“How long?”
“I don’t know. Could be hours. Could be all day.” He opens the door. “Just wait for me. Please.”
And then he’s gone.
And I’m alone in a hotel room with scattered thoughts and the terrifying possibility that everything is about to change.
Also a minibar I’m not supposed to touch and a Bible in the nightstand drawer that definitely didn’t sign up for whatever emotional reckoning I’m about to have.
I could pray. Seems like the moment for it.
Dear God, Please let the men I love not murder each other. Also, is polyamory a sin? Asking for a friend. The friend is me. I’m the friend.
I don’t pray. I eat another chocolate instead.
Dark chocolate. Slightly squashed from when it fell.
I eat it anyway.
It tastes like memory. Like hope. Like the beginning of something impossible and beautiful and terrifying.
Today, Saul will talk to them. Today, I’ll find out if the men I love can coexist. Today, everything might change.
But right now, I pull on Enzo’s shirt and wrap Dario’s tie around my wrist like a bracelet and pull Saul’s blanket over me.
Surrounded by pieces of all of them. Looking like a craft project titled ‘Emotional Hoarding: A Memoir.’ Waiting to find out if I get to keep them.
Or if wanting too much means losing everything.
Chapter Thirty
SAUL
The drive drags.
I have hours to question every decision I’ve ever made. To rehearse conversations that fall apart the moment I try to imagine his responses. Hours to wonder what kind of man drives toward the person who could take everything from him.
A fool. That’s what kind.
Or someone so in love he’s lost the ability to protect himself.
I’m not sure there’s a difference anymore.
I have Dario’s address. U.S. Marshals have ways of locating people who’d rather stay hidden. I’ve known where he lives since the trial. Filed the information away the way I file everything away. Never thought I’d use it like this.
The neighborhood is nice. The kind of streets where people have money and manners and don’t ask questions about what their neighbors do for a living.
I park. Kill the engine. Sit there with my hands on the steering wheel and try to remember how to breathe.
I could drive back to Colorado, tell Stevie I couldn’t find him, let the chocolates be a one-time thing that fades into memory. But I’d be lying. And I don’t lie to her.
She deserves the truth. Deserves a choice. Even if that choice destroys me.
I get out of the car. Walk to his door. Stand there for ten seconds, fifteen, twenty, trying to find something solid to hold onto. Then I knock.
Footsteps inside. The door opens.
Dario Marchetti looks exactly like I expected and nothing like I wanted. Dark hair, expensive clothes even at home, that controlled composure I remember from the courtroom. The kind of man who’s never surprised by anything because he’s already planned for every possibility.
