51 - Haley
51
Haley
“Did you hear that?” Shay asked.
We were taking turns cleaning up in the bathroom and returning to the bed. I was resting my head in Shay’s lap while he gently caressed my arm, dragging his fingertips over my skin in random swirls.
“Hear what?” I asked.
“A buzzing sound.” He glanced toward the window. “I think there’s a fly buzzing around behind the blinds.”
“There’s a flyswatter in the laundry room,” Lucas said, spread out on the bed next to us.
“I’m too happy to move,” Shay replied.
“Same,” I replied.
Lucas groaned, then rolled out of bed. His nude form left the bedroom, returning a few seconds later with a flyswatter.
“I like looking at your cute butt,” I said.
Lucas gave it a little shake, then opened the blinds. “I don’t see anything.”
“Keep looking,” I said, suppressing a giggle.
Lucas glared playfully over his shoulder. “You haven’t looked at enough nude male bodies tonight?”
“Nope!” I replied cheerfully. “Keep looking.”
“What are we looking for?” Jordan said, emerging from the bathroom without a stitch of clothing.
“Hopefully, your pants,” Shay muttered.
Jordan scoffed. “Lucas is butt-ass naked and nobody is complaining about that.”
“Yes. Nobody is complaining,” I agreed. “So there’s no reason to put your clothes on.”
Jordan shifted his hands to cover his junk. “What if I’m chilly?”
“Then come warm up with me!” I said.
“Okay!” Jordan took two steps toward the bed, then leaped forward. Shay and I yelped as his weight caused the entire bed to rock and bounce.
“One downside to sharing a woman,” Shay noted. “My post-sex cuddling is not nearly as peaceful as I want.”
“Stop complaining,” I said, caressing his leg underneath the blanket. “I, for one, love having three men to cuddle with after. It’s probably my favorite part.”
Jordan leaned over and kissed my shoulder. “ That’s your favorite part of all this?”
I bit my lip. “Okay. Maybe it’s my second favorite part.”
“I’m her favorite,” Jordan announced.
“That’s not what I said!”
“You didn’t need to say it. Your eyes told me.”
“Nobody is my favorite,” I insisted.
Jordan curled up against me, wrapping an arm across my chest possessively. “But if you had to rank us, I would be above Shay, right? I’m teaching Bran how to play baseball.”
Shay grunted. “I’m trying to get Bran into a prestigious private school.”
“ Trying . Call me when you get actual results.”
“There’s no ranking!” I insisted. “You’re all tied for first.”
“And if there’s a tiebreaker, it probably goes to the guy she has a child with,” Lucas casually said while focusing on the window.
Jordan sighed happily. “Are you trying to flash everyone looking through that glass, buddy?”
“Shay said he heard a buzzing sound, like a fly stuck behind the blinds.”
“I heard it too,” Jordan said, winking at me. “Keep looking. If there’s a grandma watching in the apartment across the street, it’ll make her night.”
Shay sighed happily. “I’m glad we’re all back together. I didn’t enjoy having radio silence with you.”
“So you told them not to talk to me?” I asked Lucas.
“I made no such request,” Lucas said, aiming his flyswatter at us. “They’re just good friends who have my back, no matter what.”
Shay leaned forward and whispered to me, “I would have eventually called you, no matter what shook out with you and Lucas.”
“Wow, shitty friend alert,” Jordan loudly said. “You know I’ve always got your back, Lucas!” Then he lowered his voice and told me, “I was close to calling you, too.”
“I never told anyone to stop talking to anyone else,” Lucas insisted, putting down his flyswatter and sliding into bed on the other side of Shay. “I just needed some time to process everything.”
“I know,” I replied. “So does everyone at the open house today.”
Lucas grinned. “I thought you’d like that.”
“It was a nice gesture… but don’t you ever do that again, all right? The last thing I need are clients gossiping about my love life while I try to move their three-bedroom Craftsman home.”
“As long as you don’t have any other secret children to tell me about,” Lucas replied, “then I won’t have to do that again.”
“The point I was trying to make,” Shay cut in, “is that I’m glad we’re back to normal. I have a few houses I want to look at, but I didn’t want to find a new realtor.”
“Damn, Shay cares more about a potential investment property than he does about Haley,” Jordan said. “That would probably bump him down to second place, in a hypothetical scenario where a hypothetical lady was ranking her hypothetical lovers.”
“My real estate endeavors are the real victim of all of this, yes. Thank you for understanding,” Shay said.
Jordan tensed. “I think I heard that buzzing.”
Lucas growled a curse, snatched the flyswatter from the table, and jumped out of bed again. “Was it the window?”
“I thought it was by the bathroom,” Jordan replied.
“Stop teasing him,” I told Jordan.
“What? I really heard it,” he replied.
Then I heard it too—a low buzzing noise, lasting about a second. It definitely wasn’t in the direction of the window.
“Wait a minute.” Lucas knelt by the pile of discarded clothes on the floor. “I think it’s somebody’s phone.”
“If it’s mine, I don’t want it.” Jordan rested an arm behind his head. “Kyle’s mom has been blowing up my phone all week. She wants her son to be the starting shortstop, but the kid couldn’t throw a ball to first base if you gave him all afternoon.”
“I bet she’s texting for another reason,” I teased.
“Nah, I doubt it’s that,” Jordan replied smoothly. “We’ve already been sleeping together for a week.”
I gasped, which made Jordan erupt with laughter.
“Don’t worry. You’re the only hot baseball mom I’m fucking.” Jordan cupped my chin and kissed me.
But his comment, and my momentary pang of jealousy, made me think about something else. “You guys are okay with the fact that I’m sleeping with each of you? It doesn’t make you… I don’t know. Jealous? More possessive?”
The men all looked at each other, including Lucas, who was still shoving his hands into pockets on the floor.
“This is different,” Shay said. “There aren’t any secrets. We’re all open about it.”
“Plus I know both of them,” Lucas added. “If it were two random guys I had never met, I’d probably feel differently. But as it is, I don’t feel jealous.”
“I kind of like it!” Jordan said. “I don’t feel a lot of pressure to be there for you all the time. I know Lucas and Shay are taking good care of you. And yes, I’m talking about both sex and emotional support.”
“Let the record show that Jordan likes this because it means he only has to be one-third of a boyfriend,” Shay said, like he was talking to a court stenographer.
Jordan only smiled at me. “Haley knows what I mean.”
I grinned back at him. “I do.”
“Found it,” Lucas said, holding up an iPhone. “Hales, is this yours?”
I took the phone, feeling a moment of concern that maybe something was wrong with Bran. That was a mother’s first instinct: to immediately assume something was wrong with their child.
It was a text from Harper, but it had nothing to do with Bran.
“What’s wrong?” Jordan asked. “Your face just went white.”
“It’s Sara,” I said, showing him the text. “She just went into labor!”