I feel like he’s staring right inside me. His eyes are thoughtful and kind and they make my stomach do weird flips.
“You wanted some company?”
“Yes,” I blurt, and then panic, in case he thinks I’m a slut looking for a ride, but I’m not and I tell him so. I tell him so fast that my words are garbled, and then I close my eyes and take a breath. “Sorry,” I say, “I’m crap at this stuff.”
“You think you’re crap at a lot of things,” he says. “But you’re not nearly so crap as you think you are.”
“You think?”
He nods. “I know.”
“Thanks,” I say and I wonder what happens now. I feel like a tit stood here outside his bedroom door begging for someone to talk to me. To hold me.
“I’m tired,” he says. “But if you want some company you’re welcome in here.”
“Please,” I reply before he thinks better of it.
He steps to the side to let me through and I brush past him into a room that smells of him. I love the way it smells. The lamp is on at the far side of his big bed, so I guess that’s his side, if he has a side. I slip into the other and hug my knees to my chest, heart racing at being in someone else’s personal space.
He slips into bed on the other side and flicks off the lamp. I can hear him breathing.
“That stuff earlier,” he begins and I feel him move closer. “You know that it’s because we give a shit, right?”
I nod, then realise he probably can’t see me in the dark. “Yeah, I know.”
“Good,” he says. “We give one hell of a shit about you, Carrie. Both of us.”
My heart pangs when I think of Michael walking away. “Do you think he’s okay?”
“He’ll be fine. He just needs to work things out.”
I roll to face him in the darkness. “You think he’ll be back?”
He laughs a little. “I know he’ll be back. He can’t stay away. The guy’s besotted with you.”
A ripple of shock runs from my head to my toes. “He’s what?”
He laughs again. “He’s crazy about you. Always has been.”
“But he said…”
“He said what he thought he should say. He’s being noble because he thinks that’s what a better man would do.”
“There is no better man,” I whisper and I hear him take a breath.
“I know. He’s my best friend,” he says. I feel the heat from him even though he feels a million miles away. The space between us feels like a gulf. “I guess he’s the man you want, right?” he asks and I’ve never heard him sound nervous before, but there’s something there. Just a little something.
“The man I want?”
“Of the two of us. It’s about him, right?”
My heart flutters. “You mean my favourite?”
He sighs. “Yeah, your favourite.”
“I don’t have one,” I reply honestly. The silence is heavy. It makes me fidget, like I’ve said something wrong. “I don’t have to have a favourite, right? Why do I have to choose? I can’t choose. I don’t want to.”
His voice is low but warm. “Well, that’s uh, kinda how things work, no? You meet a guy, you hook up, it becomes a thing…”
“You want me to choose one of you?”
He sighs. “Fuck, this isn’t how this conversation was supposed to go.”
“But you do, right? You want me to choose?” I hug my knees tighter, because I can’t. I always wanted someone to give a shit, and now there are two and I can’t lose them. Not either of them. “I’m not choosing,” I tell him. “You’ll have to work it out between you. I love you both.”
I suck in breath as I realise what I’ve just said, every muscle wired as I wait for him to freak out. But he doesn’t. He really doesn’t.
“You mean that?”
My body is on fire with nerves. “Yeah. I mean that.”
And then he touches me. I flinch as a warm solid arm reaches out for me and pulls me close, but it feels good. It feels amazing. My body presses to his and his legs wrap around mine, my head fitting so perfectly against his shoulder.
“And we love you, both of us. We’re both fucking crazy about you, Carrie Wells, you little shit.”
I smile against his skin, and I could cry. I could really cry.
His cock is hard, I can feel it pressing against my leg, but he makes no move to fix that and I make no move to fix that either. I wrap my arms around him and hold him tight and he holds me.
“Sleep now,” he whispers. “We’ll sort this crap out another day.”