INTRODUCTION

Jung Ewon (Aeon Rhodes)

That reunion wasn't exactly sunshine and roses, I know, but, really, can you blame me? I was still neck-deep in pain over my sister's death, still trying to learn how to be a parent, still adjusting to living in a new city and starting a new job, and, let's be honest, I was still in love with both Nichkhun and Taecyeon, even though I knew it was weak and pointless.

Holding myself together after seeing either of them would have been hard. Managing to keep the tears at bay when I was faced with both of them at the same time was a small miracle. Keeping myself upright when I realized they were a couple should have qualified me for some sort of lifetime achievement award. But keeping calm while Ok 'All I Ever Wanted Was a ' Taecyeon spewed lies and Nichkhun 'Now You See Him' Buck 'Now You Don't' Horvejkul claimed he wanted to be part of my life was more than I could handle.

So I lost my temper, raised my voice, and played the part of the bitter ex who can't move on with his life. It wasn't my proudest moment. It would have been much more fulfilling to look great, have a super hot, super smart, super nice boyfriend to throw in at their faces, and come across as blase over their unexpected and unwelcome appearance. But you know what? it. One out of three isn't bad, and no matter what they did to with my heart and my head and my spirit, I still looked damn good.

It's better to look good than to feel good, right? I was pretty sure I'd seen that on a mug or a bumper sticker or a T-shirt at some point, so it must be true.

And even if it isn't true, I was in the best shape of my life and my tight pants and sleeveless shirt weren't doing anything to hide it. Taecyeon, on the other hand, looked like maybe he had put on some weight. Of course, it just served to make him look more masculine, just made me think about how much I enjoyed being covered by that wide, strong body. And that made me want to strangle myself because it was insane to still be lusting after a man I hated. Well, loved and hated. Hated that loved.

Back to how great I looked. My now blonde hair, reaching a little below my shoulders and parted on the left side of my head was still as thick and healthy as it had been in high school. Nichkhun, on the other hand, was sporting a receding hairline. But somehow the sort hairstyle he wore made even thinning hair work. When I had last seen him, he had been barely into twenties, still a tad round-faced, with hair long enough to fall into his eyes more often than not. There was nothing round about his face anymore, it was strong-jawed, sculpted-angle perfection.Even the little lines next to his dark brown eyes looked y, and his wild thick brows were looking more sophisticated.

Okay, fine, I looked hot, but so did they. Damn them for having aged so well! And damn me for noticing. I wanted them out of my sight. I wanted them out of my head. I wanted them out of my heart.

But, thankfully, I didn't get those things.

Which brings me to the next picture in the album: Taecyeon is sitting on the grass, surrounded be geese, and looking paler than I would have thought possible for a dark skinned man. Nichkhun is a couple of feet away, balancing Jisoo on his hip, holding Jimin's hand, and laughing fondly at Taecyeon. And even though you can't see me, when I look at that picture, I distinctly remember hiding behind the camera and wondering whether I was in a waking dream or a living nightmare.

Nichkhun Buck Horvejkul

In all the years I had known Ewon, he had never yelled at me and I had never refused him anything. But there he was, shaking with anger, glaring daggers, and shouting at me to leave. And there I was, not budging an inch and refusing to give him what he wanted. It was horrible. Every single part of that exchange was horrible. So I did what came naturally and looked to Taecyeon for help.

"I'm afraid of geese!" Taecyeon yelled.

My jaw dropped. We were loosing Ewon and he was talking about poultry? I swung around to face Ewon, ready to jump back into the driver's seat of the regain-his-trust train, and saw that he was looking at Taecyeon in a way that seemed interested rather than angry. That was a hopeful development, so I kept my mouth shut.

"Geese?" Ewon asked curiously.

"Yes." Taecyeon his lips nervously "When I was a kid, my parents took my sister and me to the park. It was big with walking trails and hills and a lake, and the lake had lots of ducks and swans and geese. Well, one time we were there and I had a bag of old bread to feed the ducks. I couldn't have been more than four or five, and the geese surrounded me, trying to get the bread. I was pretty short and they're surprisingly big and very aggressive and they have those eyes on the sides of their heads, which is scary as hell and-"

"Why are you telling me this?" Ewon whispered "I don't think you said one word about your family the whole time we were together. Why now?"

"Because I want you to know that I've changed." Taecyeon sounded so earnest, so hopeful.

But apparently Ewon didn't see it that way, because he scoffed and in a disbelieving tone said "You've changed?"

"Yes. You said it yourself, I never told you anything before, and now I confessed-"

"Great. You confessed your deep dark geese-fearing secret." Ewon rolled his eyes "Do you actually expect that to make a difference? Do you actually think I give a about ducks that freaked you out thirty years ago? Do you-"

"Remember when we went to get pie that night and I wouldn't share with you?" Taecyeon asked.

Ewon stilled and furrowed his brow "Which time?"

"Every time." Taecyeon rasped.

"I remember." Ewon closed the door and leaned back against it "At first I thought you didn't like pie, but when I baked them at home, you always ate them, so I figured you had a germ phobia or something about sharing food."

"I used your toothbrush the first month we were together." Taecyeon reminded him "I never had any phobias where your mouth was concerned, baby."

"Jesus." Ewon flicked his eyes toward me and then back to Taecyeon "You're exactly the same. Still running on that same truck, even with your boyfriend standing a couple of feet away."

"No, I'm not." Taecyeon walked to the couch and slumped down.

"Are you saying that wasn't a come-on? Because that'd make you a and a liar. At least before you had the decency to be honest about your motives."

"I'm not denying the come-on." Taecyeon looked at me, the question clear from his expression. I nodded, and he turned back to Ewon "From the first moment I saw you, I was attracted to you and that never stopped. Not while we were together. Not while we were apart. And not now." He glanced at me again, and I could see how nervous he was, so I walked to the couch and sat next to him, resting my hand on his knee to give him support. With his gaze fixed on Ewon, he said "I want you, baby. I never stopped wanting you. I was honest with you about that then and I'm being honest about it now." He covered my hand with his "But I wasn't always honest about everything."

Ewon came closer "What-" he swallowed thickly "What weren't you honest about?"

Taecyeon squeezed my hand and squared his shoulders "The reason I didn't share your pie wasn't because of germs. It was because we were in public and I didn't want anybody to think we were together."

I gasped, but Ewon didn't even flinch. Instead, he took yet another step  forward "Together as in-"

"It's stupid right?" Taecyeon said, his voice sounding thick "I figured if I didn't dip my fork in your food, nobody would think we were ing."

"Yeah, that's stupid." Ewon took another step "If sharing food meant sharing a bed, I'd have been sleeping with Sandara and 90% of my friends for years."

Taecyeon smiled at Ewon, but rather than coming across as happy, the expression made him look even more downtrodden "I was a real idiot. I thought the way you dressed and the way you acted made you weak and silly, and I was terrified anybody would think I was like you."

My jaw dropped and I jerked away from my boyfriend. I loved him, I did. But I loved Ewon too, I always had, and hearing Taecyeon talk to him that way made me sick.

Amazingly, Ewon seemd completely unfazed "I still dress the same way, Taecyeon." Ewon motioned to his tight sleeveless shirt and form-fitting skinny pants. God, he was gorgeous. With his long blonde hair resting on his exposed shoulders, he was so gorgeous. Even more so as an adult than he'd been as a teenager "And I'm still as queeny as ever."

"Yes you are. But I'm not the same, baby. I know you weren't the weak one back then, it was me. I know how much braver you were, how much more self-confident. I know you were the one strong enough to be yourself no matter what anybody else said and no matter what it cost you. And I know I was the idiot who was too scared to admit how much I wanted you."

Ewon moved closer, his gaze was fixed on Taecyeon "You never had any trouble saying you wanted me."

"I never had any trouble saying I wanted you on your knees. I never had any trouble saying I wanted to you. I never had any trouble asking you to me off."

"Taecyeon!" I hissed "Stop it. Are you listening to yourself? How could you-"

"It's the truth." Ewon said. He sat down at the edge of the coffee table, close enough to touch.

"But what I didn't say-" Taecyeon continued, his voice shaking "-was that I wanted to hear you laugh. I wanted to hear stories about your day and listen to the way you saw the world. I wanted to watch you cook dinner and read a magazine and practice for your shows. I never admitted to you or even to myself, that those clothes you wear, the way you stand, the things I complained about? I never admitted that they , that I got hard just looking at you, and that I was ashamed of myself for feeling that way." he reached for Ewon's hand and, to my surprise, Ewon didn't pull away "I was ashamed of myself, baby. I blamed you, I said it was you, but it was me. It was always me." he took in a deep breath "I'm sorry. So sorry. Please believe me. Please forgive me."

I didn't know what to do. The conversation was surreal. Well, the whole situation was like the Twilight Zone, really, but that moment had to be the apex of bizarre. There I sat with my boyfriend and his ex-boyfriend...who was also my ex-boyfriend.

Ewon, who I remembered as happy and upbeat, looked exhausted and devastated. I wanted to tell him that he should never let anyone run him down the way Taecyeon had, that it was unforgivable. But I also wanted to beg him to forgive Taecyeon, I wanted to point out how hard it must have been for Taecyeon to expose so much, how sorry he was.

Taecyeon, who was usually about as emotional as a statue, had unshed tears in his eyes. I wanted to comfort him and tell him everything would be okay. But I also wanted to kick his after hearing him talk about the way he'd treated Ewon. 

"I forgive you." Ewon sniffled and cupped Taecyeon's cheek with his free hand, the other was still twined with Taecyeon's "Don't cry, okay? I forgive you."

With a choked cry, Taecyeon lunged for Ewon, wrapped his arms around Ewon's tiny waist, and jerked him into his lap. He buried his face in Ewon's neck and mumbled "Thank you." he moved his mouth up to Ewon's throat "Thank you." he dragged his lips across Ewon's chin "Thank you." then he gazed into Ewon's eyes and slanted their mouths together.

As soon as their lips connected, Taecyeon moaned and Ewon whimpered. The kiss was tender and emotional, and it made my chest ache. I couldn't pull my gaze away, couldn't stop my heart from racing, couldn't contain my own sounds of need.

"." Ewon said breathlessly as he tore his mouth from Taecyeon's "I'm sorry, Khunnie. I don't...." he tried to scoot off Taecyeon's lap but Taecyeon was twice his size and he wasn't letting go.

"It's okay." I assured him "You didn't do anything wrong."

"I am making out with your boyfriend!" Ewon reminded me. Then, after a pause, he asked "Wait, he is your boyfriend, right? You guys are together?"

I scooted closer to them, pressed my thigh to Taecyeon's, and draped my left arm over his shoulders "Yes, we've been together for five years now."

He darted his gaze back and forthe between me and Taecyeon "I don't understand what's going on."

I heard his question, but at that moment, I couldn't focus on anything except how much I wanted to touch him, to make sure he was okay, to know he wasn't angry with me anymore.

"Ewon, can I..." I circled my right arm around Ewon's waist, clutched him tightly, and blinked rapidly to keep my tears at bay "Do you hate me?"

"Ah, Khunnie, no." he twisted in Taecyeon's lap until he was facing me "I could never hate you. You know that."

I nodded, feeling relieved "I didn't mean to break my promises. You were my first love, Ewon. But I was so young, we were so young. Do you remember? I never thought I was running away from you, and I didn't realize you saw it that way."

"I know." he said "I understand. I always understood. But it still hurt." his voice broke on the last word, and my restraint snapped.

Within seconds, I was kneeling on the sofa, cupping his face between both my palms, and taking his mouth in a smoldering kiss. We were both panting by the time we pulled our lips apart. I rested my forehead against his and rubbed my thumbs over his soft skin.

"That was so hot." Taecyeon said hoarsely.

I chuckled "Yes, it was."

Ewon shook his head and said "This is deeply, deeply ed up." he tried once again to move away, but both of us held on to him.

"No, it's not." Taecyeon disagreed "It's perfect."

"Stay." I said "We want you to stay with us."

"You have each other." he reminded us.

Taecyeon and I looked at one another and sighed in unison. I tilted my head toward him, indicating he should take the lead.

"We want you too." he said.

"No way." Ewon shook his head vehemently "Look, it's cool if you guys have an open relationship or you like to pick up guys to share your bed, but I'm not interested."

"That's not how things are between us." I grumbled "Neither of us has been with anybody else since we got together. We're in it for the long haul. We own a house and a business together. We share a checking account. We're not playing around, this isn't a game to us."

"Fine. Good." Ewon managed to wiggle free. He stood up "I'm glad you have each other." he said, looking pained "And I don't want to get in the middle of that."

"What if we want you in the middle?" Taecyeon asked as he climbed to his feet.

"No." he shook his head "I know I haven't seen either of you in years, but it could never be casual  for me-" he looked back and forth between us "-not with either of you."

I got up and stood on the other side of him "Who said we're looking for casual?"

I had forgotten how small Ewon was. He measured in at barely five and a half feet, so at six foot three and six foot two respectively, Taecyeon and I both towered over him. I found the difference in our sizes y as hell, and because those tight pants Ewon wore allowed no secrets, I could see that he was too.

"This isn't just about ." Taecyeon added.

"Who are you and what have you done with Ok Taecyeon?" Ewon asked with a smile.

"I'm serious." Taecyeon responded.

Ewon raised his hand and traced Taecyeon's jaw and he leaned to the touch "I know you are, but come on, what else could it ever be?" he turned to me and rubbed his thumb over my lips and I loved that feeling of his soft touch "Like you said, you guys have the house, the car, the business." he sighed and removed his hands and took a step away from us and folded them around himself like he was protecting himself, like he had no one else to do that for him, that sight made my heart squeeze in pain "You don't need me. You already have everything," he said looking down, God, he looked so small, so lonely.

"We have a good life." I admitted and reached for Taecyeon's hand at the same time he reached for mine.

Taecyeon raised my hand to his mouth, kissed my wrist, and said "We're happy."

I smiled at him and then focused on Ewon "I guess you're right. We do have everything."

Ewon slumped and nodded twice in reaction to my comment.

"But as it turns out-." Taecyeon said quietly "-everything isn't enough."

"What does that mean?" Ewon looked up to us "You want more than everything?"

Both of us nodded "We want you." we said in unison.

Though we had been in Ewon's apartment for only a matter of hours, so much had changed that it felt like days. Taecyeon and I stayed quiet during the drive home. I was processing everything that had happened and I assumed he was doing the same. The silence stretched through our arrival home. We each got ready for bed, crawled underneath the cool sheets, and hit the lights.

I was exhausted. It had been a busy week, and Fridays always seemed like the days when multiple clients had urgent matters pop up. By the time Stacia had called to ask us to babysit, we barely had time to wolf down a sandwich at the deli outside our office before we had to go to Sunny's...Ewon's apartment. After that, well, I think 'unexpected' is an understated way of describing the rest of our day. Yet, despite being tired, both physically and mentally, I couldn't sleep.

"Taecyeon?"

"Uh-huh."

"You're sleeping?"

He rolled over and faced me. There was enough light in the room for me to see his expression. He look tired, which was expected, but he also looked petrified.

"So, I'm guessing you want to talk about tonight." he said.

"Right now, I want to talk about what happened between you and Ewon." I tried to keep my tone and expression even but I couldn't fool Taecyeon.

"You're pissed, right?" he asked.

We always prided ourselves on having an honest-to-a-fault relationship. That was critical professionally, and it ensured any problem in our personal lives didn't fester. It was safe to say we had just experienced the biggest obstacle we'd faced as a couple, and I decided sugar-coating things at that point wouldn't serve us well.

"Well, I guess it depends. Did I get an accurate picture of how things were between you two?"

"From what we said tonight, you mean?" he shrugged "It probably wasn't completely accurate."

I breathed out a sigh of relief. Nobody would accuse Taecyeon of being particularly sensitive or demonstrate or affectionate outside of the bedroom, but the way Ewon had described him, the way he had described himself, was like hearing about a stranger. A piece-of- stranger I wanted to deck.

"I was actually much worse." Taecyeon said "But you know Aeon. He's very forgiving." at first, I thought he was kidding. Then I hoped he was kidding. Then he said "I'm not kidding, hon. I was a real to Aeon."

"Ewon." I growled.

"What?"

"His name is Ewon! Aeon Rhodes is a stage name or something." it felt good to yell, to be mad. Even if it wasn't about what was actually upsetting me "We're not fans, we're family! That means we call him Ewon."

"Okay." he said gently "I was a real to Ewon."

"Don't push me, Taecyeon. Not tonight. I'm not too happy with you right now as it is."

"That makes two of us." he rolled onto his back and took in a deep breath "I've always wished I would have done things differently with him, always hated myself a little for the way I treated him. I know you're pissed, Nichkhun, but I doubt you would be any more upset with me than I've been with myself for a lot of years now."

It was hard to hold on to my anger when he sounded so remorseful, and it was impossible to beat him up when he was already doing a fine job of it himself.

"Why did you do it?" I asked, a hint of anger creeping into my tone.

"Why did you leave him?" he asked me.

"I didn't leave him! I moved to be close to my sister and my dad."

"Did you ask him to come with you?"

I scoffed and rolled my eyes "Taecyeon, I was twenty-one years old. Come on. But it wasn't like I broke up with him, we were too young to do the long-distance thing, so we drifted apart."

"Well, it sounds like neither of us was mature enough to make things work with him back then."

My jaw dropped "How can you compare me moving away to you making him feel like you were embarrassed by him and like he wasn't good for anything but ?"

"I'm not trying to keep score here, Nichkhun. But you asked me a question. You want to know why I did it, and I'm telling you. I was twenty-seven when I met him. I'd only been out to my family for a couple of years, and they were even worse back then than they are now, if you can even imagine that. All I could focus on was proving that I was as macho as my dad, that I could outearn every one of my straight cousins, and that all the they said about gay people wasn't true. At the time, Ewon seemed like an impediment to every one of those goals, but I wanted him too much to walk away."

"So you dated him but treated him like ?" I asked incredulously "That was you compromise?"

"It wasn't like I set out to do that, it wasn't a conscious decision, but, yeah, that's what happened." when I didn't respond, he said "I know it might be asking too much to be forgiven for what I did to him, but I hope you know me well enough to realize I learned from those mistakes and I would never, ever treat him that way again."

"He already said he forgives you." I reminded him.

"That's one out of two," he turnded his head to the side and looked at me "How about you Nichkhun? Do you think you can forgive me?"

I loved him uncondiationally. That included the ugly parts of his past. So I rolled on top of him and nuzzled his neck "I do know you're not that same guy anymore." I thought about everything he'd said and added "And you know what? I'm not the same kid who didn't know enough to appreciate what he had." I dragged in a deep breath "So I guess the hard part is going to be convincing Ewon to give us another chance?"

Taecyeon kissed my forehead and chuckled "We already did that, hon."

I flattened my hands on the bed and straightened my arms so my face was above his "What are you talking about? We made up from all the we did to him in the past, but he turned us down flat when we said we wanted to get back together with him."

Taecyeon shook his head and said "He didn't turn us down."

"Uh, yes, he did." I argued "Were you and I listening to the same conversation back there?

"If you were getting hung up on his words, then no."

"I have no clue what you're saying." I grumbled in frustration. Did he understood Ewon better than I did? , I kinda didn't like that fact.

He chuckled "The thing about our Ewon is, you can't just listen to his words. If you want to hear what he's saying, you have to look at his expressions, you have to look in his eyes, you have to listen how fast he's breathing, you have to pay attention to the way he's holding himself." Taecyeon shrugged "We're lawers. We make a living using words and logic. But Ewon's a dancer. He'll tell us a lot more with his body than he will with his mouth, and he'll follow his heart even when his head tells him to do the opposite."

I furrowed my brow and chewed my bottom lip. Hating just a little bit of the fact that he could see all that on Ewon while I couldn't, and I said "I can't decide whether that's incredibly insightful or incredibly condescending."

"It's incredibly accurate. I saw the way he looked at you tonight, Nichkhun. You haven't talked in fifteen years, and he still looked at you like you were the second coming. And the fact that he didn't kick me in the nuts means he still loves me." he stretched up and bussed his lips over mine "The hard part is already done: he still loves us. Now we need to make him realize it and to show him that this time, we're going to hold on to him."

There was a crazy sort of logic to Taecyeon's patronizing analysis. "How do we do that?" I asked.

"Well, first things first. Tomorrow morning, we're picking up lunch and taking him and the kids to the park for a picnic."

Ok Taecyeon had suggested we spend our Saturday afternoon having a picnic. My life was no longer recognizable. Strangely enough, I was okay with that. But I doubted Ewon would feel the same way.

" What makes you think he'll agree to meet us?"

"Meet us?" Taecyeon raised his eyebrows in shock "We are not asking him to meet us. We're going to show up at his apartment, knock on his door, and park our asses on his couch until he agrees to spend the day with us. Then we're going to have the best damn picnic in the history of picnics and he'll see we're serious about him."

Loath though I was to admit it out loud, it wasn't a bad plan.

"Then what?"

Taecyeon pursed his lips and squinted "Umm, I don't now yet, but we'll figure it out. Don't worry. Ewon wasn't able to resist either of us alone, he doesn't stand a chance against a dual seduction."

I couldn't hold back a laugh at the return of my confident boyfriend "Nice to see you back, Mr. Cocky."

"Mr. Cocky is too tired to make an appearance tonight." he drawled "Hit me up in the morning and I'll see if he's up for some fun."

I grimaced and moaned "Oh, that was bad."

He smacked my "You know it was funny."

I rolled off him and rubbed my backside "I know I love you, but that's all you're getting me to admit." 

"Fine." he sighed dramatically.

"Go to sleep, Taecyeon, you're punch-drunk."

He gripped my waist, tugged me closer, and tossed his leg over my hip. I burrowed against him, rested my head on his shoulder, and closed my eyes.

"We're okay, right, hon?" he asked.

I combed my fingers through the growing hair on his chest and kissed his "We're solid, Taecyeon. You don't need to worry about us. We need you to focus all your Machiavellian brilliance on getting Ewon home, here between us, where we can hug him tight and keep him warm and safe and loved." I said with the wish to never see that image of Ewon so lonely again.

Taecyeon let out a long and dreamy sigh "I love the sound of that. It feels so right, like a piece of puzzle finding it's right place. Right?"

"Right. Now close your eyes, we have a lot of work to do tomorrow."