Chapter 109: Do You Have Feelings For Him?

Bryce stirred, and when he felt familiar arms against him, a smile touched his lips before he had even opened his eyes.

He slowly lifted his eyelids and found Dave looking down at him, already awake.

"Hey..." Dave murmured, his voice rough with sleep.

"Hey..." Bryce answered, his own voice even rougher than Dave’s.

Their eyes remained locked for a moment, the quiet intimacy between them settling naturally into the space they shared. Then Bryce shifted against him and turned his gaze toward Vincent’s side of the bed, expecting to find him there.

But the space was empty.

The smile faded from his face, replaced by a faint frown as he sat up abruptly.

"Where’s Vincent?" he asked, turning slightly toward Dave.

"I didn’t find him here when I woke up," Dave answered.

The response deepened the uneasiness gathering inside Bryce. He lowered his head and leaned into his palms, rubbing his face as though the simple motion might ease the discomfort settling beneath his skin.

He reached for his clothes on the floor, feeling Dave’s eyes following him as he pulled them on. His movements were distracted, his thoughts already straying toward possibilities he could not confirm.

"I’m gonna..." He gestured toward the door, allowing the rest of his words to fade intentionally.

Dave simply nodded.

Bryce walked out, intent on finding out whether Vincent was still somewhere in the house, even though he could already feel, with unsettling certainty, that he was not.

He checked the rooms, looked through the spaces where Vincent might have gone, and searched without finding any sign of him.

When he finally returned to the living room, he lowered himself onto the couch. He sat there, his mind beginning to wander as he reconsidered the decision he had allowed himself to voice the previous day.

But before his mind could drift any farther, Dave appeared, already fully dressed. He leaned against the wall at the end of the hallway leading into the living room, his unreadable gaze fixed on him.

"He isn’t in the house?" He asked.

"No," Bryce answered.

"Perhaps he had something to do at work and didn’t want to wake you." Dave’s voice carried a clear attempt to calm him, offering a reasonable explanation for Vincent’s absence and reassuring him that it did not necessarily mean anything was wrong.

Even so, the reassurance failed to settle Bryce.

His concern remained, refusing to loosen its hold on him. Rather than respond to what Dave had said, he turned toward another question.

"What do you actually feel about what I proposed yesterday and what happened between the three of us yesterday?"

The question slipped out before he could decide whether he truly wanted to voice it. He hesitated, then continued, his uncertainty becoming more apparent with every word.

"Be completely honest. If you feel I’m being unreasonable and acting like some kind of a bitch, you know... wanting two men at the same time... I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s..."

It had begun as a question, but by the time he reached the middle, it had become something more personal, a reflection of the ugly feelings he could not fully explain.

He knew what he wanted, but wanting it did not make the situation simple. The thought of loving two men at once had left him questioning himself, searching for something wrong with his desires and finding only confusion.

Dave frowned, clearly displeased by the way Bryce was speaking about himself. He stepped toward him and sat beside him.

"Don’t speak like that about yourself, it sounds like you’re insulting the love of my life and I won’t be allowing it."

Bryce stared at him, almost speechless at those words.

"You honestly don’t mind?" he asked, his question firmer this time.

"Honestly, Bryce, all I care about right now is that you actually let me back into your life after everything, and I’m not willing to fuck that up again. I’m with you. I’m close to you. You just showed me how much you still love me by allowing me into something you could have easily pushed me away from, so what else could I possibly want, or what right would I have to feel entitled to anything you decide?"

Dave paused, seemingly searching for the right words to express what he meant.

"Although... watching you beneath Vincent, clearly consumed by everything he made you feel, stirred something in me. An older version of myself, along with a few insecurities. But it didn’t last long, not even until now, and I think that alone tells me I have no problem with you loving Vincent and wanting to be with him, too."

He exhaled quietly, his expression becoming more thoughtful.

"I don’t know. I don’t even know how to explain what I feel about it, but I want you to understand that I genuinely don’t have a problem with it."

Bryce remained silent for a long moment. Part of him wanted to ask Dave about the suspicion that had been troubling him for the past few hours, while another part urged him to leave the question unspoken.

He studied Dave, weighing the uncertainty against his intention to make everything clear between the three of them.

He intented to go to the company and speak to Vincent as well.

If he truly wanted everything between the three of them to be clear, he had to ask Dave directly and hear the truth for himself.

With that in mind, he finally decided to ask, though the question came out far more bluntly than he had intended.

"Perhaps the reason you’re willing to accept all of this isn’t only because you don’t want to lose me. Do you maybe... think it could be because you’re starting to experience the same thing? Falling in love with two people at the same time?" He paused, realizing how his words sounded. "Okay, sorry about my rambling. I could be completely wrong, but... are you starting to feel something romantic toward Vincent?"

Dave’s breath seemed to catch in his throat.

He stared at Bryce, his expression caught between the shock of someone completely caught off guard and the guilt of someone caught red-handed.