Page 18 of Take Me Slowly: part 2
I grunted a laugh. He had a point there.
"Both of them, but I meant Brooks this time. Prick thought he could watch our woman." That didn't sit right with me. Especially since he didn't know she'd already guessed he was doing it.
"She wasn't ours at the time." Riley trod on one of the boats, walking around to force the air out.
I could have refuted that, but it wasn't the point.
"He still did it without her permission," I said.
"You have a key to her house without her permission." He jumped off the boat and leaned over to fold it.
"That's different," I said.
"How is it different?" He pushed the folded boat aside and started to flatten another one.
"Because us having a key is in her best interest," I said. "She might need us to come inside when she can't open the door herself. What he did was just fucking creepy."
Riley stopped and looked over at me. "Are you pissed off you didn't think of it first?"
"No," I scoffed. "Why would I want to watch her get off when I can get her off myself?" Anyone could sit back and watch.
"When you put it that way, it is creepy." Riley went back to deflating. "Why do you think he's in town?"
"For her." That was the only thing I was certain of. "He's come to claim her, but he's in for a surprise. We aren't giving her up without a fight."
"Hell no we aren't," Riley agreed. "If he wants her, he's going to have to share." He levelled a look at me. "How do you feel about that? Sharing her with him." After a beat he added, "And Josiah."
"You want that, don't you?" I asked. I'd heard his dirty talking when we were fucking Leah. He'd all but invited both guys into bed with us.
"I want… I want her to get everything she wants," he said slowly. "And I want her and you. If having her means sharing with them, then yeah, I want that. Nice deflection, by the way. What do you want?"
I released a long sigh. "Do you think maybe she's right? About Coral Clarke. What if things didn't go down the way we were told?"
"Are you admitting there's a chance Josiah wasn't lying?" Riley cocked his head at me. "I noticed you deflected again." He grinned when I flipped him off. "If we were wrong all this time, that would make it easier to share her with him."
That was typical Riley. He was always faster to forgive and forget than I was. It was going to take time for me to get my head around the idea we may not have anything to forgive. If anything, Josiah would be the one having to forgive us. And our parents for creating the whole narrative and perpetuating it to begin with.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. "This whole thing is fucked up."
"You think she's Coral, don't you?" Riley squinted at me.
"I don't know." I dropped my hand to my side. "The first time I saw her, I was drawn to her. Like, I don't know, I didn't want to look away. I was an asshole to her, but even then I felt like she belonged here. You know?"
"Yeah, I know." He gave me a couple of slaps on my shoulder and started to fold the second boat. "It feels like she's always been here."
He was right about that. She fit in like a missing piece of the puzzle. The bit we didn't know was missing until we met her. Once we had, we didn't know how we'd functioned without her.
"Hypothetically, what if she is Coral Clarke? How do we prove it? Should we try to prove it? Would it change anything if we do? She'd still be the same woman, with the same past. And the same future." I didn't give a shit if her name was Engelbert Clutterbuck. It wouldn't change how I felt about her. It wouldn't change how Riley felt about her. Yeah, I heard what he said when we were fucking. I knew he was saying it to both of us. I didn't know about Leah, but I was too chicken shit to say it back. For now.
"This isn't the answer you want, but we have to leave it up to her," Riley said. "She has to decide if she wants to find out the truth or not. But if she does, a DNA test should do it. If we could get Gavin to agree to have his mouth swabbed. Or blood taken."
"Yeah." He'd have to be lucid enough to consent, but if he was, would we have to explain why it was happening? That might fuck him up even more. This whole situation got more and more fucked up the more I thought about it.
"Fiona or Whitney could probably convince him," Riley said. "Those two could sell sand to someone living in the middle of the desert."
I grunt-laughed. That sounded like Fiona and my sister all right. Especially Whitney. She was the master of getting her own way when she put her mind to it. "I guess we wait and see what Leah wants to do."
I helped Riley fold the last couple of boats and drag them over to the pile. We tossed the paddles on top of them and hung all the lifejackets onto hooks.
