Epilogue
CAELYX
Snow fell in gentle sheets on the bustling vacation town of Aspen, Colorado.
My dad had given his permission for me, the human Aspen, and our friends to temporarily inhabit one of our vacation chalets, so the eight of us had flown private out to spend the last week of winter break there.
It was tucked away from all the tourists, but close enough that we could easily get down the mountain to where all the action was.
I was pretty sure the novelty of staying in the town with the same name as my boyfriend had partially helped convince him to relax and let me pay for everything, even though he’d flatly informed me he hadn’t named himself after the luxury resort town, but rather the tree species.
He was slowly getting used to his new lifestyle, and I knew he secretly loved it, but part of him was still hesitant to totally embrace it.
That was fine. We were only about a year into our relationship, so I had plenty of time to convince him that he didn’t have to pretend like he didn’t adore being my totally spoiled little Cupcake.
We’d spent the first two days skiing with the equipment stored in the cottage, and now we all needed a cozy night in to recover.
Arie had, of course, taken charge and planned a bunch of stuff for us to do, which no one really minded.
The itinerary graphic he’d created for all of us to follow was pink, with sparkly snowflakes and cartoon mugs of hot chocolate splashed all over it.
Stretched out sideways with my legs dangling over the arm of a cushy armchair, I watched Ren, Arie, and Che set up the start of a board game.
Eight players was usually pushing it, so we’d mostly been teaming up in four teams of two, with the caveat that no one was allowed to partner with anyone they were currently fucking, to keep it more interesting.
I’d teamed up with Cyprian for an in-depth trivia game, and we’d all gotten absolutely destroyed by Ren and Isaak’s team.
Probably should have vetoed that pair for any intellectual-type competitions.
But they’d looked so cute and proud together after winning.
It was cool that Isaak had really meshed and gelled well with our group.
At this point, it was basically like he’d always been around.
Aspen, Maddox, and Cyprian had gone on a quick snack run in the nice SUV we’d rented for the trip, and we were mostly just waiting for them to get back.
Isaak sat at the end of a couch, totally engrossed in his phone, which wasn’t exactly usual for him.
Once he’d warmed up to everyone, he was way more social than the shy and stuttering nervous wreck he’d been before.
I watched him for a minute, and when he blushed, grinning in delight before biting down into his lower lip, it was obvious exactly what had him so enamored.
“You sexting with someone?” I asked bluntly, causing Arie to whirl around and follow my line of sight to him. Che’s eyebrows popped up, but he only observed.
Isaak blushed more, clearing his throat. “What? N-no!” He denied.
“What’s his name?” Arie wondered, prancing over to try and peek at the screen. Isaak quickly flipped it over to hide from his view. “Is it anyone I know?”
“Nothing! He’s no one! You don’t know him.”
“Does he go to our school?” I asked, and Isaak sighed, covering his red face with his palms.
“No! And it’s not… It’s not what you think. We’re not… I mean, it’s nothing, okay? He’s just a guy I talk to.”
“What do you guys talk about? Sexy stuff?” Arie asked, and Isaak shook his head before shoving his phone into the pocket of his oversized sweater.
He was lying, but I wasn’t going to call him out on it. I was the last person to try and get in the way of anyone’s sexual or romantic destiny, now that I’d been abundantly blessed with my very own weird little love story with my very own perfectly prickly boyfriend.
“Don’t worry about them,” Ren instructed Isaak gently as he plopped down next to him, as if to shield him from our nosy snooping. “They’re both just huge perverts.”
Arie scoffed, but shrugged like he couldn’t argue. I couldn’t either.
“Permission to speak freely, Sir?” I asked, tilting my head, and Ren laughed, rolling his eyes as he waved for me to go on. “You’re just as much a pervert as the rest of us.”
“I am not,” he denied.
“You and Maddox fuck 24/7,” Arie piped up to support my claim.
“Maddy and I don’t fuck,” he corrected, tilting his chin up to show his mild disdain for the expression, though he had a goofy grin stretched across his face. “We’re in love. And we… Demonstrate our love through expressions of physical intimacy.”
At that moment, the sound of the front door clicking open, followed by the rustling of grocery bags and Cyprian’s low, rumbling voice tumbled in from the foyer.
The three of them came in, their arms bulging with bags, passing by us on the way to the huge kitchen to set them down.
“Hey, Maddox?” I called, smirking at him when he stuck his head back into the room, his eyes reflecting that weary, deadpan lack of enthusiasm he exclusively saved just for me.
“What?”
“Do you and Ren demonstrate your love for each other through expressions of physical intimacy?”
“We fuck,” he replied flatly, before his head disappeared from the doorway as he returned to the kitchen to help Cyprian and Aspen.
Looking unperturbed by his boyfriend’s description of their loving relationship, Ren smiled a little.
“Well, you can’t expect him to call it that,” he reasoned. “It’s Maddy.”
A very true statement that I had absolutely no argument for.
When Aspen returned to the living room, I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him to me, nuzzling my face into his side.
“I missed you, Cupcake.”
“You didn’t dig up any flowerbeds or chew up anyone’s shoes while I was gone, did you?” He questioned, staring down at me.
I shook my head, blinking my eyelashes up at him. “I was good. Can I get a kiss?”
The corner of his mouth perked up, his pretty hazel eyes softening with total infatuation for me, as they tended to do more and more, the longer we were together.
A purr crawled its way up my chest and throat as he leaned in, pressing his lips to mine.
My hand moved up his shoulder, my fingers sliding into his hair as I held him in place, deepening the kiss.
The room around us fell away as his lips moved against me, the tip of his tongue slicking over mine.
I’d never loved kissing anyone so much, it was something I could absolutely never get sick of.
“Love you,” I murmured, just before he pulled my bottom lip in and suckled it.
“Love you too,” he said, the moment we parted to breathe.
“Alright, we get it,” Arie pointed out, giving Aspen’s body a rude little nudge as he passed by. “You guys demonstrate your love with physical intimacy, too. You don’t have to fuck in front of us.”
“You’re right,” I conceded. “Let’s go get in the hot tub, Cupcake.”
Through the sliding glass door and out onto a lovely lifted deck, there was a massive hot tub, big enough for all us, really. And getting in the steamy, bubbly water when it was frigid and snowing out felt so good, like no other sensory experience.
“I thought the rule was no sex in the hot tub,” Isaak spoke up. Not like he’d need to try very hard to follow it. Evidently, his beau was somewhere else at the moment. Whoever that might have been.
“It is,” Aspen reaffirmed, cupping my chin and giving my jaw a harsh little squeeze. “I don’t want the water to turn into vanilla pudding or something.”
Che made a fake gagging noise at Aspen’s remark, while Arie snorted.
“You did not just say that.”
“Well, I think he’s mostly talking to you, Twinkie,” I said, using the nickname for Arie that Maddox had started. “Because there’s three of you.”
Glancing into the kitchen, as if to make sure Cyprian was still out of earshot, Arie gave me a meaningful and very annoyed look.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Caelyx. There’s only two of us.”
Aspen squeezed my jaw again, his time hard enough to make me wince.
I’d forgotten that he’d forbidden me from commenting on whatever was going on between the three of them.
And none of them were being particularly forthcoming, so…
Whether or not Cyprian was still a virgin was a mystery.
But to be honest, the suspense was killing me.
Losing your virginity to a pair of hot femboys was kind of epic.
If that’d been me, I’d have definitely been bragging. At least a little.
“Ah, yeah,” I said. “Sorry, I meant two. I, um… Can’t count.”
Che’s face was red as he stared up at the ceiling, before pulling the hood of his cropped shirt over his head to hide his face. Whoops.
They’d also grabbed a couple of pizzas from a local place, so we all pigged out and yapped about everything and nothing.
“Alright, who remembered I don’t like mushrooms?” I wondered. Even the pizza with everything else on it was void of the disgusting chunks of edible fungus.
“We all did,” Maddox informed me witheringly, before taking a bite of the one he’d gotten with cauliflower crust. Aspen was eating from that one too.
Though nowhere near as much of a fitness junkie as our resident jock, he’d definitely gotten more and more into the whole gym aesthetic thing.
But I couldn’t complain, because the abs he’d developed more and more over the last year were so hot.
I loved licking along all the carved lines.
“And I made sure we got one with pineapple,” Cyprian said, taking a sip from a soda. He was seated on the end of one of the couches, with Arie cross-legged next to him, and Che on the floor next to his legs. “Because I know you like it.”
“Aw, you’re totally the mom friend,” I remarked, bringing a smile to his handsome face. I was pretty sure he took some pride in being that to all of us.