Page 45 of Single Mom's Firefighter SEALs
Heat prickles my cheeks as the silence stretches, and Weston sits there holding my gaze.
“I know that might not be what you want to hear before?—”
He cuts in. “It’s okay.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
His expression is calm as he gives me a small shrug. “Buck’s my brother in every way that matters, and it wouldn’t be the first time he and I have shared a woman. Calder, too.”
I stare hard at him, not sure what to think, and this time, it’s his skin that colors, but he doesn’t look away.
“It’s in the past,” he says, “and it didn’t mean what this means—whatyoumean. But the idea isn’t foreign to us.”
A shocked laugh escapes me. “That is not what I expected you to say.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
I cover my eyes briefly with one hand, and I’m laughing even as heat rushes through me and I try to decide what I think about this revelation.
When I look at him again, he gives me a smile that takes some of the sting out of my nerves. “I’m just being honest.”
“And I appreciate it, even if it’s hard to absorb.”
He reaches across the table and sets his hand on top of mine. “The main thing is you don’t have to be ashamed with me. Not about wanting what you want.”
I look down at the wavering candlelight, at my half-empty glass, and then at his hand. It’s large and scarred by the kind of work that leaves marks men don’t talk about. A hand that can break and build in equal measure. A hand that’s used weapons and fire hoses, carried my grocery bags, and assembled LEGO pieceswith my son.
A hand that’s never once reached for me with anything but care.
My throat tightens as I decide to lean hard into honesty myself. “I’m attracted to all three of you.” Maybe Buck already told him, but I’d prefer him to hear it from me directly.
Weston’s gaze doesn’t leave mine. “I know.”
Something about his easy acceptance, just like Buck’s, makes things harder instead of easier. Being attracted to three firefighter strangers is one thing; getting involved with two of them while still longing for a third is something else entirely.
All of this while being a widow. I shouldn’t want three men who know each other’s darkest histories. Desire isn’t supposed to be tangled up with grief and safety and tenderness and the memory of another man I loved enough that it broke me when he died.
Somewhere along the way, I seem to have convinced myself that if guilt hurts enough, it will prove I haven’t forgotten Tyler.
Weston strokes the back of my hand with two of his fingers, his eyes concerned. “It doesn’t bother me. Does it bother you?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. I want to be honest, but I can’t say any of what I’m thinking and still hold myself together.
He stretches his other hand across the table, palm up, and I put mine in it. His fingers are warm and rough when they close aroundmine. “You loved your husband.”
His directness hits hard, not cruelly, but hard enough to knock the air out of me.
“He matters. He’ll always matter.” Weston gently squeezes both of my hands in his. “Nothing about that changes because you want something now. Because you want someone.”
Emotion swells so suddenly my eyes burn.
“Tyler was one of us. He was a good man. Brave, loyal, tough as hell.” Weston’s voice is low and unhurried. “You didn’t love him by accident. You loved him because he had honor and protected what was his. Because when it counted, he showed up.”
My chest aches. All of me aches.
Weston keeps stroking my hands. “Maybe you see the same kinds of things in Buck. And me, and Calder. That isn’t betrayal. It’s recognition.”
For a long second, I can’t breathe.
