“So am I,” the other said.
Both men squeezed the hand they were holding, and I stood there, lost in my thoughts, wondering what the hell I should do. What could I do? I’d tried to put up walls, tried to push both of these men away for their own good and mine, and yet here we were, as if fate itself had bound us together.
Dating two men would be hard. I’d feel like giving up a lot. Hell, I hadn’t even dated one before. Two…two seemed like an awful lot, and yet, besides being confused as I stood there, beside being frightened beyond all belief, I wasn’t uncomfortable with them. I liked them.
I…I was falling for them, too.
Love. I never thought I’d ever love anyone. I’d always assumed it wasn’t in the cards for me, not with my lack of a social life. Could I do this? Could we do this?
“So,” Mason started, causing me to glance at him. “What do you think?”
“Yeah, don’t keep us in suspense,” Calum said, giving me a small smile when I turned my eyes upon him.
What did I think? What the hell could I say? I was scared, terrified that I’d get hurt, that these two would eventually grow to hate me and become tired of constantly reassuring me about us, but…
But my little sister was right. She’d been right all along. Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me live with them forever. Life would change as I got older, and things would refuse to stay the same. My life would be full of terrifying things, new experiences and mistakes, and that was something I couldn’t change. That came hand in hand with living.
This, them, us—I didn’t know whether we’d last forever. I didn’t know if this could be a forever thing, or if we would crash and burn, but you know what? Surrounded by the two men I cared about, faced with their feelings laid bare and mine wanting to explode from my chest, there was only one thing I could say to them.
“Yes,” I said, nodding along with the word.
The atmosphere in the room changed drastically once I spoke, and I could feel the tension leave both men’s bodies. Mason all but leaped for joy, pulling me against his chest as he hugged me, thereby pulling me from Calum.
“Thank God,” Mason murmured. With my head against his chest, he added, “Can you feel my heart? I thought it was about to burst from my chest.” Just as he said, his heart beat loudly, the steady thumping of it a low melody I could get used to.
Alas, that wasn’t in the cards for me, for Calum grabbed me, wrapping me up in his arms as he stole me from Mason.
“Hey,” Mason spoke with a frown, “not fair—”
“Not fair? We’re supposed to share her, you know—”
As the two men bickered—albeit playfully—I couldn’t help myself. A smile formed on my face, and I actually felt a laugh bubble its way up my throat and escape. The laugh caused both men to cease their arguing and look at me.
The way they stared at me, like I was their whole world, made my smile grow.
This…if this was what my life would hold, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.
A few months later…
Chapter Nineteen – Bree
I sat in my psychology of abnormal behavior class, taking notes that were much more diligent than the ones I used to. Granted, I was pretty sure I owed my newfound note-taking skills to Calum, who’d given me pointers when I’d complained to him months ago when I was trying to study that I didn’t have enough material to go on.
Yeah. Months.
Strange how time passed so quickly when you were actually enjoying your life.
Granted, it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies, but I was better than I was before. I had my guys, and I was constantly working on a better outlook of life with my therapist. The antidepressants helped too.
It’d been Calum’s suggestion, seeing a therapist, and Mason suggested I go to the doctor and see if they could do anything for me. My family had been supportive, although they didn’t quite understand it, still. To them, I had no reason ever to be sad, so why in the world wasn’t I happy?
I’d stopped trying to explain it to them, and they’d stopped asking, thank God. Some people, though they meant well, just didn’t get it. Neurotypicals, people who were born lucky because their brain was able to work right with all the chemicals and stuff going on inside their bodies. I had always been jealous of them, but honestly, if I hadn’t been me, I never would’ve met Mason or Calum.
Probably not, anyway, but I guessed that was something we’d never know.
Mason and I had gotten an A on our psychology project. That whole thing seemed so far in the past, it was unreal. Fall had given way to winter, and winter had then fallen to spring. Time never ceased to keep going. What was strange was that I wanted to slow it down. It felt like time moved way too fast these days.
No, wait. I wasn’t going to complain. It was a good thing that time went on, because I’d only gotten closer to both Mason and Calum. I was still a virgin, but I was opening up to the idea of sex with them.
One hundred and ten percent nervous about it, of course, but that was me about anything new. My therapist told me everyone gets nervous about some things; it was simply a part of being alive.
A new semester and new classes, Mason wasn’t in any of them anymore, but that was okay. We still met for lunch every day at the union. Calum
