Chapter Thirteen
Marcus and I are still setting up our tent when Brody emerges from his own and goes shooting past us in an excited rush.
He’s got his swim-trunks on, heading towards the river that our group campsite is situated on the banks of, with an inflatable swim tube that nearly dwarfs him in size tucked up under his arm pit.
Cameron chuckles, trailing behind him, clad in similar gear, also with an inner-tube.
“Uh-uh, Brody!” I call out, and he stops in his tracks, which can only mean one thing: he can hear me. “Cochlear stays up here.”
Brody’s eyes widen in annoyance. “But Mum, what if I put the aqua guard on it?”
“But Brody,” Marcus interjects, his tone laced with sarcasm, “what if you don’t have enough in your allowance to pay for a replacement in the event your processor gets swept downstream?”
Our son rolls his eyes and stomps back over, thrusting his processor at me. “Thank you,” I sign to him.
Brody huffs, but Cameron stops him. “Don’t be mad. My dad does the same thing to me with my hearing aids,” he signs. “See?” Cam shows Brody his bare ears. “Ours are both just for decoration now,” Cameron adds, teasing playfully.
Brody chuckles. “Okay, fine. Let’s go!” he signs back, and they both go traipsing down to the water together.
Having gotten his and Cam’s tent set up already, like a seasoned pro, Caleb has taken on the task of setting up a little skunk run for Pepper.
He stands on the picnic table, looping a length of cable around on itself.
Marcus and I both gaze—practically drooling, actually—at the dimples of his lower back that peek out when his shirt rises.
I nudge my hubby. “You like what you see over there?”
He snorts. “You were gawking too, don’t lie,” he whispers.
“You two were awfully guilty looking when I asked why you were late grabbing everything from his house. Anything you want to tell me?”
I watch as heat creeps up Marcus’ neck, blooming on his cheeks. He tugs nervously on his lower lip with his teeth. “We, um. Well, we fooled around a little bit…”
He peers over at me nervously, likely expecting a scowl, but all I can do is grin like a loon. “Oh my god, you did?! Was it good? Oh hell, what am I even saying? Of course it was good. I mean, look at him… look at you! That’s so awesome, baby,” I exclaim, honestly excited over this.
“You’re not upset?” he questions me.
“Why would I be? I have been gunning for this, Marco. I just never brought it up again because I was too nervous that you thought the notion of it was shit.”
He sighs. “I don’t think it’s shit, Lo. I’m just worried because we’re venturing into uncharted territory here. Big time… What if we get lost?”
I fix him with a look. “What if we find everything we’ve been searching for instead? You don’t think I’m not worried about the same thing? I totally am. Petrified, really. But when I sit in my thoughts and try to envision what we could be, I truly like what I see.”
“And what does it look like to you?” Marcus asks me.
“It looks like me really learning how to trust again, knowing I’m safe enough with him—much like I am with you—to open myself up more.
It looks like you finding more comfortable waters to swim in so you can finally be a freer you.
It looks like our family growing and where everyone within it speaks a common language so we’re all fully heard and understood.
Doesn’t that sound, I don’t know, kinda perfect? ”
It suddenly strikes me just how fated this feels, giving credit to Caleb's beliefs for a moment.
Seriously though, what are the odds that we all connected somehow via our shared ability to communicate by signing?
I mean, I'm not going to go out and waste my money on a lotto ticket today or anything—I'd never be that lucky—but us finding each other the way we did feels oddly serendipitous in ways which cannot be explained logically...
Marcus nods. “It does, actually. But that doesn’t sever us, does it?”
I shake my head. “No, not at all. Why would you think that?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Just a stupid worry I’ve had, I guess.”
“No worry is a stupid one,” I tell him, pressing my forehead to his.
“You’re allowed to be concerned, to feel any feelings you want, really.
But I don’t think anything about this potential relationship dynamic will diminish what we have at all.
If anything, the differences in our individual relationships could help strengthen our bond. ”
“I don’t want to lose you, Lo,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss on my lips.
I grin. “Marco never loses Polo, my love.”
Suddenly, Caleb flashes his hands, catching both mine and Marcus’ attention. “M, could I get a little help with the other end? I need your height.”
“Thought you’d never ask,” Marcus gloats. “Been waiting on you to stop being stubborn and just give in.”
My husband saunters on over and bends so Caleb can climb onto his shoulders. Once on, Marcus snickers. “I could so easily headbutt your balls right now.”
Caleb threads his fingers through Marcus’ curls and gives them a little tug, tilting his head back. “No,” he signs, snapping his index and middle fingertips to the pad of his thumb with a scowl on his face. “Bad boy.”
“Oh, come on,” Marcus teases. “You can’t tell me that, after this weekend, you’re going to want more kids.”
Caleb shakes his head. “No, I certainly am not. You acting like one is plenty enough for me.”
“Fucker.” Marcus chortles, walking them towards the other tree Caleb wants to hang the skunk run from. “Keep making fun of me, and I could drop your ass and make it look like an accident.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Caleb signs, looking more playful than I have ever seen him.
God, don’t I love seeing them and the ease at which they get along now.
It’s a wild contrast to the way they acted around each other the first time I saw them in the same room together.
I guess working together has really strengthened their bond in that they're actually flirting with each other now.
Well, flirting and then going so far as to act on their buried chemistry.
Marcus hops, jostling Caleb on his shoulders. “Wouldn’t I? Shall we test that theory?” my husband asks, arching a brow up at—gosh, I don’t know what to call Caleb… my boyfriend?
That almost sounds so juvenile to call him my boyfriend, but I also don’t want to call him my lover. While what I feel for Caleb is certainly well on its way to feeling love adjacent, using that term just sounds—icky. As for referring to him as my side-piece? Well, that just feels entirely wrong.
Caleb isn’t my side anything, if I’m being entirely honest. He’s at the forefront of all my thoughts all of the time lately.
His sweetness and understanding of how measured I’d like our steps towards intimacy to be makes my heart skip beats.
Which, if I’m being even more honest, were it not for the realization that we’re building something together, I’d be asking my primary doctor for a referral to see a cardiologist.
He’s just so friggin’ patient with me and, gah!
How did I manage to land someone so willing to handle everything on my terms?
It seems unreal, like coming across the lost city of Atlantis not once, but twice, since Marcus has always been just as understanding.
Maybe there's more to this fate BS that Caleb waxes poetic about than I can explain away with sound reasoning after all...
For the life of me, and for the survival of this budding triad, I just hope that Brody will be just as accepting.
The plan is to tell him tomorrow, after we come back from river rafting so he has a chance to see how well we all mesh together first. I want him to see what life as a family unit could really look like for all of us before we break it to him that we’re more than just friends.
Cameron too, for that matter. I mean, he obviously knows about Caleb and me.
One of our “dates” consisted of me going over to their house and indulging in some of Caleb’s Nana Wilmot’s cottage pie—and yes, Cam peeled all the potatoes.
It was absolutely delicious, by the way, and my plan is to tell her so myself when Caleb introduces me to his family like he’s promised to do.
I wonder how he broke the news to them about me. Did he call me his girlfriend then? Did they frown when and if he told them about the life I share with Marcus, thinking that me dating him is just an afterthought, taking second place to my day-to-day life?
I certainly hope not. I hope they realize that my intentions here are good. I pray that they understand that I want nothing more than for Caleb to feel welcome and adored, especially after the heartache he’s endured by himself, in silence, over losing the person Aaron used to be.
“Earth to Lauren Mayberry!” Marcus calls over to me, and my head snaps up. “C, is asking if you can go grab Pepper so we can hitch him up and see if this rig works.”
“Oh. Yeah, I can. Sorry, I was lost in thought.”
“Is everything alright, babe?” Caleb signs to me, still sitting on Marcus’ shoulders, his brows pinched.
I nod. “Yep! Perfectly fine!”
“You’d tell us if it wasn’t, riiight?” Marcus questions.
I snort at that. I don’t even know if he realizes that how he just worded that makes them sound like a team for my well-being, or if it was just a subconscious slip of the tongue.
Either way, I don’t hate it. Melts my heart a little more, if I’m being honest, because lately that block of ice in my chest has been doing an awful lot of thawing.
Such as slowly coming to the realization that not all men are created equal, and not all of them are misogynistic pigs.
Trust me, some still are, but then again, some women are just as bad.
Marcus told me about a little incident he and Caleb had to deal with at Portside Pub about a month and a half ago…