Tommy lay his head on Gary’s shoulder and said a sincere, “I’m sorry. I get it. I do.”
“I do, too. And it’s not fragile because of you, Gary, it’s all of us. We’re all flying blind here. I’ve never been in a relationship with two men either, and I know Tommy hasn’t. We set a few boundaries, then go from there. I want to make you both happy. If I’m doing something that isn’t along those lines, please don’t hesitate to tell me.”
“Me too,” Tommy agreed.
Gary sighed and added his, “Me three.”
“Maybe we should just stay in bed for the next few days. We don’t argue there, or have second thoughts, or worry about rules or anything,” Tommy suggested with a wicked smile spreading on his lips. One brow cocked high and Diego elbowed Gary gently.
“I like his mind.”
“I do, too. But this time, nothing and no one in my ass.”
Chapter Eighteen
The subject of living together got brought up, and it caused more tension. For three days, they’d stayed in bed, making love over and over, putting the rest of their concerns to the side until they were ready to talk.
When it came time, however, and serious things were brought up, it was Tommy who felt like slinking off somewhere.
Gary was a mess, of course, as always. Diego sure and confident, as always. Tommy, thinking he’d go along with nearly anything they’d come up with felt so differently when it came to the subject of living together.
He, like Diego, thought it was Gary who’d been on his mind, keeping him from moving in with Diego before the three of them got together. With Gary with them, though, he found the subject as frightening, if not more so.
Diego noticed right off, but he was dealing with Gary’s excuses first. “I wanted to kill you one minute and then fell for you the next, now you’re talking about us moving in with you. It’s all too fast, and if we don’t take some time to breathe, it could fall apart. I don’t want that on my head for saying yes when I feel we should wait.”
“I understand that, Gary, of course. It’s just, well, you have nowhere in Trinidad to live right now. I know you can stay with Javi and Daniel, but for how long? I’m not saying we need to share the same bed right off, I have a large home.”
“If we lived in that home together, we’d sleep together.”
Tommy stayed quiet through it all. They didn’t notice, thankfully, but he knew they would eventually. Diego had asked him several times to move in with him when they started to get close, and he’d put it off, stopped Diego from asking after a while.
Gary finally huffed in frustration and asked, “Tom, what do you think?”
Tommy didn’t look at him or Diego as he came up with the lamest excuse. “I have five more months on my lease.”
Both were struck dumb at that, and he knew how pathetic it sounded. Anyone could break a lease.
“Babe, I would buy it out, no problem.”
Diego, always with the logic and problem solving. “I know, but…well, I should probably stay the rest of the time. What if it hurt my credit? I just started getting it straightened out after all the years I let it go to hell.”
It was obvious it wasn’t about his credit or his lease. Gary was avoiding his eyes and Diego couldn’t look away. “Tommy, what the hell is going on?”
Gary stopped him with, “Diego, don’t. He’s conflicted about this, so don’t push him.”
“Bullshit, don’t push him! He played this with me for months. Now that you’re here, with us, I thought he’d finally make a damn decision.”
Tommy got up from the couch where they were sitting, farther apart than he thought they would, and was ready to take off, but Gary grabbed his hand. “No. We’re done running, remember? You won’t let me, so I won’t let you.”
Sighing, he retook his seat, and Gary didn’t let go of his hand. “Okay, I don’t even know. I mean, I’ve thought about it, and it scares me more than the three of us trying this weird triad relationship does. I didn’t move in with you before because I was missing Gary, like you thought. Like everyone thought.”
Diego moved so he could better see around Gary, and he whispered, “It wasn’t?”
“No. See, shit, I don’t know how to explain this.”
“Slow and easy, Tom,” Gary recommended. “That’s all we can do right now.”
Finally relenting, Diego agreed, “We’ll listen, no matter what, Tommy. You know that.”
It was time to get it out, to face up to his own insecurity and let the two men he loved know. “Okay, well, you know about my folks, how they were drunks and assholes. It wasn’t that the house was great, or I loved living there, but whenever they’d get pissed at me, they’d kick me out.
“Lee was the same way. One day, he’d tell me I could crash at his house as long as I needed, the next day he’d get in some mood and tell me to fuck off and find somewhere else to crash. With the thieving, and Lee taking most of the profits from it, I could never afford my own place. Then Javi…after we broke into his house and Lee got killed, I really thought it was all over for me. To go to him after all that, and he didn’t exactly invite me to stay, I kind of showed up and didn’t leave, but he didn’t throw me out. That was the first time I felt a little okay about where I was gonna sleep at night, and even then, all he had to do was tell me to go and I’d have no choice.”
As Diego’s head dropped and Gary’s lips grew an understanding smile, Tommy relaxed a little. “Fuck, babe,” Diego breathed. “You have an apartment now, all yours, no one can kick you out and it’s the first time in your whole life you felt secure. I’m so fucking sorry, man, I had no idea.”
“I didn’t understand it right away, either.”
Gary threw his arm around Tommy’s shoulders and chided, “All you had to do was say that, once you figured it out. I get it, and I know Diego does, too. And, shit, maybe that is why it feels weird for me as well. Not that I was insecure about being thrown out, but yeah, it being his place, I get it.”
“So, what then? I mean, I would like to live with you guys, but how do we fix this?”
“We don’t for now. Gary can stay at Javi’s for a while. You stay at your apartment. Gary can visit you and me, I can and you can. We are boyfriends, so we get that established first. I promise not to push again until all of us are more ready to take that next step.”
“Why are you pushing at all? I mean, Tommy and you, you were doing good how it was, right?”
Tommy listened to this, wondering the same thing.
“That big house is lonely, you know? It’s beautiful and I love it, but it’s fucking lonely. I was in love with this great guy, and I wanted to share it with him.”
Tommy felt guilty again, but he didn’t let it overtake him. “I’m sorry, Diego. I guess we were really at cross purposes there.”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “Sorry, babe. We’ll take it slower, but just know, I do want to live with you both eventually. I want to wake up to the two of you, like we are now. It’s going to be really hard waking up alone again.”
“I have a feeling that Tommy and I won’t be far from you, even when we get home.”
Finally seeing that he and Gary weren’t the only ones with insecurities and fears, Tommy felt a thousand pounds of weight lifting from his shoulders. “Try to get rid of me.”
When they returned home, Tommy felt alone for the first time in weeks. The moment he stepped into his apartment, the silence was deafening, and he wanted to turn right around. So easily he could head to Daniel’s to see Gary, or to Diego’s house, but he had made such a big deal of it, he set his bag down and let out a long breath, glad for that little bit of sound.
The phone was in his hand, and he had to set it on the table by the door along with his keys so he didn’t call one of his partners to come over and spend the night with him. It was going to be miserable sleeping alone in his bed.
The phone miraculously rang, and he rushed to pick it up, hoping it was Gary or Diego, inviting themse
lves over, but it was Daniel. “You’re home! Why didn’t you come with Gary?”
“I had to get home. Haven’t been here in a while.”
“It’s not like you have goldfish to feed or a plant to water. And what did you do to Gary? He looks exhausted. Oh wait, he has two boyfriends,” Daniel teased, laughing.
He collapsed on his couch, the one he’d bought two days after getting his apartment. The one he rarely used because he didn’t want to mess it up. “Okay, I have an issue. I made this big deal about having my own place, because I was scared to get kicked out of another place, you know.”
“Like your parents and Lee always did to you. I remember.”
“Thanks. At least there’s one person I don’t have to explain it to. Okay, so I didn’t want to move in with Diego, he wanted me and Gary to do that when we got back. Now that I’m here, without them…”
“I get it. I was the opposite. Javi wanted me to go off and have my own place and shit and I refused. So, now what?”
He groaned and said, “I don’t know! What can I do? I’ve already got Diego into that place where he knows not to mess with me over it, and Gary is trying to get to know Diego better. If I moved in with Diego, I don’t think Gary would right away, so it would be like he was the third wheel. Daniel! Help!”
“I have an idea. It’s weird, and you may not like it, and you’ll need a lot of help, but I can help you. You’re coming to work tomorrow morning, right?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Okay, I’ll get some things together today and when you come tomorrow, we’ll take care of this.”
He knew he’d never find another friend like Daniel. To think they once hated each other. “Thanks, man. I mean it.”
“Stop getting mushy.”
When Tommy arrived at work, he was twice as ready to give up on living alone. Gary greeted him at the door and Tommy held onto him like he hadn’t seen him in weeks. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too, Tom. Damn it, I missed you. That fucking Zen Dom too,” he laughed. “Daniel said to meet him in the den.”
Tommy kissed him slowly, unwilling to part from him yet. Gary groaned into the kiss, holding him a little tighter. When the kiss was over, Gary whispered, “I wish you didn’t have to work. I’d take us over to Diego’s and have some fun.”
“Don’t tempt me. I was just off for almost a month. I think I need to work.”
Gary slapped his ass and ordered, “Get to it, then, bodyguard!”
When Tommy got into the den, he saw Daniel squinting at the computer and chided, “Wear your fucking glasses, Daniel.”
“Don’t you work for me? I should tell you what to do.”
“I’ve got two very dominant boyfriends for that,” he groaned. “What are you looking so hard at your eyes are about to pop out?”
Daniel closed the lid of the laptop and bragged, “I’m a genius and I was looking at the results of my brainstorm.”
“No cryptic shit this morning. I didn’t sleep worth a damn. Not used to having the bed all to myself.”
“Well, if I have my way, that will change quickly.”
His interest fully perked, he asked, “What does that mean?”
Daniel shook his head, smiling mischievously. “Not yet. I want to show you. Come on, we’re going for a drive.”
Chapter Nineteen
Where Daniel was taking him, he wasn’t sure, but it was good to be out of the house and with his friend again. The loneliness that had suffocated him the night before was waning, and he felt like he could breathe again.
“Now, I’m not saying this is the answer to all your issues as a…what are you calling yourselves? Throuple? Triad? Threesome?”
“It’s so new, we haven’t labeled it yet.”
“Well, anyway, I know Gary is getting to know Diego, Javi said he was nervous about how fast he’d fallen for him, but he did the same with you.”
“I know, and look what happened. He took off for months.”
Daniel lay a hand on his shoulder and soothed, “I don’t think it’s gonna happen again. Are you that worried?”
“Yes and no. I told him if he did then he’d never be welcomed back. I meant it, but it fucking tore me to pieces saying it.”
“I can imagine. Take the next left.”
They were in town but heading to the outskirts on the other side of it, the side opposite Daniel’s home. They’d soon be outside of the city limits, heading east.
“Well, it is scary, falling that fast, but let’s face it, gay men don’t often take their time falling. We may take our time committing but falling is fast most of the time.”
“Yeah,” Tommy laughed, “It took you three seconds with Javi.”
“Look at him! He’s fucking hot!”
He knew that. He’d had a crush on the man when he first met him too. “So, are you going to tell me this plan?”
“In a minute! Be patient!”
His patience with everything was running thin. “Sorry, but after all this not knowing stuff, another surprise is not exactly what I’m looking forward to right now.”
“Oh, give me my fun, shit!”
Tommy laughed with him and shut his mouth for a while, then turned again into a newer suburb of town, just outside of it. It was a hilly region, nothing like the mountains to the west, but hills that rolled easily over the land.
There were big houses, smaller ones, all on their own acre or two. Daniel was staring at his phone, then the road and the phone again as he tried to navigate the winding roads.
“Hillcrest Drive, right here. I mean, go right, here.”
Daniel was generally terrible with directions, so he was surprised they found the place at all. “This house up here? Who lives here?”
“No one. It’s for sale, just went on the market.”
It suddenly became clear what Daniel’s intentions were. “Daniel, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking…”
“Shh, and just go with it. Remember, I’m your boss.”
“Yeah, I seem to have a lot of those.”
Daniel slapped his arm as he parked. “Then take charge of something! This could be it, Tommy. A way for you to have the first and last say of a big part of your shared lives. Is that a bad thing?”
Looking at the two-story home, done in a nice shade of sand, big windows, front porch that was big enough for the table and chairs that were currently there.
The landscaping in the front and the side he could see was a nice mixture of lawn and mulched flowerbeds.
“Wait until you see in back.”
“I’m still looking at the front.”
Daniel had him park in the graveled driveway and once the engine was off, they got out and walked up the four stairs to the porch. There was a lockbox on the doorknob, and Daniel punched in the right numbers to open it and retrieve the key. “The realtor said to do a tour ourselves, he was major busy today. I like it better when they’re not around anyway.”
Tommy had never had a realtor, so he wouldn’t know. “What if we have questions?”
“This isn’t the question portion of the show, Tommy. This is the, hey, do I even like this place, portion.”
Tommy walked through the incredible home with Daniel, laughing, falling in love. Not with Daniel, of course, but with the home.
There was a wide open first floor, living room, kitchen, dining room all within sight, a nice staircase that led to the second floor, where five bedrooms were, all beautiful, white, clean…
He could picture them in the master bedroom, sleeping together each night. He saw the huge shower in the master bath, knowing how they could utilize it every morning.
Everything about the inside of the home was as impressive as the front, but he’d seen nothing yet. Out of the backdoor off the utility room, Tommy let out a guffaw as he saw the land stretching out, broken up by a three car garage with a shop attached, and a smaller home, a guest cottage.
He ran to the garage and Daniel open
ed it for him, letting him in to see the possibilities. “That truck Vincenzo gave me, I could do wonders with it here!”
“I know. That was the first thing I liked about this place. When I asked for a big garage that you could use to work on old vehicles, this was the place the realtor said would fit the bill the best.”
There were metal shelves, hooks on the wall for tools, a half a wall with cabinets and drawers for more tools.
He loved it and knew he could live in the garage alone. And, he actually could. Daniel showed him the stairs to where a small loft apartment lay over the shop. “I figured, hey, if I was in a three-way, what would I want? Space. Javi and me, in love, the whole thing, but we need our space too. He goes to the cabin once a week, I hide out in the den with my computer a lot. When we get back together, we’re ready to be together. It’s not forced. I think, what might be in your head, is that you’ll be in their faces and them in yours, all the time. Let’s face it, Diego’s house is gorgeous, but there’s nowhere for you three to get any space. There’s barely a yard. This is a yard.”
Tommy shrugged, knowing it was all true. They needed their space.
The next part of the place they checked out was the guest home, and Tommy saw the possibilities there too. He could see Gary there, storing his guns, and that thought made him laugh. “It’s perfect, Daniel, but I can’t afford this. I haven’t got a down payment.”
“You’re not getting me, Tommy. This is a gift.”
After his jaw dropped and he managed to pull it back up and close his mouth, he turned to Daniel to clearly see he wasn’t kidding. “Daniel, I don’t need charity. I have a job, remember? I work for you.”
Daniel took his hand and led him outside, waving his arm through the air. “This? It wasn’t so long ago that something like this would have been so far out of our reach.” He took Tommy’s hands and went on, “We were dumb, poor kids, thieving to make the pitiful living we were making, living under Lee’s thumb, being kicked around and now…now look at us. You just saved your boyfriends, after saving me. You’re a great friend to a person that never had friends. You’re a great boyfriend for someone who’d never had a boyfriend before. Shit, Tommy, I owe you more than a house.”
Tug of War (Legacy Book 5) Page 16