Page 90 of Third Wheel

“Well, he was, but no one ever expected he would dothat.We didn’t suspect. I would have told you. Morgan definitely would have told you.” Sam reached over and hugged her shoulders. “Carolyn would have told you. Marissa would have told you. Worst-case scenario, we thought he might not be as good of a husband as you deserved. And hopefully, if he was bad enough, eventually, you’d get divorced. But his behavior is not on you.”

“Neither are Kincaid and Zach’s,” Rae said, picking up the thread. “They were messed up before you came along. There was some drama at Domi and Mitch’s Jack-and-Jill weekend away, then they broke up, and then they got back together… all before you were doing anything with them other than an occasional scene with Zach.”

“And none of those issues they were having had anything to do with you.”

Amy opened her mouth. Closed it. That was true. She knew she had nothing to do with any of that. She’d been deep in wedding prep with Jeremy.

So, why did she still feel like it was her fault?

“I should have still been able to do something instead of running away,” she said stubbornly. “If I hadn’t been yelling at Zach, Kincaid wouldn’t have heard what happened like that, and he might not have been upset.”

“Pretty sure that he was going to be upset about Zach using you as a beard, regardless of how he found out,” Iris pointed out. “And, again, Zach’s behavior isn’t your fault, and he deserved to be yelled at.”

Rubbing her forehead, Amy frowned. “I just feel like I should have been able to do something.”

“That’s because you like to fix everything,” Sam said. “But you can’t always fix people or a situation, and sometimes, there’s nothing you can do to help.”

Ugh. She didn’t like the sound of that at all. Especially because she realized it was true. As much as she was kicking herself over everything, the thing she was kicking herself over the most was running away instead of staying to try to help them. At that moment, she’d felt like she could help the most by getting out of there.

Now, she wasn’t so sure, and she was feeling the urge to go back and try to put what she’d broken back together.

32

Zach

When it came time, it was almost easy. Maybe it was because he’d finally made the decision that it was time, maybe it was because Brian was by his side, maybe it was because he was too emotionally exhausted to be scared anymore. Whatever it was, when he showed up at his parents’ house and told his mom that he needed to talk to both of them, he felt oddly calm.

They sat in the living room he’d grown up in, and though the couch wasn’t the same as when he was a kid, all the décor was. He felt safe here. So, maybe that was why it was easier, too.

“So, what are you in such a hurry to tell us?” his mom asked, her gaze flicking to Brian, who was sitting beside Zach on the couch. They’d met before, just like she’d met Mitch and Kincaid, but Zach hadn’t explained why Brian was with him. She was obviously confused, and he didn’t blame her.

Zach cleared his throat.

“Earlier today when you met Amy and asked if she was my girlfriend, and I said yes, that was a lie. Amy is not my girlfriend. I don’t have a girlfriend. I have a boyfriend.”

“But…” His mom looked at Brian today. “Oh… well, we’ve always liked you, Brian, but I thought you had a girlfriend, too.”

“Not me,” Brian said, barely suppressing laughter as Zach jumped in at the same time.

“Not him, Mom. He does have a girlfriend. A real one.” Zach took a deep breath. “Kincaid is my boyfriend.”

“The… the man you’ve been living with?” his mom asked. On the other side of her, his dad was sitting with a fairly blank expression, thinking rather than asking questions, which was very much like his parents. It also made him worry because he wasn’t sure what his dad was thinking.

“Yes.”

“Did you become boyfriends after you started living together?”

Zach hesitated, but he was done with the lies. Even if his parents got mad at him. Having Brian’s support at his side helped a lot.

“No. We moved in together after we started seeing each other romantically. I lied to you about that. I’m sorry.”

“I… I’m confused. Why did you lie? Why not just tell us that you’re gay?”

“I’m bisexual, not gay, and I wasn’t ready to tell you yet because I wasn’t sure how you’d react. I wasn’t… I guess, honestly, at first, I wasn’t sure if Kincaid and I would last, so I didn’t want to tell you in case it didn’t work out. Then, the longer it went on, the harder it was to tell you that I’d lied in the first place.”

“You have a boyfriend, but you’re not gay?”

Trust his mom to fixate on that point.

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