throat, the picture forming in my mind all too vividly, my dick instantly more than interested in where this conversation was going. “So, what, you’re into both guys and girls?” I desperately wanted him to keep talking so I could try to understand how he was so okay with himself.

“Yeah, I’m bi, like you.”

“Ah…” I hesitated. I wanted to scream no, but there was a whisper in the back of my head saying “yes,” and I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. To deny it. Because for once, I’d met someone who might have the answers I was looking for.

Attending a boarding school as kids, we’d soon learnt that any sign of weakness was defined as gay, and gay was lesser. It was “other.” On Sam’s family farm, while the atmosphere was better, there was never a hesitation in using gay as an insult. I thought I was fine because I liked girls too, so I’d buried any attraction to boys—to Sam—and convinced myself I fit in that little straight-edged box that everyone apparently wanted me in. But a week of seeing Sam move inside Ally and hearing him moan her name as he came, of clashing gazes and resisting the temptation to shower him with love in the same way I did for Ally had rocked my foundation so solidly that the cracks in the walls I’d erected were irreparable. “How did you realize?” I asked, my voice sounding strangled.

“Same as you, probably. I didn’t want to mess around with just the cheerleaders on the field when I was watching the footy. I wanted the players too.” He chuckled. “There were a few who were surprisingly receptive to that too.” The heat that washed over me made my face burn and a self-conscious laugh burst free from my lips. He wiggled his eyebrows. “There’s nothing like giving a blow job when you know exactly how good it feels.”

If he’d said that a week ago, I would have knocked him for six. But it would have been out of fear—from disgust that I’d been taught to feel. I was realizing I’d been internalizing my insecurities all along. Now? Well, I closed my eyes and thought back to that morning and the way I’d had to hold myself back from reaching for Sam and running my hand down his back to his arse. How I’d imagined touching and tasting him everywhere. I sucked in a breath. Yeah, I didn’t just want the stockwoman, I wanted the stockman too.

“Might not be as obvious out here, but being bisexual is pretty common,” he continued probably oblivious to the growing understanding of what I was. “Why not experience the best of both worlds, hey?” He smiled and playfully punched my arm, but that same tension, a sadness hovering in him just below the surface, had resurfaced. “I had to tell myself over and over that it’s nothing to be ashamed of, but I’m still not out to so many people. Pete thought I was straight, and we lived together for years. His sister—one of my oldest friends—has no idea. Work doesn’t either. I don’t understand why people think that liking dick makes you less of a man, but it’d be career suicide in my firm. Look at Scottie. Same with you and Sam. You’re all the epitome of masculine.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine what you all went through as teenagers though. Realizing you were different, especially with Scottie being gay. He probably thought he was the only gay farmer out here—”

“Station owner, not farmer. Stations are bigger than farms.”

“Oh, okay.” He nodded. “Still. Wouldn’t have been easy.”

“No.” I thought back on what Scottie was like before Macca. “He was much quieter. Didn’t laugh anywhere near as much as he does now. He’s lighter now too. It’s as if he’s no longer carrying this weight on his shoulders anymore. It was holding him back and none of us even knew. Now he’s more confident in himself.”

“I’m glad Pete’s been good for him. He’s a good bloke. I miss having him cluttering up my apartment.” He became serious again, the heaviness he was holding back, seemingly overtaking him with the expulsion of his breath. “I dunno if I can go back there. Every time I think about getting on that train, or even going back to my apartment, I have a bloody anxiety attack. I was nearly hyperventilating trying to figure out how to get my job back.”

“Why do you need it back?”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Do you have any idea how expensive Sydney is? You can’t just keep an apartment there and not work your arse off.”

“So, give it up. Move somewhere else. Go home. Stay in Longreach. Whatever. Why do you need to live in Sydney if you’re not happy?”

“Because…” He paused and looked at me like I’d given him the answer to the questions of the universe, but the fight soon left him again. “It’s expected. It’s what I am.”

“Okay,” I conceded. He knew himself better than me. It just didn’t seem like that was what he wanted, but what did I know?

“Anyway, I don’t want to think about that now.” He dismissed the topic with a flip of his wrist. “Tell me more about your little trio. How long have you known Sam for?”

“All our lives.” I smiled. “We grew up together.”

He sighed and clasped his hands together. “Childhood sweethearts. That’s so romantic. Urgh, the sweetness is killing me. You two are especially adorable around each other. You try to hide that you’re madly in love with each other, but it’s so obvious.”

I startled, shocked that he thought he saw something between us. “What? How is it obvious?”

Phoenix laughed. “Are you kidding me? Sam looks at you like he wants to carry your baby and the way you watch him? It’s as if you can’t drag your eyes away from him. From both of them. You watch them like you want to protect them with everything inside of you.”

He was right, I did look at both of them like that. At least, that’s how I felt when I looked at them—I wouldn’t hesitate to step in front of a charging bull if it meant protecting either one of them. It’s how I ended up playing basketball with Blond to begin with. Ally tried helping get him in the trailer, but he was being stubborn. Not moving at all except to paw the ground and snort. I thought he was going to charge. I didn’t even think. I’d jumped that fence with the ball and distracted him just to get Ally out of the way. I couldn’t risk her being in there with him.

I’d done it with Sam too, catching a brown snake as long as I was tall when it lunged for Sam on our summer muster. Ally had lopped off its head and gutted it. We’d eaten the bastard that night for dinner. But I never thought for a moment that it was reciprocated. That there was any hope of Sam being into me.

The years of denying that part of me reached a crescendo, the wave breaking over me and washing away the remainder of that wall I’d constructed around me. Had Sam gone through the same thing because of me? Is that why he was constantly pulling back when the three of us were together? Was it because he couldn’t bear to touch me for fear he’d shatter, just like I had felt that morning?

Damn it, what had I done? Why had I been so blind? Why had I bought into the propaganda so much? Why was the façade I’d erected so sharp, that whenever I repeated the hatred a shard had broken off and stabbed him?

The absolute certainty that that’s exactly what had happened almost drowned me, the churning whitewash dragging me under. I needed to fix it. I needed to show Sam that he was perfect.

“I’ve gotta go, man.” My words came out fast and I stood quickly. “Night.” I didn’t wait for him to answer, taking off in a sprint to the cabin.

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