“Can we talk?” I asked, fighting off the urge to run and hide, avoiding a conversation I had been wanting to have but was too scared to have before. The last day and a half proved to me I couldn’t hide my feelings anymore, because I didn’t know when something was going to come up and impede life again.
“Of course.” He said, patting the couch next to him.
I curled up on the couch with my feet tucked under me, facing him.
“I wanted to start by saying sorry.” I said, playing with the drawstrings on the flannel pajama shorts I had borrowed. “I’m sorry that this all happened, and I’m sorry if you were embarrassed at work by it all. Or ashamed of me.”
“Rhea—” he said, tilting his head to the side, but I held my hand up and pushed on.
“Let me finish. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on this while I was sitting there wondering what the hell was going to happen to me. So, I want to say this.” I urged and then took a deep breath. “I have spent the last five years trying to get your attention, Tanner.” Forcing myself to look at him for the vulnerable part of my story, I went on. “I was instantly attracted to you physically, and the more I interacted with you, something about the way nothing seemed to ruffle your feathers in the least, got to me. Itruffled me, in a way. I’ve spent my whole life trying to change the way I handle things, to be calmer, more thoughtful in the moment and steady.” I sighed. “I’m not easily attracted to men, past a physical appreciation, because one of two things happenswhen I get to know them. Option one,” I held out my finger to tick off the scenario I met most when trying to date men. “They treat me like one of the boys, because I put myself in that category professionally, and I have a dominant personality, so they fold into it rather than stand up against it. And for most men, I don’t mind. They aren’t what I need if they can’t stand up to me at all.” I closed my eyes, “Or stand upforme.”
I wanted to quit, to stop cutting myself open, but I couldn’t now that I had started. Tanner deserved to know just how deeply I felt for him andwhy.
Swallowing, I held up another finger, “Or option two, they take my confidence and dominance as a direct threat and spend all their time trying to break me down and turn me into less. To turn me into a submissive who will just roll over to them and give in completely. But I can’t do that. No matter how hard I try. And I have spent the entirety of my adult life looking for someone who can standbesideme, Tanner. A male partner who can let me be me, who can let me joke and ball bust and be good at what I do without taking that as a direct hit to his own masculinity. Someone who can be there to be my partner, my equal, but who can also stand up for me when I need someone to lean on. Someone to lead. Someone to trust. And I didn’t think I would find someone who could do both, but you do. And it has hit me like something I’ve never experienced before. Something powerful. And I want you to know what that means to me. How much that means to me.”
He waited a beat, making sure I was done before he took his turn to speak.
And then I was stunned silent.
“I love you, Rhea.” He said evenly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to say. Like he was telling me he was eating eggs for breakfast instead of a bagel.
“Wh—what?” I snapped my jaw shut that was hanging to my chest in shock.
He smiled, that gentle and easy smile of his, as he reached up and palmed my cheek. “I’ll be honest with you; I didn’t have the foggiest idea that you were into me these last few years. But that was on me, not you. Looking back, I can see how you flirted, and I shamefully remember how I ran in the opposite direction because I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand you. I thought we would be two bulls with our horns locked together, fighting nonstop if we tried to be romantically involved. But I was wrong. And we have Goldie to thank for seeing how compatible we all were together, long before you or I even understood it, really. And taking the risk to pull us all together. I’m so fucking glad she did though,” he leaned in, running his nose against mine. “Because I’ve fallen headfirst in love with you and your strength and bravery. I’ve fallen in love with the way you challenge me to be better, to be more. The same way I have with Goldie’s open, loving, and gentle nature and how she gives you and me a place to rest,truly restour bodies and our minds from the chaos we meet every single day with her comfort and care. Together, we all blend together perfectly. Without a single piece of this triad, we would fall. It wouldn’t work, not as well as it does right now. It would be out of balance.”
“You love me?” I whispered, terrified to say the words out loud. Terrified to ask for his confirmation of it.
“More than I thought was possible.” He said, tenderly kissing me before leaning into that dominant side of himself that I loved, taking the kiss deeper and pulling me onto his lap to straddle him. “More than I thought I was ever capable of loving another person, to be honest. And somehow, I love you both that much. You both mean the world to me, Rhea.”
“I—” I swallowed, fire burning through my body with fear and anxiety. “You?—”
“You don’t have to say anything else to me tonight. I just want you to know my feelings.” He breathed, and I let out a sigh of relief and disappointment in myself.
“I do though,” I pushed, forcing myself to be brave. “Because I love you too.”
“I know.” He smiled against my lips, and I groaned at his know-it-all nature. “We both know it, Rhea. Goldie and I feel it, because you show us every single day.”
“What if I—” I slid my hands up his muscular arms to his shoulders to hold on to him tighter. “What if they don’t believe me?”
“They don’t have to believe you, Rhea. But they will believe the proof we’ve found. And then they will retract everything they accused you of.”
“Then what?” I asked, voicing another massive fear I had about my future. “What happens then?”
“Then we blow this popsicle stand.” Goldie said in her cute, bubbly voice, and we both turned to find her leaning on the doorjamb wearing her frilly pink apron over her black business attire she wore to the courthouse. They were both still in their professional clothes, and I had a seriously powerful urge to rip them both bare, to be free of it all with me. “We say fuck this place, good riddance, see ya never. And we leave. Together.”
I laughed, and then sobered when she didn’t break character, blinking at me blankly. “Wait, seriously?” I turned to Tanner and scowled a little as I tried to imagine him leaving Cedar Bluff.
“Name a place on this earth that we couldn’t go, the three of us, and build a new life together if that’s what we wanted to do?” He said evenly. “You can’t. Because we can do whatever we want. We have that luxury in life; we’re three talented and educated people with a drive that no one can stop. And if Cedar Bluff isn’t where we’re meant to lay our roots, then we will pick somewhereelse to do it. Just like you and Goldie did when you came here in the first place.”
“But your family,” I said, shaking my head.
“Is so fucking big they won’t even know I’m gone.” Tanner deadpanned. “Besides, two of my brothers have moved away, and the world still turns every day without them. We will be fine as a family, even if we’re not all in the same county anymore.”
“I—” I stammered, feeling anxious at the thought of picking up and leaving again, even though I didn’t know how I was going to walk down Main Street ever again.
“Or we stay.” Goldie said, joining us on the couch, sitting on her knees next to us as Tanner put his arm around her, pulling her in. “We can stay and build our futures right here, just like we have been doing. Either way. We are in control. Because you’re going to be found innocent of everything, and we will have our whole lives together to cause chaos for this sleepy little town that seriously needs a snow globe style shake up.”
Tanner snorted and turned back to me. “You missed it, but Goldie has been causing quite the chaos in town with her newfound wildcat energy where you’re concerned.”