Chapter 30
CHAPTER
THIRTY
Bow
“I still can’t believe it,” Sloane said, gazing off onto Pembroke University’s football field. We were sitting on the bleachers with Fawn and Aspen. Aspen had a break during her tour and was hanging out with us today on the empty bleachers. Sloane smiled at the field. “You, Wells, and my brother.”
I glanced away to that same field. The guys were out there, my brother and his friends.
The men known as Legacy were tossing a football on an empty field when most of Pembroke University’s student body was packing their stuff into moving boxes.
These were some of the final days people actually may be on campus with graduation around the corner.
The guys weren’t packing. They were having fun.
This was probably the last time they’d be doing something like this for a while.
We were all growing up. We were all grown up.
Dorian had accepted an offer to play football with a team near Boston.
Sloane would obviously be going with him after graduation.
Ares was graduating too, but he’d be sticking close to home until Fawn graduated.
She was a junior like Thatcher, Wells, and Bru.
Lacing my fingers, I leaned forward. Bru and Wells were on the same team out on the empty field, but one wouldn’t know it with the way they tackled each other.
Laughing, Wells took Bru down after he intercepted a pass from Dorian to Ares.
Obviously, Wells hadn’t meant to run into Bru while catching the ball, but Bru was really big.
He happened to take up a lot of surface area, so Wells clipped him when he intercepted the pass.
Both guys hit the ground in a fit of laughter and chuckles. Bru shoved Wells before helping him up, their faces red as they clasped their hands together.
They were also shirtless.
Their slick, beautiful bodies gleamed in the setting sun, and their clasped hands turned into a hug before another shove.
The moment of shared affection was quick before they got back into the game, and I saw the other guys on the field noticed as well.
Dorian and Ares exchanged a glance, their smiles subtle on Wells and Bru before they all started tossing the ball again.
Thatcher took a second to get back into the game, his burly arms folded.
Thatcher’s smile was big on Wells and Bru which made Wells in particular roll his eyes.
Thatcher gripped his arm around Wells’s neck.
Thatcher was in the midst of giving Wells a noogie until Wells socked Thatcher in his gut.
It made Thatcher laugh instead of angry.
He really was supportive of his friends being together.
Thatcher even apologized to me.
My thoughts went back to that day at the cabin. It wasn’t long ago, but it felt like eons with everything that had happened since. I’d been on the stairs with Bru when Thatcher was talking to Wells. Initially, I was going to go down and talk to my brother, but Bru talked me out of it.
“Let us handle it,” Bru said to me, but my brother had no right to get involved with something that had nothing to do with him.
I was going to tell him that, but it turned out that I didn’t have to.
Again, Thatcher apologized to me, and he was even there when Wells and Bru ultimately told our parents about, well, the three of us.
Surprisingly, it had been Wells’s idea to tell our parents right away, to tell my dad.
Wells had been adamant about wanting to do that for some reason.
I wouldn’t lie. That night was… awkward.
It was a weird situation, but I understood Wells wanting to do that.
Our parents were really close, and my dad ended up taking Wells and Bru into a separate room after the initial discussion.
The guys invited all our families over to Legacy House for dinner, and the parents had definitely been surprised.
They’d been very supportive though, just like all our friends were.
We’d told all our friends about everything the night before.
Again, that’d been Wells’s idea.
He wanted no secrets, and he didn’t apologize to our friends or families for wanting to be with Bru and me.
He loved us.
I still couldn’t believe that, how wonderful and crazy that was. I also couldn’t believe what happened the night Wells and Bru told our parents about our relationship. Again, my dad had taken Wells and Bru off to the side. I didn’t know what that meant.
I’d been holding my breath the whole time Dad talked to Bru and Wells even though my mom and Bru’s and Wells’s moms told me things would be okay.
Wells’s mom, Cleo, hugged me after the news.
She’d always seen me as her daughter. She was also a second mom to me just like Bru’s mom, Brielle.
Things ended up being okay when my dad returned to the room with both guys.
I noticed right away neither Bru nor Wells was dead, so that was good.
They also didn’t appear to have any bodily harm.
“Your dad said he’s okay as long as you are,” Wells said to me later that night.
He’d made love to me again after the house cleared out, and, this time, the three of us had been in Wells’s room.
That was the second time we’d all been together intimately, and it was wonderful. It was more than wonderful.
I felt so loved.
Being with both of them was like two forces that somehow worked and created magic, harmony. They didn’t move until I moved and vice versa. We just worked.
We loved.
I did love both of them, but I was aware it wasn’t just the three of us in our world. We all had families, but we also had friends and my friend, Sloane, was Bru’s sister.
“Is that weird?” I asked her, referring to what she said about me being with her brother. I meant weird beyond the whole trio thing, and it wasn’t lost on me that I never told her I had feelings for her brother. I hadn’t told her I kissed him multiple times.
Out of nowhere, Sloane brought her arms around me. She never used to be a hugger, but she gave me the biggest one after finding out about my, well, relationship. She squeezed me. “Girl, no. I’m so happy. It’s different, but that’s not bad. In fact, I think it’s great.”
I held her waist. “You’re not mad I didn’t tell you about what was going on?”
After everything came out, I told her about that initial kiss in Bru’s car. She’d been surprised but, again, supportive.
Sloane let go of me. She smelled like flowers, and her hair was up in a messy bun.
She was wearing one of Dorian’s football hoodies.
It was actually from his new team. I was going to miss her when she went away, but I couldn’t be happier for her.
She and Bru had such a rough life growing up, and it was nice she was finally getting her happy ending.
As far as I knew, Dorian hadn’t proposed to her yet, but we all knew that was happening.
He loved her so much, and they were perfect for each other. Sloane smiled. “You know I’m not, sis.”
Sis.
She was my sister, and I hugged her so hard. Holding her hand, I noticed something metal on her finger, her ring finger.
Sloane noticed I noticed and slid her hand back into the sleeve of Dorian’s hoodie. My mouth parted, shocked, and Sloane pressed a finger to her lips.
Slowly, she showed me the ring on her hand. It was a diamond nearly the size of a baseball. Well, not really, but it was freaking huge.
Sloane pressed her finger to her mouth again before hiding her hand in her sleeve once more. She smiled. “He asked the night of his draft party.”
Oh… my…
“We’re telling everyone soon,” she said, hugging me again, and I had to fight from squealing since Aspen and Fawn were with us on the bleachers. The two were watching the boys play football too but were distracted as they chatted about Aspen’s tour.
I hugged my sister back. I expected a story soon about her engagement.
“God, I love when they do this,” Aspen said, and Sloane and I faced the field. Thatcher was taking his shirt off. He tossed it before getting back into the game, and Ares and Dorian did the same.
That got Fawn and Sloane’s attention, the two of them sighing.
Aspen did too which made me laugh, but I stopped when my eyes locked on to Wells and Bru.
They’d been shirtless from the jump, beautiful, but now, they had their attention on me.
Bru waved, and Wells winked. Wells even gave me a set of heart hands before playing again, which was crazy.
It was crazy wonderful.
“You okay?” Sloane asked me. We were taking a cooler of drinks to my brother’s car.
The guys finished playing football, and Sloane, Aspen, Fawn, and I were helping load up the stuff we brought.
The girls had packed a picnic earlier in the day, and we all ate on the field before the guys started their game.
It’d been nice, but I got killer heartburn after eating one of the sandwiches. That’d subsided, but now, I was feeling a little nauseous for some reason. I had bouts of nausea lately, but I figured it’d been all the stress I’d been going through. I’d never had a strong stomach.
“I just have a little stomachache,” I told Sloane. We’d had to slow to a stop with the cooler after the world kind of tilted, and my stomach flipped. I released a breath. “I’m okay.”
“You sure?” she asked, looking concerned, but I was. We picked up the pace and met Thatcher and Aspen at his car. The trunk of his SUV was open, and it was no surprise the two were basically making out under the open trunk.
Sloane made a gagging noise when she and I came around, and I was sure I looked like I’d sucked a lemon. It wasn’t the first time I’d come across my brother all over a girl. I loved Aspen of course, but he was basically mauling her.