He shot me a half-smile. “Ready.”
I started walking out of the room but stopped and looked at him. “Will you come over for dinner after work tonight? I can text Jax, too.”
He grinned at me. “I’d love to.”
I smiled back. “Good.” Then I headed out to the main floor to see what needed to be done to our rig.
Jax
I walked into work and stopped short when I saw Levi and Trent whispering in the doorway of Levi’s office. Out of everyone at the studio, those two were the least likely to be quiet. Ever. They were both loud and crazy, so I couldn’t begin to imagine what they were talking about.
I walked closer and asked, “You guys okay?”
Trent jumped like I’d run up behind him and yelled boo. “Don’t do that!”
“Sorry,” I muttered.
Levi sighed, “Yeah, everything’s fine. We’re just talking about possible employees to hire.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“We weren’t whispering,” Trent said with a glare.
I rolled my eyes and said, “Okay, maybe your voices weren’t quiet enough to be considered a whisper, but taking into account how loud the two of you normally are, that was some Trent and Levi whispering going on.”
“Asshat,” they both said at the same time in their loud-ass voices.
I grinned at them and got eye rolls in return. I chuckled. “Anyway, what or who are you over here talking about?”
Trent sighed. “I was suggesting my… brother-in-law or whatever you want to call him. You know, Kade?” I nodded. “He likes photography and has been taking photography classes for over a year, so I was thinking that he’d be perfect to fill in here at the shop when we need him. But then I was thinking about how weird it would be to have him here, and since he lives with us, I don’t know if that would be just too much, you know? But at the same time, I don’t want to ruin a good opportunity to work here with Levi because Levi is a great teacher, so yeah. Now you’re all caught up.”
“Okay, then. Um, so he’s going to end up working here, then, right?”
“Yeah, probably.”
“He’ll be here in an hour.” Levi grinned.
Trent sighed. “Okay, well… yeah. He’s… um…”
I patted Trent’s shoulder. “Don’t think so hard, your brain might explode.”
He smacked my hand off his shoulder with a small laugh. “You are such an asshole.”
Alex walked in the front door and looked at us in question. “Did I miss the memo? Was there a meeting this morning or something?”
I laughed. “Trent’s brother-in-law is going to work here.”
“Oh, cool.” Alex shrugged and walked through to the breakroom.
An hour later, a nervous kid that looked an awful lot like Trent’s boyfriend showed up. I’d met Kade a couple times, and he seemed like a good kid, so I figured he’d be a good addition to Flash Me Photos.
Tanner
“Oh my god, I can’t wait to change.” Symon groaned before shoving a fry in his mouth.
“Yeah, she got you good.” I wrinkled my nose. Symon had the unfortunate experience of being thrown up on earlier. He changed his uniform as soon as we got the woman to the hospital, but I knew he felt grimy since he couldn’t shower yet.
“Apparently, I’m the only one that ever gets thrown up on. I swear that I have a target on my back. This is the third time I’ve been thrown up on in the last year, and Sady has never had it happen! Seriously, do I have a target painted on me that only sick people can see?”
I chuckled. “I think you must. The next time I’m sick, I’ll have to do an inspection.”
He snorted out a laugh and ate a bite of his sub. “So you’re coming over tonight, right?”
I grinned. Symon had invited me to spend the night with him and Jax every day since we’d started dating. The three of us had been sleeping in Symon’s bed all week. It’s been amazing. “Yes. How about I make you dinner when we get to your place?”
“Really?”
“I like cooking sometimes.”
“If you want to, go for it. I don’t ever use my kitchen, so you’re welcome to it.” He took another bite.
“What do you want? I’ll stop for groceries on the way to your place.”
“You know we drove together this morning, right?”
I laughed. “Sorry, I keep forgetting. You want to stop for groceries with me?”
“Whatever. As long as I get to shower at the station, I don’t care where we go.”
“Cool.” I ate a bite of my own sub.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
Sy set his sub down as he blew out a breath. “Can you tell me a little bit about you and Jax? I mean, like, before… when you were kids or whatever.”
“I thought Jax told you about us?”
Symon sighed. “He did, but I still feel like I’m missing part of the picture or something. He doesn’t like talking about it.”
I leaned back in my chair. “What do you want to know?”
“I dunno… how you met, when you started dating, how long you were together, shit like that.”
My brow furrowed. I really thought Jax had told him about all of this before. “Okay… well, we met in kindergarten. He was in my class and our moms used to let us play on the playground after school, so they became friends, too. After that, our families used to get together for cookouts and stuff, so we saw each other all the time. We grew up together.”
“I knew you were friends for a long time, but I wasn’t sure how it happened.” He dipped a fry in ketchup. “When did you two start dating?”
I pursed my lips in thought. “Um… we sorta started fooling around a little when we were… fourteen-ish.” Sy’s eyebrows shot up and I shrugged a shoulder. “I was… afraid to admit that I liked guys, so I made him keep it a secret for a long time. By the time we were sixteen, Jax started dating another guy because I wouldn’t commit to him, and I guess I finally realized that I loved him more than just a friend. I came out to our friends first and asked Jax to be my boyfriend. So we were officially together, and when I told my parents, they flipped out. They didn’t want Jax anywhere near me, so I had to sneak around to be with him.”
Symon frowned. “That really sucks. I was lucky that my mom was supportive when I came out to her.”
I nodded. “My parents didn’t understand why I would want to be with a guy if I liked girls, too. They thought I was choosing to, like, destroy the family name or some shit by being with Jax. I kept telling them that I was in love with him, but they kept telling me to find a girl and after a while, I just… decided to keep Jax separate from them. I shouldn’t have, but that’s what I did.”
Symon reached over and squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry, we don’t have to talk about this, teddy bear. Let’s find a lighter subject to discuss.” He’d started calling me that every once in a while, a few weeks ago. It made me smile every time, which was probably why he kept doing it, especially now when we were talking me being a shitty boyfriend.
“No, it’s okay. I didn’t realize you didn’t know all of this.”
“Jax talked about it a little, but he didn’t go into details or anything. He just told me you were together, and the last few months before you left, you two had problems or something.”
My chest tightened a little. “Yeah… we… shit. My mother died and I was kind of a dick to him.”
“Aw, teddy bear, I’m so sorry.”
I smiled sadly at him. “Thanks. Anyway, I asked Jax not to go to the funeral because I didn’t want to cause a scene, but he came with his own family, anyway. I got angry—thought he did it on purpose to force my father to accept us or something, and I was pissed at him. I didn’t realize at the time that he came because he needed to grieve a person that had been a huge part of his life growing up, and that he wanted to support his mother… and me, even from a distance. So yeah, I was a total dick to Jax, pretty much thr
ough our whole relationship… and then I left him.”
Symon moved to the chair beside me and grabbed my hands, pulling me to face him. “You were just a kid, Tanner. You were a kid stuck in a terrible situation with unsupportive people in your life. That had to be hard having the people that are supposed to love you unconditionally be so cruel about a part of you. That wasn’t your fault. Don’t blame yourself. You can’t go back and change anything, but you can show Jax how much you love and appreciate him now.” I looked sharply at him when he said love. He smiled and pushed my hair behind my ear. “It’s okay. We just need to show him how much he means to both of us. Don’t let what happened in the past stop what we have now, okay?”
I nodded and rested my forehead against his. “Thank you, angel.”
“Anytime, big guy.” After a few minutes, he gently pushed my shoulder. “We need to hurry up and finish eating. Our break’s almost over.”
I gave him a chaste kiss on the lips and a grateful smile before we went back to our food.
Symon
Sitting in my parked car, I picked up my phone and took a deep breath before dialing. It rang twice before a woman’s voice said, “Hello?”
I hesitated for a second.
“I can hear you breathing, Symon.”
I huffed. “Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, honey. How are you?”
“I’m good. I’m getting ready to run to the store. How are you?”
“I’m good, except for the fact that my only son won’t tell me about the boy he’s dating.”
I closed my eyes and blew out a breath. She knew I was dating someone; she just didn’t know who because I didn’t know how to tell her I was dating two someones—she’d known I was dating someone for a while now, but I’d refused to tell her who. She’d scared away too many of my boyfriends in the past. I bit the inside of my cheek and decided to just get it all out there. “I’m dating two guys, Ma. At the same time.”
She was quiet for a few seconds. “I don’t know what you mean. Like, you’re dating two different guys to see which one you like better? Do they know you’re doing this because that could really backfire on you? They might consider it cheating, Symon. Didn’t I teach you better than to cheat? I thou—”
“Mom!” I cut her off. “I’m not cheating on anyone. They know about each other because they’re dating each other, too.”
I was met with silence.
I sighed. “All three of us are in a relationship together. Like a… a… a triad.”
“Oh! Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”
I banged my head on the steering wheel a couple times. “I was trying to.”
“Well, you didn’t do a very good job of explaining it. You’re going to have to work on that.”
“Ugh. Ma…”
She snorted out a laugh. “So tell me about them. They better be good to you, honey, or I’ll kick their asses!”
I shook my head at her even though she couldn’t see me, then I rested my head on the steering wheel again. Thank god she was being good about this. She probably just needed a minute to wrap her head around it. I certainly had.
My mom and I chatted for a while, and she asked a million questions about Tanner and Jax. It was… nice. But I wasn’t ready to expose my boyfriends—god, I liked the sound of that—to her just yet.
Chapter Fifteen
Tanner
“I’m going to get a bigger bed,” Symon said before shoveling a huge bite of pasta into his mouth.
“What?” It’d been two months since my guys asked me to start a real relationship with them, and so far, I was loving every minute of it.
He lifted a shoulder. “I need a new mattress, anyway, so I may as well get a big king bed so we have more room. My little queen is tough to fit all of us in.”
A warm feeling filled my chest at that. He really was planning on us being together for a long time. I didn’t even think he was aware he was doing it, but since we’d become a throuple, he’d been saying little things like that, things about planning our future together. It wasn’t like he was planning us moving in together or something, but the simple fact that he was talking about us meeting his mom, buying a bed, all of these little things, just proved that he was in this thing one hundred percent, that he was in it for the long haul.
“I like squeezing in together,” I said before taking my own bite of pasta.
Sy lifted his eyes up to the ceiling as if he were doing a sorta half eye-roll thing. “I do, too, sometimes. But I’m sure there will be times when we need more space. And sometimes Jax likes to stretch out, so he ends up taking up the whole bed.”
I nodded. “He does do that, doesn’t he?”
Sy nodded, too. “Yeah. He likes spreading himself out and making us snuggle up to him instead of the other way around.”
I laughed a little. “True. I guess I never thought about it.”
“Well, last weekend I had to sleep with my ass hanging off the bed, so I guess I just noticed.”
I chuckled. “Did you really?”
“Yes. I tried to push Jax over, but it was like he was made of stone, and I couldn’t get him to wake up.”
“He is definitely not a light sleeper.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You should’ve woken me up to help.”
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
“You could never bother me, angel.”
He smiled at me. “Even if I would’ve tried, there’s no guarantee you would’ve woken up.”
I snorted. “What does that mean?”
He pointed at me with his fork. “You’re not a very light sleeper, either, but I can usually get you to roll over a little when you’re next to me.”
I smiled at him. “Maybe we should make Jax sleep on the end so he can’t take up the whole bed.”
“He’ll still take up the whole thing. Even if I get a bigger bed, he’ll probably just spread out even more.” I laughed at that, but there was a knock on the door, so Sy yelled, “Come in!”
I frowned at him. “You shouldn’t leave your door unlocked.”
He rolled his eyes. “I knew Jax would be here soon, so I kept it unlocked for him. We’re on the third floor of the building, Tan.”
“Still…”
He looked over his shoulder and yelled, “Can you lock it, Romeo?”
“Sure thing,” Jax’s voice traveled over to me.
Symon grinned at me. “Happy?”
“Very.” I smiled and he rolled his eyes again, but a tiny smile remained on his face. “So when are you getting this new bed?”
“I dunno. Maybe this weekend. Wanna come pick one out with me?”
“Sure. I’d like that.”
Jax walked in and kissed Symon’s forehead as he set his bag on a dining chair, then he came around to me and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. “Hey, boyfriends.”
“Hey,” I said quietly with a smile.
“Hi, Romeo.”
“What would you like?” Jax asked me as he walked into the kitchen. “I’m so glad you have food. I’m starving.”
I answered his question. “Symon’s getting a new bed and asked if I wanted to come pick it out with him.”
“Oh, when are you doing that?”
“This weekend,” Symon answered between bites. “We could go early on Saturday before you go to work so you can come, too, if you want.”
Jax walked out with an overflowing bowl of pasta and sat in the only empty chair available since his bag was still sitting in one. “Sure. Maybe we can go out to lunch or something.”
I tapped my fingers on my thigh and looked down at my plate, trying to figure out what to say.
“What’s wrong, Tan?” Jax asked, making me jerk my gaze up to look at him. Seeing the look on his face made me realize what I needed to do.
I cleared my throat. “I’m supposed to go to lunch with my brother—with Wiley, I mean, on Saturday.”
Jax’s whole body tensed up, and h
e stiffly shifted a little away from me. “Oh.”
I looked over at Symon, but he was looking back and forth between Jax and me with a concerned expression before his eyes landed on mine. He looked a little upset and like he had something to say but was holding it back. Fuck. This isn’t what I wanted.
I took a deep breath before asking, “Would you guys want to come with me and meet my brother? Well, Jax already knows him, but you know what I mean.”
Jax looked at me but didn’t say anything. Symon cleared his throat and said, “I’d love to meet him, Tan. But… will he be okay with us?”
I blew out a breath. “He’s… he doesn’t care that I’m gay, but he doesn’t know I’m with you both yet. I told him I was dating someone, but didn’t say who or that it’s two people, but it’ll be fine. It’s my dad that we need to worry about.”
Symon nodded, so I looked at Jax and asked, “Will you come, too, baby?”
He stared at me for a moment, then nodded in answer.
I blew out a breath of relief. Taking in the way Jax was still tense and trying to fix a neutral expression on his face, I could tell that I’d messed up even though I’d been trying to do everything right. I scooted my chair closer to him and put my hand over his. “Jax, please talk to me.”
He shook his head. “No need, I’m fine.”
“Jaxon.” I squeezed his hand. “I want you in my life, you know that, right? I want you in my family’s life.”
Jax licked his lips, then looked at me. “Yeah? Well, what happens when they don’t want me or Sy in your life, Tanner? Will it be like last time? Are you going to keep me separate, make sure you go to all your family holidays and leave me home alone? Is that what it’s gonna be like? Is it going to feel like we’re never really a part of your family because you choose them over us?”
I squatted down beside his chair, grabbed his hand and looked up at him. “No, Jaxon. It’s not going to be like that.” I licked my lips. “I’m so sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I hurt you for all those years we were together and I’m sorry for leaving, I want—”
“No.”
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