Chapter Text
Luke asks, “do you want to just stay the night?” and Reggie almost, almost, says yes.
He’s lying in their bed, naked and worn out and sensitive in a way that tells him that he’s going to be so sore tomorrow, but it will be worth every single twinge. Julie’s curled up on his chest, the top of her head tucked under his chin, a few flyaway hairs tickling his nose with each deep breath. Luke is on his side next to him, curled around the two of them like the question mark at the end of his thought, asked quietly into the warm darkness surrounding them.
The truth is, Reggie wants to stay so badly his teeth ache with the thought. He wants to sleep in their bed and wake up with them in the morning and make breakfast in their kitchen and fight over who gets the first shower and let them make a permanent space for him in their lives. He’s spent the last six months of his life wanting that from them.
The three of them have been dancing around this thing for much longer than six months — Reggie’s been in love with Luke since he’s been able to understand the concept of love and it took approximately five minutes of knowing Julie to fall just as hard for her. But six months ago is when Julie and Luke officially moved in together, into their own apartment, a place just for them. So six months ago is when Reggie’s dreams took on a distinctly domestic shape, as he watched them begin to mesh their lives together in a more tangible way.
Watching from the outside has been the most exquisite torture Reggie’s ever put himself through.
Until tonight, at least, when all the lingering touches and hidden glances finally became too much to bear and all of Reggie’s carefully bottled up feelings burst under the pressure of trying to keep it all in.
He kissed Luke and then he kissed Julie and then he let them lead him to their bed and take him apart, piece-by-piece, until he was nothing more than a naked heart in their hands, pleading for them to love him as much as he loved them.
And now Luke is asking him to stay.
“I want to,” Reggie says quietly, turning his head to look Luke in the eye.
“Why do I hear a ‘but’ at the end of that sentence?”
Reggie runs one hand gently down Julie’s bare back, tracing his fingers over the dips and divots of her spine.
“But I can’t,” he finishes.
Luke pouts and Reggie can’t be held responsible for his actions when he’s this cute and his lips are right there. Luke doesn’t seem to mind though, shifting closer into Reggie’s kiss to deepen it.
They pull apart when Julie stirs between them, lifting her head and saying, “Hey, where’s my kisses?” in the cutest sleep-soft voice Reggie’s ever heard in his life.
Luke grins at Reggie and then turns to Julie and drops a quick kiss on her nose saying, “Right here, baby.”
Julie scrunches up her nose and laughs. “That’s not what I want and you know it. Reggie, show this man how to kiss me properly.”
And it’s just — Reggie knows it’s a joke, knows that Luke knows how to kiss Julie in just the way she likes. Luke’s been kissing Julie for almost five years now, ever since they were sixteen and fumbling their way into their first real relationship. But something inside Reggie warms at the thought of Julie including him in their dumb joke because maybe that means they want to keep him around for more than just one or two nights of fun.
So Reggie does as he’s told, bringing his hands up to cradle Julie’s face in between them and pulling her in for a deep kiss. Next to them, Luke groans lowly and rolls his hips against Reggie’s bare thigh, and for a moment Reggie almost gives in, almost rolls Julie over and lets himself be guided by his deepest desires.
And then his phone alarm goes off.
Luke startles and jerks against Reggie, his knee coming up dangerously close to some very delicate parts of Reggie’s anatomy. Luckily, he’s saved from a very unfortunate end to an otherwise lovely evening by Julie jumping in surprise, yanking her lips off of his as she rolls over and lands on Luke, pinning his legs to the bed.
Reggie hops out of the bed in order to rifle through his discarded jeans to find his phone and shut the blaring siren noise off.
“Sorry,” he says, sheepishly. “That’s my alarm to remember to walk Dolly.”
A look of shared understanding passes over both of their faces. Dolly is an eight-year-old pit bull that Reggie found in an alley behind a club after a show last year. She had been so skinny that Reggie had been able to count every rib while he waited in the veterinary ER later that night.
Now, Dolly is possibly the most spoiled canine in the city of Los Angeles, or at least that’s what Alex says when he finds her sleeping on his pillow yet again. But Reggie knows that Alex secretly loves their fur baby roommate, because he always catches him slipping her bits of turkey when he makes his lunch.
Reggie isn’t technically allowed to have a dog, let alone a pit bull, in their tiny apartment, but Reggie figures that what his landlords don’t know won’t hurt them.
But that’s also why Dolly gets walked at unconventional times.
“Can’t Alex just walk her?” Luke whines and makes grabby hands towards Reggie.
Somehow Reggie resists the temptation to crawl back into bed with them, pulling on his jeans instead.
“Alex is out of town, remember? He’s meeting Willie’s grandparents for the first time and it’s a big deal.”
“Don’t be a bum, Luke, let’s go,” Julie says, swatting at Luke’s shoulder as she rolls out of bed. Luke groans but heaves himself up after her and they both head to the dresser and begin pulling out sweatpants and shirts, Julie reaching over to steal one of Luke’s shirts out of what is clearly his drawer.
Reggie spends a few long moments being distracted by the miles of gorgeous skin on display in front of him, the truly divine picture the two of them make standing side-by-side surrounded by the everyday detritus of the home they’ve built together. He takes a mental snapshot and tucks it somewhere safe in the corner of his mind, so that even if he never is invited back, he’ll always have this memory to look back on. He feels privileged just to get to be an observer of this private moment.
And then Luke grabs his keys off the top of the dresser and Julie starts tugging on some boots and Reggie blinks, confused.
“What are you guys doing?”
Luke gives him a funny look. “We’re driving you home, dude, so you can walk Dolly.”
“I know we were a little occupied with other things, but you do remember that we drove you here after the show, right?” Julie asks, tugging at the laces of her shoes.
Reggie gapes at them. “I was just — I can call an Uber.”
Julie laughs — a bright sound, like bells in a chorus — and bounces over to smack a kiss on his cheek. “Don’t be silly. I want to say hi to Dolly too.”
“We all want to see that loveable mutt, so get dressed, bro,” Luke says, coming up behind Reggie. He drops a kiss on Reggie’s other cheek and then sneaks a hand down to grab his butt, causing Reggie to jump and squeak. “Or, you know, don’t. I don’t mind the view.”
Reggie quickly yanks his shirt on, blushing so hard he can feel it in his toes. He and Luke trade innuendos all the time, but this feels different.
Everything is different now, Reggie thinks, even riding in a car with them. There’s nothing particularly special about the way that Luke slides into the driver’s seat of the 1998 Honda Civic that was ancient and falling apart when he bought it. Now, the thing is practically an antique, but it still rumbles to life when Luke turns the key in the ignition. Julie takes her customary place in the passenger’s seat, kicking her feet up on the dash and leaning over to fiddle with the radio dials in the center console.
This arrangement leaves the entire backseat for Reggie to stretch out in, at least as much as anyone can stretch out in a compact car.
It’s not new — Reggie’s ridden in the back of Luke’s car hundreds of times, but he’s never ridden in it as someone who just had sex with two of his best friends. He’s looking at Luke’s fingers drumming on the steering wheel and thinking about how those fingers were curled around his hips less than an hour ago. Julie pulls her hair up into a messy bun and Reggie remembers what it felt like to have his hands buried in that mass of curls.
He’s never going to be able to go back to being just their friend, Reggie thinks.
This change should feel more — something. He’s not quite sure what. More momentous. More panic-inducing. More earth-shattering.
But then This Kiss starts playing, and Luke groans, “country music, really,” but Julie turns in her seat and grins at Reggie.
“Sing it with me, Reg!”
And of course he can’t say no to Julie or to Faith Hill, so he leans up into the space between the driver and passenger seats and belts out kiss me in sweet slow motion, let’s let everything slide, with all the passion he has in his heart, and it feels so familiar and so perfect that Reggie thinks that maybe heaven is actually this moment right here, right now.
Julie and Reggie dissolve into giggles at the end of their impromptu karaoke session and Luke takes his eyes off the road for a second to glance over at them, smiling fondly at their ridiculousness. Reggie leans his head against Julie’s arm and she reaches over to run her fingers through his hair, scratching lightly against his scalp as he sighs.
Maybe the fact that this change doesn’t feel so earth-shattering says something about the relationship they’ve had for a while now.
When Luke turns the car into the parking lot of Reggie and Alex’s shitty apartment complex and pulls into a space, Reggie doesn’t necessarily expect them to clamber out of the car with him. And he definitely doesn’t expect Luke to catch him around the waist and push him up against the side of the car, leaning in and kissing him so thoroughly that Reggie can hardly remember what he was worrying about to begin with.
“I still hate country,” Luke mumbles into the space between their mouths, “but I love how you two sound together.”
When they finally break apart, Reggie’s chest is heaving and he can feel the flush spreading across his face. Julie looks equally flushed, even though she is standing a few feet away from them, leaning her hip against the hood of the car with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Next time,” Julie says, clearing her throat, eyes glued to his mouth, “you should just bring Dolly with you. There’s room for her dog bed in the living room.”
The thought of having Dolly in Luke and Julie’s apartment is a gorgeous thought, but Reggie shakes his head, dispelling the silly daydream before it can take root too solidly.
“I don’t want to get you guys in trouble with your apartment complex or anything.”
For some reason, then, Luke blushes even harder. He brings his hand up to scratch awkwardly at the back of his head, and admits sheepishly, “Uh, well, actually, our apartment is pet friendly. And we maybe told them that Dolly was a lab mix, so she’s already approved to be at our place.”
Reggie swivels his head back and forth, jaw dropping as he looks between the two of them.
“Wait a minute, but that means…” Reggie trails off, hesitant to say what he’s thinking in case he’s reading too much into the situation. They can’t possibly mean—
Julie slides closer, slips her hand into Reggie’s, interlacing their fingers together. “That means that we’ve been thinking about it and if you want to, we want you with us. Living in our place, as our boyfriend. Like, permanently.”
“That’s why we wanted to talk with you tonight, after the show,” Luke says softly, grabbing Reggie’s other hand and bringing it up to place a quick kiss on his knuckles. “We were gonna ask you out on a proper date, but we got a little distracted when you kissed me.”
“It was a good distraction, though,” Julie murmurs and Luke nods his head vigorously in agreement.
Reggie feels a little like all the air has been stolen out of his lungs and for a second he wonders — am I hallucinating? But even as much as he’s yearned for the two of them, Reggie’s not sure that his mind could dream up something that feels so sharp and real.
They’re asking him to stay. Not just for one night, but for every night. They’re asking him to be a part of them, instead of standing on the outside and looking in.
“Reg?” Luke asks softly, “You okay in there?”
He blinks back to the present moment and sees the worried looks on Julie and Luke’s faces. He must’ve gone quiet for a long time.
“Yeah,” he eventually manages to say, “I just didn’t — I thought —”
Julie frowns and brings one hand up to cradle Reggie’s cheek. “What did you think was happening tonight, baby?”
“I don’t know.” Reggie wonders if his eyes look as wild as he feels. “I guess I was trying to not think, because I wanted to enjoy every moment with you, just in case this was the only chance I was gonna get.”
Luke’s eyes are suspiciously damp as he surges forward and envelopes both Reggie and Julie into an enormous bear hug, clutching them both tight against his chest.
“You’re gonna get so many chances, you’re gonna be sick of us,” he mumbles into Reggie’s hair.
Julie giggles softly, murmurs, “We’re planning on keeping you, Reggie Peters. How does forever sound?”
Reggie doesn’t even bother trying to answer with his words -- he knows he would just trip over them with the way his heart feels like it is overflowing with more emotions than he has names for right now. Instead, he just ducks his head down and kisses Julie, letting his actions speak for him. When she smiles against his mouth, he’s certain that the message came across loud and clear.
Forever sounds just right.
(They do, eventually, make it inside, and Dolly is so excited to see them she nearly knocks Luke over when she launches herself at him. After Dolly’s walk, it’s late enough that Julie and Luke end up staying over in Reggie’s bed. The three of them fall asleep curled around each other, with Dolly stretched out along their feet and Reggie thinks, I can’t wait to get used to this.)