Christmas with my Three Best Friends (Lucky Lady Reverse Harems)

Chapter 18

18

Shay

A couple days pass, and my mood does not improve.

Marius and Jax must’ve heard about Richard’s plans for a new gym. Our group chat has been blowing up, but I have actively avoided them all, even in person. I stay busy with clients and work more from home in a desperate attempt to put some distance between myself and these men who have come to occupy so much space in my life and my heart.

I’ve even skipped a couple of training sessions with Jax and Marius, which is unlike me. But my heart is telling me I need to wean myself from them, somehow.

Cassandra leans back in her recliner, watching me closely.

“I know I’m sulking,” I tell her after a long period of silence.

“You’re the one who came into my office to talk,” she says, slightly amused, but the concern in her eyes is real. I love her more for it, truth be told.

“I’m just trying to gather my thoughts.”

She nods slowly. “This is about Richard and the other gym?”

“And Jax and his commitment issues. And Marius and Roxanne. And Vincent. And so much more. I’m overwhelmed, and I don’t know what to do with myself anymore,” I say. Tears work their way up, making my eyes sting and my vision blurry. I try to blink them back, but a couple still manage to slip and roll down my cheeks.

“Okay, let’s start somewhere, Shay. Talk to me about Richard first. How do you feel about him?”

“You sound like a therapist again,” I say.

She rolls her eyes. “I am a therapist. And even though I’m not your therapist, this is how I get to the root of things. You either want my help or you don’t,” she says, though not unkindly.

I sigh. She’s right. I did come here to talk to her. “Fine. How do I feel about Richard? Other than the fact that I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen in love with him? I feel abandoned by him. He was supposed to stick with us through thick and thin. West Key was supposed to be our baby, our project, our way of showing other gyms how to do things right.”

“Don’t you think you could forge ahead without Richard?”

I shake my head. “He’s the visionary, Cass. He’s the one with the business mindset. He’ll look at sales figures on a spreadsheet and tell us if it’s working or not. And he’s been right on the money every goddamn time, which is why his imminent departure is basically telling me we’re about to fail.”

“Ah, so it’s failure you truly dread.”

“Am I not entitled to dread failure after having invested two years of my life into that place?”

Cassandra gives me another nod. “Of course. You are absolutely entitled. But is it really failure? Or is it just time for West Key to spread its wings and fly without Richard as a safety net? Think about it this way. You already have a clientele there. Not at big as other gyms, true, but they’re loyal. With your new fitness programs, you could definitely get more people through the door. And if Richard is leaving, maybe it’s because he has faith in Jax and Marius and you. Maybe it’s not because he thinks the gym is going to fail.”

“I have a hard time believing that. Richard isn’t the kind to back away from imminent success,” I grumble, nervously cracking my knuckles.

“You’re mad at him.”

“Yeah. I am mad. He’s betraying us.”

“He did ask you to go with him.”

I can’t help but scoff. “He’s betraying the four of us. We agreed even before Chappaqua that we’d stick together. The four of us. Four. Not two. The four of us. We’d stick together and we’d weather any storm. Yet at the first sign of financial discomfort, his attention span is already drastically shortened. He wants another gym. Another plaything, because West Key isn’t fun and exciting anymore.”

“So your frustration with Richard is purely from a business perspective,” Cassandra concludes.

“I guess.”

“But it’s spilling into your personal life. You told me you walked out of his place that night and took a cab home, and that you haven’t seen or spoken to him in a couple of days.”

“Yeah…” Why do I feel like a kid being reprimanded by the teacher? Why do I feel bad when Richard is the one screwing us over.

Cassandra quietly processes everything I’ve just said, while I try to gather more of my rambling thoughts into something more coherent.

“What about Jax? What was the issue regarding his commitment?”

I roll my eyes as I remember the incident with Alice. “I’m pretty sure he was flirting with Alice, the receptionist.”

“Jax and Alice? No way. She’s so far from his type, she’s like Pluto to the Sun.”

“Granted, I may have misunderstood the entire scene. Maybe she was flirting with him. He did tell her no, but only when he saw me.”

“And did you talk to him about it?”

My face burns with the shame of acknowledging my own shortcomings on the matter. I sink deeper into my chair. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I got mad and needed some space.”

“How do you feel about Jax, now?”

More tears coming, but I wipe them away with the back of my hand. I’m determined not to shed another drop for this. I’ve already cried myself to sleep twice in the past few days. My heart is wide open and bleeding, and the worst part is I’m pretty sure I’m at least partially responsible for this situation. It’s a hard pill to swallow.

“I love him,” I tell Cassandra. “And I know he’s always had trouble settling down. When I saw him with Alice, I thought he was tempted to go back to his old habits, but now I’m beginning to realize I may have overreacted and ultimately… I may have pushed him away.”

“And what about Marius?”

I let a heavy sigh roll from my chest. “Roxanne keeps hovering around him. She’s started coming in right when my training sessions with him are supposed to begin. She’s being friendly but not-so-subtly aggressive toward me. She’s trying to reestablish a certain degree of intimacy with Marius.”

“What does Marius do?”

“He’s nice and professional like he always is.” I’m close to sobbing, now.

Cassandra gives me a moment to pull myself together before she speaks. “You told him to take Vincent on as a client because you need more sales at the gym,” she says after a while. “Wouldn’t it make sense that he’s doing the same thing with Roxanne? Tolerating her to help the business?”

“It’s exactly what he’s doing, but I’m being a paranoid idiot.”

“You are not a paranoid idiot.”

I give her a look. “I sure feel like one.”

“You know as well as I do there are certain kinds of traumas we never heal from. We can only learn to live with them. We can only learn ways to not let them define us and our future relationships. It doesn’t mean we don’t get triggered once in a while.”

“So, what, I’m triggered? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes, Shay. You got triggered. Your abandonment syndrome is all over the place, and you are actively pushing the men you love away. I assume you love Marius, too.”

“More than anything,” I exhale sharply. It does feel good to say it out loud. “I love all three in equal measure, Cass. I think I’ve felt this way for a long time, but once we took our dynamic into the sexual realm, everything changed. Everything became… amplified.”

“Do you feel overwhelmed?”

“I think so.”

“But not by the external factors.”

“No. I think it’s my own feelings, the idea of being in love with three men at the same time.” I pause and give her a wry smile. “Shit, maybe you should be my therapist.”

Cassandra laughs. “You’re reaching the right conclusions on your own. I’m just asking the questions.”

I nod and run my fingers through my hair, giving myself another moment of silence and deep breathing as the whole picture of my life comes back into focus. “So because I’m in love with all three, I’m overwhelmed by the reality and the intensity of these emotions. And because it’s such a strange and fragile relationship, I perceive every factor coming in from the outside as a wrench aimed right at my wheels. Even if it’s not. Even if it’s just a pebble.”

“Sounds about right to me.”

“Me too. And that’s why I’m withdrawing, why I’m pushing them away. It’s not because I was irked by Alice’s advances toward Jax, per se. Or Roxanne’s return. Or Richard’s decision to try his hand at another gym business. It’s because I’m perceiving each of these issues as definite threats to my emotional wellbeing because I’m in love with them and don’t want to lose any of them.”

“And what about Vincent?”

That requires another minute’s worth of thinking. It’s a simple but troubling question which I’ve yet to answer for myself. “There’s no love left there, not on my end, at least. Yet I keep remembering what it was like. There are times when the good memories outweigh the bad, and I start to doubt myself and my decision to keep my distance from him.”

“How has he been toward you?” Cassandra asks.

It’s clear from the tone of her voice that she hates his guts. More than once, my best friend has expressed a desire to rip his head clean off. But her professionalism is greater than her personal dislike of the man who ultimately broke my heart—the very heart I’m trying and failing to protect now.

“Calm and friendly. Humble, in a way, which is very unlike him.”

“Does he seem fundamentally different from what you remember?”

“Not really. His eyes still make me uneasy, sometimes,” I say, going over my more recent encounters with Vincent. He texts me once in a while, but I always leave him on read. I can’t exactly avoid him at the gym, however. He’s a paying customer, and I do have to work there, so bumping into him is more or less inevitable. “He still likes to brag about his new car and the new workplace… He’s trying hard to impress me, but I’m not sure he means well. It feels like a calculated act.”

“At best, he may try to sugarcoat himself in order to get you to buy into this supposed new persona of his. But if your instinct is telling you he isn’t safe, then he isn’t safe. If there’s one thing I urge you to keep in mind, Shay, it’s that your instinct is rarely wrong, especially in the case of a man who has already hurt you. Deeply.”

“Why do I keep revisiting the past, then?”

“Do you miss the times you had with him?”

“I miss how the good moments felt.”

“Is it because of your perceived troubles with Jax, Marius, and Richard? Have you considered the possibility that maybe your brain is trying to trick you into revisiting better feelings from the past because the present ones make you uncomfortable?”

I give Cassandra a broad, cold grin. “My girl, you’re on a devastating roll this morning, have I told you that? You keep kicking me in the teeth with these questions…”

“Only because you keep asking for it,” she replies.

It’s time for me to concede that she is definitely on to something here. The questions aren’t senseless nor poorly aimed. She knows what she’s doing, and I think I can finally see the truth. Closing my eyes for a few seconds, I surprise myself with the silence currently swelling through my mind. Clarity was never so close to my reach before.

“I think I know the conclusion here,” I tell her.

“Go on. I’m all ears.”

“I’m in love with three men, and I know it’s going to fail between us because, well, obviously… A relationship can’t work in the long term between one woman and three men, right?”

Cassandra shrugs slightly. “Maybe, maybe not. You never know, Shay.”

“Come on, let’s be realistic here. Especially since the four of us are also friends and business partners,” I say. “It’s doomed. It was doomed from the moment I let them get close. Going to Chappaqua was a huge mistake.”

It’s tearing me apart to say these words aloud.

“Whatever happens, you decide what you’re going to do for yourself. Relationship-wise, business-wise, anything-wise. You decide what is best for you and that’s what you do,” Cassandra says. And she’s right.

One way or another, I will find my way back to the light. For now, however, I sit in silence with a mixture of contradicting emotions, doing my best to process everything and to make sure I’m never broken by anyone or anything ever again.