Coming clean. Reluctantly.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas said softly. He was directly addressing the girls, but I could tell it was directed to me as well. “I shouldn’t have suggested the game at all.”

“We agreed.” Grace grimaced. “We could’ve just lied, but….”

“I knew we shouldn’t have played,” Mila groaned.

“There’s nothing wrong with the game,” Sarah argued. “These two took things too far.” She glared at Ben and Kevin, but they seemed unable to think of anything other than the obvious revelation.

“B-But wait,” Kevin started. “W-Who…? Which…?”

“We’re dating,” I admitted, not looking at them, but down at the pool. I tried to keep the venom out of my voice, but I didn’t know if I succeeded. “Since Wednesday.”

My head was starting to hurt. Slowly, I began to believe that maybe I was overreacting. Surely this wasn’t as big a deal as I thought and I shouldn’t be getting angry at something so trivial. But… I always worried that I would make people uncomfortable with anything I said, to the point it made me paranoid. But Ben and Kevin didn’t care that they’d been making ME uncomfortable, despite Thomas asking them to stop several times. Then again, Thomas was the one to suggest this stupid game. I held my head and tried to shake away all these thoughts.

“A-All four of you?” Ben asked.

“Mila, Grace and I are dating Oliver,” Sarah replied in a cutting voice. “We wanted to keep it a secret for as long as we could. We’re failing spectacularly so far.”

“B-But…”

“It’s like an open relationship. Big whoop,” Grace cut Kevin, crossing her arms below her chest. “Don’t act like this is that big a deal.”

I felt a hand brush my shoulder. I flinched, but when I turned back to see Mila’s worried face, I eased up.

“You okay?” she asked me, softly.

“...Sorry. I screwed up. And now…” ‘I’m overreacting’, is how I wanted to finish that, but I couldn’t. Half of me felt that way, but the other half felt I had the right to be mad.

Mila held my hand, interlocked her fingers with mine and kissed my cheek. “It’s fine. Remember. I didn’t want to keep it a secret in the first place. And we’ve… been saying more than we should, anyway. The girls and I” She giggled. “For all her talk, Grace wants to shout it to the four winds, too.”

That did make me feel a little better. I gave her hand a gentle squeeze, and by God did it reassure me that things were okay. The contact and her smile.

“And you knew?” I heard Kevin ask. The others were continuing that conversation.

“Yes, I knew,” Thomas admitted. “Oliver trusted me to keep the secret, which is why I was asking you, politely, to drop the fucking subject.”

Ben grimaced and Kevin outright flinched and shrunk at the rise of Thomas’ voice.

“But they were playing along!” Kevin argued. “Oliver could’ve just not drank!”

“He’s honest to a fault,” Sarah told him. “He hates lying.”

It felt weird, and wrong too, to hear people talk about me not three meters away from me. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what. In fact, I feared, especially now, that whatever I said would make everything worse.

“Can you really not notice when you’re making a guy uncomfortable?” Grace asked them.

Oh, I think they noticed. They just didn’t think it was a big deal. But I didn’t want this to end with people mad at each other or something. I’d rather they be mad at me than fighting amongst themselves over this.

“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s… done already.” I swallowed. “Sorry, I better leave now.”

“No, no,” Ben said, standing up. “We’ll leave. I have to wake up early tomorrow and Kevin still has a date. Sorry to make things awkward.”

“Y-Yeah.” Kevin stood up as well. “Don’t worry. Like we promised, we’ll keep quiet. We won’t tell anybody.”

I heard Grace muttering under her breath. “You better.”

Thomas didn’t try to stop his friends. In fact, he saw them to the door.

Mila led me by the hand and asked me to sit down. I did so reluctantly, looking down at the glass table. Thomas came back and took a seat with us as well. None of us spoke for a long moment, until I couldn’t hold it anymore and spoke despite the knot in my throat.

“I’m sorry. I did it again.”

“Did what?” Thomas asked me.

“Ruined another game,” I said. “Ruined another party.”

“What do you mean another?” Sarah asked in a tone that said she didn’t think I had ruined anything.

“W-When I was a kid, I went to a birthday party with my sister. We were playing truth or dare, and they asked me to do something I wasn’t comfortable with, so I didn’t. Everyone started calling me lame… Even my sister.” I don’t know why I was admitting this. “Maybe I’m just not made for this stuff.”

God, the self-pity in my voice disgusted even me. It’s seriously better to just stay quiet, to not say anything, to not be…

“No, Oliver. This was my fault,” Thomas told me. “I thought this would be a good way to tease them back, to show them how uncomfortable it can be to be asked questions you don’t want to answer. I didn’t think they’d double down.”

“B-But I’m the one who overreacted…”

“Sure, it would’ve been better to just laugh it off,” Sarah said. “To joke around, to tease Kevin for saying he’d never had a threesome or something. But that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to get mad, Oliver. I got mad, too. If you hadn’t stood up I would’ve been the one to say something. Believe me, I’d call you out if I thought this was your fault. You know this. But it’s not your fault. And besides, who really gives a shit if they know?”

“B-But you said…”

“There can be some complications, yeah,” Grace said, shrugging. “But it’s not like we’re going to jail or anything. Technically, the school’s code of conduct prohibits relationships within school grounds, but they can’t enforce anything on us if we play it quiet. And besides, I really do believe they won’t tell anyone.”

Thomas nodded. “Even if the guys do end up slipping, at worst you’ll have people talking about you for a couple of months, maybe three. Some will call Oliver a hero, some will say the girls are sluts, some will say you’re a three-timing asshole and most will probably just think you’re all begging for attention and nothing is actually happening. As long as you’re not making out or having sex in school…”

The four, collective winces made Thomas stop. “Are you serious?” We all played innocent and no one gave an answer. “I don’t know if I should call you all stupid or be really, really jealous,” he admitted with an amused tone.

“None of us wanted to keep it a secret, anyway,” Mila said nonchalantly. “Though I’m still a little surprised that you knew, Thomas. Kinda happy about it, too.”

“Happy?” Thomas asked with a laugh. “Why?”

She giggled. “It means Oliver has someone to gossip with.”

“Oh yeah…” Sarah nodded in understanding, but then glared at the two of us. “Wait! H-How much have you told him!?”

“I…!”

Thomas barked another laugh “Relax! This dude is stingy with the details. At this point he probably knows more about my sex life and I do his.”

“Probably better that way,” Grace said, smirking teasingly. “You’d die from envy, big guy.”

“Not at all. I’m rooting for you all. What you have going on sounds really cool. I do wish I had something like it of my own, yeah, but I’m happy you all are getting along so well.”

I sighed. “You’re far more charismatic than I am,” I told him. “You could do it.”

“I think I agree,” Mila said. “I’m sure there are girls in school who’d willingly date you at the same time.”

It was Thomas’ turn to blush. “Come on, I can’t even keep one girl. What makes you think I could date two or more?”

That declaration made it so a soft silence lingered between us.

“Can we finally ask why you guys broke up, or that’s still a sore topic?” Grace asked carefully.

Thomas looked at me, silently asking for my opinion. “They won’t tell anyone. If you feel like venting again…”

“Yeah…” Thomas sighed. “My theory is that it was a combination of a lackluster sex life with the idea that Lyla didn’t like me all that much to begin with.”

“Oh,” The girls exclaimed.

“Now it makes a bit more sense,” Sarah admitted.

“Is… sex really so important in a relationship?” I asked hesitantly. It was weird for me to ask, considering that for us everything started with a night of casual, spur-of-the-moment sex. If I wasn’t as good as they claimed I was…

“I’d like to know your opinion, too,” Thomas told the girls. “Better to hear someone else’s opinion than keep knocking my head against that wall.”

“I think it can be important,” Grace started, “but it’s more so to some than others. I know couples who don’t have the best chemistry and have even broken up a few times but end up getting back together because the sex was good.”

“Girls can enjoy it just as much if not more than any guy,” Sarah added. “Some may not care much, yeah, but if you’re dating someone who does, a bad sex life will probably end in a breakup.”

“But that’s not always the case, right?” Mila asked, sounding a little hopeful. “These days there are so many ways for people to improve their sex life, so the most important thing should be good chemistry, shouldn’t it?”

“...What could I have done, then?” Thomas asked. “To improve my sex life with Lyla, I mean.”

“There’s lube, exploration, toys…” Grace began listing. “Maybe think outside the box. Sex is not just penis in vagina. It’s about feelings and what turns you on. A costume, a situation, a specific body part…”

Why did I feel like I’d heard something similar before?

Thomas sighed. “I guess we never did try many new things. I was afraid I’d make her more uncomfortable.”

“Communication goes both ways, right?” I said. “If she didn’t say anything, you can’t blame it all on yourself.”

“Just so,” Sarah agreed with me. She even got up to stand behind me and hugged me in my seat, kissing the top of my head. “We talk things out with Oliver and it’s…” She didn’t finish the sentence, but that dreamy sigh did it for me.

The contact warmed up my body, and I couldn’t stop myself from giving Sarah’s hand a little squeeze.

Thomas chuckled and nodded. “I see your point, yeah. As the days go by, the less I blame myself for this.”

This was so strange. When Ben and Kevin were asking about us, I got uncomfortable and upset. But now I was talking about sex with Thomas and my girlfriends and… there was nothing awkward about it. Thomas himself was encouraging this, and I felt like this was something good to talk about.

I suppose that’s what trust means.