Page 40 of Disorderly

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It wasn’t until the next afternoon that a solution came to me. Or maybe the solution had always been there, talked around like the giant elephant in the room that everyone—okay by everyone I meant me—ignored. And as I watched Jarrod, pull on a pair of jeans over his tight, black, boxer briefs, I knew I needed to discuss my potential plan with him. I’d run out of time.

I took a deep breath from my spot on the edge of our giant bed and then called out to him, causing him to pause mid zip. He smiled at me, and my heart spluttered. Fuck, he was beautiful. And yes, as a guy I knew guys hated to be called beautiful, but he was. Like a work of art. His face had a delicate look to it, with high cheek bones and lips made for kissing, but the dark brown eyebrows that framed his almost black eyes, kept him from crossing into the feminine realm. But the heavier scruff that he sported, covering his lower cheeks and chin—it could almost be called a close-cut beard—was what really set him apart. It was too tamed to cross him into rugged territory, but not clean enough to be a five o’clock shadow. In short… he was beautiful.

Fuck, this was hard. I hated to talk about feelings. It’s why I went into English Lit for my field of study. In those books, I could find the words to describe how I felt. They allowed me to experience and to touch those feelings that always seemed to overwhelm me in real life. In the pages of a book, words flowed freely, painting pictures that the reader could see. There was no room for misunderstanding. No room for words to say one thing while body language said another. In short, it was black words on white paper while the outside world was awash in every colour of the rainbow. It’s probably why I understood Jarrod’s love of numbers so much. I think he saw the world in the same way except his was cold hard numbers with no room for interpretation whereas my words could explain things in multiple ways. Words on paper were more flexible than numbers.

“I was thinking about what Katy said last night. It reminded me of something Greg said weeks ago in the staff room.” Jarrod leaned against the dresser, crossing his arms over his bare chest. The flex of his arm muscles made his line tattoo dance, almost bringing it to life. And without a shirt on, I had a view of his sculpted chest and abdominal muscles. I know he lamented the fact that he wasn’t as big as Jason or me, but I felt that he probably had the best muscle definition.

He didn’t say a word, letting me gather my thoughts. It made me smile. He’d make a great father at some point. He knew when to keep quiet in order to have the other person spill their innermost secrets.

“You’re my boyfriend, correct?” He nodded. “But nothing really changed, did it? I mean from before I asked you, before that kiss, and now.”

He continued to stare at me. Crap. He was going to make me work for it. He wasn’t giving me an inch which I suppose is what I deserved after all the shit I’d put him and Jason through.

“What if we made it real?”

His mouth dropped open in shock even as his forehead wrinkled in concentration. “What do you mean? I thought this”—he motioned between himself and me—“was real.”

“I mean real outside this house. Real in front of other people.”

His face smoothed as his eyes began to twinkle. “Are you saying that you want to hold hands with me as we walk down the street?” He stalked across the room towards me. “Maybe give me more than a bro hug? How about a big, ol’ smooch that would have some of the old, church ladies reaching for their handkerchiefs as they swooned in shock?”

“Fuck. Yes. Okay.” He towered over me from my seated position. “I want to do all those things. I want everyone to know that you are mine. That you’re not available for others.”

The smile on his face dimmed a little and I wondered about the cause. Was there someone else? Someone I didn’t know about? My heart started to pound. “What about Jason?” My heart calmed. “And what about women? Are we still playing around with them or are we saying no to them for good?”

I leaned back a little on my hands, opening the distance between us a little. “Jason is just as a part of this as you and I. I want everyone to know that I’m with the both of you. And I don’t care that it’s unconventional, having three of us in a relationship. More people in this town are starting to broaden their horizons and become true to themselves so we won’t be the only ones in a closed poly relationship. As for women”—I shrugged—“I don’t really know. For me, right now, I just want to focus on this, on us. I’ve never really been in a real, open relationship before.”

He chewed on his lip as he thought about what I said. And while it made me nervous from the length of time he was taking, I was reassured that he wasn’t just jumping in either for or against my ideas. If we were to do this, to make the permanent change in the way we presented our relationship to the world, the way we thought about it ourselves, nothing would ever be the same again. It didn’t matter that if anything were to happen, if one of them were to walk away whether we made this change or not, the hurt and pain would be the same. But somehow, acknowledging the difference would make it seem like it was different. Stupid, I knew, but the brain worked in mysterious ways to protect itself and so did our feelings.

He dropped into a crouch, taking my hands in his. “I’d like that. I can’t promise no women, but I can promise that I’m not about to go out to bars, looking for hook-ups. That doesn’t interest me.”

There was something about the way he worded his answer that triggered a little unease, but I pushed it aside. What mattered most was that he agreed. We’d be a real couple? throuple? Whatever word was being used now. I leaned in, kissing him. “Then let’s go meet up with our friends and watch a hockey game.”

“I agree,” he said against my lips before pressing another kiss to them as he stood. “Let’s go.”

“Um, Jarrod”—I tried to hold back the laughter in my voice, but I don’t think I succeed when he turned to look at me with his brows scrunched up—“you might want to finish getting dressed first. The arena is a little cold when you’re not wearing a shirt.” I winked, trailing my fingers over his chest as I walked past him and out the room.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jarrod

I pulledon the long-sleeved Henley as I walked out of our bedroom. Had Peter really said all that? I couldn’t believe it. It was something I really hadn’t let myself dream about because it would change things. But this was one change that I didn’t fear. It felt right, felt like it was always meant to be. From the day I first met, when I walked into our dorm room and saw him bent over, pulling out a poster with a quote from Emily Dickinson on it that said, “Silence: Saying nothing… sometimes says the most”, I knew that he’d be important to me. I also knew then that the questions I’d been having about my sexuality were true. I wasn’t heterosexual, just leaned that way.

And when he’d kissed me last night in front of Katie, my heart had jumped, worried about all the implications. It had become routine for us to kiss each other a little more, but never when Katy had been around. When she was there, our focus was on her like normal. So to have him do it in front of her had been big. It revealed a side of him that he’d kept carefully hidden. I’d loved it, but at the same time I could have cursed for his poor timing. While Katy knew about our relationship, I wasn’t sure how she’d handle seeing it, not when the first kiss she’d seen between us had come as a shock wrapped up in feelings of hurt and betrayal. She’d told us that she was happy for us, and I knew she meant it, but after what had just happened between us, giving her her first orgasm, I doubted that any woman would then feel comfortable watching her man kiss another one. But she’d taken it in stride, not reacting which left me still a little unsure about how she felt.

I’d tried talking to her before she went home for the night since her mom worked an afternoon and evening shift instead of an overnight one, but Peter never left us alone long enough to talk about it. It meant that I had to assume she was okay with it since she kissed my cheek and Peter’s before leaving.

The thought of kissing cheeks brought a grin to my face as I bent down to pull on my boots. I’d nearly fallen over when Peter had kissed hers. I’d never seen him do that since she’d been a little kid. Once he’d moved back while doing his teacher’s training, he’d put up some walls between them, worried that people would look at him with suspicion. I understood his reasoning. People could become zealous about certain topics and there was a big interest in weeding our sexual predators from schools—something I wholeheartedly agreed with—but that wasn’t Peter. He wasn’t a predator. He didn’t lust after his students or ever think of them that way. If anything, he was more uncomfortable around his female students due to the suspicious nature of people, but Katy was different. And so was their relationship. So to see him casually kiss her cheek like it was something he’d always done… BIG. It made me think that Jason was right. Peter was starting to take off the denial blinders and was beginning to accept his feelings for her. And like Jason, that made me extremely happy.

“So, ready to do this?” I zipped up my winter parka as I watched Peter slip on his gloves.

He grinned at me. The exhaustion he wore yesterday gone after a good night’s sleep. “I am. Let’s go show Kyle and the rest of this town that we’re together.”

And with that statement, he grabbed my hand, holding it as he dragged me outside. “Go get in the car.” He hit the buttons unlocking it since he’d left it in the driveway after returning from the grocery store earlier.

Excitement and trepidation warred inside me. To be out, fully out as my true self, and in the open was something I never thought I’d experience. And I couldn’t wait. But I wasn’t stupid or naïve. I knew that there were still people out there who weren’t receptive to the idea of two—or in our case three—guys in a relationship. And some of them who said they were okay with it, didn’t want to see it. While the owner of The Brew Cup, Jaedon, and his partner, Marc, one of the investors in the Northern Pike hockey team, were well-loved, I’d heard that things weren’t always easy. There was always someone who felt they had the right to tell the guys how horrible they were, how they were corrupting children, and more because they were two men in a loving and committed relationship. I imagined that we’d face some of the same things and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that.

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