Chapter 11
Erich
Sometime later, Jaq and I began to get dressed. It was time to return to our day and our duties. He might have had the day off today, but tomorrow he would not, and neither would I. Royal responsibilities wouldn’t wait for us.
“We’ll have to speak with the king, your brother, right? To petition for permission. How does that work here?” he asked.
I raised a brow, pausing midway between pulling up my pants.
“For permission to get married? Yeah, I’m not doing that. I’m not going to petition Cort for shit.”
Jaq’s eyes grew wide. “What if he denies us?”
“Yeah, that’s not how that works. I’m not asking permission. And also, I already talked to him about you staying here. I didn’t talk to him about us, I didn’t want to.”
“Does Thomas know? He’s going to be upset if he finds out from someone other than me. Especially since yesterday I called him in a panic, not knowing how to take a pregnancy test.”
I winced. “I don’t know. Do you want to tell your brother before we tell everyone else?”
“Yes, but we all just had dinner together. How are we going to find another time—”
I grabbed my phone. “Cort and Thomas are here today. So are my parents and Kalwin with his family. Everybody else is gone, but that’s all right, right? We can call them later.”
Jacques nodded. He bit his lip. I had my pants pulled up now, but not buckled, and I walked over to him, using my thumb to ease his lip from his mouth. His plump lower lip was swollen from his biting. I kissed it.
“Hey, we can tell them all one on one. Also, it doesn’t have to be today. We’ll do this at whichever speed you want.”
“I want to. I do.”
“Then we’ll tell them now.”
“I’ll see Thomas tomorrow anyway, and we’ll have to talk about my job, my responsibilities. It might not look good to the public if your brother employs his brother-in-law as a nanny.” He wrung his hands in lap. At least he wasn’t torturing that lip anymore.
“Do you want to keep your job?” I asked.
“What?”
“Do you want to keep your job?” I said again. I grabbed his hands and held them in my own.
“Yes. I love it. I love the kids and… Yeah. I want to keep my job. I’ve talked about finding another one, but it was never really serious. I… I love it.”
“Then you can keep your job. Fuck whatever everyone else thinks we should do. We’re going to do what works for us. And Cort and Thomas too, of course.”
Jaq crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m pretty sure that I’ll have to travel with my husband, and eventually, we will be having our own children, right?”
“Of course. I already talked to Cort about me not traveling as much. I want to be here with you. Call me crazy, but I’d like to spend more than a few weeks in my home country.”
“I suppose that might be nice.”
“Cort and Thomas are in their quarters right now,” I said after reading the text from my brother. “Do you want to go and talk to them?”
Jacques nodded.
“Good. Then I can show you to my room.”
I slipped my hand into Jaq’s, and we made our way across the hall to where my brother and his husband had their family quarters. The guards outside the doors barely gave us a glance.
“Hi, Uncle Jaq!” Julien raced across the room, still wearing his superhero pajamas. “Uncle Erich!”
“Uncle Jaq!” My littlest nephew, Markus, squealed and ran toward my fiancé. My little nephews were a pretty good indication of how adorable our children would be, considering it was my brother and his brother. Our children would be double cousins, if that was a thing.
“What are you two up to?” Thomas asked. His eyes were full of worry as his gaze ping-ponged between us. Though Jaq and I had been seeing each other in secret for years, Thomas probably had no clue. It wasn’t as if we were often in public together.
Jaq sat down on the couch with Markus in his lap. Clearly, he spent a good deal of time in his brother’s space, since he was quite comfortable. He looked to me, still a little panicked. I put a hand on his shoulder.
“Well, we’ve come to tell you exciting news,” I said.
“What’s going on?” Thomas looked between me and Jaq and Cort. Perhaps we should have had this conversation during breakfast. We were about to lay a bomb on this man, and he hadn’t had his coffee yet. Not only that, but based on the kids’ energy level, they had been up for a long time.
Cort smiled widely. “Ah, everything must have gone well then.” He grinned broadly.
Jaq blushed a deep scarlet.
“It’s Erich?” Thomas said, his voice laced with surprise. “He’s your…”
Jaq nodded.
“For how long?”
“Since your wedding.” Jaq’s voice had an edge to it. He snuck a glance at me over his shoulder. He began to bite at his lower lip again, and I squeezed his shoulder.
“Since my wedding? Five years ago?” Thomas turned to Cort. “Did you know?”
Cort shook his head. “I did not. I suspected Erich had someone special, but I never asked because I wanted to respect their privacy.”
“Oh, goodness, and what, you two are making it official now?” Thomas asked.
Jaq nodded. “If that’s all right with you and His Majesty, we would never—”
Cort held up a hand, and Jaq immediately went quiet. “Jaq, I thought we were past this kind of thing. You do not need to use my title when we’re among family. And we would be honored to have you be with my brother.”
“Jaq! We’re ecstatic about it. I’m just shocked. No one told me.” Thomas sent an exaggerated glare at his husband.
“I suspected, and then I had a talk with Erich yesterday. I didn’t want to say anything until he had a chance to talk to Jaq.”
“You suspected and you didn’t tell me, darling?”
The tone of his voice told me this was going to be a topic of conversation later on.
“What was I going to say? That your brother and my brother were having an affair? I suppose I could have said that I—”
Thomas came toward Jaq and wrapped him in his arms. “You’re happy. You love him?”
“I do.”
“I love Uncle Erich too!” Markus added, and we all chuckled.
“He is pretty great, isn’t he. That’s why I agreed to marry him,” Jaq said.
Thomas gasped. “It’s that serious?”
Jaq nodded.
“You’ll be marrying into the royal family. There’s no escaping the royal duties. Unless you two plan on running away. Which I will support, but it will make visiting you more difficult.”
Jaq sighed. “We’re not running away, tempting as that is. I know that we’ll be locked into this royal life forever.”
Thomas hugged his brother tight and tears well in his eyes. “I’m so happy for you.”
“You do realize that your father is not going to be happy about this. It could cause an international incident, and we’ll need to do damage control,” Jaq said.
“He can fuck off,” Cort said.
My eyes went wide. Jaq snorted out a laugh.
“What? No one’s here. They can’t hear me say that. He’s not the king anymore, and he’s most certainly not my king. What’s he going to do about it?”
“Make our lives a living hell, like he’s done since I was born?” Jaq said.
Thomas’s face set in stone. “You know I won’t let that happen. Neither will anyone else in this family. You’re ours now, and we’re keeping you.”
“Uncle Jaq, play!” Julien said. He’d had enough of this adult conversation. He carried a bin that had brightly colored blocks in it.
Jaq’s face transformed instantly when he turned his attention to his nephew. “Uncle Jaq will play, but first, did you brush your teeth? Are we going to have a PJ day or are you getting dressed?”
Thomas wrinkled his nose. “A PJ day sounds wonderful, but if we’re telling the rest of the family today, then the boys should probably get dressed.”
“Of course.” Jaq stood like he was going to go get the boys ready.
“No. Not you. This is your day off, and you have announcement to prepare for. We’ll meet you downstairs.” Thomas gripped his brother’s arm to keep him from following after Cort as he herded the boys to their room.
“Okay. Okay. Seems like everyone is telling me to enjoy my day off.” Jaq stood.
I wrapped my arms around his middle and kissed his neck. “Hmm, the ship has sailed on enjoying the day. Now we have to face my parents.”
“They are going to be so happy for you, truly. I can’t believe I didn’t know about this. You two are so cute.”
Jaq leaned into me. “I may have been a little stubborn.”
I scoffed. “A little?”
“Yes. Just a tiny bit.” Jaq kissed my cheek. “I made you work for me.”
“Indeed you did.”