Page 60 of Love By Design

“And that’s a dealbreaker?”

He cocked his head to the side and pursed his lips. “Isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Like, I’m out and I think Marshall is too, but our relationship isn’t out.”

“I don’t want to talk about Riot,” he muttered.

“You really like him,” I said.

“I really don’t want to talk about him.” Lincoln cleared his throat and turned his attention on me, eyes laser focused. “I want to know if our relationship has to change now that you have a boyfriend and a Dom.”

“What do you mean?”

He rolled his eyes and dropped his fork.

It seemed neither of us had much of an appetite anymore.

“The way we’ve always been, Si. We’re not…normal friends.”

“We’re very normal,” I protested. “There’s nothing wrong with us.”

“I love you,” he said, and I answered him without missing a beat.

“I love you.”

“I’ve never wanted to have sex with you.”

I snorted. “Should my feelings be hurt?”

“No, dumbass. I’m saying that everything between us is platonic. It always has been, and it always will be. But we share a bed sometimes, and we kiss sometimes. We cuddlea lot, and we used to scene?—”

I cut him off, grimacing. “We can’t scene anymore.”

“What about the rest?”

It was almost an absurd question, because why should anything in my relationship with Lincoln have to change just because I was now involved with Marshall? Lincoln was my best friend, and that was the only thing he would ever be. But would Marshall see it that way? Would he be okay with the knowledge that sometimes on the nights I wasn’t with him, I’d be in bed with Lincoln? Our physicality was such an important part of our friendship, something both of us needed…I didn’t want to lose that.

“I’ll have to talk to Marshall,” I said.

It was all I had in the moment.

“What if he hates it?” Lincoln worried his canine tooth with the tip of his tongue. It was a nervous habit he’d had for as long as I’d known him, and even with his mouth closed tight, I recognized the movement of it. “What if he says no?”

The prospect of losing my relationship with Lincoln made me sick, but the thought of giving up Marshall didn’t make me feel much different.

“He won’t say no.”

“He doesn’t seem like the type to share.”

“It’s not sharing,” I said. “My relationship with you isn’t the same as my relationship with him.”

“You kiss us both.”

“I’ve kissed him once,” I said, smirking before covering my face with my hands.

Lincoln reached over and smacked my hands out the way. His eyes were wide, and his mouth parted in shock. “Once?”

The bomb about that piece of our intimacy had landed just as I’d hoped. Not that I was deliberately trying to distract him, but I didn’t have the answers either of us needed. I’d have to talk to Marshall about it after dinner when I went over to his house.