Frazier Learns His Place (NSFW)

Yet another post lost to time and server mishaps. (Hat tip to Denise for letting me know about the total lack of Fraz on the site of late!)

“Frazier Learns His Place” is a crossover between The Spinner, the Shepherd, and the Leading Man and the Scientific Method Universe. It should be read after TSTSTLM, and as far as SMU is concerned, the story takes place a year and change after Extremes, and a few months after the lads visit friends for a lovely sexcation in a different crossover. (#nospoilers) Enjoy!

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So the homeless guy who was sitting in the doorway across the street kept staring at me. Like every single time I looked over. I texted Pete: The things I do for you. I’m pretty sure the guy with the shopping cart across the street is undressing me with his eyes right now. You have a lot to answer for, mister.

He sent back a smiley. I’m the only one Pete sends smileys to, because they annoy me.

Don’t make me tell Dom on you.

Another smiley. I looked at the time.

It had been two whole minutes since the last time I’d looked. Damn. Waiting sucks.

Welcome to my Friday evening.

Dom was supposed to be off work, but he was still making nice at the new job, so he didn’t exactly drop his little notebook and run the second six o’clock rolled around. Annoying. Then again, when he came out he’d have a shirt and tie on: hot.

Seriously, though, HomelessGuy, what’s up? Do you even see me? Are you staring into space?

A guy walked up from the other side of the restaurant, smiling down at his phone. Cute, older than us, not old, though. And his hair was floppy. I hoped he liked having it pulled, because he was pretty much begging for it. He laughed at his phone, tapped something out, then put it in his pocket.

And yeah, totally “caught” me staring, though the way I get “caught” is an art. I grinned and tried to look embarrassed, even though I wasn’t.

Huh. The guy smirked and walked over. Damn, forward, much?

“You meeting people, too?”

“What?”

The guy gestured. “Just, you’re sitting there with your phone in your hand like you’re waiting on someone who’s late. Actually, I’m early for my date, but still. You aren’t waiting for someone?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, but he’s at work. I’m waiting for him to get off.” I held a hand out. “Frazier Lane.”

“For real?”

“My parents thought they were being clever.”

The guy shook, still smiling. “Will Derrie. My parents were just being unoriginal.” He sat down, with his back to the wall. “So, who’re you waiting for?”

“My boyfriend. Dominic. He works here.”

Will’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait, he works here? At the restaurant?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s he look like? I don’t think I’ve met a Dominic.”

“Well, he’s only been here two weeks.”

“Oh, okay. And he always works days on Friday? I’m only here for Friday dinner.”

“You come here for a date—every Friday?”

Will grinned, and he had the kind of grin that was totally open, you know? Like you look at this guy grinning and you immediately feel like you know him better than you actually do. “Okay, it’s not a date like that. That’s just the most straightforward way to describe it.”

Just then the doors opened and both of us looked up. Thank fucking god. I stood, and Will stood, too.

“Hey, Fraz.” Dom smiled at Will.

“Dom, this is Will. We just met. Will, Dominic.”

“Hey, good to meet you. How’s working for Andrew? I only know him from not working for him, but he always seemed like he’d be a good boss.”

“You know Andrew?”

“Friend of the family,” Will said, with the kind of smile that meant something was funny but it was okay that we didn’t get it.

“He’s great. I had no idea he was an owner because the second day I was here, he was in back washing dishes.”

“Ha, sounds like Andrew.”

“Fraz, we should hit the road. You ready to go?”

“No, Dom. I’ve just been sitting here for the fun of it.”

“Where’re you guys headed now?”

“Davis,” Dom said. “My boyfriend’s in school up there.”

Oh, damn. I started to force a laugh, but Will’s expression stopped me. He wasn’t weirded out yet.

“So, you’re Frazier’s boyfriend, and your boyfriend’s in Davis? That’s, uh, interesting.”

Dom blinked. And looked at me.

“Yeah, I already used the boyfriend word before you got here. Oops.”

“About me?”

I rolled my eyes. “No, genius. About the fuckin’ frog in your pocket.”

“I usually call you my roommate, Fraz.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Thanks for that.” Not that it really bothered me. Much. I said to Will, “They’re both my boyfriends. It’s kinda weird, but it works for us.” Because if you can’t be honest with a total stranger you’ll probably never see again, who can you be honest with?

“Seriously?” he asked, with another grin. “Shit, that’s awesome. You guys are a triad, then?”

“I…guess so.” Dom was no help, so I shrugged. “Sure. That sounds good.”

“Sorry, totally not trying to project labels on you or anything. Anyway, have a good weekend, guys.”

“Yeah, we should get moving,” Dom said. “Good to meet you.”

“You too.”

We waved and started walking, but not before Will’s eyes caught on something coming from the other direction. I turned around, walking backwards to see if I could spot what. Or who.

Or, uh, whatever “who” is when it’s plural. Wait a minute.

“Huh. Dom, go slower.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I’m watching this.”

“What?”

“The guys Will’s kissing right now.” Ha. Dom moved to the building side of the sidewalk and turned to look.

“Kissing. Like for real.”

“Yeah, I don’t think those guys are his brothers. He said they come here every Friday.”

Dom hit my arm. “What?”

“He said he has dinner here every Friday.”

“No. Way.” He squinted. “The three of them eat here every Friday? I know who they are.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I kind of thought David was messing with me when he was talking about these guys coming here every Friday. Um—Reynolds, and Derrie, and I forget the third one’s name.”

“Derrie, that’s what Will said his name was.” We watched as the three of them walked into the restaurant. “So, what? What’s the story?”

“Well, those other two guys are married. No one seems all that sure how Will fits in with them, but David had this almost-wink thing going when he was telling me about them.”

We turned and started walking to the car. “Okay,” I said. “I’m kind of happy we slipped up with the boyfriends thing. Especially if they’re—similar. Because that’d be weird and random and really cool.”

Dom didn’t say anything until I was pulling out into traffic. “I thought you called me your roommate, too.”

“Sometimes,” I said.

“But does it bother you that I do it?”

I shrugged. “Do whatever, Dom. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, I don’t know how much longer we can keep driving up every weekend. When you’re done training, they’re not gonna want to limit your schedule like that.”

“I know. And the money on Friday and Saturday is better. Not that—you know what I mean. Not that I wouldn’t give it up, but—”

“Plus gas, and the car.” I’d rather we never took my car anywhere, because the gas mileage was for shit, but New Halliday twice was pretty much the last straw for the Bug. Unless we wanted to pay for towing, we were sticking close to home. “I mean, not that I’m saying we don’t go. I just—fuck, Dom. I don’t know.”

“It’s not sustainable.”

“Yeah.”

Which didn’t leave us with that many options. The situation already sucked. Talking about it wasn’t gonna make it better.

“If we stop going up there all the time,” Dom said. “He’s gonna—”

“Be in trouble, yeah. I know.”

Not like kill himself trouble, probably, but definitely not good.

“In-n-Out?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

Dom got out his phone and called Pete, putting him on speaker for the rest of the drive. It took a little more than an hour, and we talked to our boyfriend the whole time.

* * *

Pete had a single. We were pretty convinced that wasn’t great for him, but he had this whole thing worked out about how he needed his privacy, which was mostly code for “I don’t want anyone to know I’m gay, so I can’t risk having a roommate.” Anyway, it was super fuckin’ convenient for us crashing over the weekend, so I couldn’t get too pissy about it.

By the time we rolled in, keeping my eyes open was tough. I work the opening shift at this coffee shop during the week, and even when I take a nap it’s hard to stay up all day. Still, folding myself into Pete (for a hug, no kissing) on the sidewalk outside the dorm was fucking amazing. He always smells good, like himself and air and sweat, like even this far away from home, he’s still the shepherd.

“Let’s get inside,” Dom said.

“Yeah.” Even though we’d been talking the whole ride, hearing Pete’s voice still made me go fuzzy in my guts, and I prefer to be gut-fuzzy in private.

We waved hello to a few of the people on his floor and finally got into the room, where it was safe. I stood back so Pete could lock the door—as quietly as possible, as if someone outside could hear it and knew what it meant. Then he turned back and I pulled him in, just lips, just gentle teasing kisses.

“Hot.” Dom started messing with the stereo. “I’m so glad we’re here.”

“Me too,” Pete murmured against my lips.

This is the part where I’d say something contrary just to be a jerk, except I couldn’t because Pete might believe it. Instead, I pulled off my shirt and went back to kissing.

I’m almost always the first one naked. Dom likes to direct, and Pete’s shy, so I get to be the guy with zero modesty. That’s me: nothing but swagger, baby. I’m not complaining, either. I like it when my guys look at me like their brains just stuttered because I’m showing so much skin.

Kissing, me shirtless, with my hands up under Pete’s, sliding up and down his back. God. Pete, Pete, Pete. I paused kissing long enough to smell his neck. He giggled.

“Freak.”

“Mm, keep talking.” I sniffed again, to amuse him. “I want everything on earth to smell like you.”

“That’s true. It took me forever to convince him we had to wash our sheets.”

Even now, it hurt my chest, thinking about the serious lack of Pete in our apartment. I wanted him with us all the time, even though he couldn’t be.

I don’t know how I became the cheesy sentimentalist, when it should really be Dom, but whatever. I started kissing Pete’s neck—he gasped—and waited for Dom to come up behind me.

This is how we start: me in the middle, Dom in charge, Pete allowing us to seduce him. I don’t know how long it takes for him to shed all the tension of pretending he’s straight, but it takes a while. Foreplay, I guess, though it’s really more like the endless encore for a show that never ends. We pause it for a couple days, and then when we drive off, the whole thing starts again.

I really hate the closet. A lot.

I’m not super kinky. Dom’s way more kinky than I am. But when he holds my arms back so Pete can kiss me? Yeah, my brain kind of explodes a little. And my balls kind of want to explode a lot.

“Poor Fraz has been up since 3:30. I’m not sure he can stay up with us, Pete. We’ll have to be really creative.”

“You think he might fall asleep?” Pete asked, like it was funny.

“Shut up. I’m fuckin’ tired.”

He kissed me, and there, yeah, good; Pete couldn’t commit to kisses until he was relaxed.

Dom’s hands ran down my arms, from my shoulders to my wrists, pinning them at my back. I shivered.

“It’s okay, Fraz. You can fall asleep. We’ll hold you up. Right, Pete?”

Pete’s lips parted mine, tongue slipping in to toy with my tongue, and I melted against him, letting Dom take more of my weight.

“Oh god, Frazier, I fucking love it when you let us hold you.”

I ignored him, which was easy enough because Pete was kissing me, and touching my cheek. It was fucking fantastic. It was bliss. It was—

I yawned.

Both of them laughed. And despite the fact that you really probably shouldn’t be able to feel embarrassed in front of people whose assholes you’ve, like, tasted, I blushed and buried my face in Pete’s neck.

“Shut up,” I mumbled.

Dom let go of my wrists and pressed against me. “Aw. You can sleep, you know. Take a nap, Fraz.”

“It’s like not even nine o’clock.”

“Promise me you’ll wake us up in the morning. Don’t just lie here awake. Blow Pete. That’s a good way to wake up.”

“Mm.” I kissed Pete’s chin, the skin in front of his ear.

“Yeah, okay. Uh. I’ve never done that. You know, to wake up.”

“Then we’ve been remiss.” Dom kissed the very back of my neck and I shivered again. “You first, Fraz. What do you want?”

“Everything. I want Pete to keep kissing me forever.”

I felt him laugh against my skin.

“Okay, I think we can manage that. Pete, you’re on the bed, on your back.”

The first time we’d come up, to move Pete in, we’d realized that three people in a twin bed wasn’t really gonna work. So we grabbed one of those egg crate foam things from Target instead. Pete already had it set up with sheets. And he never let us put it away, either. Sometimes I thought he might leave it out so he could pretend we lived there, but I was just making that up. I’m sure he didn’t actually do it. Probably.

“Yeah, all the way back.” Dom pushed Pete’s shirt up a little and kissed his stomach. “Yeah. Good. Fraz, take off your pants and kiss Pete. All the way over him, yeah, like this.”

I let him position me on my knees, legs straddled over Pete’s body. Pete hooked me for more kisses and I could feel Dom behind me, even before he touched me, trailing his fingers over my spine like my vertebrae were an instrument.

Pete arched up, kissing me more insistently, eyes closed. I pressed my chest into him, trying to tease him, trying to make him take his shirt off, too.

“So fucking beautiful,” Dom said. He snaked a hand in and undid one of Pete’s buttons. “Sometimes I want to tie you guys to the bed and not let you leave.”

I moaned, and Pete opened his eyes to look into mine.

“Next time we’re at the apartment, maybe,” Dom said. He unbuttoned another button, then touched my jaw. “I’ve been looking into some stuff. Would you let me cuff you, Fraz? Not too tightly, just, you know, a little bit?”

Which by the way, is so not a fair question when I’m naked and hard and kissing Pete.

“Yeah,” Pete said. “That’d be good. Wouldn’t it?”

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I pressed my eyes into Pete’s neck.

“Frazier, come on, what do you think?”

“I don’t know. Seriously? Um.” Maybe if I didn’t look at them.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Dom promised, kissing my back, trailing his lips across my skin. “But really, Fraz. I think about this a lot. Later.”

Promises, promises. Er—or something.

I’m not ashamed to say I came with Dom’s tongue in my ass and Pete’s in my mouth. I’m a little ashamed to say I fell asleep while they were still having sex, the two of them, so gorgeous, sexy as hell, Dom naked, Pete still letting Dom do the work of undressing him slowly. I hate falling asleep before they’re done, but on the other hand, I love it, I love hearing their breaths, hearing their kisses, hearing their voices low, just for each other.

I mean, is there any better way to fall asleep? Because this is definitely my favorite.

I slept in, which is to say, until five. I know. What a fuckin’ luxury.

Pete was curled on his side facing Dom, and Dom was sprawled on his back, the backs of his knuckles resting against Pete’s knee. I couldn’t help making them into, whatever, metaphors or something. Pete all balled up, like he couldn’t possibly relax, like he couldn’t let go of all that tension. Dom with his arms and legs spread out, like he was ready for anything.

If you’ve never been completely in love with two people at the same time, I don’t really know how to describe it. Being in love with one person is the moment on top of a roller coaster where your stomach floats; being in love with two is like that, except instead of dropping, you fly outward and never touch the ground.

Which is all well and good, but the other side of it was me, at five a.m., watching Pete’s face and feeling his pain, his fear. He wanted to be out, but he didn’t want to come out, and that was a problem. Dom thought it was growth, since before the summer he still wanted to be in the closet, but I wasn’t so sure. I don’t think the actual coming out part is a step you can skip. You sorta have to, you know, do it. He wanted to start with his mom, but he hadn’t, yet. Because he wanted to do it in person, but it wasn’t the right time when he was moving back to school. Now he was waiting for Thanksgiving, though neither Dom nor I really thought he was gonna do it.

It’s a weird line. I wanted Pete to come out because I knew it would be good for him. But I also wanted him to come out because I was a little—okay, a lot—sick of his fear. I don’t mean that as fucked up as it sounds. But fear makes you a little bit sick all the time, and I could see how much it was eating Pete. We spent the whole summer together and he just seemed more and more free. We spent two weeks in our apartment and Pete actually walked around with us in public, and held hands, and even—gasp!—kissed on street corners. From the second he went back to school he’d started crumbling back into the closet. While we watched.

“You all right?” Dom whispered, one eye open.

I offered half a shrug.

“He’ll be okay.”

“I know.” Even though I didn’t. “I’m gonna go get coffee. I’ll be back.”

“We’ll be here.”

We will now hesitate before kissing Dominic. Why, you ask? Because he’s Dominic. Because everyone our entire friendship has wanted to kiss him. Okay, okay, because sometimes I still have to shake myself, like maybe this isn’t real, this whole thing where they want me, too. The two of them make sense; they’re both kind, and hot, and, like, good people. Them kissing each other: makes sense. Either of them kissing me: makes less sense.

Anyway, I hesitated, and he closed his eyes, but they fluttered open as I pulled my belt tighter. I wasn’t quite looking at him, but I felt his demand anyway.

He smiled as I kissed him. “Hurry back, Fraz.”

“Uh huh.”

Davis is actually a pretty cool little town. A few too many hippies and not enough freaks, but still, I can dig it. I hit Mishka’s for three coffees and virtuously didn’t buy pastries. Man, these drives were killing me. Gas prices are no joke. Plus, back to the whole thing where we couldn’t touch Pete except inside his dorm room with the door locked, it was so much nicer to have him with us in Berkeley, where no one cared.

I didn’t buy pastries. I spent a buck on a banana instead and figured the three of us would get something later when they got up.

By the time I got back, they’d reconfigured, and Dom was holding Pete against him, both of them still dozing. Have I mentioned they’re hot? My two hot, naked boyfriends, sleeping together. I drank my coffee and stared my fill. Maybe it was creepy, but fuck it.

The weekend passed way too fast. Our weekends with Pete always pass way too fast. We got a late start home and Dom drove so I could try to sleep. Four a.m. is no damn joke.

* * *

We couldn’t go back for two more weeks, and I went to pick up Dom at the restaurant again. I hadn’t forgotten about meeting Will, but I didn’t realistically expect to see him again.

Okay, I got there a little early, just in case. Listen, he was cute, and had a nice smile, and yeah, I wanted to know more about this triad business.

I heard him laugh before I saw him, cradling a phone to his ear.

“You’re going to hell. No, we’re gonna eat without your ass. Well, Truman’s nicer than I am, I guess you could ask him.” He laughed again. “You did not. Oh my god. You’re ridiculous. Yeah, okay. Bye.” He didn’t even try to pretend he hadn’t seen me, either, just waved and came over to sit down. “Hey, Frazier.”

“Hey, Will.”

“You going to see your boyfriend again?”

“Yep. Pete. That’s his name.”

“How’d you guys meet?”

So I told him about summer stock, and New Halliday, and Pete. And Dom. Seriously, I basically just sat there and spilled my guts.

“Damn, that’s like a fairy tale.”

“A fucking sexy fairy tale.”

Will grinned.

“Anyway, Dom says you and those Friday dinners are kind of legendary. I bet there’s a story there, right?”

“Wait, legendary how?”

“I don’t know. But when I mentioned you ate here every Friday, he knew who you were.”

“Oh man. That’s funny. Yeah, my friend Hugh’s family has been eating dinner here every Friday for like, I’m not joking, fifty years or something. Well, maybe not fifty. Or wait, maybe more than fifty. Fuck math.”

“Uh huh.” I made a motion with my hands. “Go on, what’s the story. I showed you mine, Will. Your turn.”

He shook his head and leaned back against the wall. “They’re married. Hugh and Truman. And I’m—their boyfriend. At least, that’s how we say it.”

“Wow,” I said. Because wow. “So, like, somehow you hooked up with a married couple? That definitely sounds like a story.”

“Not exactly. Hey, look, there’s Truman.” He stood up, and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to get out of talking to me, or if he was just happy to see one of his married boyfriends.

They kissed like there was no doubt they were together. At all.

“Tru, come meet Frazier.”

“Your friend from a few weeks ago?”

“Yep. Frazier, this is Truman. Truman, Frazier.”

I shook the guy’s hand. He was older than Will, maybe by kind of a lot. I could definitely see gray in his hair, in his neat little beard. “Good to meet you. Will was just totally avoiding telling me how you met.”

“I was not!”

The guy laughed and kissed Will’s cheek. “Embarrassed, Will?”

“Shut up, and no, never. No, I was trying to figure out how to, like, tell the story.”

Except the door opened and I could see Dom walking out, still shrugging into his jacket. “Your timing sucks,” I told him. “Will was just gonna tell me how he got married boyfriends.”

“Why? You trying to replace us?” He kissed me hello.

“Ha ha ha. Dom, this is, uh, Truman. Truman, this is Dom.”

“They’re going to Davis to see their boyfriend,” Will added.

“Ah, I begin to see why you keep getting here so early.”

“Jerk.” Will looked cute when he blushed. “Anyway, maybe we’ll tell that story next week. Or whenever.”

I raised my eyebrows at Dom, who shook his head.

“I work next Saturday, and the weekend after that’s Thanksgiving. But Brooke said she’d try to get me the weekend after Thanksgiving.”

“It’s a wait-outside-the-restaurant date,” Will said. “Drive safely.”

“We will.”

We waved goodbye and took off.

“I really want to know that story,” Dom said. “Seriously. I’ve seen them, now, just in passing. They always look so happy.”

I wondered if he was looking at them and thinking about us. “Yeah. Me too.”

We did the usual, drove north, spent the weekend mostly locked in Pete’s room having sex. Pete wanted to know the story of the three guys, too.

* * *

Dom and I spent Thanksgiving with my folks and Gracie and Joe. My parents kind of love Joe. I used to think they were just high off being hip enough to have gay friends, but I don’t know, I guess if you end up at every performance your kids do together for years, maybe you actually become, like, friends. And anyway, this was the first Thanksgiving since Nate died, so it was pretty fucked up for them, though Grace and Joe are the kind of people who don’t really mope.

Still. We had Christmas Eve with them last year, this big fuck-all dinner that started at three p.m. and went until eleven, and Nate wasn’t great at the time, but I didn’t think he was gonna die for real. Until he did.

Ugh. Count on the holidays to make me think of death and grief and loss.

Pete didn’t come out to his mom.

Brooke, who was Dom’s manager at the restaurant, made good and gave him the first weekend in December off so we could go up to Davis. Unfortunately I only saw Will for like a second and a half while he was arriving and Dom was leaving, so I didn’t get to hear how he ended up with his married guys, but by then we hadn’t seen Pete in like three weeks, so we were in a hurry.

He’s not actually gonna kill himself. We weren’t worried about that. Not really. It’s more just he gets this look on his face sometimes like he’s about five minutes away from cutting all ties and driving away, like he’s hunted and the only way he’ll survive is if he disappears. So I’m not really worried he’s gonna kill himself. Sometimes I worry I’ll call his phone one day and it’ll be disconnected. Not, like, realistically. Just it’s on my mind, you know? He told us he’d come out if he transferred to a different school, if he was just starting fresh. It’s the pressure of all these people already thinking about him as straight that screws him up in his head.

Dom gets it more than I do. No one ever looks at me and thinks “straight”.

We broke our previous record and got to Davis before eight. I almost lost my head and kissed Pete right there on the sidewalk. I know. Crazy, right?

The second we were in his room, Dom and I were stripping down, me while I tried not to stop kissing Pete even for a breath. When Dom was naked he helped me with my pants and let me communicate exactly how much we’d missed Pete with lips and tongue and my hands in his hair.

We don’t usually gang up on Pete. He’s the shy one. But we had him in between us before he was undressed, both of us kissing him at once, and he kept his eyes closed the whole time, at first like he was sad, and later like he was bracing for pleasure, like pleasure might be the thing that unraveled him.

“It’s okay,” Dom murmured into his ear. “Pete, hey, it’s all okay.”

“It’s not.” He sounded like he was crying. I pressed our foreheads together and let Dom do the talking.

“It is. It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not. I didn’t do it. I could have, but I didn’t, and I—I don’t want you guys to think I don’t—that I’m not—”

“Shh, we’re right here. Pete, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not okay. I’m all messed up and it’s not okay, Dom, it’s not.”

“We’re okay,” Dom said. “You and me and Fraz. The three of us are okay. Hey, listen to me. Listen to me.”

“I’m sorry—I tried—”

“We know. Pete, we know you did. It’s okay with us.”

Pete opened his eyes, and oh god, he looked so desperate I caught my breath. “It’s not okay. Fraz wants me to do it.”

“Fraz knows it’s not that easy,” Dom said, which was kind of a warning to me.

“It is, though.” Pete kissed me. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to be strong—”

“Shh. Hey.” Damn. I thought I’d covered myself better than this. “Hey, no, it’s not that. It’s not about being strong. I feel like it’s crushing you. Every time I see you, you’re sadder than you were the last time. I want you to be happy, baby, you know?”

Uh oh. I heard it before they did, but Pete almost flinched.

No endearments wasn’t exactly a rule. But it wasn’t not-a-rule, either.

“Sorry,” I said, and swallowed everything else.

“I feel like the retarded little brother you guys have to drag along behind you. God, that’s so fucked up, sorry, it’s really fucked up. That’s just—that’s just what I keep thinking. Like you guys are healthy and happy and I’m stunted.”

Yeah, I gave Dom half a beat to launch into a lecture on using the word “retarded” like that (he’s got a cousin with Downs), but he didn’t, so I said, “That’s not how we see you. But when you hurt, I hurt. I want to fix it.”

“I tried, Fraz! I tried. I really—I thought about it, and what I’d say, and what she’d say, and I just couldn’t do it. It was so close, it was so fucking close to the surface the whole time, but I couldn’t just open my fucking mouth. And then I saw Neil, and Neil was like, honor yourself, honor your relationship, and I still—I still couldn’t do it, even though Neil’s like—” He shook his head. “Neil’s like the guy I wanted to be, when I was younger. I thought he was so fucking brave.”

“Yeah?” Dom asked. He shifted, gently pressuring both of us down to the floorbed. “We didn’t meet him until he was a senior in college. It’s hard to picture him that young.”

“And Dom had the hots for him,” I added.

Pete giggled softly. “I still kind of have the hots for him. He was The Only Gay Kid In New Halliday. Like, that was how I thought of him. He tried to kill himself. I actually—I actually was kind of jealous. Isn’t that fucked up? I was only like eleven, and he used the same barn, so I knew him a little. He was always really—really sweet to me.” He looked at his hands, hunched over, untouchable with us on either side. “And then he tried to kill himself and I don’t even know how I knew he was gay, except probably people talked about it, but I just remember being jealous like he’d somehow accomplished something by jumping off the bypass. Isn’t that, like, horrible?”

“I was jealous of the kids who actually managed to die,” Dom said, so quietly I almost couldn’t hear him. “I thought they were lucky.”

My chest went tight. The thought of life without Dominic was too fucking horrific to contemplate. “I didn’t know that.”

“No, I was younger. Meeting you was a lifesaver, Fraz.”

I could barely breathe. “Dom—” But there wasn’t anything I could say. I couldn’t talk to baby-Dom and tell him I loved him, that he had to hang on because I couldn’t live without him.

“Oh my god,” Pete said, and leaned into Dom’s lap. “Oh my god, don’t—that’s—”

“I’m not proud of it. But I think I know what you mean, about Neil.” He glanced at me. “Though I didn’t know Neil did that.”

I shook my head. “Me neither.”

“It was a big deal, in town. The Only Gay Kid In New Halliday tried to kill himself. I don’t want to do that. I just—I wish I could stop thinking it was an option.”

“But—” I started.

“Fraz, don’t.”

Um, fuck you, I really think I will. But before I could say anything, Dom kept talking.

“If you want to come out, that’s what we want for you. If you want to stay in the closet, we’ll support that. But Fraz is right, it doesn’t really seem to be working for you. Your happiness is everything to us, Pete.”

“You don’t even know me. I feel like an imposter. You guys love someone who only existed for two months, who only existed in Yurtville. The real me is this scared little kid.”

“The real everyone is a scared little kid,” Dom said. “I think we know you. I think part of this whole thing is that we’re better for it, that it makes us better people. I know being with you guys makes me a better person, more thoughtful, less controlling.”

“Ha. Being with us makes him less controlling.” I rubbed Pete’s back. “That’s hilarious.”

“It makes me think about it more. Sometimes I control stuff just because it’s easier to do that than it is to let other people try to do things. Being with you makes me stop and actually think about it.”

“We definitely don’t want you to come out because of us,” I said. “That’s not the point.”

“But it’d make everything easier. We could go out to coffee and not act like buddies. We could kiss without me freaking out someone might see.”

“You have to do it because not doing it is worse.” Dom lay back and stared at the ceiling. “You have to do it because you can’t live without doing it anymore. Especially if they react badly. You have to know there wasn’t an alternative.”

I wasn’t so sure I agreed, but I also couldn’t relate as well to that part of it, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Neil said it’s about honor. He said that’s what takes courage, acting with honor despite the cost. I’m trying to figure out what that means to me, and I just keep coming back to my mom, you know? Even if I was in the closet to everyone else, I want her to know. I want her to look at me without that between us. But I still couldn’t do it.”

Maybe I’m just a fuckin’ simpleton, but this, this had a solution. This could be resolved in exactly five minutes. I reached for Pete’s pants and dug into his back pocket. When I held up the phone, he just stared at it.

“I can’t. I can’t do it over the phone.”

“Why not?” Dom asked.

“Because—because it’s—it’s too big.”

“I don’t know,” I said, still holding it out. “If you do it, it’s done. You can go to sleep tonight knowing she knows, for real. Maybe it’s not perfect, but neither is making salad.”

“But you don’t have to. Come out to your mom or don’t come out to your mom, we’re having sex tonight, and tomorrow, and for as long as we can on Sunday before Fraz and I have to leave. No ultimatums.”

“Fraz…” Pete stared at his phone like he was mesmerized. “Are you sure?”

I didn’t really know what he was asking me. Which didn’t stop me from answering. “I think you’ll feel better if you tell her. I know this isn’t ideal, but I know none of my ideal ‘coming out’ moments ever worked out the way I thought they would.”

“It’s kind of late.”

“Do they go to bed before eight?”

“No. But they don’t usually get phone calls.”

I shrugged. “I’m not trying to convince you. It’s just an option.”

He took the phone, turning it over in his hands, activating the screen, hesitating. “You guys—I might puke.”

“Come out first, then puke,” I advised.

“Or don’t,” Dom added. “Really.”

Pete paged to his contacts and stared down at the screen. I couldn’t hear his heart pounding, but that’s probably because mine was pounding so fucking loudly. I reached out to put my hand on his knee. After a second I reconfigured so I could move closer to Dom, who surprised the shit out of me by pillowing his head on my lap so both of us could look at Pete.

“I’m so scared,” he whispered.

I didn’t say anything. Dom didn’t either.

“I’m really gonna puke.” Pete hit a button on his phone and held it to his ear. It was so quiet in the room we could hear ringing. Dom went tense when a voice answered, so faint it was indistinguishable.

“Hi, Mom. Sorry it’s so late. Oh. Well, I don’t usually call this late.” He swallowed, visibly breathing hard. “No, no, I’m okay, I just—” Pete squeezed his eyes shut. “Mom, I have to—I have to—Mom, I’m gay.”

I held my breath and dug my nails into Dom’s arm.

Silence. Pete’s mom said something. Then something else. Then nothing. Then something else.

“I’m still here. I just—I just don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry, Mom, I’m so sorry.” He shifted forward, tilting his head into his hand.

I couldn’t make out the words his mom was saying, but she didn’t sound upset.

Pete sniffled. “I know. I love you, too. I’m sorry. No, I know, I just—I just tried to tell you so many times. I know.” He started crying a little. “I love you so much. I just didn’t want to disappoint you.”

Between us, I’m the crier. Pete comes in second. But Dom, right now, eyes trained on Pete like he couldn’t look away, had tears on his cheeks.

Pete talked to his mom for a little while longer, but it was mostly his mom talking and him agreeing or crying or saying he loved her. He apologized again, but she must have told him to stop, because he cried harder and didn’t do it a fourth time. Since Dom was never the one who needed comforting, it took me a stupid amount of time to catch on, but when I started tentatively running my fingertips over his head, he sighed.

They hung up and it had actually only been fifteen minutes, even though it felt like an hour.

“I’m shaking,” Pete whispered. “I’m freaking out.”

“C’mere.”  Dom didn’t sit up. He held out his arms and pulled Pete into them, both of them now using my lap as a pillow. So I started carding my hand through Pete’s hair, too. “You okay?”

“I think so? I don’t know. Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. I’m still totally freaking out, but I’m okay. I can’t believe that just happened. Did that just happen? Oh my god.”

“It happened. You kicked ass.” Dom kissed the top of his head.

“I can’t stop shaking.”

“We’ve got you.”

Pete snuggled in a little more and Dom held him close, which was good, great even. It was so good to have them both this close. But I was looking at Dom and thinking about his parents. His mom hadn’t said “I love you” when he came out. His mom had said “How could you do this to us?”

I swallowed. “I’m so buying apple fritters tomorrow. And maybe cinnamon rolls.”

“Big spender,” Dom said, canting a smile up at me.

“I think Pete definitely earned apple fritters.”

“Yeah. Yeah, he did.”

We didn’t say a whole lot after that. Eventually Pete kind of eased out of his clothes and we all slipped into bed, but we didn’t go back to our previously scheduled ravishing-of-the-shepherd plan. We slept beside each other like we had the first night we ever spent together, sometimes turned on, sometimes not, sometimes blending into each other like we weren’t sure whose skin ended where.

I would never, ever tell them how much I loved those nights when we didn’t even bother to have sex. It’s not like I loved those nights more than I loved sex with them. But I can pretty much have sex with anyone who has a penis; it’s something else to just sleep next to each other, like you’re so well connected you don’t even need to have sex to know it.

* * *

Dom woke up before I left for coffee and waved me back over so he wouldn’t have to raise his voice.

“Morning,” I said.

“Morning, Fraz. Listen, if I paid for the gas, would you drive up here to pick him up next Friday after work?”

“So we can abduct him for a weekend in civilization?”

He smiled. “So you don’t mind?”

“Of course not. As long as he drives us home so I can crash.”

“Good. Thank you.” He relaxed back, brushing hair out of Pete’s face.

“What’re you up to, Dom?”

“Nothing. Except I kind of think I want to buy you guys dinner. At the restaurant.”

Oh man. “Whoa.”

“I think…it might be good. To see other people, even if they’re not doing exactly this. Good for him. Probably for us, too.”

“So we’re spying.”

“Well, I’ll be working. And you’re always spying, so it doesn’t really count.”

“I’m in,” I said, not that he was actually worried about it. “I love spying.” I leaned down to kiss him. “Be back in a few.”

“Wake me when you get back. Creatively, if you want.”

I rolled my eyes. “If you’re lucky.”

I spent the ride to the coffee shop deciding what to wear. Will always looked super nice for dinner, so I figured I’d follow his example. Plus, we’d never taken Pete anywhere nice. Most of the time we’d known him the three of us had been eating buffet-style at long tables in Yurtville, like kids at the school cafeteria. I was already excited to dress up. Even more to dress Pete up.

Dom was awake when I came back. We started making out to wake up Pete. I know. You’re jealous. I would be, if I was you.

* * *

Friday. I got off at noon and started driving, made decent time to Davis, vetoed Pete’s outfit, found him a better one, and stopped for coffee before driving back to Berkeley. It’s only an hour fifteen, really, but I’d been up since 3:30, so I dozed on the way back.

Pete acts like it takes me forever to get dressed, but that’s because he’s a shepherd and shepherds don’t value primping.

We rolled up to the restaurant early, but Will was already there. He whistled.

“Hey, look at you, Frazier!”

“Hi, Will. Pete, this is Will. Will—”

“Oh man, Pete, it’s good to meet you. You spending the weekend with your dudes?”

Pete blinked. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Seriously, Will was damn cute when he grinned, like he was doing now. “Oh my god, please, please tell me you guys are eating here tonight. And if so, we’re buying. I’m not technically on the account, but I can totally vouch.”

“We don’t—”

“But are you eating here?”

“Yeah,” I said, “but we don’t—”

“This is awesome. I’m so excited right now.” He pulled out his phone and sent a text. “We’re telling Truman, but we’re not gonna tell Hugh because I really like watching his face freeze up when he realizes his plans have changed. Ha. So, did you come from Davis today, or did you get to take a few days off?”

Will made small talk with Pete for a few minutes until he saw someone approaching, then he laughed a little under his breath and grinned (again). He didn’t say anything, though, not until the guy was already pretty much standing with us.

“Making new friends, Will?”

“Not only that, but I invited them to sit with us. Hugh, this is Frazier and Pete. Guys, this is Hugh.”

“Ah,” Hugh said, and I couldn’t tell if his face had done anything special, but Will still looked amused. “Frazier and Pete. Excellent to meet you.” He shook our hands firmly, then reached over to kiss Will’s cheek. “You’ve never invited anyone to Friday dinner before.”

“I know. It’s like fuckin’ skydiving or something.”

“Surely not. Did Truman—”

“Yeah, but I told him we weren’t gonna go in without him.”

Hugh smiled. “So did I.” Then he turned back and, like, started asking questions. He asked Pete about Davis (uh, so, maybe he knew Pete lived in Davis from Will?), and about school, and about oenology and whether he was studying the agricultural side of wine-making or the business side. Pete was just explaining that his mom expected him to come home and start up a family vineyard when the third guy showed up.

“You two are ridiculous. We’re late now.”

“Andrew waved from the window seven minutes ago, Truman. We’re fine. And we have company.”

Will did intros again, for Pete and Truman, and Truman looked as pleased as Hugh did that we were crashing their dinner.

Which is, yeah, when I started to get the picture that I might like spying, but I was about to be totally out-classed in terms of intelligence gathering.

The lady who brought us to our table—after assuring Hugh it was absolutely no problem to add two more people—was apparently Brooke; she touched my arm before she walked away and murmured, “Have a good dinner. I’ll send him over once you’re settled.”

“Thanks, Brooke,” Hugh said.

“This is fun. I never make friends.” Will flipped open his menu. “So have you guys ever actually eaten here?”

We shook our heads.

“Two words: pumpkin ravioli. All the way. Unless you like salmon.”

Someone who wasn’t Dom came by to take our order, but Dom ignored us until Brooke shooed him in our direction. He was blushing a little when I introduced him to Hugh.

“You’re the famous Mr Reynolds,” he said. “Good to meet you.”

“Am I?”

“A little. I should probably get back to work. Really good to meet you all.” He shot a smile at Pete and I that veered more toward the It’ll be really good to see you naked side of salutations, then went back to work.

And when I kind of tuned back in to the table, Hugh was looking at me.

“He calls you his roommate?”

“This would be a good time to mention that they’re shrinks and also Hugh fetishizes processing.” Will waved a hand. “Proceed.”

“I do not fetishize processing. Rather, I only specifically fetishize processing with Will.”

Pete nudged me. “Dom calls you his roommate?”

“So he can call you his boyfriend. It’s not a thing. It simplifies, you know, talking to people.”

“Fraz…”

“It’s not a thing,” I repeated, the way you repeat shit like maybe next time you hear yourself say it you might even believe it.

“Ha, yeah, so not a thing, except he was a little surprised you didn’t call him your roommate,” Will said.

“And I fetishize processing?”

Will shot a smile at Hugh and didn’t reply.

“It’s kind of a thing to me,” Pete said. “Um. Fraz. I don’t think—I don’t want you guys to— Is he doing that because of me?”

“No way. He’s doing it because it’s the way it works in his head. And we’ve been roommates for years.” I pointed to my own head. “Dom brain. It’s not personal.”

Pete believed that like he believed in Santa. “Anyway, I’m gonna tell him to stop. It makes me uncomfortable.”

“What’s he gonna call you, then? Because I’m not really sure ‘friend’ cuts it.”

“Our friend Lucy calls her dudes her paramours,” Will said. “I kind of like that.”

Truman nodded. “You could try companions, though that sounds a little dated.”

“And partner is so detached,” Hugh agreed. “Boyfriends does seem like the term that most accurately describes the relationship, but you are stuck with a plural there in a word people aren’t accustomed to hearing in plural. What do you call us, Will?”

“You kidding? Everyone on earth calls you ‘the boyfriends’.”

Hugh tapped his finger on the edge of the table. “And in your head? Do you still use that convention?”

“Yesssss,” Will said slowly. “Are you trying to trap me right now?”

“Not at all. Merely curious.”

Will leaned across the table toward us. “He’s gonna fuck me up later. Mark my fucking words.”

I blinked. Pete went still.

“Only in a good way,” Will added with a cheeky grin. “Mm, in a good way.”

“You’re in a delightful mood, William.” Truman pulled his face over for a kiss. “You should make new friends more often.”

“Come on, what’re the fucking chances I make a friend who has two boyfriends? Right? Like, that’s gotta be astronomical. I thought I was the only guy in the world who had two boyfriends.”

“In the world?” Hugh asked.

“You be quiet, you know what I mean.”

“Giddy, Will.”

“Ha, yeah, a little.”

Hugh turned back toward us. “When is Dominic off shift?”

“Nine,” I said.

“Just in time for espresso. I’d like to invite the three of you to coffee after dinner, if you’re interested. I can’t bring myself to put an end time on Will’s giddiness.”

“Sure.” I glanced at Pete, who shrugged. “Thanks.”

Then the food came and we started eating and Pete and I mostly just let the conversation carry us along. It was odd, sitting there with these three guys. I couldn’t always tell where the lines were; sometimes it was so obvious Hugh and Truman were married, but then five minutes later Will and Truman were clearly ganging up on Hugh. It was odd, and also cool.

And wow, the food was delicious.

* * *

We lingered over dinner until Dom was officially off, and I tried to argue a little about the bill (since it must have been kind of insane), but Will told me not to bother.

“Hugh likes buying dinner. Makes him feel useful.”

“Will, Will, Will. Keep me company while I pay.” And instead of just handing over his credit card, he tugged Will by the tie to follow him back up to the hostess stand.

Huh. Tugged him by the tie. That was…suggestive. Or not. Maybe not. I was making that up. Wasn’t I?

“Tell me about your hometown, Pete,” Truman said. “We have a house on the coast, but we never go inland.”

“Well, if you do, we recommend The Resort at New Halliday,” I intoned. “The finest accommodations east of Sacramento and west of New York City—” Pete elbowed me. “Ow!”

“My family owns a resort. A hotel. I don’t know, it’s got a golf course.”

“And oh my god, the towels,” I added (helpfully).

“Fraz.”

“What? Where’s Dom? Dom’ll back me up on the towels thing.” Except Dom was standing with Brooke, Hugh, and Will, smiling, looking damn fine in his shirt and tie. “Damn. Dom.”

Pete turned his head. He didn’t speak. He more kind of…sighed. I pulled his head over for a kiss.

“Let’s go,” Truman said, smiling at both of us.

The whole big group of us walked down the street. Dom walked with his hand on Pete’s neck, and Will tousled my hair before walking next to Truman. Which left me with Hugh, who’d already been screwing with me earlier.

“You remind me so much of Will. He wears the exact same expression on his face when he watches Truman and I.”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah? What expression is that?”

“Oh, an eternal willingness to stand aside. To subtract yourself. In Will it hides a fear that we will someday grow tired of his company, even though intellectually he doesn’t think that’s true. I’m not sure what that expression is masking in you, Frazier.”

As I watched, Dom pulled Pete’s head to his, but he didn’t kiss his cheek, like I had. He whispered something in his ear. Something that made Pete lean against him for a minute as they walked.

“Forgive me. I can shut up any time. But I think you’re mistaken, if you think the two of them are better together than the three of you.”

“I just want them to be happy,” I said.

“Even if it means subtracting yourself from their equation?”

I wanted to be offended, or angry, but he was only saying the thing I knew was true all along. “I’ve known Dom for years. Pete’s perfect for him. And he’s totally perfect for Pete. He’s sweet, and careful, and Pete needs that.”

“What do you need?”

“Nothing, I guess.” Them. Both of them. But I knew that wasn’t true. I didn’t need them the way they needed each other.

“Frazier—” Hugh, in my peripheral vision, shook his head. “I think you’re mistaken.”

I didn’t say anything else, and neither did he.

The guy who served our espresso was loud and Italian, and seemed to know Hugh and Truman and Will really well. They laughed, and joked, and when we had our drinks, we took over three tables and pushed them together. I ended up with Will, and for some reason I ended up talking, though I couldn’t really figure out how.

“Anyway, it’s probably too much work, and way more student loans, but I’ve been thinking about it,” I said, wrapping up fast when I realized everyone was looking at me.

“How do I not know you’re thinking about teaching?” Dom asked.

“Well, not thinking-thinking. Just contemplating. Every now and then.”

Pete grinned. “You’d be a great teacher. The way you were with all the actors over the summer? You’re basically already a teacher.”

“That’s kind of what made me think about it,” I admitted. “It’s pretty new. It probably won’t come to anything.” So new I hadn’t planned to mention it to anyone. Maybe ever.

“Take those chances sooner instead of later,” Truman said. “I didn’t just go to law school, I passed the bar and started working as a lawyer before I was really honest with myself about wanting to be a therapist.”

“Well, I’m just a barista, so no big deal.”

“No big risk,” Hugh said.

Will leaned over and stage whispered, “He’s not talking about your job.”

“What’s no big risk?” Dom asked, glancing at me, then Hugh.

“If you ask him to call you something else, you have to live up to that. But being the roommate’s easy, isn’t it?”

Will whistled. “I knew this was coming.”

“Yeah,” Pete said. “Dom, you seriously call Fraz your roommate? So uncool.”

“Fraz is my roommate. Or—I mean—he was. I guess it’s habit.” Dom looked at me, frowning. “Sorry, should I not? You said it was okay.”

“Well, it’s not okay with me,” Pete said. “So quit it. I don’t want it to be like you and I are together and Fraz isn’t part of that.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Dom brain,” I said, not meeting anyone’s eye. “This is what I told them. Anyway, Hugh, I thought you only fetishized Will processing.”

“Oh, that’s what he’s doing right now, he’s just using you to process me. Watch this, Fraz.” Will sat back, brushing against my arm. I chose to take it as a gesture of solidarity. “Yes, I still think of you as ‘the boyfriends’, and no, sometimes I want to sit at the big kids’ table, but only some of the time, so I’m not gonna worry about it. And you don’t get to bring this up later when you’ve got me restrained and flying, fuck that. I’ll tell you when I need to talk about it. End of story.”

Truman held out a hand, which Will took. Hugh only looked at him for a long fucking minute.

“I won’t bring it up. I hope that you know we can talk about anything on earth you want to talk about.”

“I do.”

“All right.”

Too much tension. I raised my hand. “Did you just say restrained?”

“Oh fuck yes. After all this? Oh fuck yeah, Hugh is gonna wrap me in my ropes and I am going to fucking fly away.”

“Not too far away,” Truman murmured.

“Nah, you’ll keep me safe. Still, it’s been a crazy few weeks, and I’m a little bit desperate.” Will shrugged. “See, what I did there was I forgot there are things you don’t say. Ha. Because usually ‘I have two boyfriends’ is on the list of things I don’t say to people, but because I could say it to you guys, I pulled all the censors. Oh well. Anyway, I like ropes.”

“So do we,” Hugh said.

I looked at Dom and he looked at me. Both of us thinking of Pete in ropes. Well, okay, Dom might have been thinking of me in ropes.

“Oh boy,” Pete whispered. “Ropes.”

“Yeah. Hugh teaches classes, if you’re interested.” Will nudged my arm with his. “Is he right, though? It’s always so obnoxious when he’s right.”

“About what?”

“You avoiding risk.”

Dom shifted in his chair and I definitely, definitely, did not look up. “Frazier. Dammit. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I know you. Because I know the way your mind works, and it likes to have us in these compartments, and it doesn’t make a fucking difference, anyway. I don’t need to be anyone’s boyfriend. What we do is enough.”

“I can’t believe, after everything, that you still think you’re an afterthought. Jesus, Fraz, you were never an afterthought. I teased Pete about you all damn summer.”

“He teased me about you ten minutes ago, on the walk here. Fraz, come on.”

“It’s fine. There’s no problem. Let’s not make a problem out of no problems. Let’s go back to the apartment and look up videos of guys in ropes, okay? That would be good.”

“I don’t have you in compartments like that. It’s not how I think of you. You’re so fucking stupid sometimes, Frazier.” Dom shifted again, in my peripheral vision, and I still refused to look at him. “You have this whole unrequited love romance novel in your head about all the years I didn’t notice you, but that wasn’t me not noticing, Fraz. That was me not wanting to get my heart broken because you had to find a new guy every week to prove you were alive. Don’t act like I’m the reason we didn’t get together sooner. That’s bullshit. We got together the second you stopped fucking everything that spent more than thirty seconds in your orbit, okay? I call you my roommate because when one of us does or says something that scares you, I think you’re gonna dump us and go back to blowing guys in club bathrooms. I do that for you, not me. You used one endearment one time and you looked like you were gonna puke.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you aren’t the only one who’s scared. It sure as hell means you aren’t the only one on the outside, Fraz. How do you think Pete feels all fucking week? How do you think I felt, watching the two of you tonight, with everyone asking if that cute gay couple eating with Mr Reynolds were friends of mine?” Dom’s hand came down on the table. “I wanted to tell them I’d have both of you naked inside of five minutes when we get home tonight, that you’d do anything I asked, that I’m the only one you let in like that. You don’t get to be the only one who risks something in this, Fraz. Jesus.”

I swallowed, my throat dry and scratchy. “It’s just a word.” Except none of this was about that, obviously.

“You’re an idiot.” Dom shook his head, taking a breath. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have—this wasn’t the right time, or place.”

“Ha,” Will said. “Don’t apologize to us. We are all about the processing. And Hugh’s tying me up later, so I can be even more about the processing than usual.”

“Because you’re being tied up later?” Pete asked, subtly shifting his foot into my foot.

“Yeah. Yeah, when Hugh does me up, when he takes time and uses a lot of knots, it’s sort of my happy place. I can let everything else go.” Will smiled across the table. “For a while, a long time ago, I thought ropes were the only way he’d ever touch me. Pretty fucking happy we got over that, Mr Reynolds.”

“Indeed. I was so very afraid to risk anything.”

“You really were. Thank god for Truman.”

Truman pulled Will’s hand up to kiss it. “You’ve got it backwards, Will. Thank god for you.”

“Quiet. No more freakin’ encounter groups, okay?” He looked at me. “So I like being the boyfriend, even though it used to make me feel like I was overstepping.”

“Though to be fair, you called yourself the tag-along lay until Truman and I got married.”

Will smiled. “True. I did.”

“Are you the tag-along, Frazier?” Hugh asked.

“No,” Dom said, before I could speak.

“Plus,” Pete added, “how is that even possible, when you guys have lived together since college? If anyone’s tagging along, it’s me. And I’m not, either, Fraz.”

“Listen, this isn’t—I’m not—we don’t have to do a thing right now where we convince me I’m, like, a decent person, okay?”

“Well,” Truman said. “I’d agree with you, with an exception. Do you think you’re a decent person?”

“Damn you.” Dom stood up and came around to my chair, but I didn’t look at him. “Frazier, stop doing this. You can’t always do this for the rest of your life. You get to be the good guy sometimes. You are always the good guy with us. I don’t care about anyone else.”

“Whatever. It’s not a thing. I don’t even know what we’re talking about right now.” Which is why I’m studying my espresso so, uh, studiously.

Dom took my cup away and knelt beside me to take my hands. “The first time we met I thought you’d be the one, Frazier Lane. You giggled, kissed my cheek, whispered ‘hello’ and ran away. The next time I saw you, you were making out with the guy who played Tommy Keeler, and I figured you were with him. But you weren’t. You were messing around. Fraz, you’ve always been messing around. I wanted you for everything. I imagined you’d be my first blowjob, the first guy I fucked, the first guy who fucked me. But you were always just messing around and that wasn’t what I wanted, so I waited. For years.”

None of that could be true. Except it was Dom, and Dom was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a liar. Not to me, not to himself.

“Remember all those times I came over to your house and spent the night? Every time I thought something had to happen between us, and nothing ever did.”

“Except for Halloween,” I objected.

“Yeah, Halloween. You got crazy drunk and kissed me and made up that whole stupid story about how you thought I was someone else.”

I blushed. “Shit. Sorry.”

“It was really good acting. I even believed it, until I told the whole thing to Grace and she laughed at me. And you. So the next time you got drunk and kissed me, I made you wait. And we got this, with you, and me, and Pete. And I can’t fucking stand that you still think I was oblivious. I was never oblivious, you fool. Never. I loved you from the very first.”

“How could you? I was so stupid. And you were so—perfect.” And beautiful, so beautiful onstage, so beautiful at breakfast back in college, warming his face over a cup of coffee. So beautiful late at night, home from work, standing in the kitchen at the apartment, telling me stories even though I was only half-awake, dragging out that weirdly bubble-like time when it was almost like we were the only people in the world.

“Fraz, do you really think you’re less than us? Do you really think you’re just a slutty guy Pete and I put up with because the sex is good?”

I glanced at Pete over his shoulder, but where I expected to see awkwardness at Dom’s big goofy outburst, there wasn’t. He smiled at me, and leaned over to rest his chin on Dom’s shoulder.

“You held my hand, the first day of summer stock. Remember?”

Did I remember leading our most closeted troupe member along behind the dancing, singing horde?

“I was trying to freak you out. It was kind of fucked up, Pete.”

“Doesn’t matter. You were nice to me. And you treated me like I was a part of everything, even though I didn’t know what I was doing. You’re a really good teacher, Fraz. But maybe you should let us show you some stuff, you know? You don’t know everything.”

“I know everything,” Dom said, squeezing both of my hands. “Let’s go home.” He looked across the table. “Do you really teach classes about bondage?”

“I really do.”

“How do I find out more information?”

“I think I can email it to you right now.” Hugh glanced at Will, like he was asking.

“Yeah, genius. You guys will have to excuse Hugh. Until a year ago he was still rocking a flip phone that dated back to the Clinton Administration—”

“Bush Junior, surely,” Truman murmured.

Will laughed. “So he’s still learning how to do complex things, like email.”

“Thank you,” Hugh said dryly. “I can take your email address now, Dominic.”

Dom gave over his information and went back to his seat, and Will made everyone laugh more, which was good.

I sat there, feeling like my skin was ripped away, like entire patches of my life were wide open and on display.

“Mm, ropes,” Will said. He took my arm, looping his through. “Listen, take it from me: just let it sit for a little while, okay? Declarations of love from dudes who don’t do declarations take some time to totally penetrate, and you gotta take it in, Fraz, okay?”

“That it’s Will saying this is fascinating,” Hugh said.

“Yeah, it’s easier to see in other people. And anyway, it’s not the same. Because you and Tru are different. You’re actually a couple, apart from me, which I know, ’cause I was standing right fucking next to you when you said your wedding vows.”

“I see we still have some work to do on our end.”

Will rolled his eyes. “This is where I start ignoring you, Mr Reynolds. Anyway, shut up, I’m talking to Fraz.”

“I’d rather everyone stop talking to me.”

“Ha, yeah, good luck with that. I mean, I don’t know your guys as well as I know my guys, but I bet they don’t let any of this go now. Ha. Anyway, give me your phone number. It’s way too cool that we both have two boyfriends. I’m definitely not gonna risk losing touch. Are you on Facebook?”

We sat with them for another half hour, and I could kind of joke around by the end, but the whole thing was still pretty wild. And by wild I mean awful.

“I look forward to seeing the three of you at a class one of these days,” Hugh said as we were leaving.

“Yeah, I’m feeling pretty intrigued,” DominantDom replied.

“Me too.” Pete nudged into me. “Right, Fraz?”

“You volunteering to be the guy in the ropes, Pete?”

“I’ll do it if you will.”

“Ropes for everyone!” Will kissed our cheeks. “Really good hanging out with you guys. We should do it again sometime. Have a good night!”

“You too,” I said, thinking about Will. In ropes.

This time I took a shepherd’s elbow right to the gut.

“What?”

“If you’re fantasizing about someone being tied up, Fraz, it better be one of us.”

“We’re doing my fantasies tonight,” Dom said. “Let’s go home.”

Crap. I didn’t know what that meant, but I wasn’t sure if I should be excited, afraid, or both.

* * *

Yeah, you knew it: both.

After declaring that there would be no drinking (my hand was already reaching for the cabinet where I kept my whiskey), Dom said it was time to play with ropes. He was looking right at me.

I tried reasoning, and protesting, and eventually I tried defiance, though that never really worked with Dominic.

“But I wanna focus on Pete this weekend,” I whined.

Dom shook his head.

“But we haven’t taken that, uh, class or whatever yet.”

“I’ve done research. I know how to be safe.”

“But what if I don’t want to?” It was my last ditch effort, and I didn’t have high hopes. Because Dom’s follow-up was exactly what I expected it to be.

“Do you want us to tie you down, Frazier?”

Shit. I said nothing. I could dodge this. I could evade. I could—I could probably—I could maybe—

Pete stepped in between us and took my face in his hands. “I came out to my mom, you know.”

“I know. I was there.”

“Then, on Tuesday, I talked to my dad. She thought he’d be okay with it.”

“I didn’t know that.” Behind Pete’s head, Dom frowned. “How’d it go?”

“Good, I think. I mean, he was a little freaked, but not, like, write-me-out-of-the-will freaked or anything. He probably would have been less weirded out if they hadn’t started asking me about you guys.”

“They asked you about us?” Dom asked. “You didn’t tell us that.”

“No. I wanted to do it in person.”

“So?” I tugged him down to my bed, which was bigger than Dom’s. “What happened?”

“Nothing. They wanted to know if I had a boyfriend, and I kind of hemmed and hawed, and Mom asked if it was one of you guys, and I said it was actually both of you.” He smiled, eyes drifting away. “Dad wanted to know if that was normal. I told him probably not. Probably I just got lucky.”

Lucky. Lucky to be with me and Dom.

“I can’t believe you told your parents about us,” Dom said. “I can’t even imagine telling my parents, though we told Fraz’s at Thanksgiving.”

“Seriously?” Pete gulped. “Your parents know about me?”

“Sure. I mean, they noticed me and Dom being closer, so we told them there were actually three of us. And they offered to smoke you out, bu-dum-ching.”

“We can bring you over to meet them tomorrow, if you want to,” Dom said. “Fraz’s parents are great. And they definitely want to meet you.”

“They do?”

“Pete, come on, who wouldn’t want to meet you?” I pushed him down and climbed over him. “You’re our shepherd.”

“Fraz? Do you want us to tie you down?”

Because it was Pete, and Pete and I don’t have all those years of me avoiding his stupid questions, I found myself answering it instead.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to be the center of attention. It’s better when it’s you.”

Pete, with his dark hair, his damn earnest eyes. “I want you to know how much we care about you.”

“I do. I don’t need some stupid word or whatever. It’s fine. There’s literally no problem here.”

When Dom’s hands came down on my shoulders, I closed my eyes.

“I have a problem. I want to tie up one of my boyfriends, carefully, using a rope I bought at a hardware store to do just that, but he won’t give me a straight answer about whether he’s even interested.”

“You bought rope?”

“I bought rope when the three of us first came back here after New Halliday. I bought rope the day the two of you slept in and I went out for breakfast.”

“But why?” I asked, letting myself lean into his hands.

“I’m not sure. I guess it’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and if I can’t ask you guys, I can’t ask anyone.”

“You didn’t, though,” Pete said. “Did you chicken out?”

“Over and over again. And then I was afraid Fraz would find the rope and ask me what the hell it was for.”

I reached up to grab his hands. “Dom, I’m nothing like anyone you’ve ever dated. Pete’s a good person, and he’s sweet, and he doesn’t need too much. That’s why it should be the two of you. You make sense.”

“The idea that you think you and I don’t make sense, when everyone who knows us basically just rolls their eyes and says ‘we were wondering when you two would get around to it’—including your parents and Joe—is so ludicrous it’s not even frustrating.” His hands kept rubbing at my shoulders. “Fraz, why do you do this? Why do you think we’re better than you?”

“I—I don’t—” But I did. Dom had always been better than me. He came from more money (though his folks were douchebags, so I’d take my pothead hippie parents any day, but still, when we were teenagers he had better clothes, nicer stuff). He used better grammar, and had better manners. All of those were such stupid reasons.

“You act like Dom’s the guy you wish you were, but I don’t think you actually feel that way.” Pete lay down so he could put his head on my thigh and look up at us. “And I’m a basket case, so I have no idea why you’d ever think I was somehow a better person.”

“But you are. Pete, you’re so good. You’re—” I brushed his hair back from his eyes. “You’re so good. You’re good to people, you care about your family, you’re trying to walk a path that will please them, but you’re brave enough to be yourself.”

“I’m never myself, except when I’m with you guys.”

“You will be, though. You will be.”

Pete shook his head. Which—did I mention?—was on my thigh. “Fraz, you’re the guy I wish I was. You’re the guy I always wanted to be. You were so casual when you showed up, like you were just yourself and you didn’t care what anyone thought.”

“Except that was acting,” Dom said. “It’s always been acting.”

“Shut it, Dom.”

“No. No, I don’t think so. I think I want you to be with us, sober. And I want you to stop acting.”

“I don’t act with you.”

“Maybe, but you do everything in order to be the guy we want to see. You hold back, you act out, but everything comes back to whoever you think we need. I’m going to tie you to the bed, and you’re going to let us give you what you need for once, Frazier.”

“What if I don’t want that?” I asked, and held my breath.

“But you do,” Pete murmured. “Fraz, you do. Come on.” He pulled my hands to his lips. “You know you want it.”

“I—but I like being on the sidelines. I don’t want to be the leading man.”

“Fraz, this isn’t a production. This is a relationship.”

“A triad,” Dom said. “Three people. Not two people with an extra.”

“In my defense, I think of myself as a bonus.”

Pete didn’t smile. Dom squeezed.

“Fine,” I said, like I was giving in. “Fine. Whatever. Do with me what you will. I can take it.”

“Oh, I doubt that. No way you can take what we’re about to give you. I’ll get the rope.”

I shivered. “Wait, what do you mean? How kinky are you planning to get—Dom? Dom, wait—”

Pete sucked my index finger into his mouth for a second, distracting me.

“Jeez. Pete.” I leaned down to kiss him.

“I want to do some stuff, not tonight. Like, if we like this rope thing? There’s other stuff I kind of want to try.”

“Do tell.”

“Some other day.”

“Pete, you gotta get your folks to let you take your car to school so you can come down more.”

“They non-op it during the school year so they don’t have to pay the insurance.”

“So pay the fucking insurance, but we need to see you more often, here, not in Davis.” I kissed him again. “Maybe we can help with the insurance.”

“You guys aren’t paying for my car insurance.”

“Why not?” Dom asked, stretching out beside us, working the rope out of its plastic wrapper. “We already pay for gas up and back a couple times a month.”

“They don’t want me to work.”

“Yeah, I don’t get that. I mean, why? Do you really need all that studying time?”

“It’s my priority.” Pete rolled over to touch the rope. “Oh my god, are we really doing this?”

“Yeah. We’re definitely doing this. Will you go get me a couple of towels? I need at least two hand towels and two bath towels.”

“Uh, for what?” Shit. The rope was mesmerizing. It was maybe the width of my pinky, and bright green.

“Do you want your arms out to the sides, or above your head?”

I looked up. Dom looked so fucking turned on, I had to catch my breath. “What the fuck are you planning?”

He smiled. “Okay, out to the side. I think this is pretty soft, but I don’t want you to hurt your wrists.”

God, no joke, Dom had done research. He laid out the bath towels over the fitted sheet, stripped everything else off, and gestured for me to lie down. I tried face-down, but he made me lie on my back instead.

I trust Dominic. I trust Dominic more than anyone else I’ve ever known. He would never do anything I didn’t want, and he knew me well enough to know where the lines were, at least most of the time. But letting him wrap my wrists in towels and tie them to the headboard still made my heart pound like I should be trying to run the fuck away.

“Pete, take off your clothes. No. Wait. Leave them on.”

I started to shake my head, but Dom put his hand over my mouth and leaned in close.

“You are the one who gets all the attention tonight, Fraz. I don’t want to be distracted.”

When he moved his hand, I said, “Dom, I’m—” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Close your eyes.”

That should have made it worse, and I didn’t want to do it, but once I did, I relaxed a little. Dom kissed me, teasing my tongue into his mouth, inviting my participation. I tugged at the ropes, wanting to put my arms around him, wanting to rise up against him, but he dragged his hands from my shoulders to my wrists.

“Be still.”

I shuddered.

“Pete, I want you right here. Feel free to take advantage of Frazier while I do his ankles.”

Holy shit. I drew my legs up. “My ankles—I don’t—” When I opened my eyes, Pete was there, still in his nice shirt. “Pete, I don’t—I’m not so sure about this—”

“I know. But you actually really want it, right? You really want this, you want it so much it scares you, because if it’s not as good as you want it to be, you’ll be crushed. Right? That’s how I felt the first night we went back to the cottage. I wanted the two of you so fucking badly that I thought I’d die if I didn’t get to kiss you more, but I thought I’d die if the sex wasn’t good, too.” He stroked my cheek. “Fraz, I love you. Let Dom have your ankles, okay? Let us give you what you want.”

“Remember what Will said?” Dom’s fingers trailed from my knees to my feet. “He can let go, in ropes. He can fly.”

But that wasn’t what I wanted, not really. I tugged my arms and lifted my head. “Dom.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t want to fly.”

“I know,” he said, smiling and kissing my knee. “You want to be still. You’re never still, Fraz.”

Did I want to be still? Maybe. I wanted to be more than I was. I wanted to be full, sated instead of searching.

I let my legs relax so Dom could tie them at the edges of the bed. I’m not being dramatic when I say it was terrifying. It was. I was naked, tied with arms and legs stretched out, my lonely dick just hanging out by itself. I tried to press my face into my arm, but I couldn’t get enough give from the rope.

“This is so much hotter than I imagined,” Dom whispered.

“It’s really not.”

“Oh, it really is.” Dom climbed up over me, still in his good work clothes, and humped against my dick.

I moaned, trying to thrust up.

“God, you feel good, Fraz.”

“I’m gonna mess up your pants.”

“It was a good night for tips, I’ll get it dry-cleaned.” He stretched long, letting me take his weight, rubbing against me in jerky movements. “Oh my god. You guys should kiss, right now.”

“But then I can’t watch,” Pete complained.

“Sit above Fraz’s head, facing me. Kiss him upside down. I want to see everything.”

“Huh.”

“Come on, someone take off their clothes.” Okay, so maybe I whined. “Come on, Pete, take off your pants. I want to lick your balls, Pete.”

Pete giggled, settling his body just over my head. “Tempting, Fraz. But you’re all tied up, so I guess I could probably get you to lick my balls whenever I wanted just by straddling your face.”

Truth: straddling your face is a universally hot concept, when said by your lover. It doesn’t matter who you are: hot.

I whined more, until Pete kissed me to shut me up.

Kissing upside down is kind of cool. It’s not my preference, but it was pretty hot to kiss Pete and feel Dom fucking me through his slacks.

“God, there’s so much I want to do. I want to get those clamps so I can put them on your nipples, Frazier. I want to get clothespins so I can put them all over your body.” His hands roamed over my chest, up into my armpits. “I want to tickle you until you scream. Actually, we’re probably gonna need a gag. I really want to make you scream.”

I thrashed, but between Dom’s weight and Pete kissing me, there wasn’t much I damage I could really accomplish. Oh, right, and the ropes, because I was tied to the fucking bed.

“Pete, what do you want to do with Fraz?”

“I want to ride him, like a horse.” He kissed me again.

I bit his lip in retaliation and he pulled back again to laugh. “Fuck you, shepherd!”

“Oh, I think we can do that right now. Take off your pants, Pete.”

“What the hell?”

Pete awkwardly climbed off the bed, stripping off his nice trousers and his cute little jockey shorts.

“Come here. Kneel over Fraz, facing his feet. Good. Now go down on all fours so I can prep you.”

Pete shivered. “Whoa. Yeah, okay.”

Which is when I worked out that Dom was playing both of us.

“Yeah, nice,” he said, giving Pete a little smack to one butt cheek. We’d talked about spanking Pete. Something about him was so fucking spankable.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I mumbled. “More. Do it again.” I tried to arch off the bed, but no dice. “Fuck, come on, Dom, do it again.”

Dom smacked Pete again, harder, and Pete gasped. “Is it nice, Peter?”

Shit, the full name and everything. My poor dick was desperate for that ass, listening to Dom’s voice get all dominant.

“Yeah. Um. I, um, can you—keep going?”

“Definitely.” But Dom lubed his hand first and ran it up and down Pete’s crack until Pete was breathing raggedly.

“Dom—Dom, come on—” Pete pushed his ass back. “Dom, please—”

Smack. Pete jumped. Dom’s hand slid back into his crack, and I humped air, or tried to, when his thumb pressed against Pete’s hole.

“Ohhhh, yeah.”

I was watching, so I could see Dom’s other hand get ready, but Pete was lost in the sensation of that thumb fucking him in and out; he was totally shocked when Dom spanked him again.

This time both of us moaned.

“That hurt—”

Dom’s thumb pushed out on Pete’s hole and Pete’s whole body twitched.

Smack, smack, smack, smack.

“Oh god, oh god, Dom—Dom—”

I’d forgotten about the rest of Dom. All I’d been looking at was his hands and Pete’s ass. But when I looked up to see his face, I was totally bowled over (or as much as one can be, when tied to the bed at four corners). Dom was looking at me.

“Do you like it when I spank Pete? Should we tell him what we call him, to ourselves, when we’re having sex and he isn’t here?”

“Our boy,” I rasped, lifting my head, wishing I could taste them, either of them. “We call him our boy and talk about all the shit we want to do to him.”

“That’s right.” Thumb in, all the way to the joint. “That’s right. Our boy Pete. We want you to live here, when you get out of school, Pete. We want you all the time.”

Pete whimpered and put his head down. Dammit, if my legs were out straight he’d be practically lying on them.

Smack. “Good boy.”

Dom lubed his other thumb and pushed inside, slowly, letting me watch, alternately watching his hands, and my face. I could tell when he was watching me, even though I refused to look up.

“Gotta open you up,” Dom said, pushing out with both thumbs while Pete moaned. “Nice, Pete. God, it’s so nice, having your ass right here. I could spank you for hours. I’ve fantasized about you fucking Fraz while I paddled you. Would you like that?”

“Oh my god, Dom.” Pete pushed back, insistently. “Oh my god, how can you talk like that?”

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg.” This time he caught my eye and held it. “That’s just the very tip of the iceberg. Here, come down now.”

Dom put a condom on me—for obvious reasons—and guided Pete until he was crouched over my cock, still facing my feet. I’d never done it quite like this with Pete, and it was hot, especially because I couldn’t fucking move, I couldn’t do anything but watch his ass swallow my cock while Dom held us both.

“Ride him, shepherd. But neither of you can come. I have something else in mind for that.”

I might have even given that ominous “something else” some consideration, except then Pete really did ride me, like a fucking horse.

“Oh shit, oh fuck, Pete—fuck—you really do have a fucking ponyplay thing—”

Pete laughed and almost fell on his face. “Shut up, don’t make me laugh, I can’t balance and laugh at the same time!”

“Enough. Off, Pete.”

“Aw.” But Pete, just like me, did his complaining while he was obeying Dom’s commands. Damn, seriously, Dom being bossy not in the bedroom was so fucking obnoxious, but Dom being bossy in the bedroom was fucking incredible.

Dom surveyed us, got rid of the condom, and untied me.

“What now, fearless leader?” I asked, all sassy because I had my hands back.

“Pete, on your hands and knees. No, head all the way down, ass in the air.”

“Um. Okay. Should I keep my shirt on?”

“No. Take it off. I want both of my boys naked.”

Pete was still bashful, which was so fucking cute. I brushed his hands away and got him out of his dress shirt, then relieved him much more slowly of his undershirt, trying to rub all of his skin to make up for when I couldn’t move.

“Frazier, I will tie your hands behind your back. Let Pete get on the bed.”

“Mean old dad,” I muttered. Pete’s eyes widened, scandalized, but I knew Dom was gonna slap my ass even before I felt it.

SMACK.

“Excuse me?”

I rubbed the spot and rolled my eyes at Pete. “He’s so easy. Go do what daddy says.”

“Oh shit oh shit oh shit,” Pete mumbled to himself, turning away.

Dom came up on me, still dressed, and grabbed my throat. “You are taking this way too far. Save the daddy stuff for later.”

On the bed Pete buried his eyes in his arms, still mumbling.

I laughed. Because it was funny. And also it was hot. “Yes, daddy.”

Dom gave me a bite to the earlobe and released me. “Condom. Lube. Pete’s ass. Go.”

“Yes—”

Smack.

“—Dom.”

See? I can be cheeky. Even when you just tied me to a bed.

“The spanking thing’s gonna be an issue,” I told Pete, as I was pushing back into him.

“Ohhh, that’s good. Uh, issue how?”

“Just, DominantDom’s never gonna go away now.”

“Kind of my goal. What’s your goal, Fraz?”

“Fucking you.”

“Not exactly.” DominantDom pressed against me again. “You in nice and deep, Fraz?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Lean over. I want your legs outside Pete’s.”

“Uh. Huh.” I shifted and moved, but I had to pull out to do what he wanted. God, though, pushing into Pete with his legs and ass all tight like that? So hot.

“That’s nice.” Dom’s hand, cool and slick, at my ass. “Yeah. This is fucking awesome. How have we never done this before?”

“This?” Oh shit. Dom’s finger. Two of Dom’s fingers. “Ohhh fuck me, Dominic. How have we never done this before?”

If you’ve never had a guy’s fingers in your ass while you’re in someone else’s, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s intense, and powerful, and it makes your toes curl. And that’s even before he nudges up close and says to you, “You ready to be fucked?”

Truth be told, I’m pretty much always ready to be fucked.

Dom pushed in, and despite the fact that Dom in my ass was familiar, and me in Pete’s ass was familiar, the combination of Dom’s dick and Pete’s ass together really felt like a whole new ride. I wanted to thrust in both directions, but Dom held us still, pushing slowly until he was nice and deep and I could barely breathe because I felt so fucking good.

“Pete, I need you to brace really well so you can take Fraz’s weight.”

“Got it.” Pete squirmed around, pushing back, doing excellent things with his glutes, propping himself with pillows.

“Oh fuck, just keep doing that and I’ll come,” I said, doing my best to communicate the same message back to Dom.

“No. You good, Pete?”

“I think so.”

“If it’s too much, tell us.”

“Okay.”

“Put your hands behind your neck, Frazier.”

“The fuck? I’m using my hands.”

“No. You aren’t. You’re putting them behind your neck and trusting us to hold you up. I’m working with a metaphor here.”

“Well fuck you, Director, I’m gonna go ahead and—ow!”

Dom gave my hair another good yank. “Put your hands behind your neck and let us hold you up.”

“I thought you were trying to be less controlling.”

“Right now I’m just the right amount of controlling. Let our shepherd hold you up, Fraz.” His hands circled my wrists.

“But he’d have to hold both of us up—”

“I got it, Fraz, I swear.”

I sighed, trying to make it clear I thought this was a stupid idea. Then I lifted my left hand up, which was awkward, and put it behind my neck.

“Good, Frazier,” Dom murmured in my ear, tonguing it a little, just the way I liked. “The other one now.”

“But Pete’s on the bottom, don’t you think—” Shit, Dom’s tongue making love to my ear drove me insane.

“The other one now, Fraz. Give in. Let go.”

Dom’s arms were strong around me and neither of them shook when I lifted my right hand off the ground. Still, I was shaky, maybe in all kinds of ways, when I pressed my hands to my neck.

“Sweet, sweet Frazier, you’re doing so good, let us love you, let us hold you up, let us be your boyfriends, Frazier.”

“Shut up, Dominic.”

His tongue came back and this time he fucked me so goddamn slowly I wanted to cry. Every thrust sent me into Pete, and Pete grunted. He might not have been that comfortable with both of us fucking him, but all that tension made for the tightest ass I’ve ever had the pleasure of being inside. I leaned my head back and Dom pulled me against him, playing with my nipples, barely moving.

“You can’t stay upright without us, Fraz. You have to rely on us, depend on us, trust us to keep you steady.”

“I get the fucking metaphor already.”

“It really is a fucking metaphor.” He bit my ear again. “Oh, god, you feel so good. Does Pete feel good?”

“Pete always feels good.”

“Brace, Peter.”

Pete shifted, pushing back.

“Down.” Dom pressed me into Pete, then pulled out, tapping his dick against my ass. “You could use something more than a spanking, Fraz. I’d like to drip wax all over you and watch you try to fight it.”

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

“All over your nipples, your belly button. Maybe Pete could get it off with his teeth.”

“Fuck me, you jerk.”

Dom pushed back in, but not deeply enough. Out, in, out, in, never enough.

“Dammit,” I said, wiggling my ass, which was about all I could do without my hands.

“Stuck like a worm on a hook, nowhere to go.” In, out, in, out. “Did you like being tied up, Fraz?”

“I’d like to tie you up.”

Dom laughed. “Yeah, we’re definitely taking that class together. Brace again for me, Peter.”

Fuck, but Pete’s full name in Dom’s voice made me shudder.

“Ready.”

“Good. Good.” Dom’s hands came down on my shoulders and he pushed all the way in, making me and Pete groan. “Did you like being tied up, Frazier?” he whispered into my ear.

“Fuck you. Yes. Fine, yes, I liked it. Fuck you.”

“I can’t wait to gag you so I don’t have to worry about you screaming and the neighbors being worried.”

“I’m not a fucking screamer—”

“Only because I haven’t tried yet,” Dom said, and started pounding into my ass.

I would have reached down to help brace, except Dom held onto my wrists with one hand while his other planted on the bed. It was tight, and impossible, and somehow he kept jackhammering into my ass, which meant I kept pounding into Pete’s. It was awkward, and we didn’t have a perfect rhythm, but then Pete cried out in that tone—you know the tone—that note that meant somehow we were hitting his prostate just fucking right and he couldn’t control himself.

“Come, boy, come for me and Fraz—come so hard you never forget this—” Yeah, I’d be breathless too, if I was fucking two guys at once. Dom didn’t change anything about what he was doing and Pete, beneath us, shuddered and cried out again and writhed as we pressed him down to the bed.

“Oh—I—I—”

I would have laughed, but I was pretty breathless too.

“One down, one to go,” Dom whispered. His hand tightened at my wrists. “How does it feel to be trapped between us? This is you all the time, Frazier. You are always one of us. Inside us. And we are inside you.”

“Can the fucking Lifetime Television for—ohhhhh, shit—”

Dom ground against my ass in a circle like he was looking for fucking metal and his cock was detecting some in my ass.

“Dom, fuck, keep doing that—”

Pete roused long enough to push back into me, and push me back into Dom, opening me up somehow, just a little, so he could get in deeper.

I groaned and tried to hold on, but it wasn’t fucking possible. The orgasm took over my entire body and I’m not saying I cried, but when my balls spilled everything, mindlessly jolting into Pete, I may have gotten a little teary-eyed for a minute from the exertion.

“Fuck yeah,” Dom said. “That was so sexy. You guys are so sexy. Keep your hands here.”

“You’re a fuckin’ idiot,” I mumbled.

“Tell the truth, Frazier. What am I really?”

“A control freak.”

Dom used his hands on me like I was his, like he owned me, like there were no lines his brain recognized between my body and his. He gently pulled me from Pete, gently removed the condom.

“Can I just—”

“No. Hands behind your back.”

I sighed, loudly. “I get it, you like me. Whatever, Dominic.”

“Do you remember the first night we spent together, the three of us?”

“Sorry, I might have been drunk. It’s all dark.” I would have waved my hands around but I wasn’t supposed to move them.

Pete stood right in front of me, running his hands up to my chest. “I remember.”

“Do you remember what you said to me?”

“Yeah, you know, I don’t actually keep all the words I say in some kind of searchable index in my head, filed by date and time.”

Fucking Pete. Pete was my undoing. Pete was a traitor, or maybe the sweetest ally I’d ever had. He kissed the corner of my mouth and said, “You’re in love with Dom.”

“Shut up,” I whispered.

Dom pressed against my back. “Frazier, I fell in love with you the first time you ever kissed my cheek. We’d known each other for maybe forty-five seconds. You giggled. And I couldn’t believe you’d kissed my cheek like it didn’t matter, like a boy could do that and it was all right. Do you remember?”

I closed my eyes and leaned against Pete. Dom’s body followed mine, all three of us standing there together, breathing together. “You were just so beautiful. I figured if you didn’t punch me, we’d probably be friends. And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t do something. But you couldn’t have been in love with me. That makes, like, no sense.”

“Only to you. Pete?”

“Yeah, makes sense to me. Because you grabbed my hand and I thought the same thing. Like maybe you did that to everyone, every guy, but somehow it still made me feel special, and not like I was gullible. Just like you looking at me made me feel real in a way no one else made me feel.”

“Can we go to sleep soon?” I asked, when no one said anything else.

“Dom hasn’t come yet.”

“I’ll come tomorrow. I like sleeping with the two of you, hard, knowing we have time.”

“Kinky freak.”

He kissed the back of my neck. “I love you. I really loved tying you up. I’ll sign us up for Hugh’s next class, okay?”

“Wish I could come, too,” Pete said.

“Come stay with us for the summer. We’ll take it again when you’re here.”

“You think they have that many classes, or whatever?”

“I think we’re in the Bay Area, which hosts the Folsom Street Fair every year. We can find a class if we want one, Pete.”

“Hell, we’ll find the Folsom Street Fair,” I said. “Damn, we missed it this year. See. Now I’ve got ideas.”

“Go to bed. Aren’t you exhausted?”

I was. But I turned, because avoiding Dom was one thing. Not acknowledging all the shit he’d been saying for the last however-long was pretty fucked up. Except I didn’t really know what to say.

“It’s okay, Fraz. No big declarations. But you’re my boyfriend, and so is Pete, and anyone who’s got a problem with our triad can take it up with me.”

“Yeah. Okay. Sounds good.”

“Bed.”

We sorted ourselves out for showers and teeth-brushing. It wasn’t a huge shock when the two of them sandwiched me between them. And I definitely wasn’t about to complain.

All right, all right. So this triad thing? It’s impossible. You know it, and I know it, and probably everyone with a brain knows it. But lying there with Pete curled against my side and Dom’s fingers combing through my hair? Maybe it’s impossible the way everything perfect is impossible; maybe sometimes you step out onto the stage and you suspend your own disbelief. Dom and Pete make it so I can always suspend my disbelief, and when the three of us are together everything on earth is suddenly possible.