Free Pass The Parcel by Rhian Cahill

together.
    Growing old together.
    Those were the things he wanted.
    And Finn wanted to start down that path now,
only he feared Kitty would laugh in his face if he told her any of
what he was thinking—feeling. Her soft breathing filled his ear and
he smiled. He’d give anything to hear that sound every night. Give
anything to fall asleep beside her at the end of every day—to open
his eyes each morning and find her there.
    “I can hear the wheels turning from here,”
Ethan whispered from the other side of Kitty.
    “Thought you were asleep too.”
    “Nope. Kelly’s the only one getting any
shuteye.”
    Finn grinned. “Guess we wore her out.”
    “Guess she’s not stressing about what happens
now,” Ethan said.
    The words wiped the smile from Finn’s face.
He couldn’t lie still any longer. Being careful not to disturb
Kitty, he rolled out of bed. “I need a drink.”
    He made his way to the living room where they
kept a well-stocked bar. Scotch was his drink of choice, and he
poured himself half a tumbler from his best bottle.
    “I’ll have one too,” Ethan appeared beside
him.
    Finn eyed his friend carefully. Scotch wasn’t
Ethan’s usual drink, so Finn held up the bottle to be sure. At
Ethan’s nod, Finn grabbed another glass and splashed in some the
twenty-one-year-old amber liquid he favoured. “Any reason you’re
drinking my alcohol?” Finn asked.
    “Misery loves company.” Ethan took the glass
from Finn and held it up. “To getting what we want.”
    Finn swirled his drink but didn’t take a sip.
“And what do we want?”
    Ethan laughed. “Don’t try to hold your cards
close to your chest. You’re forgetting who you’re talking to.”
    One corner of Finn’s mouth kicked up. “Okay.
So where do we go from here?”
    “Straight to hell if we can’t convince Kelly
we want more than tonight.”
    “Jesus.” Finn turned and paced across the
room. “I don’t think I can live with that.”
    “You think I can?”
    He faced Ethan. “No. But I don’t know how to
fix this.”
    “Fix what? All Kelly knows is that we want
her in our bed. She’ll expect it to be over now we’ve had her. We
have to show her we want more.”
    And they were back to his original question.
“More what?”
    “Everything.”
    Finn nodded. “Agreed. The question is how we
get it.”
    “Same way we got to this point.” Ethan tossed
back the last of his drink and reached for the bottle. “We keep at
her until she agrees.”
    “You want to tell her how we feel? What we
want?” Finn strode over and snatched the bottle from Ethan’s hand
before he could pour another drink. “You don’t think that will
freak her out?”
    Ethan shrugged. “I’m not suggesting we lay it
all out there. Not yet anyway.”
    “Then what are you suggesting?” Finn couldn’t
erase the image of Kitty running out the front door from his mind.
It was stuck on replay, torturing him over and over every time he
thought about telling her how he felt—what he wanted.
    “We just keep at it until we convince her we
want more than sex.”
    “Yeah but
how
?”
     
    Ethan didn’t have a clue what to say. He was
winging it. They both were. There’d never been a woman in their
lives they’d wanted to keep around for longer than a few nights of
sex. And certainly not one so deeply ingrained in their lives as
Kelly was. If he thought about it too much, he’d realise just how
much they stood to lose if this thing between the three of them
went south.
    It terrified him to say the words out loud,
but he had no choice. “I don’t know how.”
    “Fuck.” Finn thumped his glass on the bar
top.
    “I think we should just take it day by day.
She’s here now. In the morning, we’ll distract her so the last
thing on her mind is leaving, and even if she does want to, I’ll
suggest we have breakfast. Or lunch, depending on the time.
Anything to keep her with us.” Ethan knew his suggestions sounded
desperate, but the truth was they