Menage on 34th Street (6 page)

He walked over to the spruce and plucked a gold and porcelain ornament from a branch near the top. It was the first they’d bought together when she’d moved into his tiny apartment off campus. The scraggly table-top tree had barely been able to support the winter scene, but no tree had ever been so beautiful.

Hunter’s voice cut across the room. “Dude, trim your tree later. What are we going to do about Kat?”

“We’re going to wait. She’s not missing, she’s avoiding.” Liam gently replaced the ornament. Things were at a delicate crossroads here, and one wrong move would bring everything crashing down around his head.

He looked up to see Hunter shrugging into his coat, intent on the door. Shit.

Liam stepped into his path, blocking the door. “Where are you going?”

Hunter’s stone-face look was back in place. Liam wanted to punch him in the face just to get a reaction.

“I’m going to look for her.”

“No. I know my wife. Just wait.”

Hunter’s flinch told Liam he’d hit a nerve, but the rush of cold air behind him stopped Liam from poking the wound. Relief and dread both washed over him as he turned to face Kat, who stood in the open door looking back and forth between him and Hunter.

“You haven’t killed each other. I guess that’s a start.” She closed and locked the door. After one look at Hunter’s coat, she blocked the exit with her compact body. Speaking to Hunter, she said, “Leaving? I suppose you left another goodbye note. Well, a note’s not good enough. Take off your coat. I’m going to set the table. Hunter, put your hand-held weapons training to good use and chop vegetables for the salad. Liam—”

“Kat, stop. We need to talk.” Liam narrowed his eyes on his wife’s face but she was doing a good job of masking her emotions. Hell. Kat didn’t wear masks. The dread returned, a low burn simmering in his stomach.

Kat ignored him and went into the kitchen.

“Dinner,” Hunter said once she’d left the room. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“She’s pissed but she wants you to stay. She feels the same way I do.”

“You don’t know that, Liam. Stop speaking and choosing for people who aren’t you.” Hunter removed his coat.

Liam ran his hands through his hair and blew out a hard breath. “You’re going to have to trust me. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I know my—I know Kat. She’s hurt and she’s pissed she knows what she wants. Thing is, if you want it too, we’re going to have to work together to get past the hurt and the anger to convince her what she wants is something she can actually have.”

Hunter stalled on his way to the kitchen. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that right now she’s pissed at me. When she realizes what you intended with that note, she’s going to shift some of that to you.”

“Why the hell would she be pissed at me? You’re the one who took the damned note.”

“Don’t believe me, then. We’ll still need to convince her we can get past the, well, past. If she doesn’t think we can, there’s no way she will consider a future for the three of us. So we have to make her see we can deal with it.”

“You want us to convince her we’re fine so that she’ll be fine so then we can all be fine? That’s messed up.”

When he put it that way, it did sound messed up. It still made sense to him. “Do you have a better idea?”

“No,” Hunter rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “We can try your way.”

“Are you going to stand there all night or are you going to help with dinner?” Kat’s sharp question cut off anything else Liam might have said. She stood in the kitchen doorway with plates in her hand.

“We’re coming. Can I help with the table?”

She shook her head and began setting dishes on the table. Liam took the hint and followed Hunter into the kitchen.

The kitchen was crowded with Hunter wielding a knife while Kat folded napkins for the place settings. Liam’s arm brushed Hunter’s ass when he reached for the refrigerator door. Hunter stiffened but didn’t pause his rhythmic chopping. Liam grabbed the butcher paper-wrapped package from the fridge and turned to find Kat looking between him and Hunter.

She raised her eyebrows.
Well?
Liam gave a slight nod. Kat tilted her head to the side in question, and Liam shrugged. He still wasn’t sure where he and Hunter stood, so he couldn’t give her more than that.

The silent exchange loosened something in his chest. They’d always been able to communicate without words. That connection was still there. Strained, but there.

He bent to snag a broiler pan and got to work.

“Warm the polenta,” she told Liam, walking past him with the napkins. “We can do the bread later if we need it.” Her tone was calm, but her eyes conveyed her fury. Liam nearly staggered under the weight of it. Abruptly, he grabbed her hand. She looked down at it, then at him.

I’m sorry
, he mouthed.

Her nostrils flared. She nodded briefly. “We’ll deal with that later.”

Kat’s voice was low enough it wouldn’t carry, and Liam closed his eyes in relief. Hadn’t lost her yet.

With a squeeze, he released her hand and went back to work.

By the time the three of them sat at the table, Liam felt as if he were being torn in half. On the one hand, the hope grew as they worked together to get dinner ready. Even angry, they worked well as a team. The sexual attraction simmered under the surface. On the other hand, the anger strained the fragile threads of history and friendship that bound them to Hunter. He was painfully aware of the tension between Kat and himself. His instincts told him to confront the problems head on, but rationality urged caution. The wrong step could rip them all apart. Liam didn’t think he could survive that.

“So, Hunter, what have you been up to?”

Kat’s sudden question threw Liam off stride. He stared for a moment at his wife, then switched his gaze to their guest. Hunter looked briefly surprised.

“I... What do you mean?”

Kat slanted him a look. “I haven’t seen you in ten years. What have you been doing? Catch me up.”

“I joined the Marines.”

Kat waved her fork at him. “I know that part. But I want to know what you’ve
been doing.
”

Liam picked up his own fork, shoving a bite of salad into his mouth. The woman would wave a steak at a charging lion. God, he loved her.

Hunter took a hasty gulp of water. He’d declined the wine, pointing out that he would be driving home.

“Uh. I did a couple of tours in Iraq, then one in Afghanistan. I came back stateside for a little while, at Lejeune. Then it was back out to Afghanistan. Right now, I’m TDY at Headquarters at 8th and I.”

Liam considered while he chewed. That was a lot of time overseas. A lot of time in combat.

“What’s TDY?”

“Temporary duty.” Hunter forked up another bite of salad.

Liam found the way Hunter ate both fascinating and sad. Before, he’d taken his time, enjoyed everything about the meal. Now he ate with almost mechanical precision. Given how much he and Kat enjoyed cooking and food in general, Liam felt a pang of loss. Food for Hunter wasn’t something to savor, it was fuel. His methodical destruction of the salad was part of his larger transformation from the boy they’d known into the Marine he’d become.

“Temporary? How temporary?”

“Ninety days.”

Alarm thrilled up Liam’s spine. Too little time.

“What then?”

Hunter paused, fork hovering over the salad. Liam watched it hang in midair.

“I don’t know yet. Hopefully a training billet.”

Kat made a frustrated noise in her throat. Liam glanced over, noting the little line between her brows.

“Where?”

Hunter resumed eating. “I don’t know. Maybe Lejeune, maybe Quantico.”

“Where’s Lejeune?”

“North Carolina.”

Kat studied Hunter for a moment. “What... You know, I don’t even know the right way to ask this.”

“Just ask.”

“I don’t know anything about military stuff. I want to know what your
job
is.”

“Jobs are called MOS—Military Operations Specialty. Mine was infantry assault. Now it’s infantry unit leader.”

Kat set her fork down quietly but the silence was so heavy that the small sound seemed to echo in the dining area. Liam looked down at his salad, almost gone now.

“You’ve been gone for ten years, Hunter. I want to know more about you, I want to understand what you do.”

Hunter set down his fork and pushed the salad away. “I just told you.”

“In military terms.”

“I’m a Marine. My MOS—my job—can only be described in military terms.” He looked away from her, frustration evident in his eyes even though he kept it from his face. “This isn’t working. I can’t sit here and exchange small talk and pretend everything is okay. I don’t operate that way.”

That brought Liam’s head up again.

Kat folded her hands on the table in front of her. “Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

“I want to talk about all of this crap between the three of us.”

“Crap.” Kat said the word meditatively, as if considering all of the many definitions of the word. “You think this is crap? Then why are you here?”

Hunter shifted uncomfortably. “Because Liam started something that I wouldn’t have started.”

She tilted her head slightly. “What did he start?”

“Jesus. You were there.”

“For the first. But then I found out that you left a note before running off and Liam stole it along with my choice. Is that what you want to talk about?”

Liam hadn’t been expecting the blow, and the impact shuddered through him. The lobster turned to dust on his tongue as his mouth went dry. He’d made a mistake thinking she needed him to make peace with Hunter in order to go forward. No, everything hinged upon him earning her forgiveness. “Kat...”

She zeroed in on him and Liam knew she had come to the same conclusion. “No, Hunter’s right. We’re ignoring our real problems. Liam...God.”

She turned her face away and swallowed visibly. When she met his eyes again, hers glimmered with fresh pain. “When Hunter left, I felt like I’d lost a limb. You knew that. You saw what I went through. And you didn’t do anything to help ease the hurt, even though you could have taken it away with just one stroke of honesty. You let me believe Hunter abandoned us. You let me hate him for the hurt he caused. And you robbed him of our love.”

Hunter’s quick intake of breath told Liam that he hadn’t missed the significance of Kat’s choice of words. Even though he knew he shouldn’t look away from Kat, Liam glanced at Hunter.

“When we invited you to join us, it wasn’t for sex. It was for everything.” Liam willed Hunter to believe him.

Hunter stared back at him. “My father made a sport out of beating the hell out of gay men and he did his damnedest to hammer his hatred into me. Did you really think I could have been what you wanted me to be?”

Liam’s gut twisted. And twisted a little harder when Hunter transferred his attention to Kat.

“I wanted it to be you and me,” Hunter said to her. “No one else, just the two of us.”

Kat’s shoulders fell and sadness muted her earlier anger. “The fact that you equated—maybe still equate—love with monogamy doesn’t mean that I have to think that way. That isn’t me. I need more.”

“I didn’t think so, not if it was you and me. I would have made it enough.”

“You would have made it enough.” She repeated the words in a considering tone. “All right. I believe you.”

Liam’s chest contracted and he wheezed through a knife-stab of pain. The thought of Kat choosing Hunter and leaving him behind—ten years ago, tomorrow—cracked him open.

Hunter met his eyes over the table before refocusing on Kat. “You do?”

“Yes. I believe you would have tried. I’m not like you, though. Assuming I was built for that kind of relationship, I wouldn’t have been able to be the more that
you
need. And even on the very slim chance I could do the job with a dildo and a harness, you never would have shared your needs in the first place. Being open and honest with your wife wouldn’t have meshed with your self-denying, self-
ashamed
definition of marriage.” She opened her hand on the table top, spreading her fingers. “But I wouldn’t have chosen that life if I’d known, going into it, where it would end. I wouldn’t have chosen just you.”

Liam had to replay her words several times before the pain behind his ribs eased enough for him to really comprehend what she’d said. When it finally sank in, he closed his eyes.
Thank you
,
God.

“Shame doesn’t drive my actions anymore, Kat. Reality does. The Corps is incredibly conservative about cheating.”

Kat sighed. “It’s not cheating if everyone agrees.”

Hunter made a frustrated noise that, for reasons he didn’t really want to investigate, shot right to the base of Liam’s spine. He ignored the pang of arousal to focus on what Hunter was saying.

“It doesn’t matter what you think or what I think, it matters what the Corps thinks. My promotions and career depend on how my command perceives me. Labels make a difference in my world. I had—have—plans, goals. And those goals aren’t going to happen if people have questions about my personal life.”

“What plans?”

“I’m going to be a gunner. Not gunnery sergeant, that’s where I am now. An infantry weapons officer.”

“I don’t know what that means. Explain it to me.”

He shook his head. “I keep forgetting. What do you know about military ranks?”

“Nothing.”

Liam frowned. “There are officers and enlisted, right?”

“Right. The enlisted are the grunts, the everyday Marines. You start out as a private and move up from there. I just made gunnery sergeant. I hit that one a little early. But a Marine gunner is something else. I have to make my choice now—operations or administration. I don’t want to ride a desk, so I’m choosing operations. To do gunner, I’ll need a warrant officer appointment and command back-up. I need to be absolutely clean.”

“You’re worried that if it gets out you’re involved with us that you’ll never get what you want.” Liam suddenly understood exactly the risk he was asking Hunter to take.