Page 112 of The Moon & His Tides

We wouldn’t.

Savvy and me.

But he didn’t need to know that.

And when he turned on his heel abruptly and stalked toward the door, tears streaking back along his cheeks, I knew he never would.

Savannah and I were masters of deception.

Maybe we’d even lie well enough to deceive ourselves.

It was certainly something to hope for.

The door slammed shut behind him.

A vase of flowers on the entryway trembled at the force. I walked forward instinctively to settle it, but the moment my hand touched the ceramic, I threw it across the room at the same door still vibrating in its frame.

“FUCK!” I roared.

I stared at the shattered pieces of clay and crushed petals until I heard the choked sound of muffled sobs behind me. When I faced her, Savannah had both hands cupped over her mouth, her eyes wide like she couldn’t believe she was crying so hard.

I sighed, my body heavy as I moved across the floor to my wife.

When I wrapped my arms around her, she flung hers around my neck and stopped trying to muffle her cries.

It made it easier to give in to the tears myself.

Because even though we held each other like we’d never let go, I had the bone-deep feeling it wouldn’t be long before we said goodbye to each other, too.

EPILOGUE

SEBASTIAN

The moon was full, a brilliant glowing nimbus of white gold in an otherwise ink-dark sky. I stared out at the bedroom window at its silver face, trying to keep my thoughts empty and fixed on that one mark.

Otherwise, I’d fall to pieces.

And I’d only just gotten myself together to pack up all my things at the Meyers’s Chelsea home.

I’d arrived there with a single duffel bag, and I was leaving with ten boxes stuffed to the gills.

Chaucer had been there waiting for me with packing tape and stacked cardboard. Her expression was wilted, a little sad and a little arrogant as if she’d told me so.

In a way she had.

Actors, she’d said, like she wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole.

In the future, if I ever found the heart to date again, I’d make that my rule, too.

“I’m sorry,” she’d murmured after half an hour of working silently side by side to disassemble my life as I knew it. “It’s not right, what they do.”

I blinked at her. “Polyamory isn’t wrong, Chaucer.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not some backwoods hick. I meant, the way they take and take until there’s nothing left.”

“I had more left,” I said automatically, feeling the mass of love I had for them in my chest like I was overstuffed with it and bursting at the seams of my skin. “I had two lifetimes worth left for them.”

“So you really loved them, then?”