Page 117 of Sharing Shane

“Being a wise and logical woman, she stayed out of it. Which of course made me mad, because I wanted her to agree with me that Jack was the asshole.” Lucy’s lips quirked with amusement. “She told me not to call her until we’d worked it out, that she wasn’t going to put herself in the middle. And she was right.

“After I sobered up and Jack got sick of being at his mother’s, we talked,” Lucy went on, fiddling with the straw in her nearly empty milkshake glass. “There was yelling and crying and more yelling, and eventually Jack forgave me for being so eager to have it all that I forgot the rules. Because he loves Glory and he did want her to live with us, it all worked out, though she didn’t move in for another year. But I didn’t do us any favors by assuming that six-year-old conversation was all we needed, and you’re not doing yourself any by not asking Shane what he wants.”

Veronica nodded. “I know. I do. I’m just...I feel like I need to figure out what I want, too. And I want to do that without what he wants factoring in.”

“That’s fair,” Lucy said with a nod. “Except I think you already know what you want. You’re just trying to figure out if you can handle all the complications that come with it.”

“How’d you get so wise?”

“Years of fucking up,” Lucy said promptly and smiled when Veronica groaned. “Seriously. If you’re going to be polyamorous, you need to realize that you will fuck up. It’s what you do after that makes or breaks you.”

“Right.” Veronica lifted her coffee to her lips, discovered it was cold, and set it down. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

Veronica shrugged. “For listening. For not telling me I’m being ridiculous.”

“Honey, we’re all ridiculous. Some of us just have more experience at it.”

Veronica laughed. “Right.”

“Now, I have a very important question to ask you,” Lucy said.

“What is it?”

“Does this place have French fries, and can we get some?”

Veronica raised a hand to hail the waitress. “They do, and we can.”

Lucy licked her lips. “Excellent. Can we get some pie, too? I could go for some pie. Cherry pie. Do you think they’d put peanut butter on it if I asked?”

WHILE VERONICA WAS eating French fries and cherry pie, Shane was dealing with his very pushy boyfriend.

“Tell me again why you haven’t told her you love her yet?” Wyatt asked from his perch on the stool he’d dragged into Shane’s workshop.

Shane focused on the varnish he was applying to the gently curved lid of the cedar chest that would pay his mortgage next month. “Taking it slow, remember?”

“You go any slower, you’re going to go back in time,” Wyatt warned.

Satisfied with the first coat, Shane set his brush aside and tapped the lid back on the jar of varnish. “Did you come over to crawl up my ass or fuck it?”

“I can do both,” Wyatt said cheerfully.

“Lucky me,” Shane drawled and brush in hand, walked past Wyatt to the workroom sink.

Wyatt pivoted on the stool. “You can’t still be thinking she was only in it for the threesome.”

Shane began to clean the brush with mineral spirits. “No, I don’t think that. But it’s still new, Wy. I just…want to be careful.”

“There’s a fine line between careful and fearful. You sure you’re not crossing it?”

Shane snorted. “I seem to recall a certain someone freaking out the night before his wedding and having to be talked out of taking a red-eye flight to Alaska.” He shot a look over his shoulder. “With the wedding gifts.”

“Just the Egyptian cotton sheets,” Wyatt reminded him, unbothered. “And the wine glasses. I do love those wine glasses.”

“I know. I bought them.”

“Anyway, I came to my senses.”

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