KNOT: A Wake Family Novel (35 page)

I wanted him all to myself, and I’d been jealous.

That night by the fire, I’d felt it. The way he watched them. I was jealous of his bravery, his willingness to try what I’d asked, and the way his cock got hard looking at them.

People think that polyamorous people don’t get that way, and some don’t. Up until him, I’d never experienced it myself.

Jealousy was born of fear; the daunting threat someone might take away something precious. I’d never felt possessive with a lover like I was with him. Worse than that was the fear they’d go willingly, and forget you.

I didn’t know everything, and I couldn’t speak for everyone—monogamous or otherwise—but my fear was like a cancer, and it spread through every thought. Made me second guess myself. Made me its puppet to do and say things I didn’t trust.

And in those weeks following Labor Day, I couldn’t rely on my feelings.

We’d been invited out to drinks with Justin and Penelope, but I hadn’t wanted to go.

I could tell there was something brewing with him, too.

“How’s that toe?” he asked over the phone.

It took me a moment to pick up on our never-ending joke, I’d been lost in my head for most of the afternoon. I wasn’t familiar with so many new emotions. I didn’t know how to handle them, which was one reason I’d never been interested in a committed relationship.
With anyone.

“It’s fine.” I laughed, but it was weak. I knew he wanted to see me. “I think I’m going to stay home tonight. I’m kind of tired.” I half-expected him to knock on my door any minute.

I’d been working a lot with many fall and winter events coming up. Plus, I was leaving town before the holidays—which I still hadn’t found a good way to bring up. My head hurt from the stress of it. I just wanted to lay on my couch and watch the news until I fell asleep.

There was a long span of silence over the line.

“I haven’t said anything since you’ve been working so hard, but you’ve been different lately. If something is up, or changing, you have to talk to me.”

I’d be glad to talk to him if I could figure out how I felt. That’s where the trouble was. I had no fucking clue.

“I know,” I said.

Janel thought how I felt was attributed to how I’d never met anyone like him before, and therefore I didn’t know how to cope with it. Ives thought that if being with Reagan was what I
really
wanted, then I wouldn’t feel so confused—if it was right, it would have felt right.

In some ways, they were both correct.

“Do you still want this?” he asked, point blank. Sometimes I marveled at his honesty, and I looked for mine. Other times, it frightened me.

This
was so vague.

Was it his body? His attention? Yes.

Or was it our relationship? Because I wanted it, but it made me so crazy. Was that normal? Was that how regular couples felt most of the time? Like part of them was fading, and other parts were finally being colored in?

I admitted, “It’s just harder than I thought. Maybe it’s because it’s all happening so fast.”

I could hear his breathing pick up, an escalating tempo.

This was exactly what I meant. I hated making him feel anything but happy, but I was drowning in all of these new emotions, and he was safely waving from the shore, sipping a cocktail.

“What do you need from me?” Another question that seemed so direct, but again one that I didn’t know how to articulate.

I reached for an answer. “Patience? Time?”

“Nora, do you love me?”

My stomach bottomed out, and I pulled my feet into my body and lay my head on the back of the couch. I ran my fingernail over the fabric, and it made a zipping sound. I didn’t want to disappoint him, but I didn’t want to lie. What did I know about love like he was talking about?

His kind of love led to formal courtship and engagements. Living together and getting married. Although none of those things had been on my radar before him, and everything was still so new, I’d been thinking about them lately, which made me feel like an entirely different person.

It reminded me that historically my family failed at these things. That I too would fail, I knew no other way.

I didn’t know how to answer.

I loved
all
my lovers in some way or another, that’s why I was with them. But wasn’t that a different kind of love?

He sighed. “You’re taking too long. I want to see you.” He was right down the hall but in a different world.

If it was this hard, and so early in our relationship, how would I ever navigate it? How would I survive?

I had to get something off my chest before I burst from the mounting guilt.

“I’m going to Switzerland before Thanksgiving. I’ve told work I don’t know when I’ll be back, and they’re fine with me working from there. I’ve wanted to tell you, but I
didn’t
want to tell you because I knew it would only disappoint you.” I heard his gentle knock at my door. “I don’t want to anger or worry you, and maybe I’m just having a bad day, but I need to be alone.”

“You sound sad. We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. Let me in.”

I wasn’t selfish and hated feeling like I was taking and not giving him anything in return.

“I’m fine.” I didn’t deserve his affection, it would only confuse things more. “You asked me what I needed, and I told you the truth. I need a little space.”

“What if I need you?”

Hearing him say that tugged at something so deep inside me, I had to knock the cobwebs away to get to it. Reagan needed someone who could please him, and there were thousands of women who would love to be his. Women who knew exactly what they wanted, and how to love him the way he deserved. Women who didn’t have to question themselves or their feelings.

I knew I was tired, but, by the way I was thinking, surely delirium had set in.

He needed me?
That was laughable.

I hung up and walked to the door. I didn’t look through the peephole; he was still there.

We didn’t say anything.

He came in and switched off the lamp and lights in the kitchen, walked to the television and pressed Power. Then he returned to me, as I stood there watching him with only the lights from the city illuminating us, and he led me by my hand to my bedroom.

I didn’t question his motives. He only ever had one.

I was tired and scared and nervous that I was fucking something up. Something I wasn’t even sure I wanted but wasn’t ready to give up on yet. I just didn’t know how to fucking do any of it. And do the damn thing right.

He went to my closet and found my favorite yoga pants and a camisole. I stood while he took my clothes off and dressed me for bed, watching as he cared for me. Watching him love me like no one else ever had. Selfishly, I adored him for it.

Reagan had a sexual touch, it didn’t matter where his person touched yours. You felt it. It elevated you to his level, somehow willing your body to connect with his. It was tantalizing.

Conversely, as he tended to me, I felt none of that. His touch was intimate more than lustful. Then, he pulled back the covers and picked me up, sliding me into the crisp sheets.

He turned on my bedside lamp, and I rolled to face him. Even in my confusion, being in his presence soothed me. He pulled the chair from the other side of the room up next to the bed, then sat and took off his shoes.

Yogis should play video of him doing mundane tasks to heighten meditation. He was that peaceful to watch.

When he was comfortable, he lounged in the chair and propped his feet up on the bed next to me. He put his arms behind his head and gave me a cool smile.

I returned it from my pillow.

“I’m not here to make things harder for you,” he said in a tone that wasn’t debatable. I believed him.

“Maybe I’m not cut out for this, Reagan. My head is screaming at me all day that I’m going to hurt you, and it’s making me insane.” It was hard not to tell him the blunt truth face to face. Over the phone, I didn’t have those warm, trustworthy eyes or the vibration of his comforting tone to charm it out.

Easily, he coaxed me.

I added, “What if I can’t give you what you really want?”

He squinted his eyes and his mouth crooked to one side, then answered, “That does
seem
like a problem. I think you’re forgetting one of my best qualities.
Problem-solving
. And it just so happens that all of my qualities are at your service.”

I grinned when he did, not because I had an answer, but because he made it feel like it wasn’t the end of the world.

“First, we have to decipher what it is that I want—to know if you’ll fail at this. Correct?”

I nodded.

“So?” he asked, like I was missing something and he was waiting for me to get there.

“So?” I asked back.

“So ask me,” he said, and his bare foot, lying on my sheet, nudged me. “Ask me what I want, Nora.”

How did he always find a way to make it all seem so simple?

“What do you want?” I asked him, the lilt of my voice humoring.

He leaned forward, stretched his neck, and made himself more comfortable. “Thanks for asking. Let me think.”

Oh, Jekyll.

I laughed, but it merely expressed itself as an awkward sigh.

“First,” he said and held up a long, deft finger.

First. Here we go.

“I’d like you to realize when you don’t talk to me it causes
serious
anxiety.” He’d never admitted to his anxiety before, although I knew he took medication for it.

I’d seen a prescription bottle in his travel bag at the lake but tried to ignore it. I didn’t want to snoop. Then I’d worried, thinking he was really sick or something. So I looked again and read that it was Valium. It made sense, and it was much less daunting as the tragic things I’d given him in my head. At the moment, I had considered taking one, having freaked out like I did.

Yet, this was the first he’d mentioned it. He was being so frank.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry for something
you
have no control over, I basically want you to know. I
want
you to talk to me. If we can’t work it out, then fine.”

Fine?

No. Instantly, I didn’t like that fine, and I shifted uncomfortably.

Don’t give up on me.

“Second, I’m designed to
want
you. I’m convinced this is anatomical, and you can’t argue with nature. All of this…” He waved his hands down his reclined body. “Wants all of that.” Then, he motioned to me. “I have no control over it. Trust me, at first I tried. Remember?”

I did. My body must have had the same manufacturer. “I remember.”

“Third, I need you to understand my head is more rational than that. It only wants you, if you want me back. Otherwise, it’s wasteful, and no one benefits.”

I took a deep breath and sorted through what he’d told me.

“Those are the basics. I need you to talk to me, give me your body, and want me back.”

My hand reached out for his foot, and his eyes closed when my thumb stroked over his skin. Then, he blew out a long stream of air.

Reggie—Thursday, September 25, 2008

W
hen she touched my foot, as crazy as it sounded, it felt like she’d thrown me a rope. I just had to keep climbing.

I’d gone stir-crazy the night before, and so I doubled up on my Valium. Even after taking the recommended dose, I’d started counting again. So I took two, and thankfully it was working.

I wasn’t there to fuck her. I wasn’t there to fight. I was there for a resolution to the tension that had started to build between us. And the stubborn rocks we were, if we didn’t air it out, the things that had seeped into us would crack us along with the first freeze of the year.

“I’m trying,” she said. I couldn’t ask for more than that.

“Can we talk about Switzerland?” That was a subject I wanted to revisit, sooner than later.

“Yeah,” she answered, but her expression wasn’t as defeated as it was when I’d come in. She looked so fragile laying there in her tiny-ass bed. “I have a lot to do there with my father’s estate. I probably should have gone back again before now, but I can’t keep putting it off.”