Page 3 of To Love You

“He’s a switch.”

Grant chuckled. “Well, well…”

“I know.”

“Is it such a huge ask?” Grant wondered aloud, and Adam didn’t know if he really wanted an answer.

“It’s a lot to digest. I could maybe do one or the other, but not both.”

“You know it’s not really about the kneeling or fucking, right?” Grant asked.

“You’re so crass. Have I told you that lately?” Adam swallowed back the remainder of his wine and poured himself a new glass.

“No, you haven’t. Thank you for the reminder.”

“It was just supposed to be a casual thing anyway,” Adam went on.

“So is your problem that he wants to be open or that he wants to be vers?”

“I don’t want to share him,” Adam snapped, wishing he could take the admission back but knowing it was too late. He left the other part out. He didn’t want to tell Grant how mentally taxing it was for him to kneel. Not in action, of course. But after…

“Jealous?”

“No.” He sank lower into the couch. “Greedy is more like it.”

“And he didn’t want to do monogamy?” Grant arched a brow.

“He did. He would have.”

“Then what?”

“It wasn’t the agreement.” He and Cooper had laid things out when they’d gotten involved with each other. It was easy, it was casual, it wasn’t anything more than it was. What kind of dominant would Adam have been to change the rules in the middle of the game? And besides, if he was already struggling mentally with how to integrate his own submission into their dynamic, what would it be like if things ever became serious?

Grant’s posture went rigid. “Sometimes things get out of hand.”

Adam snorted and rolled his eyes. “You’re telling me.”

He leaned over Grant and set his wine down on the side table, then rested his head on his best friend’s shoulder, finally feeling ready to talk.

“I like Cooper,” he said. “I like him a lot. But we just want different things. Weneeddifferent things. I didn’t see a way forward.”

“But he did?”

“Yes.”

“Did you fight?” Grant asked.

“Hardly a fight.”

It had been a sad and miserable discussion that left them both in tears, but that was between them and no one else. Cooper was willing to concede on being open if it had meant Adam would stay with him, but he refused to budge on the power dynamic. Adam had reacted poorly, also unwilling to budge on what he wanted in a relationship. He didn’t see a way he could have. Adam had compromised so much when he and Eileen found out she was pregnant with Wyatt. And he didn’t regret any of the choices he’d made as a teenage parent, but he was keenly aware of the way resentments would grow and fester if concessions between two people were made in a rush.

“Cooper still wants to be with you?” Grant asked.

Adam nodded.

Worse, he still wanted to be with Cooper, too.

“But it was supposed to be a fun thing,” Grant went on, and Adam answered him with another nod. “And it was fun, but it got serious. You wanted monogamy and he wanted to be open. He wanted to flip…”