Page 93 of Third Wheel

“Take care of him, Amy. He needs it, even though he won’t admit it.”

Kincaid scowled at his friend’s back as he practically ran out the door.

“Ignore him, I’m fine.”

“Are you? Because I’m not. And I wouldn’t be fine if I was in your shoes.” Amy sagged a little, avoiding his gaze.

“Fine might be the wrong word, but I’ll live. Your coming back helps. I’m sorry Zach and I basically chased you away.” He sighed as he escorted her into the living room so she could take Mitch’s seat on the couch, and he sat down beside her. They weren’t cuddling exactly, just sitting very close together.

Amy’s hands came together in her lap, her fingers fiddling with each other.

“You didn’t chase me away. I left because I figured I’d already done enough damage, and I wanted to give you guys the privacy to talk to each other. I didn’t realize Zach was going to leave, too, or I might have tried to stay.”

“Hey.” Kincaid reached over, putting his hand over her fidgeting ones. “Amy, look at me. You did not do any damage. Zach shouldn’t have put you in the position of pretending to be his girlfriend to his parents.”

“No, but I also didn’t have to scream at him in the street afterward. You shouldn’t have found out about it the way you did.”

“I don’t think there was a good way to find out about it,” Kincaid said ruefully, giving her hands a squeeze. With another sigh, she leaned to the side, resting her head against his shoulderlike she needed something to lean on. Being the thing she was leaning on helped him feel a little better. A little more like himself. “Even if he’d told me calmly, I would have been righteously pissed. But I know I’m being hard on him. He’s caught in the middle, and while I have a right to my feelings, it’s been a struggle to understand his, and that doesn’t make things easier for any of us.”

“I think he does want to tell his parents; he’s just scared.”

“I know.” He didn’t really understand why Zach was willing to go to the lengths that he was to avoid telling them for so long; it seemed like it just made everything harder. But, as Mitch had said, he and Zach were different people. They were going to act differently. Feel things differently. He either needed to accept that or get out of the situation.

And he wasn’t ready to lose Zach.

As much as he needed to talk to Zach about that, he needed to talk to Amy, too. He needed her to know that it wasn’t her fault. It didn’t surprise him that she’d blamed herself. That was whoshewas.

“I think one of the hardest parts for me was realizing that I wanted to talk to you and Zach about us bringing our relationship out of the club and seeing if it would work at home, too, but then becoming scared that he would use that as a reason not to tell his parents about me.” He couldn’t tell what Amy’s reaction was to all of this since she was still leaning against his shoulder, but he kept going. “That he would only tell them about you, and I would just always be… there. The housemate. An unacknowledged third wheel.”

Amy sat up and looked at him, their hands still clasped on her lap. She looked utterly bewildered.

“You want me? With you and Zach?” Not just incredulous; there was hopefulness there, too. Some of the incredibilityseemed as though it was coming from the idea that her hope was being realized.

He’d been pretty sure that both she and Zach would be interested in moving their relationship to the next level unless he’d been reading them both completely wrong, but it was still nice to get the confirmation that he was right.

“Yes.” He’d meant to have this conversation with Zach here, too, but he might as well be honest. “You feel like you belong. Like you fit with us. I think I’ve been falling for you from the moment you moved in with us, even though I didn’t know it at the time.”

Amy stared at him for a long, long moment.

Then she suddenly leaned forward, reaching for him, and he reached for her, pulling her onto his lap as their lips came together in a heated kiss.

33

Zach

When he finally left his parents, Zach still wasn’t sure they completely understood. His dad had been really quiet for the whole conversation, though before they’d left, he’d given Zach a hug and told him he loved him, no matter what. His mom wanted to ask more questions, and Zach had made her promise to ask him or Krista and never Kincaid. Or Amy.

“You going to be okay?” Brian asked, giving him a pat on the shoulder as he walked Zach to his car.

“Yeah, I just feel wrung out. And now I need to go home and tell Kincaid that I’ve told my parents and see what he says. Then I need to talk to him about Amy. Then we can hopefully figure out where Amy went.”

“Good luck.” They’d reached the cars, and Brian stepped in to give him a bro hug—hands clasped between them, pulling each other in for mutual slaps on the back. “If you need me, call me.”

“I will.” Though he really hoped not to. He’d already pulled Brian away from enough of his day. Still, he appreciated knowing that Brian was there for him, no matter what. And if things went horribly wrong, Brian was exactly who he would call.

Getting into his car, Zach took a deep breath. That had been… hard. Though not as hard as he’d thought it would be. And his parents had taken it a hell of a lot better than he’d thought. Nothing that he’d been afraid of had come to pass. Now, he just had to talk to Kincaid to see if he felt the same way about Amy, then they could talk to Amy.

Those were all conversations he wanted to have in person.

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