Page 21 of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

I took in a deep breath and let it out before I started. “Amy and I have never been anything more than friends. I’ve wondered, based on things she’s done and said a few times recently, if she thought there was more, but I swear to you, I thought I set her straight.”

“You have clearly been intimate with her though,” Liza stated instead of phrasing it as a question.

At this point I launched into our history from the beginning with Liza only interrupting at the end. “So, let me get this straight, you have only ever received a few blowjobs from Amy during group activities with the other two guys, and somehow that translated into an intimate relationship for her?”

“I guess the fact that I started out being so close to the guys before we met Amy that our oddball friendship factored in. Maybe they assumed I wanted a bigger roll than they were casting me in with their sexcapades. I don’t know, and I suppose that’s something I am going to have to address with them, because what happened today won’t be happening again. That was out of line, uncalled for, and I am definitely not comfortable with her just coming into my room whenever she pleases. That’s the whole point in putting a lock on the door. Amy coming to you about things when she should have come to me is my number one concern right now though. Then there’s the demand to get in my room. Amy has never been invited into my room before. Ever. The guys have brought her in here a few times without my permission. They just assumed it would be okay, and generally I left and went to stay in my office at work when that happened. Since Amy moved here they rented a little cabin near town that they all stay in together unless there’s a need for them to be close to the clubhouse.”

“Well, I feel much better about not letting her, or anyone else, into your room today then. I was actually a little worried that you would be mad at me for denying her, but honestly, I had no way of finding out since we haven’t exchanged numbers.”

“I can’t believe I haven’t done that with you yet,” he told me. “Especially since I was the one who got you the burner phone to use while you’re here.” He shook his head. “I blame exhaustion after our trip back. I’m usually more on my game.”

“Oh, so normally, you don’t forget to get the chick’s digits that you spend a few days in hotel rooms with?” I joke.

“Well, when I don’t think she’ll be far from my side it seems unnecessary.” He winked. “I guess, today proved me wrong though.”

“Yeah, but Amy has your number right?”

“She does,” he admits.

“Then she could have called to verify she belonged there, but she didn’t because she knew she had never been in your room before.”

“I suppose that was part of what was bothering her when she found out you were staying here and she’d never been allowed in. Not that I ever turned her away from my room. It just never came up, and honestly, I couldn’t think of a reason she’d need to be here other than to talk, and we can do that anywhere. It doesn’t have to be in my personal space.”

“I completely understand that. I offered to go somewhere else to talk to her, but she just got really angry with me and thought I was being an asshole about things. Honestly, I don’t know you, or that whole situation, well enough to feel comfortable letting people in. When I was taken by King’s Demons it happened because someone was watching me, and the place I lived. Also, there was a girl in the dorms who had run her mouth about me when the KDs started asking around after they saw my brother go into the dorm to look for me. If she hadn’t given away personal information about me, maybe they would have just thought I was some random stranger he was talking to, and wouldn’t have snatched me up that day? I might have noticed that I was being followed instead of walking into an ambush. So, I’m really big on privacy and not giving information away to people.” I moved closer and wrapped my arm around her shoulder, pulling her in to my side.

“I promise, that will not happen this time.”

“I trust you,” she whispered into my shoulder. “I don’t know why, but I do.” I kissed the top of her head then. It was the same gesture I’d made with Amy numerous times over the past eight or nine months that she’d been in our lives, but for some reason, it felt different as I pulled Liza in closer to me and hugged her. She felt right being there in my arms, like a part of myself that I’d been waiting to be reunited with. Christ, I sounded like a complete idiot inside my own head.

“It feels good to have told you the whole story about what’s been going on with my boys and Amy. It’s been weird for me, because the guys I would usually talk to about this shit are the same ones I don’t feel like I can talk to anymore since they met Amy. They just keep pushing for me to be a part of whatever it is they have going on. I know they think it will fix a broken part of me, but I never saw myself as broken. I just didn’t have the urge to go find someone to replace Camilla.”

“What happened with Camilla?” She asked. There was no expectation in her voice though. She would be okay if I told her that I didn’t want to talk about it, just as she would with listening to yet another of my stories. “I know you said you were going to ask her to marry you before you found out she was cheating, but how did that all come about?”

“Sorry, you’re so easy to talk to that I forgot I hadn’t really explained the whole scenario.” So, I told her the story, and she just sat and listened with her head on my shoulder and my arm wrapped around her, our sides touching completely from tip to toe. It was the first time I’d talked about my past without feeling it rip through me. It wasn’t the loss of Camilla that had killed my spirit so much as coming home from being shot at only to have the woman I thought I loved betray me in the worst way. “So, the funny part is, after it was all said and done Camilla found out that this Pablo guy had two other fiancés in the area too. Her sisters called me and texted, begging me to forgive her and take her back. She did too. I just ignored all of it.”

“Whoa, so she cheated on you, and at your welcome home get together she tells you she got engaged to another man, and she thought you’d take her back? That was ballsy!”

I chuckled. “Yeah, it was. Didn’t work out for her either way, but I consider it karma for the way she treated our relationship. I’ll never understand why people cheat. If your relationship isn’t working, you either work to fix it, or you get out of it. You owe it to each other to make sure you do one, the other, or both before you fucking move on to someone else though. It’s a matter of respect for everyone involved, including you. And if the other person isn’t demanding that respect from you, chances are they aren’t as into the situation as you think they are. Nobody wants to seriously take on a person who still has their baggage unpacked on another person’s floor, you know?”

She tipped her head up and smiled so perfectly at me that it halted my breath. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.” She sighed. “I guess your friends are playing a different game altogether though. I can’t wrap my head around sharing a person the way they do.” She shook her head into my shoulder.

“I think their dynamic is a bit more than just two guys sharing one girl. They won’t admit it outright, but there’s more to the triangle than just that.”

“You think the guys have their own thing too?” She asked.

“I think Amy acts as a buffer that lets what they feel for each other be okay.”

“Do you think they’re using her for that?” She asks, but before I can answer she steps in and answers her own question. “No, that’s not right. I saw how protective and defensive of her they were. I think she’s more the catalyst that ramps up the fire they had for each other, and adds another spark in play that they needed.” She nods her head, as if affirming her own words were correct.

“I think that’s exactly right,” I told her.

“I wonder why she’s so hung up on needing you in the mix too? I mean, aren’t two guys enough? I can’t imagine having two hot, horny, dudes after my ass all the time, and then still demanding a third hop into the mix. Her va-jay-jay has to be hurting.” She laughed along with me when she said that.

“I wouldn’t know since I never had actual intercourse with her.”

“Maybe that’s why she’s so hung up on you, because she hasn’t had a taste,” she giggled then, and it was the best sound I’d heard in a while. “Wait, that’s the wrong thing to say. She has had a taste; she just hasn’t had you stick it to her in other ways yet. Maybe she feels shortchanged since you were always receiving and never giving?”

I just shrugged my shoulders, which in turn caused her head to bob in place. “I don’t know. It just feels good to have someone I can talk to about the whole mess without feeling pressured to join in with them, or feeling judged by others for what I’ve done, or haven’t done.”

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