Season of Gifts (Neighborly Affection #8)

7. Jay

Chapter seven

Jay

S etting the table for Thursday supper, Jay took personal inventory. Not what he was carrying on him or making sure his parts were all still attached, like he’d thought the first time Danny had suggested it in therapy. Right now, that was three plates with silverware on top and zero clothes, with all parts intact.

This was an inside inventory, checking in with his body to make sure things were running right (no leftover aches from work, but eager for dinner), and with his heart to find out how he was feeling (pretty good despite losing at checkers, though Mr. Donovan wasn’t a talker like Mrs. Eickhoff), and with his head for what he was thinking (should he feel guiltier for getting back into his routines, even though he found them super-comforting). He centered white plates on red mats, very peppermint Christmas. The lights on the tree glowed from the living room, and the whole house smelled of evergreen and citrus.

Danny said returning to his daily routines was normal, though he didn’t say “normal” because he didn’t like that word. But Jay didn’t have to feel guilty about not thinking about Mrs. Eickhoff every minute, and it was okay, too, that sometimes she would flash into his thoughts. And sometimes that might be the last time he’d seen her, and it would trip him up like a stick in the spokes, but other times it would be good memories, like the ones he’d shared with Henry and Alice last night. And probably this weekend there would be a service—he’d set up a search notification for her name so he wouldn’t miss her obituary—and he’d hear more nice stories about her.

Inventory-wise, the day wasn’t a bad one. And after dinner at the breakfast bar Tuesday, before his shower even, and dinner and dessert on the roof yesterday with tiny snowflakes landing on their hot chocolate, today was a regular old everything as usual day. Routine.

He sighed and rolled his neck, sloughing tension out of his shoulders, but his hot shower had done most of the work for him, and setting the table had done the rest.

“Finished, my boy?” Henry, at the counter, had slipped gloves over his hands before he started chopping up beets and scooping the pink-purple bits into a bowl. Pausing, he surveyed the table at a distance, and Jay clasped his hands behind his back and waited for judgment. “Beautifully done.”

Calm washed over him. A task wasn’t done-done until he had Henry’s approval running through his veins.

“Will you add a trivet for the salmon—one of the larger ones, please—and then bring three salad plates to me?”

As Jay slid their calendar basket toward the empty place to make room for the fancy hot pad, the front door swung open and lightly thudded shut. A chorus of crunchy winter-coat fussing and the oof of boots coming off signaled Alice’s arrival.

She moseyed into the living room in stocking feet and stood before the tree, taking deep breaths.

“It’s been way too long”—she strode toward him, marking him head to toe, with a smile pulling at her mouth—“since I’ve had a tree with real tree-ness. And you”—she tapped his breastbone with one finger, then laid her hand flat—“are doing a most excellent job keeping it gorgeous. Hi, husband.”

“Hi—” He only got the one word out before she kissed him, balancing with her hand planted over his heart. She murmured against his mouth, mini-size mmm s, the kind she made for her first bite of s’mores. His body warmed, even though she carried the cool crispness of winter air on her.

“Yup.” Nodding, she drew back and licked her lips, giving a little shimmy. “That’s what I was missing all day.” Her eyes sparkled, flecks of gold glinting in the hazel like sunlight off a steep cliff. “Henry? May I steal this delectable man from you for an hour?”

She completed the rhythm of his day, the belonging that cloaked him in Henry and Alice’s love. Little reminders that he was a submissive in their service, official now with the harness ceremony at their wedding.

“I suppose that might be…” Beet-red gloves snapped as Henry peeled them from his hands and laid them on the cutting board. “Negotiable.”

Jay clamped his lips shut. Telling Alice the beets had to roast for like forty minutes before the salmon even started would mean missing out on his spouses haggling over him. He was, without question, a prize to be won.

Alice swept her hand down Jay’s side and across his flank on her way into the kitchen. “Something I could offer you in exchange for his services?” She perched at the end of the island, elbows braced on the top, her hands bridged under her chin. “I have a task, you see.”

She did? For him? His heartbeat started casting his vote, pumping blood into kinda-sorta noticeable places. Tough to hide his interest without any clothes on.

“A task, you say.” Henry stretched out his arm, and Alice took his hand. He reeled her in until she stood pressed to him, her head tipped back as she met him in a teasing staredown. “Tell me more of this task you would set for my Jay. He’s in the midst of one for me, you see.”

She flicked a glance toward him. “The table looks set to me.”

He rushed to the cabinet and pulled out the gray stone hot pad with its nubby rubber feet. Centered it on the tablecloth, gently tugging out the wrinkles.

“He does superb work.” Henry wooed Alice with nose nuzzles, their mouths sliding past each other but not giving in to kisses. They had way more self-control than he did. “I don’t know that I could possibly spare him for an hour.”

“He does.” She rubbed her cheek against Henry’s and winked at Jay as he fetched the salad plates, trying not to make a racket. “That’s why I’m asking for his service. It’s been far, far”—she laid a kiss on Henry’s neck, at the pulse point below his jaw—“far too long since I’ve checked his progress in our new room.”

A room check .

If his cock hadn’t been obvious about joining the conversation before, it was now. She would love the new space. He’d been keeping the door closed since they picked one of the third-floor bedrooms at the back of the house for their mini-space. For our rituals , she’d said, and the phrase had lit a bonfire in his brain. He’d been doing so much work in there, and gotten Henry’s help for the—well, she’d see. Today. Now.

He set the plates on the island, near Henry’s elbow but well clear of the beet-stained cutting area. “Is there anything else you need, Master Henry?”

Henry hummed softly; Alice’s face only partially hid Henry’s smile. “No, I believe that concludes your work for me, dear boy. Perhaps you’d care to assist your mistress with her project now?”

Alice, leaning across the island, cupped Jay’s chin and brushed his hair off his forehead. “If you’re ready, sweetheart.”

He pressed into her touch, bumping with his head like a barn cat. “I’m ready, Mistress.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” She ran her finger across his mouth in some kind of hypnosis, locking his gaze on her, holding him captive. “Ten minutes. Leave my notebook and pen out where I can see them.”

He jogged up the stairs, leaving Henry’s question about Alice’s workday behind him. His only task now was fulfilling Alice’s desires, and that started with being certain every inch of the room was perfect. Three weeks ago, they’d had their final room check at the apartment. Nothing last week or the week before, because first they’d had to decide on what their ritual really meant, and why they did it, and what they got out of it, and how they wanted it to continue. Which had been after-dinner cleanup conversation for four whole days, with Henry refereeing.

Yes, they wanted to share, even with three spare bedrooms now. Yes, it would be a space set aside just for them, and Alice could set her own rules there within Henry’s limits.

Jay stepped inside and pushed the door mostly closed, with a couple-inch gap. If he left it all the way open, she’d see inside from the stair landing, and then maybe he’d miss her reaction. Seeing what she thought of his work was the whole point. He could keep the room tidy as part of regular house chores, whatever, but that wouldn’t give him the same buzz as doing it specifically for her enjoyment and approval. The task had to matter; it had to contribute.

He checked the displays on the new shelving: nothing out of place, everything easy to slide out and relive. Prints from photos he’d taken over the last two years hung clipped to a wall wire so he could swap them whenever and refresh memories for her. His wish book lay on one nightstand; her notebook for grading his work lay on the other. He added her pen from the nightstand drawer. Closet open, off-season clothes neatly hung, pillows fluffed—the only thing missing was Alice.

Oh! Windows. The sheers covered them, but he pulled the drapes closed, too, so the darkness outside and the light inside didn’t spotlight them for the neighbors. Okay. All good.

Breathing deep, he stood at the foot of the bed, faced the door, and waited.

A tiny thunk on the hardwood in the hall had his ears straining for more clues.

The door swung, and she filled his vision. She’d discarded her top and left just the silky under-blouse on over her bra, powder blue and navy layered against her pale, peachy skin. She pushed the door all the way to the wall, her arm against it, fingers splayed—and stopped. Right in the doorway, she stopped.

Her eyes rounded; her mouth, too, falling open in what would please please be astonishment and happiness.

“Jay, this is…” Gasping, she darted to the shelves and fingered the origami pieces he’d made for her.

He’d tried to keep their lineup the same, the categories of plants and animals and other things the way she’d had them at the apartment, only they’d been squeezed onto the dresser there. Now they had a whole art bookcase to themselves, and the bed of flowers he’d made her hung in a net on the wall.

She touched what seemed like every piece, running her fingers across the work he’d done in caresses that made him squirm for the same treatment. At the shelf displaying all the notes Henry had ever left for her—the ones she’d tucked away in the vanity drawer—she picked up the Christmas one with the tree sketch on the front. Sighing softly, she put it back, then touched the ones on the next shelf. “These are—and you have all the ones so far?”

He did; he’d grabbed the calendar sketch from this morning and added it to the scene after his shower. “I thought you’d want to keep them safe.”

“You are the most thoughtful man,” she murmured. Her eyes held a liquid sheen.

Turning, she laughed and darted the other way, to the photos he’d chosen. Some from their relationship, some from before, when he and Henry were just good neighbors trying to cultivate her friendship. He’d caught a fantastic shot of them on the old roof deck, Henry on one knee with a platter, describing appetizers, while Alice gazed at him with her softest smile.

She came back to him finally, shaking her head, her lips in a tight line but with the corners tipping up. “I don’t even know what to say, sweetheart. You…” Blinking, she raised her arms and wrapped her hands around the back of his neck, pulling his head down to hers. “You amaze me. Every day, in so many ways, it is unfathomable to me how you are this wonderful creature, this exemplary man, how you see so much deeper. How you make everyone’s life better by being in it. I know this week has been difficult. But this space you’ve made for us, this cozy nest of the things that remind us who we are—it’s perfect. A-plus. I can’t find a single fault.”

Her approval radiated heat better than an orgasm. If he could live inside that feeling—not a disappointment, not a bother or a burden, not in the way, but valued, cherished, praised for the things that made him him —he’d never be unhappy a day in his life. “Thank you, Mistress Alice. I was hoping you’d like it.”

“Far more than like.” She kissed his cheeks, softly, then nudged open his mouth and swayed with him in a dreamy, rolling rhythm of tongues and caresses. Her hands skimmed his back, fingers so light they almost tickled, raising electricity in his skin. “I have a reward for you. Two, actually. Would you like to choose which you want today?”

The question had only two answers: yes, and hell yes.