Author's Note: I think I did a pretty good job of the last chapter, considering that it was a rush job. I hope that some of you had the same opinion; if not, that's perfectly fine. I'm having fun with this story and I feel that it's going to last a while. And on that hopeful note, on with the chapter.

Rated M for strong language, adult themes, and M/M/M love scenes

Disclaimer: The Twilight books and characters are the property of Stephenie Meyer. I own nothing.

Stalled

Chapter 4: Lost Time

Jasper had headed off into the forest without really paying attention to where he was going. He just followed the path and found himself on the shore of a lake that stretched off as far as he could see to the north and south. The forest huddled close to the shore and followed the arc of sand, surrounding the lake on all sides. It was quite beautiful.

But Jasper could hardly appreciate it. His mind was whirling with what had happened in the restroom: Seth kissing him, kissing Seth back, Jacob catching them. He couldn't stop thinking of how Seth's lips had felt on his: warm and soft, just begging for Jasper to slip his tongue between them and explore his sweet mouth. He'd wanted to do so much more, to just bend the younger man over and proceed to satisfy a long-buried hunger. And he had the feeling that Seth wouldn't have stopped him.

And then Jacob had come in and caught them. The look on his face when he saw what was going on... It was enough to break Jasper's heart. He couldn't risk that again. Jacob and Seth had been kind enough to give him a ride all the way to Forks and he repaid that favor by coming between them.

He sat down and hugged his knees, staring out over the lake. The water reflected the sunlight into his eyes, dazzling him just a bit; it was nothing he couldn't handle. He had bigger worries at the moment. Like how he could fix the damage he'd just caused.

Jasper didn't know how long he sat there. His thoughts were still whirling and he was no closer to a solution.

How could I be so thoughtless? he wondered. They have a great relationship and I've damaged it in such a selfish and hurtful way. There must be some way...

His musings were interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps. He turned to see who was coming and his stomach dropped as he saw Jacob bearing down like a tidal wave.

Jasper was about to get up and try to make a run for it when Jacob stopped and sat down next to him. The bigger man rested his arms on his knees and stared out over the water, staying eerily silent. After a few minutes, Jasper felt compelled to say something, anything to break the silence.

"Jacob, I..." he started.

"Jazz, please," Jacob said. Jasper's eyes widened at that. It had been a long time since anyone had called him that. Over two years, if memory served. It pulled at a long-dormant heartstring and brought a tear to his eye.

"I'm so sorry," Jasper said. "I didn't mean for that to happen. If I had thought for one moment..."

Jacob cut him off with a look and a raised hand. "Just stop, please," he said. Jasper shut his mouth and waited with mounting dread.

Another set of footsteps came crashing through the forest to Jasper's left and he and Jacob turned their heads in time to see Seth hit the shore at a dead run. He came to a hard stop and nearly fell into the water, his long pinwheeling arms moving barely fast enough to keep him from falling headlong into the drink. However, the move wasn't enough to keep him from landing on his ass, bruising his tailbone on an inconveniently placed rock. Jasper and Jacob looked at him, then at each other, and back at Seth before laughing like they'd heard the best joke in the world. Seth gave them a narrow-eyed look that promised vengeance of Biblical proportions as he stood up and rubbed his sore butt.

"Sure," he said. "Laugh at the clumsy kid. You wouldn't think it was so funny if your butt was poked by a sharp rock."

"Funny," Jacob replied. "You didn't mind your butt getting poked last night." The sunlight made his grin blindingly white; Jasper had to look away before his retinas were damaged.

"That's different," Seth said. "That was fun. This is just painful." He kept rubbing his sore ass, hissing as he hit a sensitive spot.

Jasper did his best to keep his eyes from following the motion. Jacob noticed Jasper's bashfulness and smiled again.

"It's all right, man," Jake said. "If I was going to bust your melon for kissing him, I'd have done it back there." He jerked a thumb back toward the rest stop.

"I wouldn't blame you if you did," Jasper said. "I had no right to touch him. Especially since you were kind enough to help me out of a tough spot."

"Don't blame yourself," Seth said. "That was totally my fault. I wanted to know if you were open to the possibility of a threeway. I just figured I'd take the slow road."

"If that was your idea of the slow road, I shudder to think of how you would define fast," Jasper said. They shared a small laugh over that and when things calmed down, Jasper went back to staring at the lake.

It was a few minutes before Seth dared to speak up. "Why'd you run? The kiss wasn't that bad," he said with what he hoped was an effortless smile.

"Because I thought that I might have done some damage to your relationship," Jasper replied. "And I was afraid that Jake might be about to tear my head off."

"Oh, please," Seth said. He grinned and Jasper noticed just how much he looked like Jacob. "I've kissed lots of guys in front of Jake and he's never tried to tear their heads off. We're no strangers to inviting other guys to play with us from time to time."

"So you're into threesomes," Jasper said. His voice was too flat to make his words a proper question.

"Mm-hmm," Jacob said. "We had a threeway relationship for a few years; it wasn't just playing around. We loved him and he loved us. It wasn't always wine and roses, but it was a good thing."

"Yeah," Seth said. "I came into it kinda late, but that didn't matter. It was the best time of my life."

Jasper looked from Seth to Jacob, seeing the truth of their words and the naked honesty of their emotions. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and – finally – spoke of his own experience.

"I was in a relationship like that too," he said, "with two men who I loved very much. Emmett McCarty and Edward Cullen."

He swallowed, trying to wet his suddenly dry throat. Seth laid a hand on his shoulder, not moving it, just offering comfort. Jacob covered it with his own hand and Jasper was grateful for the show of support. It gave him the strength to go ahead with his story.

"I met them at my sister's birthday party one year. Emmett was Rosalie's best friend and my best friend Alice was Edward's sister. Rose and Ali thought it would be a good idea to get the three of us together. We had to be very careful. In the circles that we were accustomed to, such a thing was frowned upon. And God knows that we didn't hit it off that night. It took several weeks before we were able to tolerate each other as anything more than acquaintances."

Jasper chuckled as he went back over that period of his life. "Emmett and I were almost complete opposites. He was loud, boisterous, a real risk-taker. I, on the other hand, was calm, quiet, and cautious. If it had been the two of us alone, I don't think we would've lasted two minutes, much less two years. That was where Edward came in. He was the diplomat of our little trio, always playing the peacekeeper. Whatever disagreement Emmett and I had, Edward was able to see the way through and help us work things out. He was a miracle worker that way."

"Sounds like we might've gotten along," Jacob said.

"There wouldn't have been any might've about it. He would've liked the both of you right off the bat," Jasper said. "Edward was one of the purest, most trusting souls I've ever met. He had this...this chameleonlike quality to him; he could enter a room or a situation without knowing anything about anyone and inside of fifteen minutes, he'd be able to tell you everyone's life story. It was as if he could read minds; that's how good he was." Jasper swallowed again and continued. "He was considering a career in diplomacy. He would've been good at it, a true master."

The hitch in Jasper's voice at the words 'would've been good at it' caught Jacob's attention. Tilting Jasper's face up so he could look into those brown eyes, he asked, "What happened?"

Jasper's eyes started to swim; the tears were close to the surface now. "Acute lymphocytic leukemia," he said. "An aggressive strain. He hid it well; Emmett and I never even knew he was sick til right near the end." He took a couple of deep breaths to try and calm down; he was only partially successful. "We sat with him and cared for him while he just wasted away. It took two weeks, but he died peacefully, in his sleep."

Seth hugged him and kissed his cheek, then laid his head on Jasper's shoulder. Jasper could feel a warm wetness on his shirt and he knew that the younger man was crying. Seth was hurting on Jasper's behalf and crying for someone he'd never known. Jasper wrapped an arm around his waist and squeezed; Jacob hugged them both in his long arms and pressed his forehead to Jasper's.

Good God, how do I deserve such a pair? Jasper thought. He'd only known them a few hours, but he'd gotten comfortable enough to tell them about Edward. How is it possible to trust someone so much after only a couple of hours? That was one question that he supposed he'd never be able to answer.

"What about afterward?" Jacob asked, his voice husky with barely contained sadness. "Were you and Emmett able to keep going?"

Jasper shook his head. "We tried to keep the relationship going, but ultimately we couldn't. It was maybe five weeks before we mutually agreed that it just wasn't working anymore. We packed up the apartment and put it up for sale; we kept in touch for a couple of months after that, but eventually even that stopped. Rose and Ali understood what had gone wrong; ordinarily they would have done their damnedest to get us back together. But they were able to curb their meddling that one time. I was more grateful to them than they knew."

He looked up at the sky, watching a few cotton-ball clouds float by. "It was three weeks after we stopped talking that I got the news. Emmett had been on a rock-climbing retreat; he'd been about a thousand feet up a cliff when his equipment failed. He fell the whole way down, bounced off several ledges, and broke half the bones in his body. He was dead before he hit the ground."

A few tears escaped then and he wiped them away. It still hurt after all this time; the pain was just as sharp now as it had been in that first moment.

"I went to the funeral. I met his family and two of his lovers. Paul was the one he'd been dating at the time of his accident; in fact, the rock climbing had been Paul's idea. I could tell that he blamed himself for it. I told him that it wasn't his fault, that it had been a simple case of equipment failure and it could have happened to anyone. He left feeling a little better, I think."

"What about the other lover?" Seth asked. "Was he dating Emmett at the same time as Paul?"

"No," Jasper said. "Quil and Emmett had dated while Emmett was still in college. That was seven years ago." He remembered Quil vividly; they'd met at Emmett's funeral, got to talking, and wound up spending a pleasant evening together.

"I had a one-night stand with Quil," Jasper said. "It was a good night, but one destined not to be repeated. The next day, he went back to his boyfriend and I went back to my life. That was two years ago; I haven't been with anyone since."

Seth's eyes widened at that. "Seriously? Like, nobody as in nobody?" His voice held more than a pinch of disbelief. "That's hard to believe. I can't imagine that anyone as sexy as you would be alone for very long."

"It was a personal choice," Jasper said. "I'd loved Emmett and Edward very much; I poured my whole heart into it and losing them was too much to take. I needed to take a break from dating and sex, so I lost myself in my work. I haven't wanted to be with anyone else since. So when you kissed me, it unlocked two years of world-class sublimation." He closed his eyes and nearly drowned in the memory of that kiss; he felt himself start to grow hard and he blushed.

"Well, you don't have to worry about that," Jacob said. "You can make out with him whenever you want on this trip. Within reason, of course." He grinned and Jasper wondered what kind of teeth-whitening system he used. And then Jacob surprised him by leaning in and kissing him.

Jacob's lips were as soft as Seth's, and just as talented. Jasper whimpered softly as he leaned into the larger man's embrace, his hands braced on Jacob's waist and Seth's arms wrapped around them both. The electricity between the three of them was palpable, but Jasper wasn't ready for anything more at this time. He gently broke the kiss and looked up into Jacob's warm brown eyes. All three men were flushed and breathing a little hard.

"We should get going," Jasper said. His voice was huskier than usual, heavy with pent-up desire. "I've put enough of a dent in our travel time with my foolishness."

"Yeah," Jacob said, his voice just as ragged. "We're going to have to break the speed limit if we want to make the hotel before dark." He stood and held his hands out to Jasper and Seth; they each took one and Jacob hauled them up easily.

Seth took their hands in his and they started back to the rest stop. Along the way, Jasper wondered what was happening to him. He wasn't usually the type to just give in to his emotions, and yet he found himself desiring these two kindhearted men with a fiery passion; they had both kissed him and he had surprised himself by kissing them back and wanting more. It was almost more than he could take.

He'd promised himself that he would never go looking for love again; if love was truly in the cards for him, it knew where to find him. And it seemed that it had. The universe had a truly wicked sense of humor; it was forcing him to make up for lost time.

Jasper didn't know it, but he and Jacob had one thing in common: they'd both scrapped any active plans to find love and had decided to trust their romantic destinies to the vagaries of fate. Considering what would happen later, that was probably the best choice either of them could make.

Author's Note: And now we know why Jasper was so flustered about the kiss. I might've been channeling some tearjerker movie; I don't know. Anyway, this is the last chapter of 2011. I hope you all have a happy New Year. Please read and review and thank you. :)