Had I underestimated his sensitivity? I thought about the way he instantly understood my anxiety in the faux-carnival ride, and talked me back from what would have been a disastrous panic attack. He was so confident, so secure. I had felt so safe with his low voice encouraging me to calmness.
He turned his head and looked at me and I realized I had just been staring up at him unabashedly. My instinct was to blush and turn away but I didn’t. He didn’t either. He blinked his eyes slowly and then turned the rest of his body to face me.
He was close. Too close.
“Did you decide then?” he asked quietly.
“Umm… Decide?”
“Didn’t Jackson talk to you?”
I shook my head. There had been almost no talking at all. He had listened. He acted like an anchor while my thoughts were all in a whirlpool until they had started to sort themselves. I had to wonder if they would have settled at all without Jackson’s solid presence.
He chuckled. “Oh that figures,” he sighed. “Jackson’s not much of a talker.”
“I guess,” I said.
“Hmmmm...” he started. He pushed his hand through the fringe of dark blonde hair that had fallen across his brow. He sucked his lower lip in and then released it. It gleamed moistly and I realized that I had not kissed him Friday night.
OK, get a grip, Margot, you’re not going to do that. Jackson was just here last night.
“We want you,” he said finally in an even, confident voice as though I had been offered for sale, and he had just finished considering the terms.
I shook my head like I didn’t get it. But some part of me wanted to hear more.
“We want you. Both of us,” he said again. His eyebrows creased together in a shelf.
“Wait, both of you?”
“Yes. I just said that.”
“Like…” my mind flopped about looking for synonyms. “Wait… To share? Like, boyfriends?”
He shrugged.
“If you need a word, I suppose,”
I raised my hands, palms up. Whoa. This was preposterous. Taking one at a time at least made some kind of sense… I mean, people do it every day. Some people, at least. But two?
He stood there with his arms crossed over his chest and his feet shoulder-width apart. A small smile played around the corners of his mouth as he stared keenly at me. Apparently, he really meant it. And furthermore, he was enjoying asking.
I tried it out on my imaginary Bridget in my mind.
Hey, Bridge, me and Jackson and Declan are all together now.
What the hell do you mean?
Like, you know. They’re my boyfriends.
Both of them?
Yeah, both.
Imaginary Bridget’s red-lined mouth fell open and she just stared at me, but I couldn’t tell if it was awe or horror. She was no help at all.
Declan stared at me like he was seriously waiting for an answer, knuckling his lower lip. I shook my head.
“Declan, I really had a great time…”
“Oh, don’t do that, Margot,” he cut me off. “You barely gave it a chance. Think. What do you have to lose? You should give this a chance.”
He edged a little bit closer to me and my mouth went as dry as toast.
“But Jackson--”
“Jackson is cool,” he replied immediately.
“Jackson is cool?” I repeated. How could anybody be cool? This was straight up insanity.
He nodded and grinned. “We talked about it. We’ve been fighting over you since the airport. This is really the only thing to do.”
“You’ve what?”
“I can’t believe you didn’t notice.”
I shook my head in disbelief. Was this just some billionaire player line he was feeding me?
“Listen, Declan…. It’s not really professional of me,” I protested weakly.
He shrugged. “Is that really your concern at this point?”
Yeah, Margot, I think it’s too late for the shy girlfriend routine.
My mind reeled. They were both fine with it? It sounded so simple they way he said it with a clinical sort of detachment. Why should I have to choose if they were both happy with that sort of thing? But something told me that if I thought about it, the logic would dissolve away to nothing like cotton candy on my tongue.
“Why both of you?”
He shrugged. “We like to share. And we can blow your mind. And you can take it.”
A smile broke through my face, no matter how hard I tried to hold it back. I could take it. I had absolutely taken it, like a champ. I felt rare, unique, and a little dangerous.
But also terrified. Everything was on the verge of falling apart. How could I throw something else into the mix?
“I don’t know,” I muttered, edging away from him and looking around for something to look at that didn’t represent some kind of personal failure.