Page 97 of Puck Yes

I can’t fathom more than this, not when I still feel tender, not when I feel softer for them than I ever expected. But maybe for the rest of this arrangement, we can be all in.

We’ll have to start with this new wrinkle. “I felt weird tonight at the wives’ and girlfriends’ and husbands’ and boyfriends’ suite,” I admit.

“Because we’re married but not really married?” Hayes asks, sounding remorseful for putting me in this position.

“Yes, but also because…” I turn to Stefan. “I wanted them to know I’m not just awife.” I draw air quotes, hoping it masks the sudden slam of emotion in me. “But I’m also a…”

Stefan drops his forehead to mine. “A secret girlfriend.”

Hearing those words from him both thrills me and saddens me. “Yes. Because they invited me to dinner and board games. With Hayes,” I add. I pull back to meet Stefan’s gaze. His expression is hard to read. There’s a bit of a wall up in his eyes. “I want you to go. Is there any way you can?” I ask impulsively.

I haven’t worked out the details. I haven’t planned this at all. I just feel he belongs there with me. Withus.

I tell him the date. He thinks on it for a beat, but then he sighs. “Wish I could, but I have a thing that night. A dinner with one of my sponsors.”

He sounds disappointed to miss the get-together. I’m sad he can’t come too. But at least he knows I wanted him there. It seems a good start to what we’re forging tonight.

He strokes my hair. “But the rest of the time, we’ll be here. I’ll be here,” he adds. “Every night we’re in town, right,Hey You?”

“Fuck you, dickhead,” Hayes growls. But when he turns to me, his face softens, and he brushes a kiss onto my cheek. “I won’t let you down again.”

I still don’t know what happens when Hayes takes off that ring—if they’ll continue to want me together or if Hayes will walk away. If Stefan will want me to himself. I turn back to my secret boyfriend. “So what did you tell him? When he asked if you’d pursue me by yourself?”

“He said nothing,” Hayes answers for his friend.

Stefan flips him the bird now, but to me, his expression fully open and genuine. “Pretty sure you’d be impossible to walk away from.”

My heart flips as I let those words wash over me. The strength of them. The passion of them. The promise.

But as good as they make me feel—and they make me melt—I don’t know what I want at the end of this arrangement.

What I want right this minute, though, is a little more…throuple time. I gesture to the TV screen. “Want to watch something else? You two can pick your favorite shows since I already picked mine.”

“Schitt’s Creek,” Hayes says, like he’s calling shotgun.

“What’s yours?” I ask Stefan.

He just chuckles and shakes his head, saying nothing.

I poke his side. “I really need to know now.”

“Yeah, what is it?” Hayes goads. “Salty LicoriceorBicycle Menor, I dunno,Viking Thieves?”

Stefan snort-laughs. “Those aren’t shows.”

“Bet they are,” Hayes says.

“I’ll have you know Danish TV is quite excellent.”

“I’m not going to let this go,” I warn him.

With a beleaguered sigh, Stefan relents. “Fine. But I’ll show you.”

I give Stefan the remote control. He picks a thriller in a fishing town at the top of Denmark, and then translates the first few spoken Danish lines before adding the subtitles to the screen.

“That was such a flex,” Hayes teases.

Stefan turns to me. “Yes, yes it was,” he says.

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