Page 27 of The Forbidden Trio

“Oh, God.” She hid her face in Paul’s chest, listened to his heart beating beneath her ear, biting back the tears that wanted to come again. “Of course I can forgive you. I understand. I know how losing your mom affected you. And this is scary for me, too.”

“But you’re here. Sometimes you’re a lot braver than I am. A lot smarter, too.”

Noah let out a long sigh. “Look, as incredible as this has been, I’m going to get a hotel room in town. I don’t mind—really. This has been amazing and I love you both, in my own way. But you two belong together. You need some time. I’ll be back in the morning so we can head down to San Francisco.”

“Shit. I’m sorry, Noah,” Paul started.

“You don’t need to be. I’m not sorry, for any of it. I’m a little fucking giddy, to be honest. I feel like Cupid—minus the diaper, of course. I think you two are going to be great together.”

Noah leaned in and brushed a kiss over Jessie’s hair. She glanced up and saw him smiling. Then he was gone, leaving her alone with Paul.

They were both quiet for a while, with nothing but the sound of their breathing and the crickets outside.

Finally, Paul spoke. “Jessie, I guess we should talk.”

She nodded, pulling away from him so she could look up into his face. He was as beautiful as ever—more, maybe, his features full of emotion. His eyes were glossy, his pupils enormous.

“Paul… where do we even start?”

“I start by telling you I love you. I always have.”

Her eyes filled with tears, nearly spilling over as her heart melted, her chest going soft and loose. But maybe there was no need to cry anymore.

Finally.

“I love you, too. I have since the moment we met.”

“I can’t believe it’s taken us ten years to tell each other.”

“I can’t, either. Ten years and Noah.”

“Yeah.” Paul stroked a hand over her cheek, and she smiled, going warm inside all over again. “Ten years and Noah to overcome my stubbornness. I was too afraid of ruining what we had.”

“So was I. And… to be honest, I figured you’d always need to be with a man.”

“It’s not about that, you know. I need to be with the person I care about. It’s not about your gender.”

“But won’t you miss it? Being with a guy?”

“There’s nothing to miss, baby. It’s the person. It’syou. The rest is nothing more than flesh. Not that I’m dismissing flesh—you know I like it too much—but I likeyourflesh. I love you, Jess.You. Nothing else matters.”

“I love you, too,” she told him with a long sigh of relief and so much emotion she thought her heart might burst. She held onto him tighter, tight enough that she felt every hard plane of his body against hers. “So, what now?” she asked.

“Now I make love to you. I don’t think I’ve ever used that term before. I’ve never meant it before. Maybe I was waiting for you. I don’t know. No, that’s bullshit—Ihavebeen waiting for you. All of my life. I don’t know how I’ve fought it all this time. I’m not even sure why, anymore. But Noah’s right—it has to be you and me, Jess. We have to be together. I know it feels a little complicated, but I don’t see it that way. Not anymore. I need to get over myself, over my fears, or I’m going to keep losing out—losing out on being with you. All I know is I need you, my baby. We can figure out the rest later.”

She nodded, gazing up into his beautiful blue eyes. “I need you, too. And yes, there will be stuff to figure out. Reconstructing who we are together as something other than friends, wrapping our heads around it all. It’s a little confusing, like I’m losing my best friend, except I’m not. IhopeI’m not.”

“No, never, Jess. I know I was afraid of that, that it held me back from admitting to you how I’ve felt almost since the first moment we met. But now that I’ve kissed you, been inside your body, had that physical connection, it sort of… transcended the fear. My stupidity.”

“You weren’t being stupid—you were being realistic. A lot of people who take a friendship and try to turn it into a romance end up losing the friendship. And there’s the added issue of you being into men—almost exclusively, I thought.”

“I’ve always been more homoflexible than strictly gay, and that really does make a difference. The ‘flexible’ part is important. Or maybe ‘pansexual’ is more descriptive, because it really is about the person. And that person—myperson—is you. I wouldn’t even be going there with you if I thought I’d want to be with men. But if I have you, Jess, then I have everything I want. And I promise to do my best not to fuck this up.”

“I needed to know that. I feel like we need to promise each other that.”

“Done.”

She smiled. “Okay. Okay. I know it won’t be quite as easy as that. But if you’re with me… maybe I can do anything. Maybewecan.”

---