Free Three Is Just Enough by Jon Keys

what slot. Sorry.”
    “It’s okay. I’m a little overwhelmed, too. Like I said, I hurt Cole today, and I didn’t mean to, but I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about our relationship with everyone. Then there’s the fact that there’s three of us, hell I don’t even know if there’s a term for us.”
    “Poly.”
    “Excuse me?”
    Zach laughed. “Your relationship with Cole and Tara, it’s called Polyamorous, poly for short. Technically, your specific arrangement is a triad.”
    “Great, I’m in a relationship named after a parrot or Chinese organized crime.”
    Zach looked confused for a moment, then started laughing. “Well, not exactly, but that was pretty good.”
    Dalton began to chuckle. “We might as well see some humor in the whole thing. But what do I do—I don’t want to hurt either of them. But I’m not even sure how I feel about being with both of them.”
    “Take a deep breath, and calm down. Let’s think about this for a minute. Poly covers a lot of relationships. Most of them don’t consist of sex between all the people involved.”
    “Why not? That’s the fun part.”
    Zach chuckled and shook his head. “Well, some people wouldn’t agree with you. Some people who are in a poly relationship are straight. For them the thought of making it with your hot muscular roommate wouldn’t be appealing at all.”
    “Okay, well let’s bring this conversation back to me.”
    Zach nodded. “Yeah, I don’t need to share everything I learned in my one human sexuality course. So let’s see, what do we know about this relationship?”
    Dalton waited for the first question.
    “So if any of these get too personal, just pass. Let’s start easy…have the three of you been intimate, or are you just at the talking stage.”
    “No, past talking.”
    “Okay, is it an exclusive relationship, or open? Can you be with someone other than the two of them?”
    Dalton thought for a moment. “I think it’s exclusive, like a monogamous couple, but with the three of us. But Tara said it didn’t have to be all three of us every time. We don’t have to get clearance or anything, either.”
    “Okay, good information. So it’s an exclusive committed relationship, it sounds like to me. But the way you pair up can be whatever. Anything else.”
    “Well…”
    Zach grinned at Dalton. “At this point I wouldn’t worry about something being too personal.”
    Dalton returned the smile and nodded in agreement. “Well, Tara told Cole that he could show me his morning wood instead of her.”
    Zach started chuckling and soon fell onto the couch and buried his face in a pillow as he laughed hysterically. Dalton waited patiently—at this point happy to have a friend who he could talk to about their relationship. After a few minutes, Zach lifted his head and wiped his eyes. “Sorry, sounds like your partner has a healthy sex drive. But it doesn’t mean much. One thing though, some guys are exclusive tops, just so you know.”
    “Oh, Cole’s not.” Dalton slapped his hand over his mouth and heat rolled across his face when he realized what he’d said.
    Zach lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
    “Forget I said that, okay? I’m already in enough trouble with Cole.”
    A serious expression settled on Zach’s face. “Yeah, you’re right. You said there were some problems. What happened?”
    “Well, we went to the farmer’s market this morning. But you knew that. It’s the last one of the year so Cole wanted to stock up. Anyway, one of guys working the booth for the student farm knew Cole and he introduced me as his boyfriend.”
    “Okay, I can see where that might not make you happy, but I don’t see why he’d be pissed off at you.”
    “Well it upset me that he outed me and we hadn’t even talked about it. But we’d started to relax a little when we ran into you and your friends.”
    “And you introduced him as your friend. Now the picture is starting to come together.”
    Dalton sighed in