Gace’s POV
The wine bottle sits between us on the coffee table like a glass wall, and I keep refilling my glass because it's easier than acknowledging what we're not doing.
Three days since we signed Ryan's contract with its neat bullet points and careful subsections. Three days of Cole sleeping twenty feet down the hall while I lie awake counting his footsteps.
Three days of passing each other in the kitchen with careful distances maintained, like we're afraid our skin might accidentally touch and set something on fire.
Three days of avoided glances across the dinner table while Ryan discusses work like nothing has fundamentally shifted in our universe.
"This is insane," I finally say, pouring my third glass with hands that won't quite steady.
The wine is already making my head swim, but I need the courage it provides, need something to dull the edges of this impossible situation.
"A month ago, everything was normal. We had routines, patterns that made sense. Now you're living in our guest room and my husband gave you permission to..."
The words catch in my throat, too heavy to release. Even with wine warming my veins, even with a signed contract upstairs in Ryan's filing cabinet, I can't say it out loud.
It makes it too real, too immediate, too much like something that might actually happen instead of just existing in the safe space of theory.
"To what?" Cole's voice comes soft and dangerous from his end of the couch, carrying an undercurrent that makes my stomach tighten. "What did he give me permission to do, Grace?"
"You know what." I take another swallow of wine, avoiding his eyes because looking at him directly feels like staring at the sun—necessary for warmth but dangerous for too long.
He shifts closer, the couch cushions dipping under his weight, and suddenly the distance between us shrinks from safe to precarious.
"I need to hear you say it. We're supposed to have complete honesty, remember? Rule number one. So be honest with me, Grace. What did Ryan give me permission to do?"
"To fuck me." The words taste like betrayal and anticipation mixed together, bitter and electric on my tongue. "He gave you permission to fuck his wife while he sleeps down the hall. Happy now?"
"Is that what you want? To be fucked?" His voice drops lower, intimate in a way that makes my skin prickle with awareness. "Is that all this is to you?"
I finally meet his eyes—those blue depths I've drowned in during countless guilty fantasies, now watching me with an intensity that steals my breath.
"I’m not sure anymore. A month ago I wanted to fix my marriage. Three weeks ago I wanted my husband to touch me again. Last week I wanted to disappear. And now I have no idea what I'm supposed to want."
"I do."
Cole moves closer still, close enough that I can smell his cologne mixed with whiskey from earlier, close enough that his body heat reaches me across the diminishing space.
"I've known exactly what I want for years. Since your wedding, actually. Since every dinner party where you'd laugh at my stupid jokes and touch my arm casually like it meant nothing."
The air between us thickens like honey, sweet and suffocating. My pulse hammers against my throat as he raises his hand slowly, deliberately, telegraphing his intention with careful precision.
He's giving me time to pull away, to stop this before it starts, to invoke rule two and end everything. His fingers brush my jaw with butterfly softness, tilting my face toward him with gentle insistence, and I don't stop him.
I could. I should. But I don't.
"Tell me this isn't what you want, and I'll go back to the guest room right now," he whispers when his face is inches from mine, his breath warm against my lips. “We'll pretend this moment never happened."
"I can't tell you that."
My voice comes out breathless, honest in a way that surprises us both.
"I've wanted this for so long, I don't even remember when it started. Maybe when you showed up bloody and broken to tell me about Ryan's accident. Maybe before that. Maybe always."
The kiss starts tentative—Cole as nervous as I am despite all his experience, despite all those women Ryan's told me about over the years.
This is new territory for both of us, lips barely pressing before pulling back to gauge my reaction, like we're teenagers learning what desire means.
I open my mouth slightly, inviting him deeper, and he groans against me like I've given him something precious.
His control snaps audibly, desperately, and suddenly his tongue slides against mine, hot and demanding and nothing like Ryan's efficient pecks that always felt more like punctuation than passion.
His hand finds my waist, pulls me closer until I'm practically in his lap, and I can feel how much he wants this in the way his fingers grip me like I might disappear.
My hands tangle in his hair without conscious thought, holding him against me as years of suppressed want pour into this kiss.
He tastes like whiskey and possibility, like everything I've denied myself, like the answer to questions I was too afraid to ask.
His hand slides up my thigh with deliberate slowness, giving me every opportunity to stop him, but I'm drowning in sensation and don't want to surface.
His fingers slip under the hem of my dress, calluses from the gym rough against my skin, and it's nothing like Ryan's smooth, methodical touch. This is raw, urgent, real.
His fingertips graze the edge of my underwear, and reality crashes through me like cold water.
"No!" I jerk away so suddenly I nearly fall off the couch, tears immediate and violent, surprising us both with their intensity. "I can't. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but I can't."
"Hey, it's okay." His voice carries gentle concern, no frustration or anger, just worry. "I'm sorry if it's too rushed. I shouldn't have assumed… I just thought—"
"I feel like a whore."
The word comes out broken, sharp enough to cut us both.
"He's right upstairs. My husband is right upstairs, probably listening, probably knowing exactly what we're doing, while I'm down here letting his best friend touch me like—God, what kind of person does this make me?"
"You're not a whore."
Cole pulls me against his chest without hesitation, just holding me while I sob into his shirt, my tears soaking through the fabric. His arms wrap around me like armor against my own self-loathing.
"You're human, Grace. This whole situation is impossible for everyone. Ryan included. We're all just trying to navigate something that doesn't have a roadmap."
Above us, footsteps pace back and forth in the master bedroom—measured, deliberate steps that tell me Ryan's awake, listening, knowing exactly what nearly happened on this couch.
The footsteps pause directly overhead, and I imagine him standing there, ear tilted toward the floor, wondering if his best friend is currently inside his wife.
The thought makes me feel sick and aroused in equal measure, a combination that only amplifies my shame.
"I'll sleep out here tonight," Cole says against my hair, his voice vibrating through his chest into mine. "On the couch. We don't have to do anything you're not ready for. We have time, Grace. No rush."