Page 76 of Saving Sparrow (Slow Burns & Tragic Beginnings #2)

I heard the TV blaring from our apartment before even reaching our landing. Miguel and I shared a look before unlocking the door and stepping inside.

“What’s this?” I asked once we’d reached the bedroom doorway.

“It’s RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Quentin said from behind us. I whirled around, staring at him through the converted spare bedroom’s door. He wore one of my dresses, but it was too tight around the chest and shoulder area, and the side zipper was stuck less than halfway up.

Miguel must have turned the TV down because suddenly I could hear myself breathing.

“My last class was canceled,” Quentin said. “I was hoping to have everything set up by the time you got home.” He’d set up a vanity in the corner, and drugstore bags surrounded it. I assumed they were full of cosmetics.

“So, what do you think?”

“I think you look silly.” I couldn’t hide my annoyance.

“Yeah, well, the things we do for love, right?” He pulled me over to the vanity stool. “Sit.”

Miguel leaned against the doorjamb, watching as Quentin unloaded the makeup onto the vanity table.

“I got every shade in every brand. You can try things until you find a look you like.”

I picked up a purple lipstick, turning it over in my hand.

“And I bet your cell phone isn’t charged, so you can use mine to watch the tutorial I found.” His phone rang in the distance, the ringtone set to We Are the Champions .

“Shit, Coach. Be right back.” Quentin hurried to the door, the fabric of the dress tearing as he went. He really did look ridiculous.

I tossed the lipstick onto the table, dropping my head back on an exhale before turning to Miguel. “Why aren’t you helping?” Without Miguel’s voice of reason, Quentin’s fears got the best of him.

“Maybe because I agree with him.”

“When has that ever stopped you from talking him off a ledge?” It didn’t normally matter whether he agreed with Quentin. Miguel always did what was best for Quentin, what was best for us, even if he thought Quentin’s intentions were good.

Aside from a few glares, one “knock it off,” and a warning to Quentin not to get himself suspended from the team, Miguel seemed perfectly okay with sitting back and watching things play out.

And not that any of those things weren’t enough or weren’t in line with how he normally wrangled Quentin in, but they’d been done passively, his words lacking real emotion, like he hadn’t even meant them at all.

“I asked if you’d go to the show, and you said yes. You didn’t seem to have a problem with it until Quentin did.”

“I didn’t think it through,” he countered, “and I believe my exact words were ‘um, sure.’ I didn’t take it seriously.

I thought you were excited because you’d just gotten the flyer.

I thought maybe you were trying to be nice to Kayden, that you’d forget about it once we were all here together again. ”

“You’re happy he’s being this way, aren’t you? Happy you’ll get what you want without having to be the bad guy.”

Miguel ducked his head, pushing off the doorjamb.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” I’d thought my feelings were hurt before, but Miguel’s silence obliterated them into pieces. He was the steady one, the one who did the right thing, the one who always tried his best to understand me.

“I don’t get why we aren’t enough for you.” His words took me aback.

“You are. You’re more than enough, Guelly, but—”

“But you want more ,” he finished.

“I want… me .”

“That’s the thing I don’t understand. I’m only me when I’m with you and Quentin, and he feels the same about us. But it feels like you’re saying you’re lost when you’re with us, and that hurts. It… it scares me, Ellie.”

They were making me choose when I’d already chosen them, but maybe they were right.

Maybe they should be enough. Maybe I was the problem.

I didn’t want to be the problem, the thing that came between us.

I walked over to him, hugging him, choosing him again.

“I don’t want you to be scared,” I whispered.

“We can give you what you need. Quentin looks like the biggest idiot that ever lived in that dress, but he’s wearing it to make you happy.”

I didn’t need Quentin to wear a dress to feel happy or complete, and it made me a little sad that Miguel, of all people, couldn’t see that. Still, I nodded and smiled. “Will you watch a tutorial with me?”

“Yeah, of course I will.” He sounded relieved. He kissed me, but it didn’t feel the same. In the weeks to come, I’d trace my resentment back to that kiss, back to the moment I decided to dim my light.

We started with a dark color palette. I applied it according to the tutorial instructions while Quentin and Miguel told me if I needed more or less.

In the end, we determined that wasn’t the palette for me, so we moved on to another one, and another one after that.

Nothing worked. I couldn’t get anything right, and I broke out along my cheeks from the harsh makeup remover wipes.

We ended the evening feeding each other Chinese takeout, talking, and joking about the most mundane things. I laughed in all the right places and moaned when they began touching me in all the right places, too.

Quentin spanked me with an edge of desperation that night while Miguel whispered over and over that I was theirs. Then we had sex for hours, both of them fucking me like they had something to prove, like I was something they didn’t want to lose.

“We love you, Ellie,” Miguel breathed as he fucked into me from behind.

“No one’s gonna take you from us,” Quentin bit out, fucking my throat.

It was good. I loved every second of it, even begging them for more when it was over.

Quentin took me reverse cowboy on the couch while Miguel jerked off in front of me, coming all over my lips and chin.

The night ended with Miguel’s chest on the bed, hips in the air, rimming me while Quentin drove into him. They both finished in my mouth, then lined up so I could finish in theirs.

I fell asleep to Quentin telling Miguel to suck hickeys onto my neck. “Make ’em noticeable,” he’d said before sliding down my body to warm my soft cock with his mouth.

This is everything I need, I told myself as I drifted off.

Everything I need…

Everything I need…

Everything I need…

We didn’t make it to drag night that weekend. Kayden told us it was such a hit that it would now be a monthly theme.

“You guys can come to the next one.”

Quentin told him to take a hint, that we wouldn’t be coming to Queer Life ever.

I’d never felt more embarrassed. I’d never felt less loved by someone who’d sworn I meant everything to them.

Kayden and Rachel stopped speaking to me after that, only offering pitying smiles and sad waves when Quentin wasn’t looking. I offered them neither in return.

I spent more and more time in our walk-in closet over the next several weeks, sometimes falling asleep in there. I’d wake up in bed with Quentin almost crushing me, his way of keeping me there. I was starting to feel trapped by our love, missing the days when it made me feel free.

I held on, though, repeating the same three words to myself over and over again.

Everything I need… Everything I need… Everything I need…