Page 167 of Pucking Around

I smile, handing him the bottle of body wash. “Where’s Jake?”

“He drew the short straw,” he replies, working the loofah into a lather and dragging it down his sandy legs.

“What does that mean?”

“Means he’s stuck outside giving Sy a bath.”

I snort. “You can talk tough like you don’t love that dog all you want,” I tease. “But we all know you’re a smitten kitten.”

He raises a dark brow at me, pouty lips pursed. “A smitten kitten?”

“Yeah,” I reply, wiping a dollop of suds off his chin. He’s working a whole five o’clock shadow look that just does it for me. I trail both my hands up, resting them on his shoulders. “I’ve decided I think you’re a cat.”

“A cat?”

“Yeah…moody, temperamental, aloof, judgmental—”

“This is great, Hurricane. Really making a guy feel good here.”

I laugh, pulling him closer until his sudsy body glides against my wet skin. “And clever, confident, independent.” I kiss a different part of his face with each word. “Loyal to a fault.”

He drops the loofah, his hands banding around my waist.

Taking my shot, I gaze up at him. “You need to tell Jake you’re in love with him.”

“I already did,” he replies leaning in to kiss my wet neck.

“You said you love him,” I correct. “He already knows that. He doesn’t know you’reinlove with him.”

He stills in my arms. “Rachel—”

“He deserves to know. Whatever it is keeping you silent, you deserve to have a voice too,” I press. “Tell him how you feel.”

“It’s too much too fast,” he mutters.

“He’s talking marriage here, Cay,” I counter. “Babies and holidays and forever. He’s all in, but he doesn’t know what he’sinfor. You could be so good together, Cay. Good to him, goodforhim. And we both know he’d light up your life in ways I can’t—”

“Rachel—”

“I’m not being self-deprecating here,” I add quickly. “My heart didn’t feel complete with Mars missing. And yours doesn’t feel complete withouthim. It doesn’t hurt my feelings to know with total clarity that I’m not enough for you, Cay. We are complex, emotional beings that live such full and beautiful lives. To think that one singular person can provide us with everything we need to best live out that life is…well, silly,” I add with a shrug.

“You make it sound so easy,” he mutters.

“So long as you’re not being honest with him, you’re not being honest.Period. Mars talked about swinging hammers at our house of glass? House, meet Caleb Sanford and his paralyzing fear of letting someone requite his love.”

“You wanna talk about hammers and glass houses?” he challenges. “Mars.”

“What about him?”

“Everything about him,” he huffs. “He’s a total mystery to us. Is he in this? Is he willing to share you? And I don’t just mean in a ‘we’re all separately having sex with you’ kind of way. Jake and I want a unit, Rachel. We want a fucking team. He’s gotta get in or get out.”

I swallow my nerves. “You’ve been talking about him?”

“All the fucking time. And Jake and I are on the same page with this. Ask him if you think I’m lying.”

“I don’t think you’re lying, Cay,” I reply gently. “What do you need him to do?”

“Prove that he’s in this for real. We should all be together inthishouse. We don’t care that you fuck him, but he doesn’t get to keep you all night halfway across town. And he needs to get on board with sharing you,” he adds, giving me a level look. “We’re sick of walking around on eggshells with him.”

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