Page 50 of Their Wicked Ways

How the hell had we gotten so lucky to have someone like Jesse in our corner? We lied to him for years, and he was still willing to sit here and help me talk things out.

He wasn’t just our best friend. He was our brother. We needed to do better by him.

“Yeah. I really do.”

He leaned back, his attention fixed on me.

“We had no idea who he was when we picked him up, and that night was different from every other time we’ve played with a third. It’s usually fun. Sometimes it’s a bit awkward, but it’s never like that.”

“Like what?”

“Perfect.” I snort-laughed. “Like we’d preplanned things and were acting out a scripted fantasy. All the usual fumbling and trying to figure out how far to push or what he could handle wasn’t there. We were able to just let go and be in the moment. That’s never happened.” I sipped my drink. “Then we showed up to our new job two days later and there he was, our unicorn. And he had a panic attack the moment he saw us.”

“He did?” Jesse’s eyes bugged out.

“Yup. He’s not out, and he’s dealing with a lot of trauma from how he grew up. Seeing us when he also thought it was a one-and-done was too much for him, and he panicked.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. So we went from being the new guys with a secret to having a third person we needed to protect. The guys on the crew are awesome, and I know they’d be chill with our arrangement now that we know them, but back then, we had no clue what would happen if shit got out. Especially for Jett. We’re out and have been for years. He isn’t, and there was no way in hell we’d risk outing him. Not after what happened to us.”

“So you turned into Fort Knox and shut everyone out.” He nodded in understanding, but his expression was shrewd.“You’re not telling me something. The weirdness and ignoring your best friend got worse, not better, after you started working for Quinn.”

“Yeah, we made a mistake.” I sighed and tapped my fingers against my thigh.

“The kind of mistake where you fucked your coworker again?” He arched his eyebrow knowingly.

“Sort of. We hooked up with him, but we didn’t fuck him.”

Jesse pinned me with a look. “Same thing.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “We have strict rules when it comes to playing with thirds. No repeats, and we don’t exchange any sort of personal information other than first names. We only kiss each other. And we don’t hook up with anyone we know. We broke all our rules that second night, and it wasn’t even a discussion.”

“How do you mean?”

“We didn’t talk about it at all. Not before, or during. We always preplan things, talk them out, and make sure we’re on the same page about everything. Being honest and having good communication is the only way an arrangement like ours can work.

“That night, we were helping him move into his new apartment, and we were alone after the other guys left to go to the club. We were talking and he let some things slip, and we just looked at each other and that was it. No talk, no discussion. Not even a verbal acknowledgment that we were going to break our rules with him, even though we’d already agreed it had to stay a one-and-done.” I swirled the contents of my drink in the can distractedly. “We kissed him. We’ve only ever kissed each other, but it felt right with him. And now that we’ve broken our rules, it’s like we don’t know how to go back to how things were before.”

“But you and Wes are okay?”

I nodded. “We’ll always be okay.”

“You’d better be.” He shot me a stern look and grabbed the bag of chips. “And no more shutting me out. Promise?”

“Promise.”

He tore open the top of the bag and looked inside. “Jesus. I swear we need to start weighing things before we open them.” He tilted the bag toward me. It was barely a third of the way full. “I love paying for air, don’t you?” He scooped out a handful and shoved them into his mouth.

“Is that considered shrinkflation or greedflation?” I asked. “Or skimpflation?”

“It’s more likefuck you peasant, you’ll pay what we want, or you’ll starve-flation,” he said around his mouthful of chips. “I’m ready to boycott the fuck out of everyone at this point. Seriously, give me a list, and I’ll make it my personal mission to make sure I never support them again.”

I chuckled. “Zane was talking about a boycott movement at work the other day. I’m too poor to buy luxury items like fast food or brand-name groceries or coffee I don’t make myself, so participating is easy. Hell, I’ve been doing it unknowingly for years.”

“I’ll have to look into that. My Gen Z rage needs an outlet.” He pulled a folded chip out of the bag. “Make a wish.”

“I wish for a revolution.”