18. Dash
DASH
Kane makes it to the kitchen the next morning without Abby. He is grinning widely and humming as he settles at the breakfast bar and helps himself to pancakes.
“How’s our girl?” Benjamin asks.
“Absolutely fucking fantastic,” Kane says, popping a strawberry into his mouth.
Benjamin frowns. “I mean, how does she feel this morning? Where is she?”
“Probably sore,” I mutter.
I don’t begrudge Kane his time with Abby. They deserve their one-on-one time too. But I am a little concerned about how much sex she’s been having all of a sudden when it’s clear this is unusual for her.
And, fine, I worry a little that my two friends are not quite as tender and caring with her as they probably should be. Or at least as much as I would be.
There. That’s what it is.
They both care about her. It’s obvious. And I know neither of them will do anything to hurt her.
Or anything she doesn’t want them to do.
But it’s truly why the three of us together are best for her. I need to know that she’s been taken care of.
“She might be a little sore,” Kane agrees, clearly more thoughtful about the idea than bothered. “She’s upstairs getting ready in her room.”
“She spent the night in your room, though, correct?” Benjamin asks.
“The whole night,” Kane says. Then his cocky grin softens. “Sleeping with her in my arms was really nice. She’s just so damn sweet.”
The three grown men standing around the kitchen all sigh softly as we nod together at the sentiment.
“So, she was making some noise about maybe going back to her apartment after breakfast,” Kane tells us.
I straighten, immediately wanting to reject that.
“No,” Benjamin says simply.
I relax slightly. We’re on the same page.
Kane nods. “Yeah, I wanna keep her here this weekend. I know she doesn’t want to move in, but I think the more time we spend here in the beginning, showing her how much fun we can have and that it’s low pressure, the better.” He looks back-and-forth between us. “Am I right?”
There are a lot of things I appreciate about my best friend and a lot of things that frustrate me about him. But one of the best things is that he’s aware that he sometimes needs to double-check if he’s reading other people's emotions correctly.
“I think that makes sense,” Benjamin says. “But if she insists on leaving, we need to let her. And then work on getting her to come back. For dinner or something. Voluntarily.”
“Let’s take her out,” I say. “On a date. We don’t want her to feel like she’s stuck here in the house with us. Like all we want is to keep her here naked.”
“Even if that is kind of what we want?” Kane asks with a grin.
I give him an eye roll. “It isn’t, though. We want her for more than that.”
“Of course. So what should we do? Mini golf? A movie?”
“Not a movie,” Benjamin says. “We need something where we can all talk and get to know each other.”
I already have my phone out, and I’m swiping. I remember hearing about an event in town, but I want to check the details and times.
“What about—” Kane starts.
“Fall festival,” I say, holding my phone up.
Kane straightens on his stool. “Yeah, that’s this weekend. I totally forgot. That thing is fun.”
“You’ve been before?” Benjamin asks.
“Don’t you remember those cream cheese pumpkin muffins I brought you last year?” Kane asks.
“And that pumpkin butter you wouldn’t shut up about,” I say.
Benjamin's eyes actually brighten slightly. “I do. You got those from there?”
“It’s food and drinks and crafts, games for kids, there’s a hayride. It’s just like fall exploded all over,” Kane says.
“Did you do it as a team activity or something?” Benjamin asks.
Kane shrugs. “No man. It had ‘festival’ in the name. That’s all I needed to know.”
I chuckle and meet Benjamin's eyes. He’s grinning.
“That sounds like a great idea,” he agrees.” And I think we need to act very… boyfriend-ish.”
“What does that mean exactly?” I ask.
“Holding her hand, kissing her casually, making her feel special. Being affectionate.”
“Can-do,” Kane agrees easily.
I’m actually not sure I can resist doing those things.
“All of us?” I ask to clarify.
Benjamin nods. “Yeah, I think so. Let’s see how she feels about it. The three of us need to get used to it too. Not just here at home.”
“I’m in,” Kane says.
I nod. “Okay.”
Benjamin starts for the doorway.
“Where are you going?” Kane asks.
“To ask our girlfriend on a date,” he says. He pauses and looks back at us.
“You coming?”
Two hours later, I’m laughing as Kane tries to get Abby to try a bite of the pumpkin spice-flavored funnel cake he’s holding.
“If I eat anything else, I’m going to be pumpkin spice-flavored myself,” she laughs.
Kane catches her around the waist and pulls her in for a powdered sugar-covered kiss. She lets it happen as she has every kiss and touch from the three of us all day, and my heart melts just like it has every other time.
“You're delicious as is, but I wouldn’t mind,” Kane tells her.
Benjamin moves in behind her while Kane is still holding her. He moves her hair to one side and presses a kiss to her neck. “I love pumpkin spice, but I think I prefer Abby’s strawberry flavor.”
She shivers in their arms, but tips her head so Benjamin has better access to her neck.
“I thought you just liked strawberry in general.”
That is a safe assumption, considering Benjamin has already bought strawberry jam and strawberry salsa at the stands today.
“I haven’t been obsessed with it until you,” he tells her huskily.
Fuck, I love seeing them all together.
And it’s not the heat that comes from watching my friends touch and kiss her.
It’s how happy they all are.
Benjamin has bought her every single thing she’s exclaimed over or asked a booth-owner about.
She can protest all she wants. He buys it and carries it for her regardless of her insistence that she doesn’t need a crocheted frog, a huge jar of raw honey, or a mug that says “Here we fucking go again. I mean good morning.”
Kane keeps feeding her and doing things like suddenly twirling her or dipping her back in the middle of the concourse. Anything to keep her smiling and laughing.
I’m making sure she’s drinking from her water bottle—and keeping it filled—carrying her sweater when she gets warm, then putting it on her when I see goosebumps on her arms, and growling at the big guys who bump into her because they’re not fucking paying attention to where they’re walking.
Benjamin and Kane laughing and joking—yes, Benjamin made a terrible dad joke about a pumpkin—makes me want to come down to Main Street and hand out caramel apples myself every fucking Saturday forever.
This is how it should be.
How we should be.
Does Abby feel it? How can she not?
Except I’m not sure she understands what a miracle this all is. She hasn’t seen Benjamin, Kane, and me any other way.
But she can’t. We will never be any other way as long as she’s around.
“You’ll come too, right?”
Her sweet voice pulls my attention back to the three people in front of me. They’re all looking at me expectantly. Obviously, I missed something.
Still, I answer, “Of course.”
There’s nothing Abby will ask me to do that I will say no to.
Her grin is bright, and I know I answered correctly when she takes my hand, links our fingers, and starts tugging me toward the entrance to the corn maze.
Oh, this is actually a great idea.
I catch Benjamin’s gaze and realize he has the same idea I do when he gives me a little grin.
There’s a group of four ten-or eleven-year-olds who run into the maze ahead of us, and we let them get a healthy start.
Abby and I lead our group with Benjamin and Kane behind us.
We take a couple of lefts and then a couple of rights.
I let Abby lead the way. But soon, thankfully, we run into a dead end.
“Dang it,” she says, turning to go in the other direction. But the three of us are blocking her way.
“Yeah, dang,” Kane says, moving in close.
She giggles and backs up, her shoulder blades pressing into the wall of hay. “We have to try to get out.”
“Do we?” Benjamin asks, stepping in next to Kane.
Abby’s hand tightens on mine, and she moves slightly behind my big arm, looking up at me and batting her eyelashes. “Save me, Dash.”
“Save you from what, Abby girl?” I ask, grinning down at her as the guys advance.
Now she’s trapped by a wall of hay behind her and three obsessed men in front of her.
“I think Benjamin and Kane have nefarious intentions,” she says.
“Oh, our intentions are definitely not safe for a kid-friendly corn maze,” Benjamin tells her.
“Oh no,” she says, her voice breathless. She looks up at me. “Will you stop them?”
I meet her gaze. “If you want me to.” I reach up and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ll do anything you want me to. Always. But you’re going to have to convince me that you don’t actually want Benjamin and Kane to be naughty with you here in this corn maze. Where we could get caught.”
As I’m talking to her, I’m moving her away from the wall of the maze and positioning her in front of me, my big body solid behind her. I stroke my hands down her sides and rest them on her hips. She’s directly in front of Benjamin and Kane now.
Anyone who happens by this little dead end will glance in and barely be able to see her. With Kane and Benjamin’s backs to them, the most likely result is that anyone walking by will simply realize they need to go in another direction.
“Can you convince him of that?” Benjamin asks, leaning in and dragging his nose up and down her throat, inhaling deeply. “Can you convince Dash that you don’t want Kane and me to take advantage of this little detour?”
She takes a deep, shaky breath. “Um…”
There is a chill in the air today, but it’s not so cold that she needs multiple layers. Abby is wearing a cute little dress over leggings with boots and the sweater that she’s been putting on and taking off periodically. She’s got it on at the moment.
With my hands at her hips, I work the hem of the dress up while Benjamin murmurs in her ear, “Has all that cinnamon and cloves made you a spicy strawberry?”
She gives a half-laugh-half-moan, and I look down to see Kane stroking a big hand up her inner thigh. It’s over her leggings, but when he moves his hand to cup between her thighs, she moans as if there’s no clothing barrier.
“You have to be quiet, Abby girl,” Benjamin says before sealing his mouth over hers.
Kane takes advantage and rubs her a little more firmly through her leggings. I slide one hand up underneath the sweet-looking little dress and cup of her breast, hugging her nipple and making her whimper and wiggle in my arms.
We play with her for a couple of minutes, but obviously this can’t go very far.
Besides, it’s fun just to tease her. To give her an idea of how much fun we can have when the date is over.
As if we’re sharing a brain, we all let go of her at once.
“I think we need to go back this way,” Kane says, stepping back and turning in the opposite direction.
“Yeah, then I think right,” Benjamin says, falling in step next to him.
I smooth Abby’s dress down, then set her away from me before linking our fingers and starting after the guys.
All as if nothing just happened.
She stumbles along next to me for a couple of steps before saying, “This is an exceptional fall festival.”
I grin down at her. “You are an exceptional fall festival date.”
She looks up at me. “Have you brought a date before?”
Is that a flicker of jealousy I see? I probably shouldn’t like that, but I do.
“Just Kane. And he ate his way through every pumpkin spice booth and then complained about a stomachache the rest of the night.”
She laughs, and my heart feels like a helium-filled balloon, light and full in my chest.
“So I was thinking,” she says as we follow Benjamin and Kane through the maze.
“Uh huh,” I say.
“Maybe I won’t go back to my apartment tonight. If we could make s’mores by the firepit later?”
I try not to act as if she just announced that it was Christmas and my birthday and I was getting a pony. “God, Abby, you’re so demanding. But yeah, I guess we could probably do that.”
She snuggles closer to my side. “But tomorrow I really should go to my apartment. Before work on Monday.”
I lean over and kiss the top of her head. “We can talk about that tomorrow.”
I absolutely want her to never leave, but I realize we’re going to have to take this one day at a time.
“Oh damn, another dead end,” Kane says a few steps in front of us.
Abby giggles and says, “Oh darn.”
I don’t know exactly how to get this girl to fall in love with us and stay with us forever, but I am very glad my two best friends are working on this with me.
The three of us are a pretty great team.