I roll my eyes. If he’s reading my mind, he’s reading way too much into it. I was thinking trust, not love. “No, I’m not in love with you. Or anyone.”

“You’re fucking in love with both of us.”

The hair on the back of my neck stands on end, and I know what an animal in a trap feels like when it makes the choice to bite off its own leg. I took Psych 101, and I know what deflection is and I know that it works, so here goes, “What is wrong with you?” I push off the chair and start pacing. “You need to stop doing this.”

“Doing what?”

Panic is racing under my skin, and I don’t even know why. It’s like I can’t get a deep breath. I am so overreacting, and I know it, but I can’t seem to halt. Just full steam ahead. “This. Stop this. You’re ruining a good thing, man.”

He narrows his eyes at me like he’s trying to bore right into my head. “I don’t think I am. I think you’re the one with the issue. We’d all be fine if you’d just admit it.”

God. How can he be so calm? So in control? “There’s nothing to admit. Why are you all of the sudden making this more than it is? We’re getting really good pussy. We’re experimenting and having a good time. Why are you ruining it with all this love and forever bullshit?”

“You know this is more than experimenting. We’re all a couple...no a triad? I don’t know what to call it. But we talked about it last week. This is real. We are a unit.”

“I’m in it for as long as it lasts.” That much I’ll give him.

“Why are you afraid of feeling anything?” Fletch clenches his hands into fists and then shakes them out. “I know your family life sucked, but are you going to let it screw you up forever?”

I swallow the bile that always rises when I think of my parents. The yelling. The holes in the wall. The bruises on my mom. “Don’t go there, man.”

My chest is working hard on every labored breath. Walk away. You don’t need this. Just walk away. I keep telling myself to go, but I never quite leave, do I?

“Look, you need to face your past and move on or they win.”

I grit my teeth and remind myself to stay calm. “I don’t need to do shit. I promised myself I would never be like them and I’m not. I’m nothing like my old man.”

“I know that. Christ. We all know that. Is that what this is about? You’re afraid you’ll be a wife-beater if you get a wife?”