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[sunburned]

He often stays up later than Laurence and Julie; he sits on the porch sketching and then, when he's ready, he chooses one room or another. Most nights, he starts off with one and ends up with the other and, tonight, it's Julie's door (because it might still be the spare room, but he definitely thinks of it as Julie's) that he opens first.

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[sunburned]

He can't imagine what a look like that might represent, whether Laurence is asking for permission or forgiveness. Both. Neither. The corner of his mouth lifts in a smile and he reaches out to touch Laurence's arm gently.

"Whatever you wish, Will. I'mc ertainly not disappointed in you, no matter when you do. I never have been, and you know it."

[kissmehardy]

"Don't be silly, Will. If I thought you didn't want to kiss me, I wouldn't even bring it up. But I think you do, and so you should."

Of course the three of us are in this equally together, but just for a minute, I pretend that it's only the two of us here. The words are harder to find than they were with John, because I was so sure he already knew the truth of them without my having to say them.

"I love you," I say softly, leaning close with my hand still light against his cheek.

[geniusofdisaster]

Laurence looked down for a long moment as he gathered his thoughts together into a presentable order. "I would not want that love to be unfounded or unrequited, Julie. I believe I feel the same way about you." He paused and sighed, resisting the urge to glance once more at Granby. "However, having this level of affection for two at once is strange to me. I do not wish to misstep."

[kissmehardy]

"If we're to wait until we know what we're doing, we'll be sitting here until the end of time," I say ruefully. "We might be blazing a trail here, but nobody except us has to follow it. And if the road gets bumpy, we can find another way. And if you want me to stop this nonsensical metaphor, you're going to have to find something else to occupy my mouth."

I don't dare look at John either; if he laughs at me, we are all lost.

[geniusofdisaster]

"I am not in the habit of kissing ladies so freely. However--" Laurence leaned forward to press an almost chaste kiss to her lips before pulling away quickly. Despite the brief duration of the gesture he still could not look at Granby. "If you wish it I will do my utmost to accommodate you."

[kissmehardy]

I do not comment on his definition of "freely", when I have practically been begging him to kiss me. It might be undignified, but I think he is worth it and I don't care in the least.

"I absolutely do wish it," I say solemnly, and lean forward to kiss him again, must less chastely than I think he would do on his own, but I think it might be time for all of us to just jump into the thing wholly, and see where it takes us.

[sunburned]

For a moment, more than a moment, Granby can't keep a clear thought in his head other than the two of them. He tries not to stare, he really does, but it's surreal seeing something that he's thought about, more than once.

[geniusofdisaster]

Laurence endeavored to respond to Julie's kiss in a way that she would find favorable, however the knowledge that Granby sat close by never left his mind for an instant, and the gesture likely suffered for it. The notion that he was being observed by anyone, even a friend as intimate as John Granby, was still a rather uncomfortable one.

[kissmehardy]

It is, obviously and unsurprisingly, a somewhat awkward kiss, but I can feel the potential in it even so. We're both just so awfully tense, and it really is disconcerting to be so close to one man while kissing another. I give Will a smile, both for encouragement and to indicate that I'm far from unhappy with the experience even if we're both a little bit lost here.

And then I turn my head to look at John. I will never in a million years admit that I haven't the first clue how this is supposed to work, in actual practice, any more than Laurence does, but I do trust that he knows us both well enough to provide some kind of direction, if he can, toward the shape of what we're trying to become. At the very least, I hope he has some idea of where he ought to fit here as well.

[sunburned]

He lets out a long, shivering breath. He can't take his eyes off the two of them, close as they are. He blinks. Keeping his arm around Julie's waist, he reaches out and squeezes Laurence's arm.

"I think we'd do well to try and forget propriety for a little while, just between the three of us," he says, surprised by how rough his voice sounds. "Because Jesus, I do love the two of you so much."