Prelude To Launch (sWet) by Nevea Lane

1
     
     
    “This has to end at some point.” Alexia had no other way to put it. She stared at them both, trying to assert  the fact that the fantasy had to come to a close.
    It had been almost three years since that fateful meeting, and the three of them had been damn near inseparable, but sooner or later they had to grow up, didn’t they? Cody just stared at her with his gray eyes, a smirk on his face as if she was making a joke. His dimples even stood out. If he hadn’t shaved his hair completely bald this past week, she would have tousled his hair, as was her custom. She was still trying to get used to him having a clean-shaven head. She’d made one joke about him being Mr. Clean, and she hadn’t been able to walk straight for two days.
    Heath, on the other hand, stared at her with his intense, baby-blue eyes and his mouth was twisted into a frown. There wasn’t anything she could do about the fact he never said much because she actually liked him the way he was. He was the perfect complement to the jovial Cody, and it provided perfect balance to their clique. She sighed. It was going to be difficult having to leave them, but all good things must end, as the damn cliché goes.
    She was sitting at the breakfast bar of their rented town home, sipping coffee in her short shorts and a T-shirt—Cody’s or Heath’s, she couldn’t remember which. That was the other thing she had to work out. Explaining the fact she was ”with” both of them was difficult. She knew people looked at them and assumed one of them was the third wheel. She’d seen both Cody and Heath get hit on by gay men who assumed she was the third wheel.
    However, strangers were one thing—friends and family were another. None of them had told their parents that, hey, love triangles are where it’s at! It was hard enough to convince her parents having two male roommates wasn’t going to influence her in any way. She kept hidden the fact she was in a relationship with both of them and that moving in together had been logical. However, it was six months from graduation, and while they each had their lives pretty much plotted, they had refused to talk about the inevitable—leaving each other.
    The past three years had been a flurry of good laughs, great memories, and the most outstanding and explosive sex she’d ever experienced. Not that she’d been all that experienced when she’d met the duo of Heath and Cody in the first place, but what they’d learned together was intense and satisfying. The truth was, this wasn’t normal.
    Cody was the first one to break the silence. Walking away from the omelets he was making for all of them, he stood on the other side of the counter, eyeing her with this stare that said this wouldn’t be discussed. She was tired of not discussing it. She wouldn’t be deterred. Lifting her head in the air and meeting his gaze, she cleared her throat.

2
     
     
    “Come on, Cody, we know this can’t last. This isn’t normal.”
    “Fuck ‘normal’. It works, isn’t that the important thing?” Cody was usually quick with a comeback, usually witty, but he never had the ”fuck that” attitude he was sporting now. She would have expected that response from Heath, but not Cody.
    “Yes, it‘s always important. It works, and it works well. But it can’t last.”
    “Why can’t it last?” Heath’s voice was its usual low, husky growl, and if she hadn’t been sitting right next to him, she wouldn’t have heard it.
    “You know damn well why. Have you told your parents about this arrangement? With your parents being the upstanding citizens they are, do you honestly think this would be okay with them? They would cut you off financially, and you know it. “ She put down her coffee cup and folded her hands in front of her. Why wouldn’t they ever listen to her? She’d been making the same argument for the past two years. For herself, she hadn’t even looked at another guy seriously since meeting these two. She