AMA Week Chapter 377-380

This is the third and final installment for this month's AMA week, running a little longer than planned! The compiled bundle with the PDF and ePub files will release shortly!

Chapter 377

Cassidy hadn’t told Dayana much of anything. On the one hand, I was almost a little relieved - my friend and coworker wasn’t operating on any dubious knowledge or judgments based on what Cassidy had said versus how I might have told her things. I’d given Cass permission to say what she felt she wanted to over the last day, but I hadn’t told her to say anything specific.

The logical answer, at least in my mind, was that the only thing Cass had done ‘wrong’ here was that she’d teased she’d said anything at all and made a game out of something that very much wasn’t a game. And I knew that would be her leaning towards teasing and comedy because she would be feeling uncomfortable about the whole thing. 

But fuck did it also piss me off a bit that she’d done that.

“So that’s basically it,” Dayana said, still frowning. She’d run through the events of last week pretty well - it had just lacked a lot of the important details. Cass and I driving out, the people we’d met and friends we’d made, several of the events like the party at the Strip Club and the almost-fight at the Gas Bar. The devil, of course, was in the details. “And Cattie seemed great when I met her. Cass has been mentioning her for years now so I felt like I kind of already knew her a bit, and hearing about everything that happened with her ex was wild. And I’m not really shocked at all that you two would have her come stay a few days to take care of her because that’s so you. None of that sounds… Look, I’m not trying to judge or anything, but you've handled harder shit here at work; none of it sounds like it would shake you, let alone lead to panic attacks.”

“Right,” I sighed, leaning forward and burying my face in my hands, trying not to think about how close I was to Dayana’s sleek, thin legs. God, I needed to double-check with Cass that there wasn’t anything in the App that was making me think more sexually about people.

“So she didn’t tell me everything,” Dayana said, her voice a little more flat as she put together some pieces.

“No, she didn’t,” I mumbled into my hands.

“And you expected that she was,” Dayana guessed, and I nodded. “Cass-i-dy,” she sighed and hissed scornfully.

I let out my breath and leaned back in the seat, shaking my head. “Miscommunication,” I said, downplaying it. Not wanting to build up even more animosity between them because, while I had a chance to maybe bury the whole thing for a bit longer, doing that would just lead to more problems down the road and I needed to start fixing shit not just pushing it along to be handled later.

“So what did happen?” Dayana asked me quietly. “Or… what did she do?”

I grimaced, giving her enough of an answer that she grimaced back, confirming her guess. “At the start of the week Cass admitted that- actually, I didn’t tell you this before because it wasn’t- Well, I didn’t tell you this before. You know how Cass could get a little bad at communicating for a few days, and not want to go out for like a week every few months?”

“I always assumed it was just a particularly bad period or something,” Dayana said, narrowing her eyes.

“Well, it was her dealing with mental health stuff,” I said. “Every four or five months it would start to hit her, since we were both in college, but it wouldn’t last for more than a week and usually only a few days, so I kind of let it slide that she didn’t want to go to a doctor or psychologist or anything. It was just sort of part of who she was, and I loved her through it. Well, on our way to the lake, Cassidy admitted to me that it wasn’t just a depression cycle, it had a lot to do with shame and guilt over things she’d done back when we first got together.”

Dayana’s eyes remained narrowed and she pursed her lips slightly, guessing where I was going with this but letting me take my time to find the right words.

“Cassidy… Well, early in our relationship and for a few different personal reasons that she’ll be working on in therapy soon, she started to cheat on me. With… fuck, with an astounding number of other girls and older women, and it lasted for a few years. While she kept it all hidden, and her being bisexual at all, hidden from me. She might have been dealing with some sort of mania or addiction, from the way she describes it. Not that it’s an excuse. Then she had a rock-bottom sort of emotional awakening, which was when she first had a depressive episode that ended up with her dropping out of college and trying to figure out how to move on and be better, and since then she’s been trying to figure out how to express how awful she feels about it, and that she’s repentant, but was also scared shitless about telling me. And with the wedding plans getting started in earnest…”

“She felt the pressure,” Dayana nodded in understanding but then shook her head and rolled her eyes. “She told you at the start of a vacation surrounded by her coworkers and friends? God, Cassidy, you stupid puta. That’s-”

“A bad idea, I know,” I grimaced. “So I found out about that, we had an initial - I don’t know, it wasn’t an argument per se, but it was a big… something. Heavy conversation. Then later that day, when we were there, I had my first panic attack. This I think you’ll appreciate; Cattie full-on slapped Cassidy across the face when she found out.”

Dayana covered her mouth as she snorted hard, trying not to grin. “OK, I knew I liked that girl,” she said.

“Yeah, well, Cass agreed she deserved it,” I said wryly. Then I took a long breath and let it out, shaking my head and not looking forward to the next bit because it wasn’t as explosively hurtful to relive, but it was scandalous as fuck.

“So you two haven’t actually been alone to handle this for… a week and a half?” Dayana asked, doing the mental math. 

“No,” I frowned. “But we have therapy booked already. Both of us solo tonight, and Couples starting next week.”

Dayana muttered something in Spanish under her breath, quiet and fast enough that I couldn’t catch it. Then she huffed softly. “So what else is there?” she asked. “I know that look on your face, Robbie. You’re currently clenching your butthole so tight you could probably snap a pencil.”

That made me snort and smirk a little, which helped to lighten the pit of dread in my gut.

“Well, Cassidy sort of… had more of a plan in mind as part of her admission and repentance and penance,” I said.

Dayana closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. “Robbie, I love your fiancee but holy fuck.”

“I know,” I said.

“OK, what was her plan?”

I let myself put it off for one more long breath, then just blurted it out. “She wanted me to have more experiences like she’d had when we were younger, so she sort of pushed for my end of the relationship to be… actively open. And a vacation with a bunch of internet models was her idea of a good kickstart to that.”

Dayana’s jaw dropped open and her eyes went wide. Obviously, of all the things that she thought could add to the situation, that wasn’t one of them. Her jaw worked a couple of times as half-formed thoughts almost leaked out, but she remained silent and eventually snapped her mouth shut as she glared at me.

“I know,” I said, shaking my head. “It was, and probably still is, a bad idea. But, full disclosure…”

“Oh my God, you’re fucking Cattie,” Dayana said, eyebrows shooting up as she leaned back in her seat on the edge of her desk.

I let out my breath and nodded. “Technically we’re officially dating now. Girlfriend-boyfriend.”

“And you’re still with Cassidy?”

I nodded.

“And the whole thing with her girlfriend?”

“All true,” I said. “Heather kind of started to show her true colours close to the start of the trip, but seriously, Dayana, I never wanted to influence someone else to break up.”

“Me estas cargando,” she said, almost choking on the mild cursing. “Robbie, what the fuck? Actually?”

“I know, I know,” I grimaced, holding up my hands defensively.

She looked at me for a long moment before throwing her hands up in the air. “Hijo de mil puta, Robbie, she’s not the only one, is she?”

“No,” I admitted. “I’m also officially dating Becca. She lives out in Seattle, so it’s long distance for now, just like it will be with Cattie.”

“No, you motherfucker,” she shook her finger at me. “That’s not the only relationship you broke up, is it? You fucking flinched.”

Maybe Dayana knew me too well. But then… Cassidy flew out tomorrow to help Terra move to us. Dayana was going to hear about her soon enough.

“So… yeah,” I said. “It was kind of a fucked up week, OK? And I know Cass and I didn’t expect all of this at all. Terra was having issues with her boyfriend while they were both on the trip, and even though she knew stuff was going on with Cass and I because she also walked in on one of my panic attacks, she kind of had a ‘fuck, I want that’ moment while her boyfriend also had a major fuck-up. They broke up basically as soon as they landed back in Louisiana, and Cass is going to fly out tomorrow to help her get her life together. And Wanda is out in Seattle-” Dayana rolled her eyes at a third relationship getting mixed in. “-and she already had an open relationship, but she found some stuff out about her husband and it was… Well, it was a dealbreaker for her, but he was on a trip in Europe while she was with us, so she’s waiting for him to come home so she can break up with him in person and start their divorce before we decide anything about us.”

“Robbie,” Dayana said evenly, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees as she looked at me intently. “We’re friends, right?”

“Of course,” I said. “Unless I’m too fucking messy now and you want some distance.”

“No,” she said, waving me off and rolling her eyes. “But, other than me complaining about a few bad dates to you or Cassidy, we’ve never talked about… sex. Or sexual history.”

“We haven’t,” I nodded.

“How many of these fucking models did you have sex with last week!?” she asked.

I gulped. “Um.”

“Oh my God,” she scoffed.

“Including Cass and Cattie? Nine- no, eight.” I had to readjust because I hadn’t actually had sex with Ami. Or not… sex-sex. Though that felt like a semantic at this point. Then I groaned slightly. “Plus, uh, two locals who live in Page, the nearby town.”

“Santa María, Madre de Dios,” Dayana said, literally crossing herself like she was still a Catholic schoolgirl back in Argentina trying to ward off evil with a prayer. “You really took that offer seriously, Robbie. Fuck.”

“I- It was complicated,” I stressed. “I didn’t mean for it to happen with any of them. Though, I mean, by the end of the week I was kind of just rolling with things. And I really didn’t intend to start falling for multiple women while already deciding I wanted to make things work with Cassidy.”

“Wait, how many of them are you… seeing?”

I swallowed. “Seven, but really eight,” I said. “Wanda just doesn’t want to break the explicit agreement she had with her husband about their open marriage, so we’re technically not anything until she can break it off.”

Dayana shook her head at me. “Fuck, you’re falling for each of the models you fucked?”

“No,” I said. “Um, technically I’m in a casual long-distance thing with one model I didn’t have sex with but did fool around with, and I did have sex with one as part of a game but there was definitely no emotional connection.”

“You did sex games?” Dayana asked.

“The end of the week kind of got really wild,” I winced. “And it was all their idea.”

She muttered in Spanish under her breath again, shaking her head, then wiped her face with one hand. “So, since last week, you found out Cassidy was a massive cheater, opened your relationship, became a man-whore and slept with ten-plus women, started multiple relationships who all know about each other, brought one of them home with you, and have been having panic attacks based on all the stress you’ve been under. But you have Therapy already booked so it’s all just fine and you didn’t need to tell me any of this, right?”

“Well, when you put it like that,” I winced again. “It sounds a lot more-”

She hopped down from the desk and punched me in the shoulder. Hard. While glaring at me.

“Yes,” I said. “That about sums it up.”

She scoffed and waved her hands in the air like she was beseeching God, or maybe an entire pantheon, for help with this ridiculousness. Then she looked down at me again, sitting in front of her, and she shook her head while pursing her lips. “Stop hiding things from me. We’re supposed to be a team,” she said.

“I know,” I replied. “I’m sorry.”

She looked like she wanted to say something else, and I expected it to be a scathing remark about how fucking stupid Cass and I were being in how we were handling things. But instead, she just shook her head again and then went around her desk chair, dropping into it and letting out a hard exhale. “Can you talk about work now, or are you still feeling the panic attack stuff? What do I need to do to get you back to normal.”

“I’m good,” I said, sitting forward. “You already helped, and- Well, telling you helped a lot too.”

“I’m going to tear Cassidy a new fucking asshole,” Dayana grumbled. Then sighed. “OK. You want to start with everything for tonight?”

“Yeah, we should,” I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket. “We’ve wasted enough time on my ridiculous bullshit.”

“Robbie,” Dayana said, half reaching across her desk like she wanted to take my hand and squeeze it. “If you need to talk, I might curse you out a bit and call you an idiot, but it will never be a waste of my time.”

I nodded, then focused on my phone because I didn’t want to zero in on that conversation anymore.

Chapter 378

The meeting with Dayana ran long - not just because of my fucking panic attack and talking everything out with her, but also because we ended up having a bunch of crap to try and reorganise because of the ongoing ‘extra booking’ crusade with Jonas was royally fucking things up. By the time we were done, we’d both had multiple texts summoning us elsewhere in the hotel, but Dayana had still made sure not to let me go without giving me a tight hug.

We’d hugged before, outside of work, but this was the first time she’d hugged me at work.

And again I was struck with thoughts I shouldn’t have been. The feel of her under my arm, her torso pressed to my side. The soft smell of her shampoo wafting up lightly from her thick, dark hair.

Leaving her as she headed for the restaurants while I had to head back up to the ballrooms, I had a moment to myself as I made for the elevators. And I used that moment to feel like an absolute piece of shit for a minute, wallowing in shame over the panic attack, and not being strong enough to handle everything without buckling under the stress. Then I cleared my throat hard, stood up straight again, and tried my best to tell myself it was OK. Dayana hadn’t been horrified - or not enough that I’d become a pariah to her or something. She knew the truth now, or at least as much of the truth as I could realistically tell her.

Holding back the whole App thing was still a small pinch in the back of my mind. It would have definitely been affecting Dayana’s friendship with Cassidy since they’d first met, but our friendship wouldn’t have been affected and I really did trust that Cassidy’s timeline of when she stopped everything was true.

What I really had to decide now, and what I stewed on as I rode the elevator, was whether to text Cassidy or not about it all. I wasn’t sure if Dayana would or not, or if she’d wait to get Cassidy in person before letting my fiancee know her opinion of things.

The problem was that I fully expected Cass to feel like utter shit as soon as she found out I had another panic attack partially caused by her being all coy. And she kind of deserved it, but I didn’t want her to have to feel like that. Or Cattie, since she’d been playing along at least since their lunch and hadn’t stepped in. But I also hadn’t stepped in and called Radical Honesty and just asked for the truth, mostly because I hadn’t realised or acknowledged it was starting to creep up on me like it was.

She would blame herself completely, but I had to own some of it because I needed to pay better attention to my own needs. I needed to…

I needed to be a little selfish.

And that thought made me feel gross even if it might be true.

I ended up deciding to put off texting Cass and Cattie and jumped back into work. I would see them soon enough, and we had our solo therapy later. Maybe this would be a good place to start, see if I was thinking straight.

The problem, of course, with putting something off was that it would come back at me with a vengeance. In this case, it was a series of phone calls as I was speaking with several of the organising committee folks from the group that was renting out the main ballroom that evening. I had to blindly flick my phone onto silence quickly because the vibrating in my pocket felt like it was a jackhammer in my ear, and quickly extricated myself from the conversation, heading into the back corridor from the half-setup ballroom to get some privacy.

Three calls from Cassidy in a row, then a call from Cattie right after. Plus a text from Cattie telling me Cass was panicking and that she was sorry. Dayana must have told Cassidy she’d witnessed me having a panic attack. As I was reading it I started to get several poorly spelled texts in a row from Cassidy.

I shook my head and called her, and she picked up on the first ring.

“I’m- so- sooorrryyy,” Cassidy sobbed. “Please, Robbie, I’m so sorry. Please don’t hate me. Please, I’m trying so hard.”

My heart broke at the utter despair in her voice.

“Are you OK?” Cattie asked with a nervous edge in her voice, the phone on speaker on their end. “We’re really worried about you, Tiger.”

“Yes, I’m fine,” I said softly, trying to keep an edge out of my voice as I paced further down the corridor from the doors into the ballroom, not wanting to be overheard by anyone coming to use the hall for normal purposes. “I was just in the middle of a conversation with a client, I couldn’t pick up right away.”

An almost comically loud nose blow happened in the background.

“Cassidy got a text from Dayana chewing her out,” Cattie explained. “Are you sure you’re OK? Can you, like, come home early or something? I don’t know if you can do that with your job if you have an attack like that?”

“I’m-” I wasn’t fine, and I didn’t want to lie and say I was. So I pivoted. “Dayana helped me through it as best she could, and no one else saw it,” I said. “And I need to get stuff done so I can get out of here on time so we can get to the therapy appointments.”

“Robbie, I’m fucking worst,” Cattie sniffled, back closer to the phone again. “I’m so fucking sorry. I’m sorry I’m a cheating whore. I’m sorry I did everything the way I did even if it did work out for, like, Cattie and Becca and Terra and Wanda and-”

“Maybe don’t list everyone, babe,” Cattie murmured, interrupting her.

“I’m sorry, Robbie. I’m so fucking sorry. And I’m sorry I’m a dumb fuck who just pulled you away from a client, and- and- I don’t fucking know.”

“Cass, baby,” I said, feeling super fucking torn. On the one hand, every guilt-laden word out of her mouth made my heart hurt for her. Every put-down she laid on herself was a self-inflicted wound I wanted to soothe. On the other hand, my hand was clenching my phone tightly and I had the other hand curled into a fist in my pocket, angry and frustrated. “I love you. I’m not considering leaving you or anything drastic like that. This is a speedbump, and we’re going to probably hit a bunch of them before we… yeah. You should have told me instead of making it a game, but I should have asked for Radical Honesty as soon as I started to worry about it.”

“No, I should have just fucking told you, you shouldn’t need to ask for Radical Honesty,” she argued. “I should have fucking realised this was way more important, I just- I don’t know. Everything’s been going so well since we got back and I’m just a stupid-”

“Stop,” I said, at the same time Cattie said it on the other end of the call.

“Stop calling yourself stupid, Cass,” Cattie chastised her. “It’s not like I clued in either and you don’t think I’m stupid.”

“Every time you call yourself names, Cass, I feel it deep in my heart,” I told her.

Cassidy sobbed again, a wordless cry of anguish that broke off in a muffle that sounded an awful lot like she’d buried her face in a pillow or something. Cattie shushing her gently gave me a mental image of my girlfriend rubbing my fiancee’s back, trying to soothe her.

“I’m sorry too, Robbie,” Cattie said after a moment.

“I know, baby,” I said, feeling the weight of it. “Look, I’ll be home as soon as I can, but I need to get back to work. Cattie, I love you. Cassidy, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” she croaked.

“Cassidy, I love you. Truly, madly, deeply. Even despite the roadblock. We’ll talk about it when I get home and can actually hold you both and look into your eyes, OK?”

“OK,” she mumbled, then sniffed hard and said more clearly. “OK. I love you, Robbie. I’m sorry.”

“I know, baby.”

“I love you too, Robbie,” Cattie said.

“Fuck, I’d leave right now if I could,” I sighed. “I’ll be home soon.”

When I hung up I had the urge to throw my phone down the corridor, and also to cradle it to my chest. I fucking loved them, but being on edge like this made me feel like I was about to over the edge and drive myself right into a deeper problem. Like yelling at the clients back in the ballroom who were expecting everything to be done instantaneously with a snap of my fingers, or with fucking Jonas for making the next few weeks look more and more like a goddamn minefield instead of an orderly, structured system. Or Tan for being a fucking anchor around my ankle. Or Doug for setting this whole ball rolling at work.

I took several long, deep breaths, straightened my tie, blinked several times and sniffed in one more deep breath before turning back towards the ballroom.

Work. Drive Home. Have the conversation. Go to Therapy. That’s what needed to happen.

Chapter 379

“What the shit, Robbie?”

The end of my work day had been a series of getting things organised so that I could leave, and receiving texts from the various women I was involved with as they found out that I’d had another panic attack and wanted to check on me. They’d ranged from the absolute sweetest, from Leia and Ami, to this phone call.

“I thought you were streaming this afternoon, Sugar,” I replied. “I didn’t want to distract you.”

“I am, and people noticed when I checked my phone and my face dropped as I skimmed the group chat. You could have fucking assured me you were OK at least,” she said. “You’re driving home now, right?”

“Just got in the truck,” I said. “Are you still streaming?”

“I put it on a break,” she said. “Seriously, Robbie-”

“I know, Becca, I know,” I said. “Today was a shitshow of communication all around, honestly. First Cass, and a little bit Cattie, and then me. I kind of got into a bad frame of mind after it happened and wanted to just take care of work before I tackled it. And that wasn’t fair to you or the others.”

She sighed and grunted. “To be fair, in a normal relationship waiting a couple of hours so you could leave work wouldn’t be that big a deal,” she sighed. “Since you wouldn’t have an entire group chat of girlfriends sharing news faster than you can. What, two weeks ago you could have had a bad day at work, waiting to get home and decompress by changing or taking a shower or something before telling Cassidy.”

“Have I mentioned today that I love the shit out of you and your brain?” I asked her.

“Is that because you were thinking the same thing?” she shot back.

“You know it,” I sighed. “Look, Becca, I am sorry. I need to keep this new stuff in mind when it comes to keeping the communication open. You deserve…”

“I deserve all of you, I know,” she said. “But I’m happy with sharing all of you instead. Honestly, it’s not fair of me to expect perfect communication right out of the gate. I know that. But I’m seeing problems and I can’t just… ugh.”

“Fix them?”

“Yes,” she grunted.

“What else is wrong?” I asked. “Have you heard from Wanda?”

“She’s the other big one right now, and I have. Brodi hasn’t shown up yet and his plane should have landed two hours ago.”

I grimaced. “OK. Could you keep me updated on that?”

“I will, but not until at least an hour after you have your therapy appointment,” Becca promised. “That shit is important and I’m not interrupting it.”

“Agreed,” I said. “Though I hate the idea of Wanda calling and me not answering.”

“Her stuff will take longer than a couple of hours, Robbie,” Becca said. “She’s ending a marriage, not just breaking up with her high school boyfriend on her porch. I wouldn’t expect her to call you until late if she started now.”

“That’s fair,” I grimaced.

“I also can’t fucking help Terra with anything either,” Becca grumbled. “Not from her at least. It’s a good thing Cass is flying out there or I’d be looking for cheap flights myself. God, we’re a fucked up little group, you know?”

“Becca, if we weren’t I don’t think we’d all work,” I chuckled grimly.

“Why? Because only insane people would get into this situation, to begin with?” she laughed.

“Pretty much,” I sighed. “God, I want to just hold you right now.”

“The fact that I want you to hold me too is kinda insane to me still, remember,” she said, her tone warm. “Honestly, Robbie, going from my body getting the ick at the idea of just sitting brushing shoulders with someone to kind of craving you is… weird. Wonderful, but weird.”

I grimaced, knowing part of that was the touching and kissing App stuff that Cassidy had given me, and part of it was the still-questionably possible effects of the App being extra-spooky magical and preemptively acting on Becca before we’d even met. We didn’t know the extent of what the Affection Multiplier App could do.

“Well, I’m going to lean into the wonderful, if you don’t mind,” I told her. “But-”

“I know, I know,” she interrupted me. “You’ll still love me even if all our physical chemistry suddenly goes away.”

“Damn straight,” I said.

“OK, I need to take my stream off of its break or I’ll start losing viewers more than normal. Um - I know you may not want to share everything, or anything, from your therapy with me, especially not tonight, but could you at least let me know when you’re done and a thumbs up or down on the therapist?”

“I will,” I promised her. “Have a good stream.”

“Thanks, Tiger,” she said, then chuckled softly. “God, I better wipe this smile off my face or people will be wondering what the fuck is up with me. Love you.”

“Love you too,” I replied, and we hung up.

I groaned and put the truck in drive, not having even pulled out of my parking spot while we’d been talking, but I kept my foot on the brake and thumbed through my phone to open up another contact. I’d had calls with both Zenya and Becca that day, and a significant amount of texting with Terra, so I needed to make sure I put in some more time with one of my other girlfriends while I had it.

“Hey, Tiger,” Leia answered the phone. “How are you feeling?”

“Honestly? A little raw still, Sunshine,” I sighed as I started manoeuvring out of the parking lot. “But I wanted to hear your voice, and it’s helping already.”

“Aww, Robbie,” Leia said, and I could almost feel her blushing through the phone. “Well, I’d love to talk and talk and talk with you, but I know you’re busy as fuck as soon as you get home, and I’m already running late to meet up with Ginnie - she’s got a date tonight and is freaking out.”

I snorted softly and smirked. “What does she have to freak out about? I’m sure she’ll knock the socks off of whoever it is.”

“Well, between you and me, Tiger, she’s in her head a bit after the end of the trip,” Leia said, lowering her voice. I knew she had roommates and assumed she was making sure she wouldn’t be overheard. “Hooking up with JC didn’t exactly scratch her itch fully, if you know what I mean, and she kinda figured out that Heels fucked you while she was doing that. The fact that you didn’t stuff her like a Thanksgiving turkey, and she hooked up with Heather and Sherry, is bugging the shit out of her.”

I was almost choking on my own spit, and Leia was trying not to laugh as well. Ginnie was a cute, tight little package of a woman, but there hadn’t been an emotional connection between us - and a big part of that, I had a feeling, was that she’d had a very early, failed hook-up on the trip with another tourist on the lake. Which was fucking insane considering I knew several of the other girls I’d ended up close with had ‘histories’ of their own and other complications. But it’s how it had shaken out.

“OK, well, tell Ginnie I say hi, and that she deserves a date who treats her right,” I said.

“I will,” Leia promised. Then she sighed. “You’re alone tomorrow night, right? Can we get our accounts hooked up and maybe get some games in?”

“That sounds amazing, Sunshine,” I said. “I’m putting in a bit of extra time tomorrow evening at work, but I should be available around eight?”

“Awesome,” she said. “OK, I really need to go. I, um… I love you, Robbie.”

I couldn’t help the giant smile on my lips. We’d held out longer saying it to each other, going on her comfortability timeline, and it had been a sweet moment the first time we’d confirmed what we’d been feeling.

“I love you too, Leia. Talk to you soon.”

She blew a kiss into the call and then hung up.

I was highly tempted to call Ami to round out everyone getting something substantial for the day - well, everyone but Wanda - but she was busy with her parents for the afternoon and she was still trying to figure out how to tell them she had a long-distance boyfriend. The rest of our weirdness wasn’t even being considered yet.

There was also the fact that I was already close to home, and if I hesitated getting out of the truck I might find myself stuck to my seat in general.

I needed to just get inside and get on with things. No pushing off the awkwardness.

I gulped.

Chapter 380

“I told her she shouldn’t,” Cattie said with a shrug, looking at me as she came down the stairs. “But she kind of insisted.”

My girlfriend was dressed down super casually, a pair of my athletic shorts slung a little low on her hips and a simple T-shirt, with her hair back in a braid. She must have changed after they got back from their lunch with Dayana earlier, and since she was coming with us to the therapy appointments solely as emotional support she didn’t exactly need to dress to impress.

Cassidy, currently in my arms and squeezing me tightly, had probably changed as well. But she'd gone in the other direction.

I’d walked in the front door ready for tension and, likely, some more tears. I knew Cassidy was going to still be feeling her guilt no matter what I’d said earlier, and that helped and didn’t help at the same time with how I was feeling. What I hadn’t been prepared for was my fiancee meeting me at the front door like a 1950s housewife, wearing a super cute summer dress and in full, fresh makeup. She’d styled her hair to perfection, was wearing her pair of red heels to match the dress, and had a cold beer freshly poured and ready for me.

She’d looked stunning and perfect in the most Televisiony way. And she’d almost immediately broken into tears that sent her thick mascara trailing down her face, her bright red lips trembling as she tried to hold her smile. And then the beer had ended up forgotten on the little side table where we usually dropped our keys, and she’d been in my arms and crying softly as she murmured more apologies and I’d held her tight.

“I’ll get your shirt dry cleaned, I’m sorry I’m ruining it,” she cried now.

“Hey, Catherine,” I said, taking one arm from around Cass and opening our embrace up to include her.

“Hey, Tiger,” Cattie mumbled, joining and hugging us both as she leaned her head onto my shoulder. “Sorry we fucked up today.”

“Shhh,” I hushed them both. “It was… well, it’s not OK, but it’s not as bad as this.”

“I feel like I fuck everything up,” Cass said, her face still pressed to my chest. “I couldn’t even get this right.”

“What… is this?” I asked.

Cass grunted, and Cattie rolled her lips in as she smiled a little, glancing down at Cass. “I honestly don’t know. She wanted to dress up for you, that’s all.”

“Because if I can’t be smart like you, I could at least be hot for you,” Cass groaned.

“Baby, you’re always hot for me,” I sighed. “In more ways than one.”

That got a soft snort out of Cattie, who immediately covered her mouth with one hand.

“And today wasn’t about smarts, it was about bad communication. Which is kind of our problem, so… are we really surprised?”

“....no,” Cass mumbled. Then she pulled back and Cattie and I had to repress breaking out into laughs because Cass’s face was a mess, and she’d left an imprint on the front of my shirt that looked an awful lot like a clown had flown face first into a window. She took one look at our expressions, sniffed hard, and then rolled her eyes. “OK, I thought I wouldn’t start crying for at least a few minutes.”

“You wanted to give him a messy blowjob at the door, didn’t you,” Cattie guessed.

Cass actually blushed as she bit her lower lip and looked up at me. “Maybe. I know you like that.”

“I do, but-” I half-chuckled and half-sighed. “Not today, Cassidy. Plus we don’t have that much time before we need to go.”

“I know, I figured it would be fast because Zenya and Becca told us you’d gotten teased a bunch today,” Cass said. “And fucking my face might be some catharsis or something.”

“Can we just blanket agree that I don’t really want to take out any frustration or anger on you in a physical way in general, let alone sexually?” I asked. “We can have rough sex because it’s fun, not because we need to work shit out with each other.”

“I fully support this suggestion,” Cattie agreed quickly.

“I-” Cass said, then her lower lip trembled again. “God, I was doing it again-”

“Nonono,” Cattie said, grabbing her hand. “Jesus, Cassidy, get your shit together. What is making you so fucking emotional today?”

“I don’t know,” Cass mumbled, sniffing hard and wiping her nose with her forearm. It didn’t seem to help.

“OK. Cass, I love you. Catherine, baby, I love you too. I want to rip both those outfits off of you and spend the rest of the day in bed with you both, but we need to be ready to go in like ten minutes. Therapy is happening, and it’s important.”

Cass and Cattie nodded, and Cass cleared her throat. “Cattie, could you come help me get cleaned up?”

“Of course,” her best friend said, pulling her into another quick hug as she looked at me over Cass’s shoulder, confirming that’s what I wanted. Obviously, I was fine with it, but needing to confirm that made me wonder what sort of boundaries Cattie and I needed to figure out still. Did she want me to give her an OK for something like that? Was she worried I wanted that? I thought we were only doing that with sex stuff, and that’s where I was comfortable. I didn’t want to fucking control her life or her friendships.

Or was it a reaction to what had been going on with Heather?

It was another important conversation I needed to have for sure.

The girls headed upstairs, and I took the glass of beer from the side table, went and sat on the couch in the living room, and drained half of it immediately, then shook my head. I also, however, looked down at my chest and saw the big set of smudges on it looking up at me like a horror painting and thankfully didn’t start stewing all over again. Instead, I managed to just take a breath and smile, shaking my head before gulping down the second half of the beer. 

Upstairs I ended up dancing around the girls as Cass and I were both changing, her face already cleaned of the mess. We didn’t play any grabass as we usually would, and I felt like there was an odd tension as Cattie peeled off my shorts and put on a pair of her tight, ripped jeans.

Cass ended up wearing a pair of tights and an extra-long T-shirt that she’d worn around the house as a dress on more than one occasion. Both girls finished their outfits with their matching Converse shoes, while I changed into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and put on my own pair of Converse shoes as well as a silent sign of solidarity.

Then we were out of the house, and into the truck, and since I’d just pounded back a full beer in under three minutes Cass ended up driving. She tried to suggest maybe Cattie and I could sit in the back and have some fun, but it was half-hearted and all three of us knew now wasn’t the time. So Cattie sat in the back, and I sat in the passenger seat, and my girlfriend softly ran her fingers through the hair on the back of my head while I held my fiancee’s hand. I helped with the final directions once we got close, and then Cass pulled us into a parking spot in front of the building.

The Practice was on the east side of the city, sort of nestled in between a couple of nicer suburban neighbourhoods along a street with other ‘bougie’ businesses, anchored at one end by a big Starbucks and at the other by a Whole Foods. The actual business was in a nice building that looked like it was straddling the line between a Mediterranean-style home with a terracotta roof and white stucco walls and arches, and a modern medical practice building with banks of tinted windows and a small parking lot off to one side. The gardens and lawn around the building were neatly managed but voluptuous, making the entire building feel welcoming and sheltered at the same time.

We all got out of the truck, and before we headed to the obvious main doors Cattie stopped us, grabbing Cass and I both by the hands.

“I love you guys, and I’m proud of you for doing this,” she said, looking us both in the eyes in turn. “I’m gonna have to do this too, and I’m scared for myself already, so… Yeah. I just love you both so much.”

We ended up having another quick group hug, and the feel of them in my arms helped ease some of the stress that was sitting on my shoulders.

Inside the front entryway there was a small sitting area off to either side and a bright lobby area that directed the eye right to the front desk where two secretaries were working. One was a tall, slender black man dressed in a flamboyant collared shirt covered in a bright flower pattern - I would have thought it was a Hawaiin shirt if it wasn’t long-sleeved and the collar was starched-hard and upright. The other was a pretty blonde with an utterly cute smile and a vaguely Hispanic accent despite her almost Nordic colouring. “Hello,” she said warmly.

Her customer service voice was so good I almost thought she hadn’t practised that greeting before, but I had to guess she’d been hired because she could strike that balance between welcoming but not too warm as to invite something further from the people coming in seeking emotional help.

“Hi,” Cass said, clearly feeling her nerves still, and Cattie echoed her a little more firmly.

“Hi,” I said as well, stepping up followed by them. “Um, this is our first time here, but we do have appointments. I’m Robbie, this is my wife Cassidy.”

“Right,” the blonde said, referencing a screen behind the counter of the desk. “We’ve got you both in for intro sessions, one after the other. And I’m seeing here that you have couples counselling next week?”

“That’s right,” Cass said, stepping up with me a little more equitably.

“Right, I remember scheduling this,” the black man said, his voice an odd combination of resonant and deep, but also with a stereotypical ‘gay voice’ which made for a surprising combination, especially from his thin frame. “Just so you know, you won’t have the same therapist for the three type sessions - it would be ethically iffy for any of them to do that, even if you explicitly agreed. So, Robbie, you’ll be meeting with Doc Samson in about ten minutes, and Cassidy you’ll be meeting with Doc Amberlee starting in about an hour. Then we have you guys booked with Doc Carter together next week.”

“And don’t worry,” the blonde said with that same warm, but not too warm, tone and smile. “We have six licensed and accredited therapists as part of our practice here at Good Thoughts. If you don’t feel like you’re meshing well with any of them, or if the Docs think you might get on better with someone else based on your personality or needs, we can shift things around without any feelings getting hurt. Matching the right person and skillset to you is important, and might take a try or two.”

“That sounds great,” I said. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” they both said, and then glanced at each other and I saw the first glimpse of a non-Customer Service moment between them.

They didn’t like each other. At all. They were just good at hiding it.

“If you want to take a seat, Doc Samson will be out soon to bring you back, Robbie,” the black man said. “Cassidy, you and your friend can feel free to wait there, or if you like you can head down the street and there’s a Starbucks there, and we can text you a five-minute warning.”

Cass glanced at me and Cattie, her nerves still a little apparent and raw. “Um, maybe in the future, but I think this time we’ll wait here.”

“OK,” he replied with another of those customer service smiles.

We backed away, and Cass grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly. The sitting area on one side of the lobby had a couple of other people waiting for appointments or people already back there, so we headed to the empty other side and grabbed our seats.

“Alright, so, I know this might be inappropriate,” Cattie whispered as we sat down huddled together. “But she is ridiculously pretty.”

“I know,” Cass said, almost snorting a little, then glancing at me nervously.

“I-” I said but hesitated and glanced in the direction of the receptionists again. The blonde was answering the phone and talking quietly while the black man was typing rapidly at his computer. “I mean, yeah, she’s pretty,” I said. “But not really my type.”

“Tall, blonde, and perky isn’t your type?” Cattie asked with a little grin. “I guess I better not dye my hair back to natural.”

“I mean her personality, baby,” I said quietly. “You’re amazing, and your personality only lifts you even higher. Eleven out of ten. But I felt like I didn’t get any personality out of her.”

“What? No, she was nice,” Cassidy said. “So was he. Why do you think they were weird?”

I cleared my throat slightly, shifting in my seat to tilt more towards them and moved my hand to cover my lips from the receptionists’ direction. “They hate each other,” I said, so quietly I was almost mouthing it.

“What?” Cattie asked.

“No,” Cass said, almost too loud.

“Seriously,” I said. “Look, you guys can do the whole read-between-the-lines, track subtweets and figure out who is made at who, or who had a bad reputation online and stuff, right? Well, I work with lots of different coworkers in different jobs, and dealing with lots of different kinds of customers. Those two are either in a fight about something or hate each other’s guts, but they are both good enough at their jobs that they don’t let it show.”

Both my fiancee and my girlfriend frowned as they looked over at the receptionists at the same time, then realised they were being super obvious and both looked away.

“Are you sure?” Cass asked.

I realised we were using this to avoid the nerves over our pending appointments and didn’t care. “Eighty-five per cent?” I guessed. Then I almost laughed as they both looked toward the receptionists in unison before snapping back again.

“Well, either way,” Cattie finally said. “I’d sit on her face.”

That almost made Cassidy spit out the water she’d started to sip from a bottle she took out of her purse, and made me clap a hand over my mouth as I snorted and had to keep in my laugh.

Ten minutes later, with one of the folks on the other side of the lobby getting summoned back by a well-dressed man in his late fifties or early sixties, my name was called.

“Robbie?”

I looked over and saw a guy, maybe in his forties, a little pudgy and bald, but sporting a moustache that would have made Tom Selleck proud. He also happened to be dressed in a Las Vegas Knights hockey jersey, cargo shorts, and Birkenstock sandals. 

“That’s me,” I said, slowly standing.

“Great,” he smiled, coming over to us and offering me his hand. “I’m Doc Samson.”

“Um, OK,” I said, a little thrown by his appearance. Then I shook my head. “Right. Uh, this is my fiancee, Cassidy,” I gestured to Cass, then on to Cattie. “And this is my girlfriend Catherine.”

I was pretty sure I heard rapid typing come to a sudden stop over in the direction of the receptionists.

“Nice to meet you both,” Doc Samson said, shaking their hands in order without missing a beat. He smirked a little and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Well, I can see that things might be a little complicated. Let’s head back and see if we’re gonna get along, eh?”

“Sure,” I said. “Sounds good, Doc.”

He led me towards one of the hallways deeper into the building and I glanced over my shoulder at my girls. They looked about as confused as I did.

This guy was a therapist?