Page 52 of Inevitable

He wished he would have had the freedom to go to them and… Ezra stopped himself. Whatever he was about to think, he had to stop this right then and there. It would be torture to give himself that kind of hope and have it dashed.

Ever so slowly, he started moving toward the hallway that led to his bedroom. No. Not his bedroom. The guest room. He was there temporarily. Ezra couldn’t afford to start thinking otherwise. He’d learned the hard way that dreaming was useless. No amount of wishing had brought his parents back, and it was going to do shit all for this situation right here. It was better if Ezra remembered his place.

He edged toward his bedroom, only now there was no clear passage past Drew and Bas. The damn couch had blocked him in.

Ezra edged toward the exit. Did that damn living room have to be so large? Just as he was about to pass Drew and Bas, a hand shot out and fingers wrapped around Ezra’s wrist.

It felt like all the breath was punched out of him as he slowly lifted his eyes from the fingers gripping his wrist.

And then Drew’s hand was around Ezra’s neck, and he was pulled forward until the softest of kisses landed on his lips.

“Stay. Please,” Drew whispered. His gaze moved from Ezra to Bas and back to Ezra. “Please,” he repeated. “It’s us. Not me and Bas. Not me and you. It’s us. I want us.”

Ezra sucked in a breath, unable to believe his own ears. Everything he’d ever wanted was here in front of him. He just had to be brave enough to grab it.

Taking that last step that separated him from Bas and Drew had never felt easier.

He claimed Drew’s mouth in a slow, slightly hesitant kiss. When he pulled away, Drew’s smile was full of wonder.

“Umm…” Bas’s voice sounded different than usual as he swallowed and looked at Drew and then Ezra. There was a vulnerability in his gaze Ezra had never seen there before. But there was also something else there. Yearning. Hope. Disbelief. Ezra could relate. He almost wanted to pinch himself to make sure this wasn’t some kind of a fever dream.

“Can I?” Bas asked.

Ezra gave a jerky nod. Whatever it was Bas was asking, whatever he needed, Ezra wanted to give it to him.

Bas’s lips were only a hairsbreadth away. Ezra erased the distance between them. Bas tasted unexpectedly sweet, like strawberries and candy. His hand moved into Ezra’s hair, fingers touching Drew’s, who still had his palm behind Ezra’s neck.

And Bas’s kiss was oh so good. Ezra was having a hard time figuring out why they hadn’t done it before.

Bas kissed him like he was desperate. Held Ezra against him like he could never let him go. Smiled through their kisses like he couldn’t help himself.

And then it was Drew’s lips on his again. Ezra lost track of whose lips were on whom or whose hands were on whom. All three of them stood in the living room, bodies pressed together, limbs entwined, lips on each other, hands grasping desperately. Closer, closer, closer. Even an increment of space between them was too much.

Ezra couldn’t force away the surge of giddiness that moved through him. There must have been some sort of magic in Drew’s and Bas’s kisses because for the first time ever, Ezra got completely lost in the moment. For the first time, the tiny voice that was always residing in the back of his head, ready to count all the ways things could go terribly wrong, was quiet. For the first time, he didn’t crave for things to be safe because safe would have had him in his room, away from this moment. Ezra’s guard shattered, and he didn’t even consider building the walls back up again.

* * *

Bas’s fingers kept tracing over Ezra’s back. Ezra was hovering in a dreamy state, not asleep but not quite awake either. He was comfortable, lying on his stomach, head on Bas’s chest and Drew’s arm thrown over him just above his ass.

At one point it had started to snow outside again, but Ezra was wonderfully warm and almost in a blissful daze from all the kisses and the closeness and the intimacy.

Drew had fallen asleep on them, but Bas and Ezra were both up, trading gentle touches, laughing softly when Drew mumbled something in his sleep and pressed closer to them.

“Are you sure it’s okay I’m here?” Ezra’s voice was so low it was barely audible in the quiet darkness of the room.

“Here?” Bas sounded amused.

They’d ended up lying on Bas’s bed. There had been kisses. So many kisses. Kisses with Drew and kisses with Bas. It hadn’t gone any further. Ezra didn’t think they were ready for that just quite yet. Didn’t even know how that would work between the three of them, but it was all right. This night had been perfect in every sense of the word already.

Ezra didn’t say anything. He just waited.

“I wouldn’t want you to be anywhere else,” Bas said.

Ezra looked up. The room was dark enough that he couldn’t make out Bas’s expression, but he didn’t need to. He could easily picture the smile on Bas’s face.

Bas sighed happily as Ezra’s hand cupped his cheek. A slow minute ticked by before Bas spoke again. “I want you here. Drew wants you here. I have no idea what’s happening between us, but you fit.”

“I don’t think you can say that yet,” Ezra said. “It’s too soon.”