Page 4 of What We May Be

Trevor steadied her chair. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her.” His smirk was small and sad. “She’s not much better at listening than Annie.”

Charlie swatted at him with her free hand, and Trevor caught it, holding tight. Sean continued to hold the other as she struggled to choke down a sob, but otherwise she made no reply, keeping her gaze focused on the ocean’s inky black water. They sat like that for several long minutes, the three of them connected yet never further apart.

Trying to feel nothing and feeling everything.

“When do you leave?” Charlie asked after an eternity.

“Tomorrow.” Sean peeked around Charlie and Trevor at the boxes inside the house. “When’s the big move?”

“Later this summer,” she answered. “Washington.”

Sean’s heart skipped a beat, a flame of hope igniting. “DC?”

“Georgetown, technically,” Trevor said, his smile a little truer, a little wider. “I got a tenured professorship in the English department there.”

“I thought you were tenure-track at HU?”

He opened his mouth to reply, but Charlie beat him to it. “We needed a change.”

Sean’s heart skipped another few beats, the flame burning brighter. “You’re moving there together?”

“I only decided to go last week,” she said. “After…”

Beside her, Trevor’s smile dimmed, and Sean’s hope darkened with it. They were moving to DC as friends, then, nothing more. The two of them fleeing Hanover. Fleeing home. Did they have any idea they were running toward him? Sean didn’t think so, and now didn’t seem the time to tell them. “That the reason you’re selling the house?” he asked instead.

Twin tears raced down her face, and Sean’s heart more than skipped, fearing the worst. It only began to beat again when she mumbled, “Yes.”

He reached out and brushed away her tears. “You sure you want to do that?”

She nuzzled his palm, her warm breath caressing his skin and igniting a flame of need instead. Her next words doused it, and ice replaced the warmth. “I need to move on.”

“We both do,” Trevor added.

A freezer-sharp burn seared Sean’s soul and his own eyes filled with tears. When he was able to speak again, he asked the one question that would put his mind, if not his heart, at ease. “You’ll be there for each other?”

Charlie opened her eyes and stared directly into his. “Always.”

Trevor echoed the response, his unspoken unlike you loud enough for Sean to hear over the waves of sorrow crashing around inside him, louder even than the tide lapping at the shore. They didn’t need him any longer, no matter how much he would always need them. He wouldn’t bother them in DC.

“Good.” He gave Charlie’s cheek a final swipe, then grabbed his socks and shoes and stood. Charlie rose with him, and Trevor shifted to stand beside her. Stepping close, Sean gave in to the urge to trail his fingers down Trevor’s arm, needing to touch him too, one last time. Goose bumps rose along the tan skin, and Trevor’s shiver rolled through Sean too.

Fighting the lump in his throat, Sean said the words the two most important people to have ever entered his world needed to hear… to move on. “I’m sorry. More than you’ll ever know, but if the two of you are happy or on your way to being happy, then I’m happy too. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for both of you.”

Trevor’s body trembled, Charlie’s breath hitched, and the salty smell of tears, from one or both of them, tickled Sean’s nose. Enticed him to stay. But he didn’t dare linger. If he did, he’d surely fall to his knees and confess all his sins for another shot at a future with them. A future that was the opposite of moving on. So instead, he swiftly turned and headed for the stairs.

He made it as far as the corner before his world imploded.

“Sean!” Charlie called at the same time Trevor shouted, “Wait!”

All they had to do was call his name, ask him to stay, and Sean was undone.

His socks and shoes hit the deck and he erased the distance between them. At Trevor’s nudge, Charlie lunged forward first, and Sean wound an arm around her waist, plunged a hand into her hair, and hauled her body close, hungrily reclaiming her mouth. It was all better than he remembered—the smokiness of the scotch mixed with the taste that was uniquely Charlie, the weight of her thick, silky hair gliding through his fingers, the way her warm, soft body fit perfectly against his.

The way the other hot, hard body fit perfectly along his backside. Trevor’s hands landed on his hips, the grip bruising in its intensity, all of that earlier anger channeled into his grip, but the flash of pain was nothing compared to the spike of pleasure as Trevor notched his erection against Sean’s ass, yanked aside his collar, and licked a stripe up his neck. The lust that had always sizzled between them winning out and fueling the romantic.

Deprived hands roaming, Sean aimed one south, squeezing Charlie’s firm, denim-clad ass and pressing her hips against his. The other he reached behind him, weaving his fingers into Trevor’s hair, holding Trevor’s mouth to the crook of his neck, and moaning as Trevor kissed and nipped the tendon there. Sean rocked his hips, and Charlie and Trevor countered, friction from both sides ratcheting his need higher. And higher still when Trevor kissed a path up his neck and over his jaw. He lured Sean’s mouth from Charlie’s and claimed a kiss with the same intense hunger that had always threatened to drown Sean.

He lost himself in rough kisses, in Charlie’s featherlight touch as she unbuttoned his shirt and ran her hands over his chest, in the tangle of arms and legs as they wound around and thrust against each other. Fuck, he wanted them, had always wanted them, more than any others who’d ever shot him an interested look. He was back where he belonged, between the only two people he’d ever loved. But he was leaving tomorrow, and they were moving on, together but separate, each hoping to find a new path that would make them happy. He didn’t want to cause them more pain. Didn’t want to damage the fragile hope they were hanging on to. This wasn’t moving on.

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