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Someone took the tray from him, and he hurried over and gave me a hug. Then he leaned back and said, “Oops, I got bechamel sauce on you.”
“It’s fine.”
Lark joined us just then and exclaimed, “Hi, Hudson! Did you get a cup of lasagna?”
Noah and I both took a mug from his tray, and I tried a bite before saying, “This is delicious.” It really was, even if it looked like a science experiment.
“It was so cute, too, for about twenty seconds.” Kel sounded wistful. “It was a perfect, three-tiered snowman, about two-and-a-half feet tall! We actually got it to stand up, but when I turned to get my phone so I could snap a picture, the whole thing face-planted into the salad bowl. We tried to rebuild it, but eventually we had to admit our frosty friend was no more.” Lark solemnly made the sign of the cross, like they were administering last rites to tonight’s dinner.
“It was a good try,” Noah said, “and Hudson’s right. It tastes delicious.” That seemed to perk up the chefs a little.
Pretty soon, the pizza arrived and everyone dove in. I ate a couple of slices before pulling Kel aside and telling him, “Today wiped me out. I’d like to go rest in your room, if that’s alright.”
“Of course. I’ll come with you.”
“No, stay and enjoy the fun. JoJo’s cueing upThe Nightmare Before Christmas, and I know how much you love that movie.”
“Well, okay. But first there’s something I want to give you and Noah, so let’s all go upstairs for a minute.”
We brought my suitcases with us when we climbed the stairs, and once we reached Kel’s room he handed each of us a festive holiday gift bag. I asked, “Are we exchanging gifts already? Because yours are in my apartment.”
“No, it’s just—well, you’ll see. Open them.”
Kel chewed the edge of his thumbnail as Noah and I pulled knit caps and scarves from the bags. There was also a note with a picture of a log cabin on it. That turned out to be an invitation to spend a week in the Sierras, beginning two days before Christmas. “I was going to see if you could come home a day early, and when I found out you were already on your way back, it felt like it was meant to be,” Kel explained. “So, will you guys spend Christmas with me in a cabin in the woods?”
Noah exclaimed, “Absolutely! This is amazing.”
“It sounds like heaven,” I said. Kel looked so happy, which made me smile.
* * *
Later that night, when the party had broken up and Kel and I were reading in his bed, he turned to me and said, “I went shopping with Lark today, and he said the oddest thing—that everyone thinks you, me, and Noah are a throuple. Sure, the three of us spend a lot of time together, but that’s nuts, right? It’s not like you’d ever be attracted to Noah or anything.”
Wow, that had come out of nowhere. I took off my reading glasses and put them on the nightstand as my cheeks caught fire, and I muttered, “I’m in a relationship, so I wouldn’t intentionally think of Noah as anything more than a friend.”
“Intentionally? Wait, are you blushing?”
“I actually had a sex dream about him last night,” I admitted, “so it’s strange that you’re asking me this.”
Kel tossed the covers aside and turned around so he was facing me. “I need details.” He didn’t look mad, like I would have expected him to. Instead, he looked curious, and maybe a little amused.
“Are you serious?” He nodded, and I tried to dodge the question by asking one of my own. “Where’s all of this coming from?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve just been thinking about the idea of throuples—in general, I mean—since my conversation with Lark. How do you think people make that decision, usually? Does a couple go out looking for a third, or could it just…happen naturally?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know anyone who’s part of a throuple.” At least he seemed to have forgotten about the sex dream, but this conversation was still throwing me for a loop. “Is this your way of telling me you’d like to bring Noah into our relationship?”
He peeked at me from beneath his lashes and asked, “If I said yes, would you be upset?”
“No. This seems complicated though, and like it could all go terribly wrong. Let’s just say, hypothetically, that we approached Noah with this idea, and it freaked him out. Then what?”
“But what if he said yes? That might be kind of amazing,” he said. Then he quickly added, “To be clear, this isn’t just about sex. There’s so much more to it than that. Like, try to picture how tonight would have gone if the three of us were in a relationship. He’d be curled up with us right now, instead of home alone in his tiny studio apartment. It’s always sad when he goes home at the end of a night like tonight. It was cold and foggy too, so it felt even worse that he had to leave.”
It was actually incredibly easy to picture him in bed with us. Noah meant the world to both Kel and me, and he’d been a huge part of our lives for the last six months. While we’d all kept it strictly platonic, it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine it becoming intimate.
“You didn’t just start thinking about this today, when Lark brought it up,” I said gently.
He dipped his head and said softly, “I really tried not to think about it before, because I felt like I was betraying your trust.” Then he glanced at me and admitted, “But every now and then…I guess some things would cross my mind, whether I wanted them to or not. Like, do you remember that day about a month ago, when you were showing Noah what you remembered from the ballroom dancing classes your mother made you take? You had your arms around each other, and the two of you looked gorgeous together. I found myself hoping you’d kiss, because I wanted to watch. The thought of it actually turned me on. Does that seem strange?”
