“Oh, don’t lie to me.” She rolled her eyes and opened the door to Dallin’s suite, ushering me inside and closing the door behind us. “I know about the Sinner’s Soiree.”
“You know—” I fought the urge to crawl under the door and slink away from the entire conversation. Especially given how she left things at our house last night. After Brody left, Lex waited for Knox and me to fall asleep and then ordered an Uber and left. Waking up without Brody or Lex was like a gut punch. Once again. “What do you know?”
“I know something was happening between you guys and she wanted to pretend there wasn’t. At least until Parker mentioned Dallin got you guys an invitation to the Soiree. And then she suddenly was going too.”
“Oh.” I brushed my hair behind my ear as she speculated past that.
“So what happened and why are you acting like a long-tailed cat in a rocking chair store?” She didn’t mince words, and usually that was refreshing in our friendship, but today I didn’t know what to say or how to define the last few weeks. However, if anyone was to understand what I was going through, it would be Reyna.
“I’m—” I hesitated and then just ripped the band-aid off. “I’m bi,” I announced and felt my stomach drop as she just stared at me like she was waiting for the rest of that sentence.
“And?” She scoffed and waved me off when I coughed in reply, “Oh stop acting like it’s 1902. You being bi is no enormous scandal.”
“But I’m already in a throuple with Brody and Knox. Anything more than that is just too much. It’s too far.” I spoke about the fears I’d had since realizing I wanted Lex to join our relationship.
“Too far?” She leaned against the wall, “What does that mean?”
I sighed and sat down on the couch next to the tattoo bench. “Too far from normal. Too different.”
“By whose standards?” She asked and then stood up straight with wide eyes. “Oh, your dad’s.”
“Yeah.” I deflated further. “The news of me being in love with two men and intending to date them both was enough to shock and scandalize him. Imagine me trying to tell him I’m attracted to women, especially a woman like Lex, and that I want her in our relationship, too.” I scoffed. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. She doesn’t want that. She only wants the fun.”
“Okay,” Rey sat down next to me. “There’s a lot to unpack here, but we luckily have the time. So let’s start with your bisexuality, because that’s the easiest problem to fix.”
I snorted and rolled my eyes at her, unbelieving. “How am I going to fix that?”
“Easy.” She shrugged, “You’re not. Because there’s nothing wrong with it, you have nothing to fix. And your dad is going to agree with me on it as soon as you remind him that it is 2024 and you have no interest in allowing past generational toxicity to shape your life any further.”
“Jeeze.” I blew bangs out of my face, feeling overwhelmed, “You make that sound so cut and dry.” I loved how accepting she was of every person in every shape and color, but I knew the rest of the world wasn’t always like that.
“It is,” She waved me off again and then patted her hand on my leg and moved on to the next problem. “Now, the expansion of a relationship can get tricky, especially if everyone isn’t on the same page from the start.” She rolled her eyes, “Ask me how I know.”
“Trey.” I smiled, remembering the way she and her husband Trey hated each other in the very beginning, after Dallin admitted to her he wanted them all to be together. “I think Lex wants us all to believe that she hates Brody and sometimes hates Knox too, but I don’t think that’s the truth.”
“Why?” She prodded, “She’s a lesbian after all, it would make sense that she wouldn’t want them involved in her—” She hesitated and then just blurted it out, “Sexual exploitations.”
“Ew.” I cringed and then chuckled, as the weight of it all didn’t seem so daunting in the presence of a friend. “I guess in a way I wanted to have my cake and eat it too.”
“You wanted the guys to be with her?” She raised her brows in surprise. “You mean sexually and not just amicably as a metamour? Hmm, bravo Hannah Kate, you’re a braver woman than I am.”
“What do you mean? Metamour?” I laughed it off, “Now I’m imagining those flashy bullfighters with their fancy capes.”
She cackled and pushed me jokingly. “Matadors are Spanish bullfighters. Metamours are essentially your partner’s partner in a poly relationship. Are you really unfamiliar with the terms?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “Outside of the terms triad or throuple, Brody, Knox, and I have never truly lived within the lifestyle, so we’ve never educated ourselves on other variations of poly relationships before.”
“Interesting.” She mused. “If you were to date Lex, but she didn’t date the guys, they would be each other’s metamour. You’d be the only common denominator between them.”
“I hate the idea of that.” I admitted, “And that’s wrong of me, isn’t it? Selfish even.”
“If it’s not what Lex or the guys want, then yes.” She agreed, and I cringed before she moved on, soothing the burn of that. “But that doesn’t mean it's not what you want. You can have hopes and dreams, Hannah. Sometimes they don’t fit our current situations, though.”
“The guys want her.” I stared off at the wall. “At first, they both balked at the idea because of how dominant she is, but they couldn’t deny their attraction to her after spending time with her. And then there're times that she—”
“She what?” Rey prodded after I faded out.
“She blurs the lines.” I played with a string on my shirt. “She kisses Knox and even—” I shook my head, not wanting to give away too many details of our personal sex life.
“I get it.” Rey held a hand up. “That’s blurring the lines, for sure. But did you stop to think that maybe Lex is just as confused as you are about those lines and boundaries she’s set? Maybe just how you were when you first realized you were bi.”
I mulled that over in my head and tried to imagine Lex being unsure of anything. “She’s so hot and cold, I can’t tell.”
“Listen,” Rey put her hand on my arm. “I know Lex pretty well because over the years I’ve relied on her opinion where the guys are concerned. So while I don’t know what’s going through her head right now, I can guess that she’s not trying to be hot and cold. That’s not her normal personality. I think she’s on the ride as much as you are right now.”
“So what do I do?” I shook my head. “How do I help her understand what she wants? Or better yet, how do I determine if I just want a female addition to our relationship, or if I’m so fucked in my head because it has to be her?”
“I think you already know the answer to that because your entire demeanor changed while talking about her specifically.”
“I know.” I sighed, “I just don’t know how to make everyone happy.”
“Answer me this, if she only wanted to be with you, would you do it?”
I hesitated, though I already knew the answer to that. “No.” I looked at my best friend and knew she knew exactly why I felt that way. “I don’t want something outside of my home. Brody and Knox are my home.”
“I know the feeling.” She smiled reassuringly. “Maybe just give everyone some time to consider everything and go from there.”
“I’m just afraid of her walking away in the end and taking a part of my heart with her.”
