Chapter Twenty-Five
Wes
“This is a bad idea.”
It’s Sunday morning. Troy, Adam, and I are sitting in my idling car in one of the parking garages for Belle Argo’s downtown area. Their merry band of sex workers likes to meet up over brunch. Which I know, because I crashed once before. To hassle my brother’s boyfriend.
Which is also why I don’t want to go back.
“It’ll be fine,” Troy says. With his brows crouched low like they want to escape the conversation, he sounds more confident than he looks.
Since Troy usually seems so sure of himself, this isn’t inspiring confidence.
“My brother will probably be in there.” Which is another reason I think this adventure is ill-advised. Showing up to what is essentially a family event with Adam and Troy? He’ll have questions.
Troy shrugs. “Only one way to find out.” He slaps his hand on my leg. “Anyway, let’s get in there and rip off the bandage, or whatever. This won’t be nearly as weird as when we all found out PJ was fucking his teacher.”
I wince. “I’d rather not think about my brother with PJ any more than I have to.”
“Or the time Simon showed up so covered in bruises he looked like he’d been jumped in an alley,” Adam adds helpfully.
With a resigned sigh, I rest my forehead on the steering wheel. “My gut tells me this will be a mess.”
Troy slides possessive fingers along my stomach. “You’ll feel better after some pancakes, Kitten.”
I doubt it, but his touch is enough to get me to agree. “Fine. Let’s go.”
We head across the street and push into the cozy but upscale establishment. I have to admit, once we get inside and the smells of coffee and maple syrup make their way to me, my stomach is growling. For the first time in days, I have a real appetite.
If the sudden appearance of my hunger has anything to do with the fact that I’m finally getting decent sleep and gratifying sex, well, that’s a rabbit hole to explore another time.
“Relax,” Troy murmurs in my ear as we enter the back room.
“How exactly do you expect me to do that?”
Adam answers by putting his hand against my back, which I’m pained to admit actually does help me relax. A little.
The back room of Gil’s restaurant is already full. A long table, covered with coffee carafes and stemmed glasses of mimosa, seats a crowd of people I’ve mostly only met in passing before. Sex workers, all dressed down and chattering like it’s a polite orgy.
Or one of those murder dinners.
When every person in the room trains their wide, curious eyes on me, I’m back to my original assessment. This was a catastrophic idea.
Ravi sends me a friendly wave. I get the impression he’s like that with everyone. Liam isn’t here, but my brother is. And so is PJ.
My brother’s face is the most curious looking of them all. And PJ looks the most like he wants to murder me. Then again, it’s his default setting.
Great. This’ll be fun.
Clearly nobody updated Adam and Troy’s RSVP, because there are only two chairs at the table. Troy confidently drops himself into one and then slaps his own leg. “Come here, Kitten, you can sit on my lap.”
There is no chance in hell he didn’t say that at the top of his lungs on purpose.
Ignoring him and my flaming hot face, I grab a chair from the corner of the room and drag it over, pushing my way in between Troy and my brother.
To Troy’s pouting face, I say, “Unless you want me to stab you with a fork, you’ll scoot over.”
He bats his eyelashes. “Kitten.” He leans in to whisper in my ear. “It’s not fair to tease us when we’re in public and we can’t do anything about it. We’ll have to come up with a way to make you sorry later.”
The heat on my skin could set every reclaimed wood table in this place on fire.
He’s behaving this way deliberately, and what pisses me off is that it’s working.
I don’t know how much of my response is my own embarrassment and how much is the weight of my brother’s stare, but either way I’ll be lucky to make it through this meal with my sanity intact.
When a waitress appears to take our order, I ask for water and juice, and a fruit and quinoa parfait. I manage to ignore how the conversations around us have all died down until after I’m done placing my order.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” I murmur to Troy.
Adam reaches behind Troy to pat my shoulder, which doesn’t exactly make anyone less interested in the situation.
My nerves hit me hard. I’ve dealt with angry senators at the Premiere wanting everything to be just so for their daughter’s beachfront wedding, and a visiting rock star and his entourage who insisted on having every member of the staff being at their beck and call. I’ve survived getting kidnapped.
Sitting here at this brunch table with my pulse thrumming in my ears, I can’t even look my own brother in the eyes. Or anyone else.
“All right,” Troy says as he leans back in his chair. “Let’s get this out of the way. Wes here is crashing at our place for now. If you have questions, ask them. We reserve the right not to answer. Anyone who has a problem with that or anything else is welcome to shut the hell up.”
Chatter starts up again. A gorgeous Black woman with a head full of braids at the end of the table stands, gesturing for everyone to settle down. Eve, I think.
“Okay. Okay. Everybody hang on.” Eve shuts everyone up again with the efficiency of a preschool teacher overseeing a school assembly. “We’re talking dating, right?”
Are we dating? I really feel as if I should’ve been given some talking points before coming in here. I look to Adam and Troy, who both cross their arms over their chests and answer with “Yes” and “Damn right.”
Michael, who I remember meeting at the hotel with Dean and his daughter, leans forward. “Can you please tell us when this started?”
Again, I look at Adam and Troy. Both of their faces are disturbingly blank.
Troy gives me a nod. “Kitten?”
What’s happening here? What do I even say? Did it start with that aggressive hand job in the locker room? The closet? The kidnapping? The day I had breakfast in bed with Troy and then climbed in next to Adam in his hospital room?
“It’s recent.”
A guy with a lot of facial piercings leans forward. “Would you say this all kicked off in the month of December?”
“Uh.” I’ve never been good with dates, but I’m pretty sure the locker room thing was the only thing that didn’t happen this month, and I feel like that counted more as a hasty hookup than anything else. “Sure. I mean, yeah. Guess so.”
Michael punches his fist into his hand. “That’s right. Time to pay up.”
“Hang on.” Now Simon is standing. “What about Adam’s girlfriend?”
Why does this seem like it’s turning into some sort of bizarre game show?
A waitress brings food for me, Adam, and Troy, and if I didn’t know better I’d say she was taking her time on purpose. I leave my parfait untouched, because for the first time someone has asked a question that I, too, would love to have answered. Also, Troy was right. I should’ve ordered pancakes.
“We’re not seeing each other anymore.” Quieter, Adam says, “I texted her from the hospital after Troy brought my new phone.” I assume that was meant for me, or me and Troy.
Well. Okay.
I’m surprised when Ravi holds up his hand, as if he’s waiting to be called on in class. More surprised when Troy slides his pancakes my way, telling Ravi, “Go ahead, buddy.”
Ravi pushes up his glasses. “Well, you know, not to be rude, but is it, like, all three of you? Together? Like boyfriends, together?”
“Wait. Hang on.” Eve again. “I just realized none of this matters, because the deal was when they admit it, not when it started. Am I right?”
A guy at the far corner from me, fairly average height, lean, brown hair—I think I heard someone call him Christian?—snaps his fingers and points to her. “You’re right. It was when do they admit it.”
“When they admit they’re a couple ,” Michael states. “Does this even count?”
Everyone’s talking amongst themselves again.
Eyes wide, I lean over to Troy and Adam. “I understand the words everyone is saying, but what exactly is happening right now?”
“There’s a pool,” Adam explains. “These guys have been trying to get us to admit we’re a couple for forever.”
“We never confirmed or denied,” Troy adds. “Now that you’re ours, I figured we’d better get it out of the way so they don’t keep picking at you for answers. Figured you’d prefer it that way.”
Oh. He’s right. I would. Still, it’s weird.
Troy nudges me. “You should do the honors, Kitten.”
“I really don’t want to.”
“It’ll be good,” Adam says.
You know what? They’re right. I’ve gotten too used to avoiding conflict. If I can manage a classroom of bored freshmen or a hotel full of entitled millionaires and billionaires, I can handle a brunch full of sex workers.
“All right, here’s the deal.” I reach down, searching for the authoritative volume I use when I’m teaching.
“I’m aware I didn’t make the best first impression with any of you.
I apologize. Not going to make excuses. All I can tell you right now is that I’m, uh, living with these two for the time being.
We’re exploring things. So, you could say we’re together. In a relationship. Yes.”
Then I pick up my water glass and drink as if I’ve been wandering the desert, because my throat is raw and I need to pretend everyone isn’t staring at me. It helps to ignore the sudden swell of murmuring and the money changing hands.
In the end Eve seems to be the winner. I try to not to wonder what her bet was.
Fallon leans over to me. “Hey. Are you all right?”
For the first time in a while, I manage to look at my brother. Really look.
He looks good. Better than I do, probably. But considering his wife passed a little over a year ago and he’d been miserable for most of the time since, it’s nice to see him without a downcast expression and bags under his eyes. As painful as it is to admit, PJ’s been good for him.