Page 55 of Hiding Secrets

“I’m not mad, Elliott.” He pulls me closer to him, “I mean, I am a little,” my heart sinks and my eyes start to sting, “mad that I wasn’t here to watch it.”

My eyes widen at his words, “What?”

“Hunter, Marcus, and I live a different kind of life with each other. Well…used to.”

I look at him confused.

“We don’t just keep our love to one person, we love each other and want a relationship between us. It requires a lot of trust and communication, but we’ve always loved each other and been open and honest.”

“But you aren’t together anymore?”

“We still love and care for one another but we went on abreak,I guess you can say.” He pulls me into his lap, “We’ve been together openly since we graduated high school, the town we lived in wasn’t very open minded.”

“I’ve heard.”

He cocks a brow at me, “Someone’s been opening up to you, huh?”

“You could say that.”

“Well, we've been in a relationship for years. We talked about adding someone and had the door open for a while. So when someone came along during training for new combat recruits,Marcus became really close to her. He fell head over boots for her, so we decided to let it happen. She was great at first, open to our relationship and it lasted for a couple of years. She seemed to fit perfectly with all three of us. That was until it became more apparent that she wanted a relationship with one of us, not all of us. Which happens in relationships like ours but she wanted them to leave our relationship completely and become monogamous.” He must see the confusion on my face because he clarifies further, “She wanted it to be just him and her only.”

“She wanted to just have a relationship with Marcus, and he didn’t want to leave your guys' relationships for it?”

“She didn’t want to be with Marcus.” He states softly.

“But…you said he was the one to meet her first, thathewas falling in love with her.”

“And it broke his heart when she told him she wanted me. He even told me to leave because he wanted her to be happy. But I was never going to choose her, I loved him and Hunter way too much to let them go. When I told him no, something in him snapped. He fell into a deep depression. He missed her, we all did, but he was too scared to love again. He couldn’t fill that hole she burned into him, so he told Hunter and I he needed a break to heal, to figure out what he truly wanted.”

“How long has it been?”

“Two years. We still live together and love each other, but he grew more distant with me than he did with Hunter. I think heblames me for what happened. Some of it was for her wanting me, some because I let her go.”

“But you did it because you love him.”

“Yeah and I will never stop loving him or Hunter.” His voice is stern.

“I don’t want to come between you all.”

“I want exactly that.” He cocks a brow at me and I playfully slap his chest at the crude joke. “I think you’re everything we need.” He adds.

“You want me to be withallof you?”

“I want you to be a part of this relationship, but I’m not the only voice here. It means they have to agree and you would have towantthat.”

“Marcus hates me.” I say, not giving him a ‘no’.

Do I want this?

Hunter’s eyes pop into my mind, how they looked at me when I woke up from my night terrors, how he opened up to me about his past. There was something there. Something I couldn’t deny.

I didn’t want to deny any of it.

“Marcus hates everyone and everything right now.”

“And Hunter?”

“Oh Hunter most definitely does not hate you.” He chuckles sweetly, “He’s just waiting to see what I say about it.”

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