I laugh and squeeze his shoulder. “I promise I’m okay with it. I think Marc’s nervous about it, too. You guys are like brothers, and like you said, it was your job. I don’t think you sit around and fantasize about him or anything.”

  “Definitely not.”

  I chuckle. “No worries, then.”

  “You ready to go?” Marc asks, sauntering towards us.

  “Yep. Thanks again, Jace. See you later, Troy.”

  “Yeah, man. Take it easy.”

  Garrett, me, and Marc make our way out to the car and head home. Marc’s fairly quiet while Garrett talks about how much he likes the guys, and how he needs to play poker more often. He rambles on for a while, and I chime in when needed, but Marc’s silence is what I’m most focused on. Is he still worried that I might be mad? I’ll have to clear this up when we get some time alone.

  NATHALIA

  “Surprise!”

  Adrienne’s jaw drops as she takes in the room before her. “Oh my god!”

  “It’s your surprise bridal shower!” Emilie announces as she moves in for a hug.

  “How long have you guys been planning this?” Adrienne asks, her entire face lit up with excitement as she comes to give me a hug.

  “For a little while,” I say with a smile.

  She walks around the room greeting the other women who’ve gathered here. Some are from her job; fellow event planners and some assistants. Emilie invited some women from the coffee house she owns, all women that Adrienne has become close to over the years. Then of course a couple ladies who Adrienne and Emilie have known since school. In the past year, thanks to my friendship with Em and A, I’ve been able to meet most of their friends who are here today.

  “I can’t believe you were able to keep a secret, Em,” Adrienne says with a laugh.

  “Hey! I’m a great secret keeper,” Emilie defends.

  “Yeah, yeah. Thank you, guys, so much. I’m so excited!”

  “Well, let’s get this party started!” Emilie shouts, fist in the air.

  Adrienne hooks her arm in mine as we follow Emilie into the living room where a table is set up with supplies for a few games.

  I pick up a bag of purple clothespins—purple because it’s one of Adrienne’s wedding colors, and hand one to each lady.

  “Okay, ladies. From here on out, we cannot use the word wedding. If you do and someone catches you, they get your clothespin. The person with the most by the end of the party will win a prize.”

  “Wedding, wedding, wedding,” Emilie chants before she gets her pin. “I have to get it out.”

  I laugh as I move on, handing out the rest of the clothespins.

  “For our first game, you each get a piece of paper and a pencil, and after placing the paper in front of your feet, bend over and try to trace whatever hand you write with, with your other hand. The catch is, you cannot bend your knees.”

  The ladies line up with their papers in front of them, and then begin trying to trace their hands.

  “Aww, fuck. This is harder than I thought it would be,” Emilie says.

  “Jesus. I can’t…do it,” Cindy, Adrienne’s assistant, complains through grunts.

  The women keep complaining, and with each complaint, I crack up some more. After a few minutes, everyone mostly gets it done, and examines their terrible hand tracings.

  “Okay, so now we get to hear what Adrienne’s going to be saying on her wedding night,” I chirp with excitement.

  “Oh god,” Adrienne groans.

  “Yep. That’s one of them,” I say with a laugh.

  “You said the word!” Emilie yells, reaching for my clothespin.

  “Dammit!” I mutter, while Em giggles like a schoolgirl.

  I read off the women’s complaints that I was writing down while they struggled with the task of tracing their hands.

  “Adrienne will be saying, “Aww, fuck. This is harder than I thought it would be.”

  We all howl with laughter.

  “It better be fucking hard!” Emilie shouts.

  “Oh, god! My legs are killing me. I’m not flexible enough for this.”

  “You better shape up, Adrienne!” her assistant Cindy calls out.

  “Jesus. I can’t…do it.”

  “Stay strong, A!” another woman shouts.

  I read another. “This feels funny in my hand. I can’t grip it right.”

  “Practice your G.I. Joe Kung-Fu grip!” Em says.

  “Oh shush!” Adrienne says as she playfully hits her.

  “My back!” is another one I read aloud.

  “He’s blowing that back out, Adrienne. It’s a good thing!”

  Each one I read makes us laugh until we have tears in our eyes. We move onto the next game which begins with Emilie writing one sentence about where or how Adrienne met Jace. She hands it to the next person who writes their own sentence, then they fold the paper over until only their sentence is visible, and it moves on to the next. Adrienne ends up reading the entire thing when it’s finished, which ends up being an exaggerated tale of their relationship.

  “Adrienne met Jace at a club while he was on a ‘date’ with another woman. She couldn’t stop drooling.

  She drooled so much that Jace almost didn’t want to talk to her again.

  Jace did talk to her again when he stole her phone and held it for ransom.

  Adrienne went to retrieve the phone, and also the dick.

  The dick made her keep coming back for more.

  Um. I don’t know where to go from here. Jace must have been a good lay. They’re getting married.

  This story is getting messed up. I can feel it. Jace wooed Adrienne by sending her on a scavenger hunt, leading her to things she wanted that she had mentioned to him before. Aww!

  And they lived happily ever after. The end.”

  Adrienne laughs. “Well, that’s mostly right. Thanks, ladies. I’ll be sure to show this letter to Jace later. I’m sure he’ll get a kick out of it.”

  We all take a break to eat and have some champagne while talking about the wedding. Three women get their clothespins taken from them in the process.

  “This wed…marriage celebration,” Emilie amends, “is going to be so beautiful.”

  “Adrienne, you really have done a phenomenal job with everything, but I can only imagine how stressed you are. How are you holding up?” I ask.

  She takes a deep breath. “I’m hanging in there. I think Em is right with this whole simple wedding idea. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve wanted an extravagant wedding my whole life, and I’m glad I’m able to use the talent I have with event planning to get it just right. Plus, I’ve made some contacts being in this business, so I’m getting good deals on a lot of things, but yes, it’s stressful. I’m just thinking about all of the things that could go wrong.”

  “Nothing is going to go wrong, sweetie,” Emilie says. “Everything will be perfect.”

  Adrienne gives her an appreciative smile before taking a sip of her champagne. “Soon it will all be out of my hands, and all I’ll be doing is waiting for the day. I can’t wait for the honeymoon. Jace is really keeping this a secret. It’s driving me crazy, but I love him for putting it all together.”

  “Has he given you any hints?” I ask.

  “Nope. I even tried asking what kind of clothes I need, hoping to get an idea based on that, but he said don’t worry about it. He said he’ll pack my bags, but when I said I need to make sure I have specific things, he said I can just buy some when we get there. Ugh. He’s not budging on this,” she says with a laugh.

  “It’s kind of cute, though,” I tell her.

  “Jace is a romantic. He won’t tell his friends that, but he is,” she replies, another smile lighting up her face.

  “Well, I can’t wait for the bachelorette party,” Em announces.

  “Seriously, Thalia, that place is made for parties. I can’t thank you guys enough for letting us use it,” Adrienne replies.

  “Of course. Marc has done all the work in securing all the VIP areas. It’s gonna be a blast.”

  “Yeah, and it may just be us if the guys are planning a weekend away,” Em says, rolling her eyes.

  “You ask Troy about it yet?” I question.

  She shakes her head. “Nah. If this is his idea, he can come to me and tell me he’s changed things around.”

  Me and Adrienne just nod along, but something in Em’s tone makes it seem like she’s upset with him, but we don’t want to touch on that right now.

  “So, T, you talk to those guys of yours yet?” Em asks.

  “About what?”

  “You know. The ceremony, the babies, all of that,” she says, waving her hand in the air.

  “Oh,” I say with a laugh. “No, I haven’t brought it up yet.”

  Truth is, I’m terrified. The guys have never talked about kids, and I’m afraid they might say they aren’t interested, especially considering our unique situation. As far as a ceremony goes, I don’t think they’d be against that, but I don’t think it’s my place to bring it up. I’d feel like I was asking them to propose. Can you propose in this kind of situation?

  I shake my head, frustrated with my own thoughts. “I don’t know. We’ll see what happens,” I say.

  I think Adrienne sees my frustration, so she diverts the conversation. “More games?”

  “Yes,” I reply with a smile. “We have some more things planned.”

  I gather all the guests into the living room, and we group up and play the toilet paper, wedding gown game. Even though Em and I practiced earlier, we didn’t win. Emilie won the scavenger hunt game, but gave up her prize to the second-place winner since she helped me pick out all the gifts. As the games come to an end, we treat ourselves to some cake, having already set up different flavors so we could all do a little taste testing.

  The guests begin to disperse, leaving only the three of us. Both Adrienne and Emilie insist on helping clean up, so we turn up the stereo and have fun dancing around while putting everything away.

  “Well, I guess I’m gonna head home,” Em announces as she pushes herself up from the couch.

  “Me too,” Adrienne adds, “I had a blast.”

  “Who knew cleaning up could be so fun?” I say with a smile.

  “I think the dancing is what has me so exhausted. I can’t wait to go home and take a nap,” Emilie says.

  I walk them to the door. “Thanks for helping me clean.”

  “Thanks for the party,” Adrienne responds.

  We hug goodbye and I shut the door, going back to collapse on the couch. I must’ve fallen asleep, because a little while later, the boisterous voices of the guys wake me up.

  MARC

  “Hey baby,” I say to Nathalia when we walk in.

  She stretches her arms and legs, clearly just waking up, then gets up from the couch to greet us. “Hey.”

  I wrap my arm around her and give her a kiss. “How was the party?”

  “It was a lot of fun, but I’m exhausted now.”

  “Me too,” Garrett says. “Did you at least win the dress game?”

  She moves from my arms to give Lincoln a hug and kiss. “Uhh…no.”

  “Oh, come on, T. After giving my brother blackmail material for probably my whole life, you couldn’t at least win?” Garrett says with a shake of his head.

  Nathalia giggles. “Sorry, Garrett.”

  Garrett gives her a smirk. “I guess I forgive you.” He looks at me. “I’m gonna go lay down for a little bit. Any plans for tonight?”

  “I’m not sure. We’ll probably eat in a couple hours, then we can figure something out.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “I’m gonna go take a shower,” I say before leaving the room.

  Truth is, I just need to be by myself for a little while. The whole conversation about what happened between me and Jace a while back has me on edge. I’m not even sure why. Maybe I just feel bad for not telling Lincoln sooner. Nathalia knows, because it was one of the many conversations we had when she was my client. She was so easy going about my job and everything, so when she inquired about the work I did and what all I had experienced, I told her about my threesomes. She didn’t meet Jace until a while later, but I guess neither of us felt it necessary to bring up again.

  Plus, Lincoln was being a little strange at Jace’s house. It was obvious him, Troy, and Jace were talking about something they didn’t want me to know about, because when I walked up, Lincoln tensed up a bit, while the guys had strange looks on their faces. Linc was quick to transition into a relaxed position, but I can’t help but wonder what they were discussing.

  I spend fifteen minutes in the shower thinking about what I’m going to tell Lincoln. I know he didn’t seem upset when he found out, but I want to make it clear that I’m not keeping anything else from him. He needs to know how serious I am about the three of us working.

  Our relationship is as serious as it can be, honestly. We have a home together, we own and run a business together, and the only other step in any relationship to prove how committed we are, is something we legally can’t do. Marriage.

  “Marc?” Lincoln’s voice comes through the bathroom door.

  I wrap a towel around my waist and open the door. “Hey.”

  “Can we talk for a minute?”

  “Of course. What’s up?”

  “You were pretty quiet on the way home, and I just wanted to come see if you were okay.”

  I lean against the sink and rub the scruff along my jaw. “I’m fine. How are you? That whole thing with Jace was a little awkward, huh?”

  He grins widely. “I knew that’s what was wrong with you. I’m fine with it, Marc. If I were mad, you’d know.”

  Linc walks towards me, resting his hands on my hips. His fingers dance along my dampened skin, teasingly dipping into the towel.

  “I just don’t want you to think I make a habit of keeping things from you. It was a work thing, and I never thought twice about it after it was over.”

  “I believe you. I promise, I’m not mad.”

  I let out a sigh. “I love you. You know that?”

  He gives me a heart-stopping smile. “I know.”

  “I need to talk to you about something, and your hands are making it hard to concentrate.”

  Linc leans forward and kisses a path along my jaw, down to my neck. “Am I making it really hard?” he whispers huskily.

  I clear my throat. “Yes.”

  “Maybe I should check just to be sure,” he says, his hands beginning to undo the towel.

  I grab his wrists. “Later. And I promise to make it worth the wait, but I really,” I kiss his neck, “really,” I kiss his cheek, “need,” I kiss his lips, “to talk to you.”

  He groans. “Okay, but maybe you can make it easy on me, and put some clothes on.”

  With a grin, I kiss him one more time before leaving the bathroom and entering our bedroom to find some clothes.

  “Where’s Nathalia?” I ask.

  “Starting dinner.”

  After throwing on some lounge pants and a gray t-shirt, I sit on the bed with Lincoln sitting next to me.

  “Okay, I wanted to include Nathalia in this, but I think once I talk to you, maybe the two of us can come up with a really good way to involve her.”

  His brows furrow. “You’re confusing me. What’s going on?”

  “Have you thought about our future together? The three of us?”

  Lincolns face contorts into one of worry, or maybe even confusion. “I know that we’re going to be together. Why? What’re you thinking?”

  I smile to put him at ease. “I know we’re going to be together, because I couldn’t imagine not being with either one of you. What I’m curious about is our next step.”

  “What would our next step be?”

  I lean back against the pillows and look towards the ceiling. “That’s the big question.”

  A minute of silence goes by before he speaks again.

  “Do you want to get married, Marc?”

  His question catches me off guard. While I know that’s the direction I was going, I wasn’t expecting him to ask that. I sit up and stare into his eyes.

  “I do. I want to marry you, and I want to marry Nathalia, but…”

  “But we can’t.”

  I let out a sigh. “Right.”

  “I’m not saying I don’t want that, Marc. I do. I’ve been thinking about it as well. It’s kind of hard to ignore when all these wedding activities are going on.”

  A smirk crosses my face. “You want to marry us?”

  “Of course I do. That’s what me and the guys were talking about earlier. I was telling them I needed to talk to you guys to see where you were.”

  “Well, since we can’t really get married, what do we do?”

  “We can have some sort of ceremony. Our friends and family can still come together to watch us pledge our love to each other. We can do all the same wedding activities. We don’t need a paper to validate what we have.”

  “I agree,” I say with a smile. “I think the two of us should come up with a way to ask Nathalia. We can make it romantic like a proposal would be, and then we can start planning everything.”

  “I have an idea.”

  “You do?”

  “I told you I’ve been thinking about this,” he answers with a wink.

  I move towards him and cradle his face in my hands. “How’d I get so lucky?”

  “You’re not the only one.”

  Our lips meet, and our tongues swirl around each other’s, pulling moans from both of us.

  “Guys?” Nathalia’s voice calls from downstairs.

  “I guess we’ll talk about this plan of yours later,” I say, pulling back from his mouth.

  “And I guess we’ll all get lucky later tonight,” he replies, waggling his eyebrows.

 

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