Back in the Saddle

Let It Show (Let It Be #3)
by K.D. West

By the time they made it back up to their office, Helen was crying, and wasn’t sure why in the name of al-Khwarizmi that might be.

“You okay?” asked Tommy, stroking her hair.

“Yes!” Helen turned and began to snivel into his chest.

He stroked her back. “I… I shouldn’t have… outed you — us — like that. Sorry.”

“S-s-s’okay!” she howled, and wept on.

They stood there for a moment, her wailing, him trying to comfort her. Eventually, he sat in the big captain’s chair that Al had bought him a few Christmases back, and she curled in his lap. He rocked her there, kissing the top of her head, his arms wrapped tight around her.

Abandoning her body to crying, Helen tried to attack the question of what had upset her with logic — her tool of choice. Was she embarrassed that Tommy had shown their coworkers her ring? Was she embarrassed that she was married to not one but two men who, before the break, she had assumed were gay? Was she upset to admit that her former fiancé was a lying, cheating scumbag?

Unfortunately, logic had nothing to do with the matter. Feelings flooded through her, scintillescent, coruscating, opaque. Grief, shame, joy, pride…

Love. She loved Tommy. She loved Al. She loved what they had all found together. The seventeen days since they spent the night trapped in the back of Poppy, Al’s California-gold SUV, had given her proof after proof that they loved her. The commitment she had found with them felt far more solid and substantial than the one she had attempted to construct over five years with Ben.

Love.

Love is not all sunlight and butterflies. It is also a terrifying leap into the inky, lightning-filled abyss.

But at least it is a leap with someone.

Someones. Continue reading Back in the Saddle — Let It Show preview →