“You’re fucking crazy, Garrett,” I joke, and suddenly, the grip on my hand gets tighter. I glance her way as she furrows her brow at me as if I said something wrong.
“I am not,” Garrett replies, defending himself. “Who here doesn’t have some freaky bedroom desires you’ve always wanted to do but are too afraid to ask? I mean, obviously, Emerson isn’t afraid to ask.”
Emerson winces again, frowning at Garrett’s joke.
Garrett seems lost on a tangent, emphasizing this idea as if it could ever really work. But since Isabel frowned at me the last time I made fun of him, I keep my mouth shut.
“Out of all the shit you’ve done, what is the one thing you wish you could ask for?” he asks. “You know you have something. So let’s hear it.”
“You first,” Maggie replies with a smug grin. Maggie is the only woman in our company, but she’s not what you’d expect from a woman who keeps three horny men in line. She’s surprisingly timid and reserved, which explains why she’s pushing this question back on Garrett.
“Fine,” he says.
And while Garrett unveils his, slightly unexpected, bedroom desires, my attention bounces back and forth from this conversation to Drake. He’s now standing so close to the woman wearing a white sash that says It’s my birthday and a tiara on her head, that it looks like their mouths might collide at any moment. My stomach starts to sour as I watch her run her hands along the length of his chest then up his neck. My grip on my whiskey glass tightens.
Just as their lips are about to meet, I’m pulled from the display by a soft voice announcing, “I want to be in a threesome.”
“Yes!” Garrett exclaims as I gawk at my sweet, innocent girlfriend, who just told all of my friends that her kinky desire is a ménage à trois. “See!”
“Isabel!” I stammer.
“What?” she asks, giving me a shrug. “Garrett’s right. It’s normal to want kinky stuff. I don’t feel bad about it.”
“Good for you,” Maggie replies.
I notice the slight blush of Isabel’s freckled cheeks as she exposes a tight-lipped smile.
“I can’t believe you just said that…” I gawk at her, half amused and half horrified.
“Wait,” Garrett replies, pushing the issue. “Threesome with another girl or threesome with another guy?”
I rub my temple as I fight the urge to drag her out of here, so she can’t be corrupted by my horny friends anymore. But her mouth is twisted as she considers this question.
“Um…I think, either.”
“Nice,” he replies.
I stare at her with a look of surprise. Three years I’ve known this girl. Three years I’ve been in love with her and two since we started having sex, and never have I heard about this kinky threesome desire of hers.
“All right, Hunter. Your turn,” Garrett says, but I instantly shake my head.
“I don’t have anything.”
“Come on. I said mine,” Isabel argues.
But I shrug in response. “I really don’t have anything.”
A look of disappointment blankets their faces before we move on. I wish I could tell them my deepest desires, but I don’t ever let that thought enter my head. As I glance back over to the corner of the bar, I watch as Drake makes out with the birthday girl against the wall, and I grind my molars again.
They can joke about secret desires all they want, but none of them will ever truly know how agonizing it is to keep yours in forever because mine will never, ever come out. I won’t let it.
By the next morning, everyone else in the group gets their wish because the company has filed for bankruptcy, and we’re all out of a job. The panic that ensues inside me is relentless. I’m already scouring the job sites when Emerson calls.
When he first tells me about his new business idea, developing a dating app based on kinks and sex, I figure it’s crazy and will never work. I almost turn him down. The words are actually on my lips. I have too much at stake—a future with the woman I love, and I’d be better off taking a corporate job with benefits. But as I look over at her where she sleeps next to me in bed, I think about what she said last night. How cute she was declaring her desire for a threesome, and I realize that I’d rather live a wild life with this girl in an apartment than a boring one in a house. And if she can live out loud like that, then so can I.
Against my initial judgment, I agree to take on the role of finding and managing developers for the app. And I make a promise to myself to give it a shot for one year. And, honestly, I don’t expect it to last the year, but boy was I wrong.