Chapter 14: The Next Night's Negotiation
The shower at Suki’s place had been a silent, solitary rinse-off, a tactical retreat from the evidence. But the master bedroom in Catriona and Aidan’s apartment felt different. It smelled like home—lavender and old books and the particular musk of their shared sleep. Suki sat cross-legged on the rumpled duvet, wearing one of Cat’s old band t-shirts and a pair of Aidan’s sweatpants that pooled around her ankles. The uniform of a friend. The uniform of something else, now.
Aidan was quiet. He’d been quiet since they’d gotten into the Uber, his hand resting on Catriona’s thigh, his eyes fixed on the passing neon. Now he leaned against the headboard, a bottle of red wine balanced on his stomach, pouring a third generous glug into Suki’s glass.
“So,” Catriona said, drawing the word out. She was curled at the foot of the bed, her chin propped on her knees, eyes bright and observational. “Twenty-two thousand. The superchat alone cleared two grand. I’ve already edited and queued up three teasers for Twitter.” She took a slow sip from her own glass. “You’re a genius, Sook.”
Suki felt the praise warm her, but it was a distant heat. She watched the wine swirl in her glass, a deep vortex. “It wasn’t just the numbers.”
“I know,” Cat said, softer.
“It felt…” Suki searched for the word, her eyes flicking to Aidan, then back to her glass. “Real. Which is insane, because it was the most performative thing I’ve ever done. But it wasn’t with some rando from an agency. It was with you guys.” She took a fortifying drink. “And I haven’t felt that… connected, in a long time. Maybe ever.”
Aidan’s jaw worked. He set the bottle down on the nightstand with a soft clink. “It was intense.”
“Was it too much?” Catriona asked, her question aimed at him, but her gaze including Suki. “For real. No camera talk.”
“No,” he said, too quickly. He ran a hand through his already messy hair. “It wasn’t too much. It was… a lot. But not too much.” He looked at Suki, his hazel eyes serious in the lamplight. “You okay?”
The simple concern nearly undid her. “I’m good. Really good. Better than good.” She drew a breath, the fabric of his sweatpants soft under her fingers. “That’s why I’m thinking.”
Catriona’s eyebrows lifted. “Uh oh.”
“I’m thinking about sustainability. The algorithm, the churn. One viral collab gives you a spike. Then what? You go back to solo, the numbers taper. Or you find another guy, and it’s… transactional. Gross.” She looked between them, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. “Or you build on what works. On what feels real.”
The room got very still. The faint hum of the city through the double-glazed windows seemed to grow louder.
“What are you saying, Suki?” Aidan’s voice was low, a careful neutral.
“I’m saying…” She put her glass down, fearing her hands would shake. “What if we didn’t stop? What if this wasn’t a one-time collab? What if… we explored this? The three of us. On camera, off camera. A proper… thing.”
The word throuple hung unspoken, too clinical, too trendy for the raw, velvet-lined reality of the last twenty-four hours.
Catriona didn’t look shocked. A slow, intrigued smile played on her lips. She’d obviously considered it. But her eyes went to Aidan, reading him.
He was staring at a point on the duvet between them, his expression unreadable. The easygoing man from before the stream was gone, replaced by someone weighing an immense, invisible weight. “Suki… that’s a permanent kind of suggestion.”
“I’m not asking for a ring,” she said, her voice firming. “I’m not asking to move in tomorrow. I’m asking for a chance. To see where this goes. You and Cat are bedrock. That’s not changing. I’m not trying to replace anything. I’m… proposing an addition.”
“It’s one thing to film,” Aidan said, finally looking at her. His eyes were conflicted. “It’s hot. It’s fun. It’s for a purpose. It’s another to… be together. All the time. The dynamic changes. Everything changes.”
“It already has,” Catriona said quietly. They both looked at her. She swirled her wine. “Last night changed it. The second you agreed, Aidan, it changed. We can pretend it didn’t, but we’d be lying. The question isn’t whether it changed. It’s what we do with the change.”
She was right. The silence that followed was thick, charged with memory—the taste of bourbon, the feel of the chaise, the explicit, loving command in Cat’s voice, the shattering intimacy of the aftermath.
Aidan shook his head, not in refusal, but in bemusement. “A throuple. Jesus. My mum would have a coronary.”
“Your mum doesn’t need to know,” Catriona snorted. “This is ours. Not hers.”
“And what does it look like?” he pressed, sitting up straighter. “Do we… schedule nights? How does this work, practically? Emotionally?” He looked at his wife, a flicker of vulnerability there. “Are you really okay with this, Cat? Not as a producer, but as my wife?”
Catriona unfolded herself and crawled up the bed to sit beside him, her shoulder pressing against his. She took his hand. “I’ve been sharing him with you in stories for years,” she said to Suki, a small, genuine smile on her face. “Bragging about him. It felt… natural, to share him for real. More than that. It felt good. Watching you two… it didn’t make me feel jealous. It made me feel powerful. And included.” She looked back at Aidan. “I’m secure in us. This feels like an expansion, not a threat. But only if you’re in. Fully in. Not just as a performer.”
Aidan absorbed this, his thumb stroking Cat’s knuckles. He looked at Suki, really looked at her—the friend who’d crashed on their couch after bad dates, the woman who’d trusted him enough to let him wreck her on camera, the person now offering a terrifying, exhilarating form of belonging.
Suki held his gaze, letting him see her hope, her fear, the naked want she usually kept locked down tight. She didn’t blink.
He let out a long, slow breath. “No schedules,” he said, his voice rough. “No spreadsheets. We feel it out. We talk. Constantly. If anyone feels weird, we stop and talk more.”
A tentative, impossible hope blossomed in Suki’s chest. “That’s all I’m asking.”
He nodded, once. Then he reached out, not for Catriona, but for Suki. His hand covered hers where it rested on the duvet. His palm was warm, his grip sure. “Then we feel it out.”
Catriona watched their joined hands, her playful smile returning, edged with something deeper, more profound. She lifted her wine glass. “To the new venture.”
Suki picked up her glass with her free hand. Aidan retrieved his.
They didn’t clink them. They just held them aloft for a moment, a silent toast in the lamplit room, before each taking a drink. The wine tasted like possibility, sweet and dark and spiked with risk.
Aidan didn’t let go of Suki’s hand.
Aidan didn’t let go of Suki’s hand. His thumb moved over her knuckles, a slow, grounding stroke that felt like a promise. The silence stretched, comfortable and deep, filled with the weight of the decision they’d just made.
Catriona watched their linked hands, her head tilting. “So we’re really doing this,” she said, not a question. A statement laced with wonder.
“We are,” Aidan said, his voice low. But then he paused, his grip tightening just slightly around Suki’s fingers. He looked from her hopeful face to Cat’s satisfied one. “But we need to be clear. Right now.”
Something in his tone made the air cool. Suki’s breath hitched.
“Clear on what?” Catriona asked, setting her glass down. “The talking part? We just agreed.”
“On what this is.” Aidan released Suki’s hand, not roughly, but to sit forward, elbows on his knees. He looked directly at his wife. “You said it before. ‘No one needs to know.’ That your mum doesn’t need to know. That it’s just ours.”
Catriona shrugged. “Well, yeah. It’s private. It’s complicated for other people to get their heads around.”
“No,” Aidan said, firm. “This isn’t right.”
The three words landed like stones. Suki felt her stomach drop. The hopeful blossom in her chest withered, turning into a cold, hard knot. She looked down at the duvet, at the embroidered A.C., feeling suddenly like an intruder in its monogrammed intimacy.
“What do you mean?” Catriona’s voice had lost its playful edge.
Aidan turned to Suki. Her vision blurred, hot and sudden. She blinked rapidly, refusing to let the tear fall, but her chin trembled. She looked utterly devastated, the confidence from moments ago gone.
“Hey,” he said, softer, reaching to touch her knee. “Suki. Look at me.”
She couldn’t.
“You said no one needs to know,” she whispered, her voice cracking. She was quoting Cat, and the betrayal in it was sharp. “That doesn’t work for me. I can’t… I won’t be a side piece. Not even to you guys.”
“You’re not listening,” Aidan said, his hand firm on her leg. “I’m not agreeing to that. I’m saying the opposite.” He waited until she finally lifted her gaze, her green eyes glassy. “If I’m dating Suki properly, it’s in the open. She’s not a dirty little secret. Not some clandestine fuck for content we hide from everyone.”
Catriona opened her mouth, then closed it.
“My friends know,” Aidan continued, his gaze locking with Suki’s, willing her to understand. “My family knows. They know just what a special, important person she is to me. Because she is.” He looked back at Catriona, including her. “Everyone knows I love her, and we’re all together. Or we don’t do it. No half-measures. No hiding.”
The silence this time was absolute, deafening. Suki stared at him, the cold knot in her stomach melting, flooding her with a warmth so intense it was dizzying. He was choosing her, not in the shadows, but in the light. He was offering her a real place, with real stakes.
Catriona was perfectly still, processing. The possessive excitement she’d felt was now tangled with this new, daunting condition. This wasn’t just a private adventure anymore. It was a public declaration. A redesign of their entire social reality.
“You’d tell your parents?” she finally asked, her voice thin.
“Yes,” Aidan said, without hesitation.
“And say what, exactly?”
“The truth. That I love my wife. And that I also love our best friend. That we’re figuring it out, together.” He said it simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s messy. But it’s honest. And she,” he nodded at Suki, “deserves honest.”
Suki wiped at her eye with the back of her hand, a quick, furious motion. The vulnerability was still there, but underpinned now by a dazed relief. “You’d do that?”
“It’s the only way it works,” Aidan said. “For me.”
Catriona let out a long, shaky breath that was almost a laugh. She picked up the wine bottle, found it empty, and set it back down with a clunk. “Well. Fuck.” She looked at both of them, her mischievous streak wrestling with the monumental scale of what was being asked. “My mother will literally faint. She’ll need medical attention.”
A ghost of a smile touched Suki’s lips. “Mine will just be quietly, profoundly disappointed. A classic Japanese technique.”
The shared joke, however slight, broke the tension. The atmosphere in the room shifted again, not back to easy comfort, but towards a solid, deliberate new ground.
“Okay,” Catriona said. She said it again, louder. “Okay. If that’s the price of admission. Openness.” She crawled across the bed until she was in front of Aidan, her knees touching his. “But we control the narrative. We tell people together. On our terms.”
“Of course,” Aidan said.
“And we start small. Maybe with Leo and Miles first.” Their most open-minded friends.
“Okay.”
Catriona then turned to Suki, her expression unreadable for a heartbeat. Then she smiled, a real, Catriona smile, bright and daring. “Welcome to the family, officially. You get his terrible morning breath and my compulsive need to reorganize the kitchen cabinets. And us.”
Suki laughed, the sound wet and relieved. She reached out, and Catriona took her hand. Aidan put his hand over theirs.
They sat like that, a triad of tangled fingers in the lamplight, the city humming its indifferent song beyond the glass. The path ahead was terrifying, scattered with potential landmines of judgment and awkward explanations. But it was a path, clear and uncharted, and they were on it together.