Rule of Three

Chapter Seventeen

“What do you mean, he’s gone?”

Kassidy rounded on Chris, the pot of coffee held above her mug.

“Jesus, Kass, watch what you’re doing.” Chris grabbed for her hand as coffee poured all over the counter and dribbled down the front of one maple cabinet.

“Oh shit.” She reached for a towel and swiped at the mess.

“For Chrissake, be careful,” Chris snapped. “You could burn someone like that.”

She mopped up the coffee, his words like a slap. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “You don’t need to bite my head off.”

Chris rubbed the back of his neck, took the towel and wiped up the coffee that had dripped to the hardwood floor. “Sorry.”

“Where is he?”

“He left.”

She stared at him, questions clogging up her brain. “But, I don’t get it. Where did he go? Why?”

“Oh for— I don’t know. I think he’s going back to San Francisco. Probably going back to the hotel for now.”

“But…” The kitchen shifted around her and she set a hand on the counter to steady herself. “But, I don’t get it.” She narrowed her eyes at Chris. He looked like shit, she had to say. His eyes were red and a pulse ticced in his tight jaw. “Is this because of last night?”

“No.”

He continued mopping without looking at her, then stood, turned and hung the damp towel on the rack.

She snatched it away from him. “That needs to go in the laundry,” she snapped. “Chris. What’s going on?”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

She balled up the damp towel in her fists. “Yes, you do.” Then she smacked his chest. “What did you say to him?”

He continued to avoid her eyes. “What happened last night shouldn’t have. We just…both agreed to that. And that it was best if he go.”

Kassidy’s face felt tight and hot, her stomach cramped. “I’m trying to understand,” she said slowly, her throat aching. “Help me understand.”

Finally he looked her in the eye. Briefly. “Kassidy. You know what…fuck.” He rubbed his face. “I can’t even talk about this. You know what he did last night. He can’t do that. We can’t do that.”

“You loved it!” She stared at him. “You came like a volcano! If you hated it that much, why didn’t you stop him?”

“I tried! I was…”

“Bullshit!” She sucked in air in quick, shallow breaths. “Bullshit, Chris. What’s so wrong if it felt good?”

He stared at her, his mouth pressed into a grim line. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

She shook her head. “I can’t believe you just said that. It’s okay for me to sleep with two guys? For me to have two cocks inside me? For me to do all the wild and wicked things we’ve done? It’s okay for you to share your girlfriend with your best friend, which you’ve done many times I might add, but it’s not okay for two men to touch each other?”

He closed his eyes and turned away. “That about sums it up, yeah.”

“Oh, for… Chris.” She stretched a hand out to touch his shoulder. “Tell me. Is it that repulsive to you that Dag touched you like that?”

“Jesus Christ!” He shrugged her hand off and she took a step back, feeling a knife twisting inside her. “I just…can’t do that.”

She just gazed at his back, the old, well-washed gray T-shirt hanging from his wide shoulders, tensed up almost level with his ears. “I don’t know what to say. I just don’t.”

“Look. Yes, Dag and I have had threesomes in the past. But it was never for him and me–it was about the girls. Both of us sharing and enjoying her and giving her two times the pleasure.”

“Because you’re both such studs,” she added with a touch of bitterness.

“No. That’s not what I meant.”

“You know what?” She fixed her gaze on him. “I don’t totally buy that. That it’s not for you and him. You two get something out of doing that–I know you like to watch, but it’s more than that.” She paused. “You and Dag have feelings for each other.”

Chris’s narrowed to slits. “We’re friends.”

“Yeah. Friends.” She shook her head. She eyed him. How far should she push him? He was on the edge as it was, body tense, jaw locked. Her heart felt full and heavy. “I’ve never been totally able to get my head around this whole thing. It confuses me. I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore. But I do know one thing. Yesterday I felt lucky to have both of you, but it wasn’t because of the sex. It was because you guys both looked out for me yesterday. No, not just yesterday—every day. You both care about me. Both of you. You wanted to make me feel better, to look after me. That meant—” She had to stop and swallow, her throat thick with tears. “That meant so much to me.”

“Jesus Christ.” Chris whirled around. “Are you in love with Dag?”

Her chest ached so much she could hardly breath, almost couldn’t speak. “I-I don’t know.”

“Fuck me! You have got to be kidding me! This wasn’t supposed to turn out like this!”

“Chris, wait. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. But I care about Dag. I can’t deny that. I couldn’t sleep with him and do the things we’ve done with him if I didn’t care about him. You should know that. You should be happy about that.”

He gazed back at her, confusing swirling in his eyes.

“I love you, Chris. You know I do.”

“Yeah.” His voice was low and tight. “I know it. And I love you too, sweetheart.” He put out his arms and she moved into them, against his big, warm body, got folded up in his embrace. “God, Kassidy, you scared the crap out of me.” They stood there holding each other for a long moment, and then he said, “So we’re good?”

Slowly she drew her head back. “No. No, Chris. We’re not good.” She met his eyes. “I need to know what happened with Dag.”

She walked through the lobby of the hotel where she and Dag and Chris had had dinner weeks ago. Dag hadn’t answered his cell phone, but when she’d called the hotel they’d put her through to his room, and without caller ID, he’d picked up. He sounded different—fractured, distant—but he gave her his room number even though he tried to tell her not to come.

She didn’t listen to him. Chris wouldn’t talk to her, wouldn’t tell her what had happened and once again, even though Chris said Dag would be fine, Dag was always fine, even though Dag was a tough bad boy who apparently didn’t need anyone, she couldn’t bear the thought of him being hurt.

Her heart strained in her chest with hard, painful beats as she rode the elevator to the tenth floor. Room 1010. Easy to remember. She rubbed her lips together and pressed her hand to her stomach.

She stepped off the elevator, and as she stood in front of the door of room 1010, she knew her life was about to change. If she knocked on that door, she had to deal with whatever happened, and a feeling grew inside her, intuition, premonition, she didn’t know, but she did know this was going to rock her world forever. Since Dag had come back, their lives had taken a sharp turn into craziness, although as time went on, what they were doing felt more and more natural and comfortable and right. But the fear had been there all along, simmering underneath everything and now she knew why. Because their lives were going to blow up. It was happening now, right now, right this minute, and she didn’t know if they were all going to live through it, or if they did, if they’d ever be the same.

She knocked on the door, bowed her head as she waited for Dag to answer. He took so long, she was afraid he’d left after her call, and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip and lifted her head just as the door opened.

Oh hell. She thought Chris had looked bad. Dag’s hair was all over the place, he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, which yesterday had looked sexy and stubbly, today looked…rough. Dangerous. But his eyes were the most dangerous of all, because for once he couldn’t hide the pain and vulnerability beneath that badass attitude.

“Kassidy. I was hoping you’d change your mind and not come.”

“Sorry.” She slipped past him and into the room, inhaling his scent as she brushed against his body.

It was only noon, but Dag had opened the mini bar and several small bottles of Scotch sat on the dark wood dresser. The room was bare otherwise, his bags tossed in the closet, nothing unpacked, an impersonal, anonymous hotel room. He wore the beige cargo shorts he’d worn yesterday with a white T-shirt, and he crossed the carpet on his big bare feet toward her where she stood by the window.

“Chris won’t tell me what happened,” she said without any preamble. “So I came to find out from you.”

“What makes you think I’ll tell you?”

“You will.”

His mouth tightened. “If Chris doesn’t want you to know, then I’m not going to tell you.”

“Yes, you are.”

He gave a bark of laughter and rubbed his hand over his forehead. “Kassidy. Go back to your boyfriend. This was all a fucking big mistake. Let’s just let it go before things get worse.”

“How can things get any worse?” Her heart ached and she took a step toward him. “You and Chris are both dying. And…so am I. I care about you, Dag. About both of you.”

It was daring, saying that. She hadn’t told him she loved him, but he had to know she cared, that’s why she was there. Something flickered in his eyes.

“I just want to understand,” she whispered. She clasped her hands in front of her. “Please. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe we can never go back…but I want to understand. I need to.”

“Shit.”

She sank into a chair because her legs went wobbly as if all the strength had drained out of them through her feet.

“I know Chris doesn’t always want to talk about things,” she continued. “But you’ve always talked to me.”

He shook his head and sat on the edge of the king-size bed. “Kassidy.” His somber eyes regarded her steadily. “I can talk to you about my own shit. But I can’t tell you what’s going on in Chris’s head.” He rubbed the back of his skull. “Hell, I don’t know what’s going on in Chris’s head.”

“I don’t think Chris knows what’s going on in Chris’s head,” she muttered.

Dag snorted. “Yeah.” He sighed. “I fucked up. Big time. You know it.”

She pressed her trembling lips together. “If you knew that, why did you do it?” She held up a hand. “Sorry. That sounded accusing. I didn’t mean it to. I just want to know.”

He gave a short nod, dropped his head and looked at the floor, his hands between his knees. She wanted to rush over and sit beside him, throw her arms around him. She tightened her leg muscles to keep her in the chair, gripped her fingers together.

Then he raised his head, and agony and longing blazed in his dark eyes. “I love Chris,” he said simply. “I’ve loved him forever.”

She stared back at him, breathing in tiny shallow breaths. “You mean…”

He nodded again but held her gaze. “Does that disgust you?”

“No. Of course not.” Disgust was nowhere on her emotional radar at that moment. “I just… Are you gay?”

He shrugged. “I guess you’d say I’m bi. I’ve always been attracted to both men and women. Chris is the only guy I’ve ever had feelings like that for, though.”

“He told me you were a man whore. That you slept your way through college. With girls.”

Dag choked on a laugh. “Yeah. That’d be true. I like sex, lots of sex, what can I say? And I wasn’t going to get any from Chris. He made that pretty damn clear.”

Her face scrunched up. “You told him…?”

“No. Christ, no. I just knew from conversations we had he was in no way open to that. And I mean, in no way.”

She nodded.

“It hurt,” Dag added, voice low and taut. “Hurt like hell. But I valued his friendship. Hell, he accepted me for who I was, busted-up family and poor-as-dirt, complete misfit. Not many people have ever done that.”

Her head was whirling with this information that shouldn’t have stunned her like it did. She’d just had no idea. But thinking back to the last few weeks, she felt as though she had known. With some kind of deep-down instinctive knowledge, it made sense to her.

But she was still confused. “Did you tell him–last night? Or this morning?” He’d been gone when she woke up so she didn’t know when the big showdown had occurred. “Is that why he made you leave?”

Dag’s mouth curled. “Why do you think he made me leave?”

Her mouth fell open. “Well… Oh shit. I don’t know. I assumed…”

“Chris doesn’t make me do anything. But no. I didn’t tell him that. He freaked out about what happened and told me to get out. I knew I had to leave.”

Her eyes prickled. Her heart cracked and ached. “Oh Dag.” The words came out in a rough whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m going back to San Francisco, Kassidy.”

Her bottom lip trembled and her heart stuttered. “When?”

“I booked a flight for Tuesday morning. I have a few business things to deal with tomorrow, the rest I’ll have to handle from there.”

“Oh.” She sucked on her bottom lip and looked down at her hands, a little blurry through her tears. How could he leave? What would they do without him? She felt as if someone were wrenching her heart out of her chest.

“I know I fucked up,” Dag said. “I shouldn’t have done what I did. It was just so hard…not to. Ya know? We’d all gotten really close and it…just happened.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and his eyes looked kind of red too.

She met his eyes. “But…the weird thing is—he liked it. I know he did.”

Dag was silent.

“He wouldn’t admit it to me,” she added. She laid her hands on her knees, bare beneath the hem of her skirt, and curled her fingers around them, her heart slowly splintering into painful shards. “He’s so damn stubborn. I-I accused him of having feelings for you. And that was before I even knew…”

His eyes shot wide open. “What the hell? You said what? Why?”

One corner of her mouth lifted and she hitched a shoulder. “Call it woman’s intuition. Little things. I should have figured things out a long time ago.”

“No. Whatever.” He closed his eyes briefly. “Jesus.” His eyes opened. “That’s not right, Kass. I know he doesn’t feel that way. He never has and he never will. In my screwed-up way, I wanted to be close to him, but as usual, I made a mess of things. Don’t tell Chris this. Please? I’m just going to get the hell out of town again, and leave you two to live your lives.”

“Why did you come back?” she asked. “Why?”

He hitched one shoulder. “I just wanted to see him again. I guess I had some kind of crazy hope that maybe…” His voice trailed off. “It was stupid.”

He’d wanted to see Chris again. He’d hoped they could be together.

And then a question hit her, like a smack in the face. Had he been using her to get closer to Chris?

Oh god. She’d thought he cared about her. She cared about him. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The pain clamped down on her, crushing her, a knife turning slowly inside her. She felt like she might throw up. She stood. Her legs wobbled as she walked across the hotel room, not looking at Dag. She couldn’t look at him. In fact she could barely see, other than a small round window in front of her, everything else faded to black. She fumbled at the hotel door.

“Kassidy.” Dag spoke behind her, his voice ragged. She paused, bent her head, looked at the door knob. A harsh sob swelled inside her and she tightened her stomach muscles to keep it from bursting out, breathed in through her nose. She yanked the door open and walked out, down the hall and out of Dag’s life.