Page 9 of Release

Chapter Three

Now

It’s difficult to lie in this bed this morning and not think about my girl once being here with George.

There were times I had to stop by to pick something up for George and take it to him at work, or to a campaign event. If no one else was home, I would make my way up here, press my face to her pillow, and inhale.

Lie on his side of the bed and hold her pillow in my arms the way I used to hold her, while trying not to cry.

Then came the plane crash. The night I returned from overseas with George’s brother, Chase, and with Ellen’s urn, after the kids fell asleep, Declan came in here with me and held me as I laid in their bed and cried. I thought I was mourning both of them.

Ironic, huh?

That my heart could be shattered not just by my girl, but by the evil motherfucker, too.

Declan’s once again holding me in George’s bed, only now he’s sleeping on the side that used to be Ellen’s, and I’m wedged between the two men.

Caught between a Master and a boy, and unsure if there’s room for me despite them both wanting me here.

So they say.

I’m still not certain how that’d work with me and George. Would we kill each other, or would Declan want to killbothof us?

I know Declan loves me—isinlove with me. We have twelve years between us now, and have known each other even longer. I also know George thinks he loves me, but I’m not sure he knows how hereallyfeels about me. Whether his emotions are about me as his friend and potentially more, or because of who I was to Ellen.

Then there’s the way Declan and Georgeclickedwhen I drop-kicked both of them into this crazy funhouse of a dynamic that night in January. The instantaneous way they meshed proves to me they’re truly meant to be together.

Comeon, two previously straight men who never so much as experimented with a guy before? Yetbothof them are crazy over each other now?

This isn’t porn. Two heterosexual guys don’t just fake being in love and enjoying sex with each other. Especially not with such high stakes as we’re facing. Doubly so when one’s still mourning the loss of his wife.

My girl.

How can I hate the motherfucker when he broke down in his kitchen one day not long after he and Declan started this thing together and sobbed in my lap, apologized for not bringing Ellen home? When it wasn’t his fault she died.

I don’t blame him for Ellen’s death.

Rightly or wrongly, I secretly blame him for alotof shit he didn’t know about, but that wasn’t one of the things. And that day I finally told him the basic truth about me and Ellen.

Maybe I did want to take an emotional swipe at him at his lowest point, get my licks in, over what he unknowingly took from me years ago, and for him trying to take Declan from me. I don’t know. He felt guilty as fuck over my revelation about Ellen. While that gave me a little dark satisfaction, it also left me feeling like shit, because I know Ellen would never have wanted me to do that.

That I used his despair against him, weaponized it.

Hoped it’d help bind him tightly to me so he wouldn’t run me off yet.

To manipulate him into staying in the governor’s race instead of dropping out to be with Declan.

Yeah, I’m an evil bitch, all right. But there’s a larger plan at play, even if George doesn’t know it.

In his sleep, George shifts slightly, moving closer to me. He drapes his arm over me, seeking Declan behind me, snuggling closer before his breathing slows and evens out again. Even in the dim light, I see his wedding band on his left ring finger.

He still wears it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him take it off since his return.

He’s quickly sound asleep once more. No way I could escape undetected now, even if I decided to.

Declan calls George a warm, sleepy octopus in the mornings, and he’s not wrong. George doesn’t like mornings. He likes leaving his comfortable bed even less.

That dislike is squared or cubed if you factor in how much he hates being separated from Declan.