A/N:

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Please note that this story is rated M for lemony explicit scenes of a slash and polyamorous nature between Edward, Bella and Jasper. Please do not read the story if you are under 18 or scenes of this nature will offend you.

Thank you so much to my beta, beans827, for spinning her magic grammar skills on the story.

Chapter 4 – Crying in the Chapel

Chicago 1957

I woke up with a start early the next morning, and for a few moments, I felt confused and sure that something was wrong. I was tucked into bed, completely naked and alone. The events of the night made their way back to me then and I realized that Jasper must have woken up during the night, cleaned me up and pulled the covers over me before returning to his room. I should have felt relieved that he had removed all evidence of what had happened last night, but I wasn't. It hit me hard then. I actually wanted to wake up with Jasper still in my arms. I couldn't stop thinking about the feel of him pressed against me as he fell asleep in my arms. How I had tenderly kissed the top of his head and tucked a flyaway strand of hair behind his ear. He had quickly become as important to me as Bella, first as my dearest friend and now, it had deepened into so much more. I think I'm in love with him.

I turned on my bedside lamp and saw that it was still early, only 4am. I got up and walked to Jasper's room, opened his door and watched him sleeping for a moment, hugging a pillow to his chest. I walked over, removed the pillow and squeezed into the bed snuggling into his chest and wrapping my arm around his back. He sighed and in his sleep whispered my name. Content at last, I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.

It only felt like a moment before I was awakened by the feel of a soft mouth kissing my eyelids and a warm hand running down my hip and pulling me into a very hard morning erection. I smiled with my eyes closed and whispered, "Why Jazz, anyone would think you are pleased to see me."

Jasper actually smacked my ass with that comment before leaning closer and taking my mouth in a very thorough kiss. He mumbled against my lips, his eyes still uncertain of me, "I thought you would probably rather forget last night ever happened, E. I never dreamt I would wake up in my bed with you in my arms."

I told Jazz then that I had come to the conclusion, when I had awoken alone and lonely, that I had fallen for him and wanted to be with him. The problem was that I loved Bella too and I wanted to be with her. I loved them both and would never be able to choose between them.

Jazz hugged me tightly then and whispered that he had realized he had fallen in love with both of us weeks ago when he had come home one night and Bella and I had been making out on the couch. We were so intent on each other, we had not realized that he had come home and he had stood in the doorway watching us. At first he was wishing that it was him kissing Bella, but then he realized that his cock had twitched at the sight of Bella's hands in my hair and the curve of my ass as I pressed Bella into the couch. He had wanted to walk over and insinuate himself in the middle of us and be loved by both of us. He had no idea what to do as he had never felt this way about another man before and assumed that Bella and I would never look at him that way.

Jasper told me then how aroused he had become that he had snuck to his room and basically jerked off to the images of our bodies. The more time he spent with us, the more he had fallen in love and lust with both of us. He hadn't intended on saying anything until the night at the Flame Club when he had caught me staring at him with not a little lust in my eyes. He had been drinking to try and forget the images of Bella and I together which resulted in him letting down his guard and kissing me. Jasper had refused to look at me through his entire confession and I could tell he was feeling trepidation over his declarations about Bella.

I know a decent man would have been shocked and horrified at hearing how my best friend wanted to touch my fiancé, wanted to touch us both. I have to be honest though, the thought of Jasper and I both pleasuring Bella excited me now that I knew he loved us both. The thought of Bella watching Jasper and I express our feelings for each other started my cock throbbing. Jasper had started to pull away from me, certain by my silence after his confession that I was repulsed by him. I pulled him back to me and hugged him tight.

"Well, Jasper, it seems that I love you and Bella and you love me and Bella. Maybe we need to ask Bella who she loves." I said it almost in jest; however the truth of the words hit me then.

Oh hell! Bella and I were engaged to be married in six weeks time. Up until this point, I had been sure that Bella would complete me and our marriage would ensure our happiness forever. But something had been a little off though lately. Bella had become as close to Jasper as I was but just in the last week or so she had started to avoid being too close to him. I determined that when Bella returned tonight, we would have to talk and I would have to tell her about my feelings for both her and Jasper. I was realistic, the age in which we were living was very moralistic and homosexuality was considered dirty and wrong and I had very little doubt that Bella would end our engagement by the end of our evening.

Work was busy that day and we had nabbed a couple of shoplifters and stopped a bum from getting beat up in an alley way. I was tired and nervous about tonight. I had a hot shower, trying to relax my tensed up muscles and dressed in my best. I had picked up a bunch of flowers from the corner shop on the way home and I clutched the freesias in my hand as Jasper hugged me before I left. Ironically, Elvis' Crying in the Chapel was playing on the radio. I had a bad feeling about this date.

Bella was smiling nervously at me as I picked her up from home and when I said that we needed to talk, she nodded her agreement and we drove to a quiet park overlooking the lake. We parked in a different spot from the last time. Before I could open my mouth to start my confession, Bella interrupted me.

"Edward, I can't marry you." Bella blurted out and dropped her head in shame.

I was shocked, did she already know about Jasper and had made her choice?

I was silent so long that Bella peeked up at me through her fringe. I took a deep breath as I traced the silent tears that streamed down her face.

"Bella, my love, why can't you marry me?"

She just looked at me through her tear filled eyes and just shook her head and whispered so quietly that I could barely make out her words. "Because you will hate me if you knew why. I just can't that's all."

I knew I could not chicken out any more. "Bella, I was going to tell you something tonight and I wasn't sure if you would want to marry me after hearing what I had to say."

"Really?" she whispered again, "What could you possibly tell me that would make me not want to marry you?" I looked at her strangely, she just told me that nothing could stop her from marrying me and yet, she also told me that she couldn't marry me. Women!

"Bella, I love you so much and I really want to marry you but I have also developed feelings for Jasper and I realized last night that I love him too. I want to be selfish and have both of you in my life, but I'll understand if you can't love me any more now that you know."

Now I understand why Bella had closed her eyes when she had told me that bad news. I had done the same thing not wanting to see the revulsion in her face for me. I looked out the window and my heart squeezed at the silence from the other side of the car which was suddenly shattered by the sound of Bella's giggle. What the hell was so funny? Did she think I was just joking around?

I jerked my head around and glared at her laughing face. All the tension seemed to be lifted from it and she seemed truly happy. But why was she laughing at me? I had just admitted to her that I was in love with her and another man at the same time. There was nothing funny about that. It was just twisted and difficult and impossible.

I felt tears gather in my eyes then as the enormity of our situation and the pain of Bella laughing at me, hit me right in my heart. She immediately stilled and cupped my face in her hands and kissed my falling tears away. I had just found out less than a day ago that I was in love with another man and suddenly I was the girl in the relationship?

"Edward, oh my God, you have no idea how happy I am to hear that. I have been worried for weeks about my own growing feelings for Jasper. At the club last week, the way he was staring at me and at us together was making me all kinds of crazy. I was worried that you would get upset with Jasper for looking at me like that and me for wanting Jasper to be with us all the time."

I looked back and realized that many of our group outings had been initiated by Bella and, in fact, for a long time, we had actually spent very little time as a couple; it was almost always the three of us.

"I realized on Saturday night when it was just the two of us that something didn't feel quite right. I knew that I loved you but my feelings about Jasper have been growing so much. I thought if we took the next step together that would tell me whether it was right to go ahead with the wedding. When you made me come, it was wonderful, but I still felt something was missing. I'm sorry, Edward, but the whole time you were touching me I was wishing Jasper was there as well. I love you both and when I came, it was because I was picturing myself straddling both of your legs and both of you touching me. I had to stop. I couldn't go on feeling the way I was. I didn't think it would be fair to you." Bella explained herself in a rush, a few of her words running together.

I took a deep breath hugging this dear girl close to me.

"Bella, I think we are one person short again. We need to go home and include Jasper in this conversation too."

"E, Jasper can't know how I feel. I would be mortified and what about how you feel? What if he hates us both?"

"Bella, Jasper and I have both talked about how we feel this morning. These feelings have been growing between both of us for a while but we have ignored them because you and I are engaged. But those feelings are too strong to be denied. Bella, we all feel the same way. When Jasper and I were in bed together this morning, he told me that he had fallen in love with both of us."

I felt Bella stiffen beside me and I realized what I had said. I started to feel guilty about what had happened between Jasper and I, knowing I should have talked to Bella before anything had happened with Jasper. Although, in all honesty, I don't know if I would have realized how I truly felt if it hadn't happened.

"Bella, love, I am so sorry. Last night everything came to a head. Jasper and I had been to the club and we were pressed together in the crush. Jasper was aroused, pressing into me and I was aroused feeling it." I explained to her about me jerking off to the thought of getting her off in the back of my car and Jasper walking in as I finished. Her eyes were like round, little saucers at this time and her hand gripped mine with almost painful intensity. I then explained how Jasper had asked to watch me and then asked to touch me, and at that point, Bella pressed her shaking fingers against my mouth.

"Edward," she whispered, "do you think I could watch next time?"

What?

"Could I watch Jasper touch you?" she whispered again, licking her lips and then biting the bottom one.

My heart stopped beating momentarily and then started beating so fast I thought I was having a heart attack.

"Bella, doesn't it bother you about what Jasper and I have done?"

She shook her head, but then nodded a little. "It doesn't bother me that you have these feelings for Jasper. I have those same feelings towards him. But I am feeling selfish, I would just prefer to be there next time if you don't mind?" she said in her soft, lilting voice.

I reached over and hugged her tightly to me. "Let's go and see Jasper, hmm?" and once she had nodded, I reversed the car and headed home.

Jasper had been pacing back and forwards on the front balcony anxiously awaiting the outcome of my discussion with Bella. He told us later that when he spied us parking the car and walking up the stairs, arm in arm, his heart broke a little thinking we had decided to get married and he would be left out on his own.

Bella maintained her cool façade until we had moved inside the apartment. She then ran over to Jasper wrapped her arms around his neck, kissed him hard on the lips and yelled out that she loved him too. I followed closely behind her and sidled in right behind her, pressing my hips into her behind and wrapping my arms around them both.

Jasper looked to be in shock for a few moments before his face split into the most joyous smile. He kissed Bella lingeringly on the lips first and then leaned over her shoulder and kissed me. He grabbed both our hands and pulled us to the couch, Bella in the middle.

We talked for hours that night, interspersed with lingering touches and sweet kisses. When we discovered that Jasper was a virgin also, we were rather overwhelmed. I had mistakenly assumed Jasper had experience; he had such a confident swagger. He admitted that he had gone steady with a girl throughout high school but they had never gone all the way. Did none of us have any real experience between us then?

At eleven, we took Bella home, holding her in a long hug in front of our door and shared lingering kisses before driving her back. She hadn't wanted to leave us. We were quiet on the way home, listening to soft jazz on the radio. Both of us were dumbfounded at the events of the night. It was beyond comprehension that we all felt the same way about each other.

When we walked in the door, all I wanted was to curl up in bed next to Jasper but we had felt wrong without Bella. We did share a passionate kiss in his doorway and then I reluctantly left him to go to bed alone in my room.

I couldn't sleep. Too much had changed in my life in just twenty-four hours and it was so much to take in. The realities of our situation were sobering. Whoever heard of a marriage between two men with one woman? I was sure that no one else would get themselves into this kind of situation and I was sure that it would never be legal. I imagined what it would be like if anyone at the station ever found out about us. I couldn't help but think about James Anderson's snide remarks about the two young men last week who had filed a complaint when they had been beaten up, one within an inch of his life. James had said that there was no way he was going to take the case of two faggots who deserved everything they got. He said that they were better off dead, they were unnatural.

Although we had parted euphorically, knowing that we all felt the same and in love, I realized we were travelling down a very difficult road. How would it work? Bella was living at home with her parents and I couldn't see that she would just up and move in with us. It would hurt her family too much. My family was very straight-laced and pillars of the community. I would not have them humiliated if our living arrangements were discovered. Jasper didn't have any family. He had been orphaned at 20 when his parents had been killed in a car accident, but I am sure that he would prefer that our lifestyle not be discovered by our friends and work colleagues.

I went over and over in my mind plan after plan, but I could see only one which resulted in the three of us being together. I resolved to cook the three of us a special dinner tomorrow night and talk over my ideas with Jasper and Bella. I hoped they would agree as I truly didn't think any other options would work for us.

The next night after I had made home-made pizzas, which truth to tell were the only thing I cooked with any competence, we all sat down at the table and I took a deep breath before telling them my ideas. I told them about all the abandoned ideas I had and why they wouldn't work first and they both agreed with me. And then it was time.