“Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think part of the problem is that you hate that you still give a shit about him.” Aarav surprised Sola by leaning in and hugging Cash, who reciprocated the embrace. Unwilling to be left out, Sola ducked under their elbows and put an arm around each of her lovers. “It’s okay to love him, you know? None of our parents were perfect. That doesn’t change how we saw them as children or how badly we wish we could have changed them.”
Sola peered over at Aarav. He didn’t often open up like this and certainly not with just anyone. Her heart skipped as she realized he was forming the emotional connection he needed to take things to the next level with Cash, whether he admitted it to himself or not.
She grabbed each of them by their shirts and tugged them into the bedroom, where they could be near and cozy and safe as they laid bare these traumatic wounds.
“Aarav never talks about his childhood. If it wasn’t for his accent, I wouldn’t even know he was from India,” Sola said as she scooted backward onto the bed and drew her men to her. They sat in a triangle with their legs crisscrossed, their knees touching.
Aarav looked down at the beat-up watch on his wrist and sighed. He rubbed the gouged face with the pad of his thumb, then looked at them both. “We were poor, though I didn’t realize it then. Me, my seven brothers and sisters, our parents, and our three surviving grandparents lived in a two-bedroom apartment in a building stuck into the side of a hill. It was a big step up from the slums my parents had grown up in, and my father worked incredibly hard to keep us there.”
Sola took one of his hands and Cash the other. Then they clasped their free hands until all three of them were joined and healing energy flowed between them.
“It didn’t start on purpose, but my friend Suresh and I liked to perform. We would sing our own made-up songs and dance along. One day a crowd started gathering around us and people threw us some coins. We were so excited, so we did it again and again, and soon we had enough to buy a used radio. After maybe a month, we had enough that we took it to our families.”
Sola couldn’t believe she’d never seen him dance before. Why hadn’t he joined her at Sevan’s reception? Next time she would pull him onto the floor for sure.
“Suresh’s family was thrilled. They bought food and told him to skip school to perform more.” Aarav’s fingers trembled in hers. “My father, though, was horrified. He said he wasn’t doing all he was to lift us up for me to go out and act like a street rat. He refused the money and forbade me from hanging out with Suresh.”
“I’m sorry, Aarav.” Sola imagined what it would have done to him to be told he couldn’t help. She’d bet even as a child he’d been noble to the core. “If nothing else, that you had to stop doing something you enjoyed so much with your friend.”
He looked up at her then. “I didn’t.”
“Oh.” Cash rubbed his thumb over Aarav’s knuckles.
“I stayed in school, but snuck out in the evenings and joined Suresh.” His eyes focused far in the distance as if staring back into time when he said, “And that’s why I wasn’t home when the earthquake hit. Our building was shoddy, overcrowded, and falling down even when the ground wasn’t shaking.”
“You don’t have to tell us the rest.” Cash winced.
“I still wonder to this day if I had been there, if I could have made a difference. If I could have dug out and saved them. My father’s arm was sticking up from rubble. I recognized it from his watch. This watch. He almost made it out. I was the oldest and the strongest of my siblings. If I was there…”
“You probably would have died, too.” Sola felt a shiver run down her spine at the thought. She suddenly understood his need to protect others, even if they never knew of the sacrifices he made for them.
“You were right, Aarav. None of our parents were perfect. Your dad should have encouraged your passion, and Cash’s father should have supported him, and mine…well, I wish how much I loved my mom had been enough to overcome her grief. But it wasn’t. And none of that is on us. All we can do is try to learn from their mistakes and be better. It’s okay to survive. It’s okay to be happy. And I bet that if we could talk to any of our moms right now, that’s what they’d want for us.”
“But do we deserve it? DoI?” Aarav wondered. “If my dad despised me dancing on the street, I’m pretty sure he’d be horrified that I kill people for a very lucrative living.”
“Have you been carrying that around this whole time?” Sola narrowed her eyes at him. “What you do is save people from the dregs of humanity. You know that, right?”
“In theory. But I can relate to Cash, I guess.” Aarav looked directly into his eyes, and when their gazes locked on one another, Sola thought she saw something there that hadn’t existed before. Recognition. A spark. Emotions that went deeper than a mutual desire for her.
“Because you’ve never felt worthy of being loved? And so you couldn’t imagine that anyone else might believe differently?” Cash supplied.
Aarav nodded.
Nothing could keep Sola from them then. She launched herself in their direction, bowling both of them over so they ended up lying side by side with her splayed over them.
“I’m here to prove you both wrong.” Sola kissed each of them in turn before going back for seconds.
“If we’d never met Cash, I don’t think I would have been able to see from an outside perspective how fucked up I’ve been.” Aarav combed his fingers through Cash’s hair.
Cash burst out laughing at that. “I’m happy my issues were good for something.”
“Without that understanding… Without realizing everyone is deserving of the love someone else is willing to give us, maybe Sola and I never would have lasted. Now at least we have a shot.” Aarav leaned toward Cash and murmured, “I owe you more than you realize.”
Then Sola sat back so she could watch as the men kissed for the first time. They were gentle yet determined and both so confident she felt certain they’d needed to find each other as much as she’d needed them both in her life and her bed.
After plenty of soft sighs escalated to groans between each other’s parted lips, their beards rasping together, Cash angled himself for a deeper taste. He probed Aarav’s smile with his tongue until Aarav let him in and began to suck on it.
Sola didn’t even try to hide how much seeing them together, pleasing each other, turned her on. She shucked her shirt and leggings so she could touch herself as she observed them making out. They’d spent weeks spoiling her. Now it was her turn to witness them take from each other.