Menage on 34th Street (12 page)

“Why not?”

They looked at Kat. She considered. “What if you’re deployed? That would be months, maybe a year.”

“Yeah,” Hunter agreed. “I could maybe Skype a little, but there’s no privacy, so no relationship stuff.”

Nothing? The idea of it hit Kat in the chest and reverberated with painful truth. She didn’t know if she could handle that level of impersonal interaction for that long. She was almost certain she knew the answer, but she had to ask. “What about mail, or phone, or email?”

“Phone and mail are definitely the same rules. Which was one of the things I wanted to talk about.”

“The rules? Yeah, we got those. No PDA or whatever,” Liam confirmed. His tone edged toward irritated. Kat wondered if he was irked with the rules or having to talk about them. It gave her some level of satisfaction that she wasn’t alone in her ire.

Hunter leveled a look at Liam. “That, too. But right now I mean the texts and email.”

Liam crossed his arms over his chest. Kat blinked, realizing she’d done the same. Uncrossing her arms, she put her hands back onto the table.

“What about them?” Liam demanded.

“While I’m at HQ, I’m more available than pretty much any other duty. Even so, I can’t keep up with the level of texts and crap you two send. And not all of it is appropriate.”

Kat winced. She might have crossed a line there with some of her texts.

“What are you getting at?” The flat tone of Liam’s voice caught her attention and reminded her of his earlier frustration with Jen.

“Just that the two of you text all the time. I can’t do that, not even in the best of circumstances—which is now. In the field, you won’t hear from me for days or weeks at a time. Even on base, I’ll be on the firing range or doing weapons testing or training. I don’t have an office job, and you both need to cut back on what you send.”

Kat dropped her hands to her lap and twisted her fingers together. She lived and breathed communication, it was the one thing she’d found when she’d searched over the last week. And that meant she needed to speak up now.

“That may be an...issue.”

Liam whipped his head around and Hunter leaned forward, looking at her in that focused, singular way he had.

“How?”

“You asked for a week to think about hard stops, and you told me to think, too. I did. The one thing I kept coming back to was that I need to know what’s going on.”

She raised a hand to forestall Hunter’s objection. “I don’t mean I need to know everything you’re doing every minute of the day. I mean I need to know what’s going on in your head and in Liam’s head and what that means for us. I had no idea what was going on with you and Liam and me before, and that screwed everything up. I don’t want to be in that place again, and the only way I know to avoid it is communication.”

Liam sighed. “I agree there. At the time I didn’t realize how hard it would hit you, so I fucked up.”

Hunter sat back. “I don’t mean we can’t talk or text, but you can’t expect the level of engagement from me that the two of you have.”

“How can we work as a relationship if you
aren’t
engaged?” Panic started to rise in her throat, and she deliberately pushed it down. No reason to panic.

“I won’t be able to respond most of the time, and even if I can, I have to be careful. And just the amount of stuff you two send distracts me from what I need to be doing.”

“Fine,” Liam muttered. “We won’t text you while you’re at work unless it’s important.”

“Good. That works for me.”

Kat made a noise in her throat.

“Problem?” Hunter asked carefully.

“It’s not necessarily fine with me.”

“What, exactly, is the sticking point, Kat?”

She thought for a moment, lining up her words. “Part of what Liam and I have, what we are as a couple, is the communication. The little texts and the back and forth which kind of connects us through the day. Liam keeping your note from me shook that, made me question whether what I thought we had was somehow different from what Liam thought we had.”

Liam shifted, reaching over to grip her hand. “God, K-K. I’m so sorry.”

Kat squeezed his hand before releasing him. “I know. Part of the issue was that you didn’t realize how much I needed you to tell me something like that. That’s my point here. If we aren’t clear about our expectations and where we are emotionally, this can’t work. I can’t deal with either of you keeping things from me. Which means I need you both to talk to me, to touch base so that I know where everyone is.”

“You need to keep your finger on the pulse of the relationship. To ensure that no one is burying shit.”

Kat mulled Hunter’s assessment for a moment. “That’s probably about right. Honesty is necessary for this to work. We have to be open and clear about what we want and need from each other.”

“I can get behind that, Kitty-Kat,” Liam said slowly. “You aren’t asking for quantity so much as quality.”

Hunter nodded. “I can’t guarantee when or if I’ll be able to text or call. But I can promise to put it all in when I’m here.”

“You’re going to have to do more to stay connected to us.”

“I can try. Email is a bit looser. The PDA rules would still apply, but more substantive stuff could move through there while I’m deployed.”

“I can live with that.” Kat rubbed her fingertips on the table. “The only other hard limit I thought of may not apply, but I want to at least put it out there.”

Hunter raised his brows. “Go ahead.”

“Liam and I are used to bringing others into our relationship, but that was when it was just two. I don’t know how I’d feel about bringing another person in. I think if anyone is thinking along those lines, we need to talk about that.”

Hunter’s face shut down, going blank. “I’m going to draw a hard line on that one. No. Just no.”

Liam pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t...I can’t say it’s a hard line, but I don’t want anyone else in here, and I can’t imagine that changing.”

“Then we’re agreed? No bringing anyone else in, at least for now?”

Hunter nodded curtly. Liam inclined his head in a gesture of agreement.

“That’s...all I have. At least for now,” Kat repeated.

“I’ll piggyback on the last bit, then,” Hunter cut in. “I’m already taking a huge risk with my career with you two. I’m not opening that up to more shit by dragging other people into it.”

“I think we’re all clear on that,” Liam said evenly.

“Good. The rules for me are what we said before. No PDA, nothing overtly sexual in word or deed in public. I’ve worked too hard to blow off the Corps. Beyond that, I like being a Marine. I like what I do. No, I fucking love what I do. So I need you to respect that.”

His vehemence was so at odds with his lack of expression that it took a moment for what he said to sink in. When it did, it was a shock. “We respect that, Hunter. If we didn’t we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“I need you both to understand that this isn’t just a job that I can quit if it isn’t going my way. It isn’t the civilian world, and neither of you has any real experience with what this will mean. It isn’t that I don’t want to be with you—with both of you—it’s that I simply can’t give you the kind of time someone else can. Military families take the hardest hit, and you won’t even have the usual ways to deal with those hits. I said it before, but I really want you to think about it. It’s going to suck.”

Liam unfolded his arms and leaned forward. “This isn’t news. We’ve gone over this ground before and I’m not going over it again. Some things we’re just going to have to take as they come. We can’t know how we’re going to react to every situation. But unlike most military spouses, Kitty-Kat and I have each other. We worked it before you came into this situation, and we’ll work it when you have military shit to do.”

Kat knew her eyes widened. This didn’t need to be a confrontation, but both men were pushing at each other like boys on a playground. “Both of you need to chill. This isn’t a pissing contest. We can figure this out without beating each other up.”

“Tell that to Mr. Testosterone here, who’s all in our face over shit we can’t even see yet.”

She sent Liam a look meant to cut him off.
Not helping.

“Shit,” Hunter muttered, running a hand through his short-cropped hair. “He’s right. I’m being a dick. I want this to be easy, and it pisses me off that I can’t just make it work. It’s not your fault or his, and I need to get my shit together.”

Liam froze, going absolutely rigid. Even as she noted her husband’s reaction, shock slowed her thoughts as she processed that bit of information. “What do you mean?”

“I make shit happen. It’s what I do. Mostly that’s blowing stuff to hell, but I make it happen. When I went up for gunnery sergeant, I made it happen. I worked my ass off, jumped through the right hoops, did what needed to be done to get it. The thing is, it’s not like civilian promotion. From here on out, every time I go up, I have to clear a selection board, and they aren’t just looking at my fitreps.”

Kat frowned. She wasn’t sure what a fitrep was, but she got the idea. “I think we understand that. It isn’t just about what you do in uniform, but out of it that affects promotion potential.”

Hunter shook his head sharply. “Not just promotion. If they wanted to, they could drum me out of the Corps with a dishonorable discharge.”

Liam cursed under his breath, but the buzzing in Kat’s head muffled the sound of it. She’d realized Hunter was taking a risk with his career, but she hadn’t realized the results could be so catastrophic. Being forced to leave the military was one thing, but a dishonorable discharge was something else entirely.

“Do you want to walk away from us?” God it hurt to offer him that option. It hurt to think, after one very uneven week, of letting him go.

“No.” His response was immediate, reassuring. It let Kat breathe again. After a moment, he continued, “That’s
my
problem. I knew the possible consequences when I made this decision, so I’m not going to back off now, especially not when I have strong feelings for you. For both of you. But I don’t want to fuck my career, either. So I’m pissed at the situation, which is making me act like a dick.”

Relief flooded her and she sagged in her chair, followed by alarm. Yes, she wanted them to be together, but she didn’t want to ruin his career, either. There had to be some way to reconcile those two goals.

Liam rubbed a hand over his face. “What do you want us to do?”

“I need you to understand how serious this is. I’m not just jerking your chain. This is a hard limit not because I don’t want you grabbing my ass in a restaurant. It’s a hard limit because grabbing my ass in a restaurant shows that you not only don’t respect my limits, but you don’t respect my being a Marine.”

“Shit, Hunter,” Liam muttered. “We aren’t out to make this harder. If you’re willing to take the risk, then I’m willing to keep it on the DL. I have no issue with that.”

“Absolutely,” Kat agreed. “I love that you are so committed to being a Marine. It’s made you who you are. I don’t want that to change. I just want to
know
you.”

“Yeah, well, then, that’s fine.” After a long pause, Hunter met Kat’s eyes. Whatever he wanted her to see, she didn’t yet understand. Finally, he shrugged uncomfortably. “That’s all I have.”

Caught by his discomfort, Kat cocked her head. Wait a minute. “No physical limits? No rules for what we can or can’t do?”

A corner of his mouth quirked in acknowledgement, and Kat knew she’d hit it right. They were both thinking back to Christmas morning when she’d pushed his limits. To when she’d asked him to think about pushing them more.

“No. I can’t guarantee I won’t decide I don’t like something, but right now, I don’t have hard limits.”

Kat’s breath caught. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She wasn’t at all certain she wanted to force that into the open now. Better to deal with it a bit at a time.

“That’s good to know,” Liam said.

The very casualness of the delivery cued her in that he’d caught the implications of Hunter’s statements just as quickly as she had.

“Like I said, I can’t guarantee anything.”

Liam lifted a hand in acknowledgement. “Any other limits we need to discuss?”

Hunter shook his head slowly. “Not from me.”

“Kat?”

“No. We covered mine.”

“Then we’re to me. And I do have some limits. They aren’t things that really came up when it was just me and you, K-K,” Liam explained. “It does come into play now, though.”

Perplexed, she studied him. She was glad it wasn’t something that had been festering between them, but...

“Let’s hear it,” Hunter prodded.

“We’ll do physical first. No hitting and no bondage without discussion ahead of time.”

She jerked in her seat. Where had that come from? “Of course no hitting. Is that even a question?”

Hunter glared across the table. “I don’t hit women, man. What the fuck?”

“I don’t just mean Kat. I mean no hitting me, either. You could do serious damage.”

“What the fuck?” Hunter repeated. “Why would I hit you? That’s a dick move beyond dick move.”

“Then it shouldn’t be a problem for you to agree to that,” Liam said firmly.

Kat gaped at her husband. “I don’t have a problem with that rule, but, Liam, where did that come from?”

Liam shrugged. “I just want it out there. I don’t really think Hunter would abuse anyone, but I have to make it clear. And I’d point out that
you
hit Hunter earlier.”

The lightbulb suddenly switched on in Kat’s head. This wasn’t about Hunter at all. It was about his earlier talk with Jen. Talking to her always dug up old hurts, and this was no exception. If he needed the reassurance that the past wouldn’t repeat itself, she could live with that. Hunter would have to live with it, too.

“All right,” Kat murmured. “I don’t think it’s truly necessary, because I trust Hunter and I trust you, but I agree it’s a good rule.”

“Damned right it’s a good rule,” Hunter snapped. “It shouldn’t need to be a rule. But if it makes you feel better to have it out there, fine.”