Page 101 of Use Me Up

Gatlin was like, “This is insane. We are not parading our omega around for other alphas to go sniffing around.”

Kane was all, “I can totally protect him, and besides, he only wants us.”

Gatlin gave me this look which said that he knew that wasn’t true, and it may have been the case that I had been set loose at these parties since getting the bite and had been… flirty… with other alphas.

Gatlin was like, “Why are we even going to these parties? We don’t need this. We have an omega. We’re settled. We don’t need to be interacting with other people. We need to be thinking about the future instead.”

And Kane was very, “These parties are our thing. This is our foreplay. If Ellis is part of our relationship, he needs to fit in with what we already do. Ellis, you like the parties, right? We met you there.”

Gatlin was all, “We have to talk about the future eventually, Kane.”

Kane was like, “Sure, sure, but let’s have fun for now.”

Gatlin said, “It can’t be fun all the time.”

And then they both started to try to get me to take their side. And I didn’t know what to do, so I sort of tried to take both of their sides, and then I started trying to play them against each other, trying to see if I could wind them up harder, trying to see where all the cracks were.

I think I did that because I needed to know how bad it could get. I needed to see if I could handle the worst it would be. I needed to know if it would be as bad as it was in the house where I grew up.

But, uh, maybe that was just some idea I got in therapy, who knows?

I got them screaming at each other, eventually.

I made Gatlin yell that Kane was nothing more than an avoidant commitmentphobe and that he had to wake up and recognize that he had bitten someone, that he was an alpha with a life bond and that there was no way to pretend we were all unattached anymore.

And I got Kane to scream at Gatlin that he had always known that Gatlin would eventually become boring and that Kane was tired of him, and that at least their omega was interesting, not like Gatlin, who was too afraid to do anything except act like he was ten years older than he was.

And I yelled at both of them that I never felt safe around them because they’d forced their bites on me when I couldn’t really consent, and that I never wanted any of this, and that they were horrible alphas, and I never would have chosen them. Which was a lie. None of that was true. I always felt safe around them. I would definitely have chosen them. I did choose them.

And then, we all broke shit. Somehow, we did not put our hands on each other, which was some miracle, because everybody was yelling and everyone’s faces were red, and there was glass all over the floor, and, uh, yeah.

So, that’s why it didn’t work.

Because we didn’t just do that the one time. There were a few other of those sorts of fights, about mostly the same things.

All of us were freaked out because we entered into this bond with each other before we were really sure we wanted each other or a bond. I think it was inevitable that I ended up leaving, and that both of them were conflicted about it. They didn’t want me to go. They were relieved that I was no longer holding them down or limiting them.

Hannah is looking at me with very wide eyes.

I hasten to explain to her that she should not think that the whole relationship was like this. That the fights were isolated incidents, the exception, not the rule.

Honestly, the amount of conflict we had was minimal. We did not fight every day or anything. There were points in time where things were worse than at other times, I think, but a lot of the time, it was very, very domestic and super boring.

Sometimes, we talked about the future in ways all of us could agree. We talked about traveling, about going overseas, scuba diving… there was a lot of good.

We had good sex, and that was all very easily navigated. There was no weirdness about that. We were really good at figuring that out, and that can be a nightmare, if you have three people, because there can be a lot of pairing off and someone feeling left out. But I didn’t have any trouble with understanding that they’d been a couple before I came into the relationship and that they’d need to be able to preserve being a couple and having one-on-one time with each other. And they were really supportive of me having one-on-one connections with each of them, and we did a lot of things all together, and… There was never anything that I could complain about with the sex.

They always made me feel really safe and really… what’s the word?

Cherished.

That’s it. They made me feel like that. I was never wanted before. I was always kind of in the way, kind of annoying, kind of a burden, I guess. Even with Callie. Maybe especially with Callie.

Hannah speaks up again. She says she probably makes me feel that way, and she’s sorry. I think about it, and I’m not sure if she does. I tell her that I think she probably should think I’m a burden on her, but she never seems to.

“Maybe,” I say, “it’s different now, though? Because maybe I’ve pushed you past the breaking point with everything that’s happened.”

“Well, I should probably kick you out of my life,” she deadpans.