Chapter Forty-FourGrace
Chapter Forty-Four
Grace
I woke up with a gasp. Not from a nightmare, like I had sometimes, but from pleasure shooting through me. Someone was licking me, down there, as I slept.
Pulling up the blanket, I saw Wes, under the covers, hands on my thighs, eating me with abandon.
He looked up, face glistening. “Happy birthday, Peaches. Come for me? Breakfast should be soon.”
“Ooh, I like this birthday wake-up.” I groaned as he flicked my clit with his tongue.
Tangling my hands in his messy hair, I lifted my hips to help get that clever mouth in just the right spot as he brought me closer to my peak.
Two fingers slipped inside and started working me as pleasure built inside.
“Yes, right there, yes,” I cried.
His tongue kept moving along my clit, and his fingers pumped faster as an orgasm exploded through my body.
“Wes.” I sighed, trying to pull him up onto me. “That was amazing.”
Wes grinned up at me, boyishly, head on my bare stomach. “I wrote happy birthday to you with my tongue over and over again.”
Well then. Happy birthday to me.
“Happy birthday to my bestest girl.” Wes blew a raspberry on my belly, making me giggle. “Come here.”
Grabbing me, he rolled us so we were nose to nose as he cuddled me, purring for me, the warmth making me feel all cozy inside.
“Do we have time for more?” I asked, wrapping my legs around him.
“Hey, assholes, it’s almost time for food,” Riley yelled from the other room.
“Someone’s making breakfast?” I hadn’t expected that.
Wes nuzzled me. “It’s your birthday.”
I climbed out of the warm bed and pulled on some clothes, as did Wes. As we came down the backstairs into the kitchen, where the smell of bacon greeted me.
Along with Evan and Jett in aprons .
Evan went to the cupboard. “I’ll get everyone coffee.”
Riley stood there, with the fridge open, pouring champagne into a giant mug. She held it out to me. “For the birthday girl.”
Brennan took it from her hand. “It’s before lunch. That means you have to put juice in it. Why a mug? We have an entire cabinet of proper glassware.”
“Really?” Riley got out the apple juice.
I nodded. “Yep, like how you can have vodka for breakfast if you add tomato juice, hot sauce, and celery.”
Jett put bacon on the kitchen table and made a face. “Well, that’s one way to get your vegetables.”
Spencer came into the kitchen fully dressed in his usual nice suit. Everyone else was in their pajamas.
Evan brought me a cup of coffee. I sat down at the kitchen table. Unlike the dining room, the kitchen table didn’t have assigned seats.
Riley placed a giant glass beer mug filled with champagne and apple juice. “What?” she said to Brennan as she squeezed in between Jett and Spencer. “It’s from the cabinet with the glasses.”
Wes and Evan sat on either side of me.
“Thank you.” I took a sip. It wasn’t a combination I had before, but not unpleasant. At least I had nothing planned for the day until later when Evan was taking Riley and me dress shopping for the gala.
We had pancakes, bacon, fried potatoes, and scrambled eggs with cheese and vegetables. As we ate, Riley cheerfully regaled us with stories about her and her friends at school, Brennan and Wes chiming in since they’d gone there, too.
“Thank you so much for breakfast,” I said to Jett and Evan as we finished. It had been nice of them to do that.
“Now it’s time for presents,” Jett said as Brennan cleared the table.
“I’m first.” Riley plopped a black bag with black sparkly tissue onto my lap.
Nestled in the tissue was a black shirt that had been shredded and studded and turned into a work of art. It said Rockland Raiders in silver and purple. Riley’s favorite skate smash team.
“Thank you, it’s amazing,” I told her. “You did this yourself?”
“I did. I also got us tickets to see them play the Capitol Crushers, which is pretty much the best team in the PSSL. Me and you. No boys. It’ll be so fun.” Riley beamed with pride.
“I’m excited, thank you, wow, that will be so much fun,” I exclaimed. We’d watched a game on TV together the other day and it had been fun.
Brennan’s eyebrows rose. “You can’t go to a sporting event by yourselves.”
“Um, I went with my friends a couple of weeks ago. Also, I’m pretty sure Grace is an adult. However, if you overprotective fucknuggets want to use your own money to go, fine. I’ll let you know where we’re sitting.” She scratched her nose with her middle finger.
“You did this yourself with your own money? I’m honored. Thank you.” Wow, that was quite a purchase for a teenager.
“Pretty sure Ri has more money than most of us,” Jett joked. “If you and your boyfriend get serious, you’re going to have to go honest, considering his dad is a police sergeant.”
Riley scowled. “We’re not dating, fuck you very much. Also, my work is for the greater good.”
Spencer gave her a sharp look. “We’ve talked about this. You also made your sisters a promise.”
“I’m not doing that, well, mostly. Just stupid shit the rich kids pay me for. When can I get a work permit? Because if you’re going to make me an honest woman, then I need an honest paycheck, because my retirement island isn’t going to buy itself.” Riley leaned back in her chair.
“Sixteen–so, November,” Spencer replied. “We’re expanding our summer internship program to include high school students. You’re welcome to apply. It is paid, but not much. It will get you in the door. We have two sessions. Hopefully one of them doesn’t clash with any other plans you’ve made.”
“Ooh, really? I can’t wait. Working for you is going to be fun.” She bounced in her chair.
“You do know that you’ll be working with Wes, right?” Brennan laughed as he rinsed something off in the sink and then loaded it into the dishwasher.
“Fuck, no,” Riley scoffed. “No offense, Wes, but I’m going to work with Grace.”
“What exactly would a hacker and a mathematician do for a biotech company? Sounds like the start of a joke,” Brennan teased, refilling everyone’s coffee.
“We could hack reality. No, hear me out. What if the universe was a simulation–and we could hack it? Wouldn’t that be amazing? ” Her eyes danced with delight.
Spencer’s face went awash with horror. “Please don’t.”
“Ri, I’d love to work with you. But let’s choose something else.
If reality is a simulation, we don’t want to piss off the person running it by hacking it,” I replied, understanding Spencer’s look.
If someone governed travel between worlds, someone could do so for reality–and I did not want to meet them.
“Spence, Ri is talented, but hacking reality is just a theory, like time travel.” Brennan shook his head as he finished pouring coffee refills.
I looked at Brennan. “Did you ever consider that the reason we think it’s a theory–and have never met anyone from another time–is because someone is monitoring it?
Consider parallel worlds, could you imagine the chaos that could stem from it?
Worlds conquering each other for the resources or simply for the hell of it? ”
Yeah, I hadn’t laid awake at night thinking about the temporal police.
“Whoa, that sounds amazing.” Riley did a little dance in her seat again.
“Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should,” Spencer warned. “But why don’t you think about a project you and Grace could do together that doesn’t threaten the fabric of time and space and send me a proposal?”
“This is way too serious of a conversation for this time of the morning. More presents. This is from me and Bren.” Jett dropped a large bag on my lap.
I pulled out a butter-soft black leather motorcycle jacket. “This is beautiful.”
“To go with your boots,” Jett replied. “There’s more.”
I pulled out a black motorcycle helmet that had Peaches airbrushed on it.
“Thank you, thank you both,” I said. That was thoughtful.
“Now, we’ll be nice and safe when we steal Evan’s bike and go fuck shit up. I have one, too,” Riley told me.
“Motorcycle license. We need to get you a motorcycle license, driver’s too, since you live here now,” Evan said. “I totally forgot that.”
“Well, I’m not cleared to drive yet. I didn’t even get this off.” I made a face, holding up my wrist, which still had the little monitor. “But again, thank you, these are great.”
“Oh, there’s this.” Brennan half-tossed a box at me.
I caught it and unwrapped it. “Wireless headphones, thank you.”
“They’re for the piano. Spencer seems to resent the piano waking him up at two in the morning.” Brennan rolled his eyes. “Button for soundless is on the side of the piano. You can keep them in the bench with mine.”
“Thank you. That’s so nice.” I clutched them to my chest.
He shrugged. “Like I said, we can’t interrupt Spencer’s beauty sleep.”
Spencer shot him a scathing look.
“My turn.” Evan handed me a bag. “I hope you like it.”
“I’m sure I will.” Had everyone gotten me a present?
I took out a beautiful messenger bag. “It has equations on it. Thank you.”
Leaning over, I gave him a kiss.
“No kissing at the table,” Riley scolded, throwing a piece of tissue paper at her brother.
“That’s not a house rule,” Wes replied. “I’ll go next. Here.”
He handed me a large, flat, rectangular present.
I undid the wrapping and stared, heart in my throat, tears in my eyes.
It was a framed and matted collage of pictures that Wes had drawn.
Pictures of me. Of us. Little me. Big me.
It looked like most were from his sketchbooks.
One was obviously recent–me with my short hair, reading in the window seat.
“Oh, Wes.” In the center was a charcoal portrait I’d never seen. “This one… wow.”
“It was for an art show. It won a prize.” Wes gave me a bashful look.
I gave him a kiss, overwhelmed at the thoughtfulness of the gift. “It’s perfect. Thank you so much, these are perfect.”
Joy spread through my chest.
“Last, but certainly not least.” Spencer withdrew a long velvet box from his suit jacket, leaned over the table and handed it to me, then gave me the barest of kisses on the cheek. “Happy birthday, my good doctor.”
Heat spread through my cheeks. “Thank you so much.”
“What is it?” Riley crowded over my shoulder.
I opened the velvet box and exhaled sharply. Inside was a gold necklace made up of dainty flowers, a stone winking from the center of each. The flowers got bigger towards the center of the necklace. Matching dainty earrings, a little dangle of three flowers, accompanied it.
Peach blossoms. They were peach blossoms.
“It’s beautiful, thank you.” It was delicate and classic. A touch fancy for every day, but I could wear it on many occasions.
“Peach blossoms, for our peach.” Spencer smiled at me.
Something about that smile made my squishy places warm.
Wes cocked his head and gave him a look. “This is how it’s going to be?”
“It’s her birthday, Wes. I thought that she might like something new to wear to dinner tonight.” Spencer met his gaze.
“They’re teasing each other,” Evan whispered in my ear. “Wes knew about it, because Spence wanted to coordinate with what you were wearing to dinner.”
Yesterday, Wes surprised me with a sparkly, emerald green dress for tonight–and had gotten Evan a matching tie.
We finished breakfast, and I offered to clean up–since I didn’t have to go to work.
“Thank you.” Evan’s voice drifted from the backstairs as I grabbed empty cups from the table.
“For what?” Brennan said. “They were headphones. It’s not like I got her a bracelet engraved with the opening bars of the third movement of Kirkokov’s 4th.”
“That is oddly specific.” Evan snorted.
“Oh, come on, you know she was the girl at the piano competitions that warmed up with it to intimidate everyone,” their voices trailed off as they walked up the stairs.
Huh. I needed to look that one up, though I’d run across Kirkokov’s pieces. They were very technical–like Rachmaninoff technical.
Wes came back down, dressed. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay home with you?”
“I’m looking forward to relaxing. No videos to watch for Evan, no check-ins or appointments. Evan is picking me up later for dress shopping. Then we’re going out to dinner.” I gave him a kiss. “Those pictures are beautiful. Thank you.”
I cleaned up, packed Evan a lunch, and then went upstairs to my room. Someone was coming over the weekend to install that door in my room that led to his bathroom. I went into the wardrobe. What did I want to wear today?
Evan knocked on the open door. “Anyone home? Oh, you put the lights back up.”
“I like them. Um, I need help putting the canopy up. I… I really don’t remember taking everything down, just tidying up.” I still felt bad that I’d undone all the work we’d put into my room.
He put an arm around my waist. “I know. Everyone’s left–and my first meeting was canceled, so I don’t have to leave for two hours.”
I leaned into him, rubbing up against him, wanting a little more of what I’d gotten this morning. “Oh dear, however will we amuse ourselves?”
That hour or so Evan and I often had between when everyone else left and when he needed to leave was quickly becoming one of my favorite parts of the day. It wasn’t even about sex, sometimes we just had coffee and cuddles.
“I got some new bubble bath,” he offered. “Vanilla peach.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” I laughed as he scooped me up. That sounded nice.
Maybe we could play with the jelly knot.
“Mmmm, I love it when you call me sir. Almost as much as those little notes you tuck in with my sandwich.” He kissed my nose.
I’d been packing him lunch, since he didn’t get free lunch at work like Wes and Spence.
He brought me into the bathroom, where the giant tub was practically overflowing with vanilla-scented bubbles. Gently, he stripped me, and settled me into the tub. Turning the water off, he lit some candles.
“This is perfect. Want to join me?” I leaned back onto the bath pillow.
His eyes sparkled as he flipped off the light, so the bathroom glowed with candlelight. “I thought you’d never ask.”