The universe owes me exactly one perfect day, and apparently it's decided to pay up with interest.
Sunlight floods the cabin windows like a visual apology for the week of storms, and I wake to the sound of Oscar arguing with Jake about whether the cooler needs more ice or more beer.
"Both," I call from the bedroom doorway, still rubbing sleep from my eyes. "The answer is always both."
Oscar's face splits into a grin that makes my stomach flip in ways I'm choosing not to examine too closely. "The woman has spoken, and she has spoken wisely."
"She has also spoken while barely conscious," Konnor observes from the kitchen table, where he's methodically packing sandwiches into neat containers. "Which means her judgment should be questioned, not celebrated."
"My judgment is impeccable at all hours." I pour myself coffee from the pot Jake must have made earlierl. "Where are we going that requires this level of logistical planning?"
"The lake." Jake emerges from the back room carrying a portable grill that looks like it's seen better decades. "First clear day in a week. We're celebrating."
"Celebrating what, exactly?"
"Survival." Oscar tosses a beach towel at my head, and I catch it with reflexes I didn't know I possessed. "Yours, specifically, since you seem determined to attract chaos like a magnet attracts iron filings."
"That's an incredibly nerdy metaphor for a man who claims to be a culinary artist."
"Get dressed, Kelly Bird." He winks, and the nickname settles warm in my chest. "We're leaving in twenty minutes, and I refuse to let you wear anything that looks like it costs more than my monthly rent."
Twenty-three minutes later, I'm wedged between Oscar and Konnor in the back of Jake's truck, my thigh pressed against Oscar's warm skin and my shoulder bumping Konnor's with every pothole Jake seems to find on purpose.
"You're doing this deliberately," I accuse, catching Jake's eyes in the rearview mirror.
"Doing what?" His expression is pure innocence, but the corners of his steel-gray eyes crinkle with suppressed amusement.
"Hitting every bump in the road so we bounce around back here like pinballs in a machine that hates us."
"The road is uneven," Jake replies, his tone maddeningly reasonable. "I can't control the terrain, Kelly."
Oscar's arm slides around my shoulders, ostensibly for stability, though his thumb traces lazy circles against my collarbone that have nothing to do with road safety.
"I'm not complaining about the bouncing," he says. "Every jolt pushes you closer to me, and I'm choosing to interpret that as the universe's endorsement of our proximity."
"The universe doesn't care about your proximity," Konnor says dryly from my other side. "Physics does, and physics is indifferent to your romantic aspirations."
"Physics can kiss my ass."
The lake appears through the trees like a secret the forest has been keeping, water sparkling under the cloudless sky in shades of blue that look photoshopped but somehow aren't.
Jake parks at the edge of a small clearing, and Oscar is out of the truck before the engine fully dies, stripping his shirt over his head as he walks.
"Last one in cooks dinner," he calls over his shoulder, his shorts hitting the grass a second before he launches himself off the small wooden dock.
The splash is spectacular, and the whoop of joy that follows is so unfiltered and genuine that I find myself laughing.
Konnor follows with considerably more dignity, wading in from the shore.
Jake catches my eye as he sets up the portable grill. "You going in?"
"Eventually." I settle onto the blanket he's spread near the water's edge. "Someone has to supervise the food situation."
"Supervise, or steal samples when you think I'm not looking?"
"Both can be true simultaneously."
His laugh is low and warm, and I store the sound somewhere safe in my memory, a small treasure I didn't know I was collecting.
The water calls to me eventually, cool and inviting, and I spend what might be hours floating on my back, staring at the endless blue above.
When I finally emerge, dripping onto a towel beside Jake, the words slip out before I can catch them. "This feels like a date."
Jake looks up from the grill, spatula in hand. "Does it?" A pause, loaded with implication. "Which one of us are you dating?"
"All of you, apparently."
The joke lands between us, except it isn't really a joke, and we both know it.
Jake's gaze holds mine for a beat too long, something shifting in his expression that I can't quite name but feel everywhere.
Later, floating between Oscar and Konnor while Jake swims lazy laps nearby, I finally ask the question that's been burning since that first night when they all drank to the same confession.
"Nicole." I keep my voice casual, though my heart pounds against my ribs like it's trying to escape. "The woman you shared. What was that like? How did it work exactly?"
Oscar's grin turns wolfish, his honey-colored eyes darkening with interest. Beside me, Konnor's dark gaze sharpens, his attention focusing.
"Why do you ask, Kelly Bird?" Oscar's voice drops low, intimate despite the open water around us. "Purely academic curiosity, or are you conducting research for a more practical application?"
My face burns, but I refuse to look away. "Maybe I'm trying to understand what I've gotten myself into."
"What you've gotten yourself into," Konnor repeats slowly, treading water close enough that I can see the water droplets clinging to his dark lashes, "or what you want to get yourself into?"
Jake surfaces nearby, close enough to hear, and Oscar doesn't lower his voice when he continues.
"Full disclosure." Oscar's tone is light, but his eyes are serious. "Konnor and I may have already conducted preliminary research with our guest here. While you were in town doing whatever brooding thing you were doing."
Jake's expression doesn't change, but something shifts in his posture, a tension I expect to see transform into anger or hurt.
Instead, he swims closer, his voice calm when he asks, "And?"
"And it was spectacular," Oscar replies without hesitation. "Though incomplete, given your notable absence."
"I wasn't jealous," Jake says, and the honesty in his voice makes my breath catch. "I was gone. You were here. Things happened. That's logistics."
"See?" Oscar nudges my shoulder. "Told you he'd be reasonable about it."
"I didn't know what to expect," I admit, my voice smaller than I'd like. "I've never done this before, any of this, and you three have history I'm still learning to navigate."
"You've tried two of us now." Konnor's clinical observation somehow manages to be devastatingly erotic. "Jake in the truck, Oscar and me in the cabin. The data suggests a pattern of escalation."
"The data suggests I've lost my mind," I counter, but my body betrays me, heat pooling low in my stomach at the implications of his words.
Oscar drifts closer, his breath warm against my ear when he murmurs, "Tell me the thought hasn't crossed your mind, Kelly. Tell me you haven't wondered what it would be like with all three of us at once, and I'll drop it."
I can't tell him that, because it would be a lie.
The fantasy has been building since that first night, since they admitted what they'd done with Nicole.
"It's crossed my mind." The admission scrapes out of me, raw and honest and terrifying. "More than crossed it, actually. It's taken up permanent residence and started redecorating."
Jake's hand finds my hip beneath the water, steadying and claiming in equal measure. Oscar's grin spreads slow and satisfied. Konnor's dark eyes hold mine with an intensity that makes me forget how to breathe.
"Well then," Oscar says, his voice dropping to something that sounds like a promise, "I think we have quite a bit to discuss."
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