Page 66 of Tangled up in You

“We love you too, little love,” Aiden answered as he pressed a kiss to my back while still holding me in his arms.

“I realized I could never do this life without you guys,” I said, yawning. I was so tired.

Aiden patted my back. “You’ll never have to, baby. We’ll always be here.”

Justin Hart

“I’ll take her to bed,”Aiden whispered before standing with Laylah in his arms. She’d fallen asleep so quickly, but it wasn't surprising considering how little she’d been sleeping.

“She’s breaking my heart,” Micah said once Aiden had disappeared into the bedroom.

“Mine too, but we’ll get her through this,” I answered.

“I think maybe this has helped us put some things in perspective.”

I nodded. I knew where he was headed with this.

Aiden came back into the room, sat on the couch, and rubbed his bearded chin.

“I’m going to call that counselor Leland’s girlfriend is using. I think maybe Laylah will need to talk to someone,” he said.

Leland was a friend of ours and his girlfriend had been through some rough shit. She was in counseling and flourishing now. We’d met them a little over a year ago at a local BDSM club. Rouge, his girl, had made amazing progress in the time we’d known her.

“I think maybe we all need to do some talking,” I said.

Micah nodded. “Me too.”

Aiden was quiet while he processed the implications behind our words. He nodded as well. “Yeah, we do. We all know that we’re wired a bit differently.”

“Probably because of our fucked-up childhood,” I interrupted.

“It made us value the ones we have in our corner,” he continued. “We’ve always known we’ve wanted to share our partner and for a long time we’ve wanted Laylah to be that partner.”

Micah nodded his head. “I know we were waiting to see if she showed interest, but I think this last week has made us realize we can’t live without her either.”

I hate that it took something tragic to make us wake up,” I voiced. “But you guys are right, she’s a huge part of us.”

“Yeah. When she was missing, I felt like I couldn’t breathe,” Aiden remarked.

“It felt like a part of me was missing,” Micah added.

“A part ofuswas missing,” Aiden corrected.

“When she’s better, we’ll sit down and have a big talk,” Aiden said. He was usually the most sensible one of the three of us and we trusted his judgment.

“I may be naive, but I think she’ll feel the same way. Maybe she doesn’t have romantic feelings for us because it hasn’t been presented to her, but I think we could grow into something beautiful,” Micah said.

“I think so too,” Aiden agreed.

A cry snapped us back to the problem at hand.

“I’ve got her,” I said. “We’re all going to be okay.”

I rushed into the master bedroom and climbed in the bed with Laylah.

“Another nightmare?”

She wiped her eyes before laying back against the pillows again.

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