Oliver shook his head, refusing to admit that because he didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t want her to think that what they shared wasn’t enough for him. He’d already lost Gavin to this dream. He couldn’t lose her too.
Part of him wondered if his inability to accept his dreams couldn’t come to fruition was hindered by Erin and Gavin’s friendship. It was so genuine, so close. When he’d first started dating Erin, it hadn’t taken long to know she was special, different from the women he’d dated before.
Gavin had realized—even before Oliver—that Erin was going to stick. The first couple of months had been touch and go as Gavin’s mood whenever Erin was around plummeted, his foster brother acting like a grade-A moody, sullen asshole. It had gotten so bad that Oliver had even briefly considered breaking things off with her, hating the feeling of having to choose between his girlfriend and his best friend.
In the end, it had been Erin who’d turned the tide. She’d looked right at Gavin shortly before Valentine’s Day last year and asked him point-blank why he didn’t like her.
Gavin hadn’t had an answer, at least not one he was willing to confess. He’d closed down in true Gavin style, reverting to character, and Oliver had stepped in to whisk Erin away before she pushed him too far.
However, Erin stood her ground and asked Gavin to give her a chance—a real chance—and to Oliver’s surprise, his friend had apologized for acting like a jerk and agreed.
After that…things got a lot easier.
At least for Erin and Gavin.
They’d become such great friends that there were times when Oliver felt like the damn outsider. Not that he was complaining.
Much.
“Sometimes I wonder…” Erin said, pausing. She bit her lower lip, and Oliver got a sense she regretted what she’d just started to say. “Never mind.”
“You wonder what?” he pressed.
“I wonder if you and I had never met…if you and Gavin would have…”
Oliver sighed. There were no secrets between him and Erin. He’d fallen for her just as quickly as her roommate Jordan fell for her flavors of the month. Layla had introduced him to her cousin shortly after Erin had landed a nursing job at Johns Hopkins in the E.R., making the move from Philly to Baltimore. Oliver had taken one look at the curvy brunette with chocolate-brown eyes and known he’d met his soulmate.
Well…one of them.
Erin’s hot-blooded Italian mother had met and fallen madly in love with her hard-working and hard-playing Irish husband, and the result had been Erin Cafferty. Like him, she laughed loudly and often, spoke her mind, rarely flashed her fiery temper—but when she did, watch out—and once they’d committed to this relationship, she’d been all in, holding back nothing.
As such, she knew all about Ollie’s wild dreams, his desire to find a relationship just like that of his parents. Erin was as open-minded and adventurous as they came. Unlike the Moretti brothers, Erin had been quick to accept Layla’s relationship with both Finn and Miguel, confiding to him early on that she’d thought it was “very cool and totally hot,” and how she couldn’t imagine anything better than finding true love with not just one person but two. She’d told him she would be open to that kind of relationship if it was what he truly wanted.
If Oliver hadn’t already fallen for her before, that would have sealed the deal for him.
Erin had also heard all of Oliver’s “past lovers” stories, just as he’d heard hers, so she knew about his one night with Gavin and how it had ended. Why it had ended. Oliver had tried to convince her that he’d since come to realize that dream of a threesome relationship was just that…a dream.
But every now and then, like tonight, he’d slip up and reveal more than he should, and once more, she’d be left to wonder if she truly was enough. He hated doing that to her.
He’d let his dreams keep him and Gavin apart, so how could he expect her to believe the same wouldn’t hold true in their relationship? While he’d sworn to her that wouldn’t happen, it was clear she didn’t believe him.
“You know Gavin and I…” He started to say hooked up, but that felt too impersonal, especially given his feelings for Gavin.
“Slept together,” Erin finished when he stumbled. “I know that, but—”
“But nothing. It was just one time and we both knew afterwards that…it wasn’t enough. That something was missing.”
The truth was his night with Gavin had been fucking amazing. The only other lover he’d ever taken to bed who’d rocked his world like that was Erin. But Oliver had fucked it up when he’d misread the entire thing with Gavin, planning a future out loud for the two of them and some unknown woman.
“Nothing was missing in Gavin’s mind,” Erin softly reminded him.
He knew that. But it didn’t change the facts. “It wouldn’t work, Erin. I want a wife and babies.”
“And a husband. Gavin.”
Oliver hadn’t planned to add anything else to that list because he’d made that mistake once before. Lost someone he loved because his dreams were too big, too wild. But Erin wouldn’t let him lie. Not even to himself. Because she was right.
He didn’t just want a wife.
He wanted it all.
3
“Thanks for letting me know, Aaron.” Gavin stood at the doorway of the pub and watched Aaron Young cross the street and climb back into his police cruiser. He’d only just gotten home from work when he’d been waylaid by his foster uncle, a cop with the Baltimore police department, on the sidewalk outside.
He’d intended to head straight upstairs to the dorm, shower, and hit the couch, but given the information he’d just gotten, he thought a beer—maybe several—sounded a lot better.
Gavin walked to the bar, claiming a stool, suddenly feeling very tired. He’d actually come home from work in a good mood, feeling almost chipper as he recalled Friendsgiving and how he’d been invited to put one of Grandma Sunday’s ornaments on the tree. For a kid who’d grown up with fuck all in terms of family traditions—unless he counted his mother’s dark days and the beatings—being included in that one had made him feel like a man who’d won a billion-dollar lottery.
Padraig came over and pointed to the Guinness tap.
Gavin nodded. He’d lived in the apartment upstairs for a few years now, which meant Padraig had gotten damn good at knowing what drink he needed when. Padraig slid the full pint glass in front of him.
Gavin sighed, lifted it, and took a long swig. Then he noticed Emmy looking up from her computer. He caught her eye and nodded by way of hello. “Missed you the other night at Friendsgiving, Emmy,” he said.
She smiled and pointed to her computer. “Facing the deadline from hell. Wrote until the wee hours that night. Still not done.”
“Told her I’m going to put her on a daily word count regime so she doesn’t get this behind again.” Padraig pretended to crack a whip. “Write, wench, write!” he joked.
Emmy rolled her eyes and pointed to her empty glass. “Wine, barkeep, wine!”
He topped her glass up, then returned to Gavin when Emmy looked back at her computer screen, her fingers flying over the keys once more. Gavin couldn’t begin to understand how Emmy, a romance writer, was able to concentrate in the loud bar, but she swore the place had become her muse, feeding her stories.