Page 77 of Third Wheel

Kincaid laughed so hard that it hurt, which made Amy start giggling.

“Oh, no…” he said in a tiny voice when he managed to get himself semi-under control. He reached out in front of him with his free hand. “Don’t go…”

He could only hold the seriousness for a minute, especially when Amy dissolved into a puddle of giggles beside him, which cracked him up all over again. It helped soothe some of the anxiety he was feeling over how the evening had ended with Zach.

“Okay. I should go to bed,” she said with a sigh. “I am exhausted.”

“I bet. Have a good night.” He lowered his arm a little to give her shoulders a squeeze before releasing her. It took a bit of willpower not to give her ass a little slap as she got up, but he restrained himself.

Left alone in the room again, he took in a deep breath and let it out.

At some point, if things didn’t change, they were all going to need to have a talk. Because there was a pink elephant in the room, and it wasn’t disappearing. It was just getting bigger with every day that passed. First, though, he needed to figure out what the hell had happened between Zach and Krista this evening.

28

Zach

“Sorry I got weird last night.” He felt awkward enough about it that he’d woken up when Kincaid did. Sleep hadn’t exactly been restful. He hadn’t managed to actually fall asleep until Kincaid came to bed, and even then, he hadn’t been able to sleep very well. He’d woken up multiple times.

Not like him at all.

“What happened?” Kincaid asked. He should have expected that since he’d opened the topic. If he hadn’t, Kincaid probably would have left him alone because he knew Zach needed time to think about things. Course, he hadn’t been able to do much else last night except think. “Did your sister say something to you? Tell you that Tad’s secretly a psycho stalker and ask us to save her?”

That made Zach laugh, which Kincaid clearly meant to do because Tad was so exactly the opposite of that.

“No, she just…” He shook his head. He didn’t want to get into everything because he didn’t want Kincaid to know that he was still struggling with the idea of telling their parents. “Somehow, we got on the topic of my parents’ separation.”

Kincaid looked up from getting dressed, alarm in his expression.

“Your parents are separating?”

“What? No, sorry. They did separate, for a very short time, back when I was like five years old. Krista said that I thought it was because of me because they’d gotten into an argument about me right before my mom kicked my dad out.” Zach shook his head, and Kincaid came over to sit on the bed next to Zach’s legs, facing him. “I don’t remember much about it. I definitely don’t really remember thinking that it was my fault they separated, but it feels right somehow.”

Expression softening, Kincaid put his hand on Zach’s leg or, at least, where Zach’s leg was under the covers.

“That’s got to be rough to live with.”

Zach shrugged. “Is it? Like I said, I don’t really remember, but she did. And she said something about me feeling like I’m still scared of them breaking up because of me.”

“Are you?”

“I don’t know. I want to say no because I know that’s ridiculous, but…” He sighed and reached out to put his hand over Kincaid’s. “It’s kind of messing with my head, and I needed some time to think about that.”

His boyfriend smiled at him, giving his leg a squeeze.

“I get that. Thank you for telling me this morning.” He leaned forward and gave Zach a quick kiss. “I’m going to go get breakfast started.”

“I’ll get up and help you.” Zach smiled wanly. “Since I’m up, anyway.”

“That would be great.” The smile on Kincaid’s face turned more flirty than sympathetic, and he winked as he got to his feet, which made Zach’s heart feel a little lighter.

He didn’t want to be a downer, he really didn’t…

Whether or not Kincaid realized the reason Krista had brought up her and Zach’s parents’ separation was because she was hassling Zach to tell their parents about Kincaid, he wasn’t sure. His boyfriend was very good at reading between the lines. He might have. Maybe Zach should outright tell him. Then he might feel better about knowing it wasn’t him.

It was because Zach had this ridiculous fear that his parents would fight, split up, and it would be all his fault.

Again.

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