Page 48 of Just Past Two

How could she not regret it? “I don’t want you to encourage this out of some sacrifice for me. I don’t want you to send me off to…to…” She forced the word out. “To sleep with other men, while you’re sitting at home wondering.”

He paused. “What if I find it really hot to think about you with someone else?”

She sagged against the car. “You’re not here to watch.”

“I know. But you could tell me about it after. That actually…” He paused, then started to chuckle, and his next words came out like a question. “It actually really turns me on? Like, really turns me on. At least as much as being there.”

“Fuck, Sam.” Abby sank down to the gravel. “I don’t want to push you. I don’t want to ruin what we have.”

“Do you want to go back to the way things were?” he asked.

Did she? Did she want to just leave, and pretend this whole escalating experiment had never happened? “I don’t think we could.”

“But if we could. Would you want to undo it all?”

They’d done so much since New Year’s, when they’d first tumbled headfirst into their mutual kinks. The new direction was uncertain.

But at the same time, she’d never felt so alive.

“No,” she said at last. “I wouldn’t want to undo it.”

“Me neither.”

Abby let out a shaky breath. “You really want me to go through with this? With Stephan?”

“If you’re okay with it, yes. I want that.” He sounded so sure, so confident.

“And Jo is okay with it, too?”

“You know she is.”

“But what about after? What will this mean for us, and for the future?”

“Whatever we want. It could mean nothing at all.” She heard the sounds of shuffling, as though Sam were getting into a different position or adjusting his phone or something. Picturing him in her head, sitting there, talking to her, was almost like having him here. He cared about her. He loved her. And he wanted this. “You don’t have to do anything, Abby. But you could. It’s okay. It’s more than okay. I trust you.”

“Okay. I… I don’t know. I’ll think about it.” She paused. “I love you.”

“I know.” He sounded like he was smiling as he spoke. “I love you, too.”

With the phone back in her jacket pocket, she stayed seated in the gravel and tilted her head back to look up at the sky. Tiny pinpricks of cold landed on her skin like icy reminders of her body, her sense of self. She knew what she was going to do. She knew it from before she hung up the phone with Sam.

Stephan was working in front of the ovens when Abby went back inside. He still had the same focused look, turning a glass ornament in the oven, spinning it while staring into the light through his glasses. He was so beautiful. Being attracted to Stephan didn’t mean she wasn’t attracted to Sam as well. Maybe this was okay. Maybe none of this was as serious as she wanted to make it out to be. That thought remained in her mind as she took off her jacket and hung it up once more.

Stephan had to know she was standing there, but he was in the middle of a task, and he completed it as she walked closer to the table between them. He moved with precision, and when he finally detached the piece from the rod and set the equipment aside, he did so with the same laser focus he had showed through the entire process. Then, setting his glasses on the table, he locked eyes with Abby. They stood staring at each other across the width of the long steel work table.

“Did you talk to Sam?” He’d guessed who she had called and probably why.

She thrust her hands in her jeans pockets. “Did Jo tell you?”

Stephan smiled lopsidedly. He clearly knew what she meant. “I told Jo, actually. I told her I found you hot and asked her how she felt about it.”

Abby swallowed. “When was this?”

“After dinner.”

After Abby and Sam had confirmed they were trying out some sexual adventures. “And what did she say?”

“You already know that.” Stephan began to walk toward one end of the long table that divided them. Abby watched him, her heart crowding her throat.