Bent over the foot of the bed, her legs spread, Alice practiced patience.
Poorly.
Jay’s gleaming steel toy had disappeared inside him while he issued no protests and more than a few pleases. Hers waited in her cupped hand, its smooth weight secure in her palm. Two Saturday afternoons in a row with her Intro to Anal Pleasure workshop. New for her, but continuing education for Jay.
“Now you’re properly attired for the day.” Henry trailed a finger down the curve of Jay’s ass. “Quite handsome. Quite”—he cupped Jay’s cheeks in both hands—“tempting.”
Mirroring her pose, Jay flashed dark eyes and grasped the sheets. When they’d lain in this position last fall, he’d shaken with nerves as Henry tested her responses to impact play. His swirling confidence and happy whimpers today belonged to a different Jay. On this road, he traveled faster than her. But she’d finally started catching up.
Jay squirmed backward, wiggling his hips off the bed.
With a last squeeze, Henry stepped away. “Our girl will make a lovely match.”
“Sorry I missed your first playdate with your new toy.” Jay folded his elbows underneath his chest and scooted closer. His shower-fresh earthy pine tickled her nose. “Can’t wait to see it in you.”
“I can’t wait to feel it in me.” Uncurling her fingers, she offered up her plug. Half the heft of Jay’s, but thrill-size for her.
Henry plucked the toy from her hand.
Jay swiped a kiss, his apologetic tug on her lip paired with shiny-eyed sincerity.
Palm heavy and digging in, Henry rubbed a circle along the top of her ass. “You gave your toy an enthusiastic welcome last week.”
Fuck, he parted her lips and delved deep. Thick and hot as an extra winter blanket, he induced fever-chills with his strokes.
“And your excitement hasn’t ebbed, I see.” He slipped free, humming, and dragged his fingers across her ass. A drizzle of lube slicked her for him.
Relaxing her ass, pushing to draw him in, turned her legs wobbly.
Sturdy-hipped Jay shored her up.
“Very much in sync,” Henry murmured. “Thank you, my boy.”
Between the new game and the praise, Jay had to be burning a hole in the bedsheets with his cock.
When Henry swapped his fingers for her toy, the wide flare stretched her with ever-present pressure, demanding and satisfying and occupying the space meant for him. The one she’d give him soon.
“Stand up straight, my dears.” Circling the bed, Henry cleaned his fingers and tossed the used cloth.
As she copied Jay’s at-ease pose, metal grazed her thigh. She jammed her cheeks together. Jesus. In her hand, the weight hadn’t felt nearly so heavy.
“Such a well-behaved pair of pets deserves more extensive play.” Steeped in power and presence, Henry surveyed them from his post beside the nightstand. Though he’d stripped and toyed with them—literally—he retained his dress slacks, his button-down, and the tie he’d worn for her birthday last fall. The tie’s leaded lines and colored panes had etched into her wrists, a permanent but invisible tattoo of his ownership and Jay’s devotion.
“A reward for their diligence.” As he passed them, Henry caressed their asses.
She sneaked a peek—though Henry smiled, because he knew, he always knew—at the lean line of Jay’s cock, firm and proud. He held his pose with only the obvious betraying his excitement.
The slow glide of wood rasping on wood inflamed her imagination. Opening a drawer in the special dresser meant Henry had more planned. She sucked every drop of sweetness from the idea. Bondage? For her or Jay. For her and Jay. But Henry had filled them with toys. If he let them play with each other, where would he fit himself?
Jay. His full lips and sleek tongue. The image seared her with simple beauty, Jay hollowing his cheeks in eagerness, Henry reshaping Jay’s throat with his length.
Henry stroked the top of the open drawer. “But I’ll need something from them both first.”
Anything. Her carousel of rewards flipped too fast to follow. In making her wait for him to name one, her smoldering artist scattered embers under her skin.
“Run along to the living room and clear the furniture from the rug, please.”
Do what now?
“Go on.” A smile tugging at his lips, Henry waved them ahead. “I’ll be just a moment.”
Bounding to the living room with carefree excitement, Jay flashed silver between his ass cheeks. She took dainty steps, and not only because following him offered a spectacular view. She’d never been so aware of her ass in her life. With each step, her toy shifted, rubbed, and reminded her to squeeze and lift.
In short order, the chairs and the coffee table hugged the big wall. The couch remained, the gray behemoth so often a cozy cuddling spot for three.
Jay struck a fierce pose, muscles straining, lips pulled back in a teeth-bearing grimace. Grunting, he play-heaved the couch with a mighty shove.
God, he had a fucking fabulous ass. Almost dimpled when he tightened up.
“Alice, you forgot to push.” He flicked a boyish smirk her way. “I can’t convince Henry he’s working us hard if you’re standing there staring at me.”
Sure enough, Henry stood beside the dining room table. Damn light-footed dom-silence. Their stealthy lover delivered the best surprises—and if a way to fool him existed, she hadn’t found it yet.
“I was on a break.” Her favorite kind. She devoured Jay from his flexible feet to his tousled hair. “My staring-at-Jay break. If it’s not an hourly perk, it oughta be written in.”
Pinking with pleasure, he copped weightlifting poses. For all his sexy strength, he truly seduced with his sweet smile and his send-me-to-my-knees stare.
He’d captured Henry’s attention, too. Henry smoothed his tie to his belt and beyond. Trapping his cock, his dress pants outlined his growing interest. Behind him, her usual chair hid all but an indistinct black handle. Too dark and thin to be her suede, and a crop wouldn’t be a reward.
“This is a union job, right?” She nudged the couch with her knee. Her end glided three inches back. Despite its size, the behemoth floated featherlight on the non-scratch pads protecting the hardwood. “Henry’s given us contracts and everything.”
The last time they’d cleared the rug, he’d set them at each other in a pillow fight. Today’s reward might be another test. She’d proven herself ready last weekend, but Jay’s reaction to impact play remained a mystery.
Sighing, Jay gave up the muscleman antics and pushed the couch with a palm on the armrest. “And killer benefits.”
Agreed. Though she didn’t relish trying his workout. She clenched as if the toy in her ass would slip out with every step. Hadn’t yet, but she’d been careful. And hyperaware.
He poured on the puppy eyes. “We still get our reward, right? Even if Alice is a shirker?”
Sticking out her tongue, she conspired to get him back with a solid pillow swat, straddle his naked ass, and ride his cock like a goddamn boss. See if he called her shirker then.
“I’m well convinced of your work ethic.” With his low-toned purr and sweeping gaze, Henry curled his love around them. “But the sooner you finish, the sooner your game will begin.”
Square pillows sat in each corner of the couch. Closest weapon at hand, but a draw—Jay had equal access. His gaze flipped past her. Damn. He’d spotted the floor pillows under the front window. As the couch slipped the last few inches and settled into position, she rested a hand on her weapon.
He boosted the pillow at his end and fluffed it with spread fingers, the way he held a basketball poised for a pass.
She’d have to toss a distraction pillow, dodge his throw, and dive on Henry’s mark if she meant to beat Jay to those floor pillows. Tension traveling up her legs, she braced her feet and tugged. Not losing her toy might be part of the rules.
Henry spread his arms wide. “Welcome to your dance studio.”
“Our what?” Her repertoire encompassed two kinds of dancing—the swaying and shuffling of ninth-graders in a sweat-scented gym and the grinding frenzy of the over-twenty-one crowd in a sweat-scented nightclub. Henry didn’t belong in either picture, and where he didn’t belong, sex didn’t belong. The weight teasing her ass insisted sex belonged here. “Are you joking?”
Pillow abandoned, Jay faked a fanciful ballet twirl, arms flying and cock bouncing.
“I am utterly sincere.” Henry stepped onto the rug and laid his hands on Jay’s shoulders, settling their hyperactive lover with his long-fingered hold. “Dance is grace and beauty in motion. The both of you are, as well.”
The both of them, maybe. Fluid, supple, and silent, Henry always moved like a dancer. Jay powered through on the athletic grace of strength, balance, and speed.
“I should think you’d enjoy dance, Alice.” Henry released Jay, raised his arms to an invisible partner, and executed a three-point pivot. “Precise patterns, replicated into infinity, movement dictated by a predictable rhythm—”
“But it’s not predictable.” Dances meant gawky adolescents stumbling over each other. Too-small, pinching heels borrowed from Mom’s closet. That or alcohol-fueled abandon, and those patterns weren’t worth replicating. “I never know which way to go.”
“Then you’ve had inelegant partners.” He scooped her chin up and tapped her lips. “Properly, you resisted giving control to them, as your body did not trust them. Do you trust me, Alice? Do you trust Jay?”
“You know I do.”
He kissed her forehead. “That’s all I ask.” As he positioned her and Jay facing each other, he skimmed their bodies with fleeting touches. “I expect neither of you learned formal dancing in school?”
She shook her head. Only if square dancing counted. No team sports in gym for a whole week. What a waste.
“Not in school.” Jay tilted toward Henry as his arms were raised and his hand pressed above her waist. “At my sibs’ weddings. Last one, I’d just hit the boner-popping years.” He shuddered, head to toe. “Dancing with your new sister-in-law is the wrooonnng time.”
Henry caught him in a swift embrace. “I doubt our girl will mind.”
“Not one bit.” Trying for a smirk, she probably came closer to a leer.
“She’s more likely to consider your interest an added bonus.” He rubbed Jay’s hip. “As do I.”
He left them poised to move, hands clasped. Middle school dance sounded about right, minus the sweaty palms. They had room enough for the Holy Ghost between them and then some.
Henry clicked on the stereo, and orchestral music filled the air. “My own school required attendance at dance lessons weekly.”
Yum. Adolescent Henry. Sensitive, intense, all studious and charming, with flawless manners—
“Half the class took to finding private time for release beforehand. The male half.”
—frantically jerking off before class in a desperate bid to stay in control when it mattered. She rearranged her mental image from how sweet to fuck yes as her body furnace cranked.
Cock twitching, Jay whimpered and swayed.
“The others, well. Girls were such mysteries.” Henry maintained an unaffected tone, but his eyes crinkled with kind laughter. “Their signs invisible to us uneducated louts. Gasps and blushes. Thighs pressing together.” He teased her with a swipe below the curve of her ass. “Surely they didn’t entertain persistent visions of bodies writhing in unison on less vertical planes.”
She had, a time or two. They might, sooner or later, depending on what Henry had left on the table.
“This is a waltz, but you needn’t worry about the exact steps.” In a graceful glide already attuned to the music, Henry slipped away. “We’ll begin by having you gain an appreciation for your own bodies before you attempt matching the music or each other.”
Jay cracked a wide grin. “Like masturbating. My favorite homework assignment.”
Snorting, she ducked her head. Not helpful. With his muscled abs and half-hard cock, he filled her vision.
Henry chuckled. “Exactly right. Dance is a socially acceptable form of foreplay.”
Not their version, with her and Jay nude and Henry their hands-on instructor.
“Follow your instincts.” He waved for them to begin.
Her instincts sent her crashing into Jay’s shin on the downbeat. As he hopped backward, she went along for the ride. With a quick spin, he kept them both from tumbling.
“Nice save.” Plastered to his chest, she bonked her head against his shoulder. “I think we skipped the masturbation lesson and went straight to the dry humping.”
Jay squeezed her waist and hoisted her. “I’m good with that.”
Her feet dangled, her toes brushing the tops of his, as he shook them both with his laughter. Euphoric. That encapsulated this almost tipsy high. Naked, pressed tight to Jay, the weight of her toy shifting between her legs. She slung her arms around his neck and kissed him.
They’d gone off course, but Henry issued no reprimands. His silence, his stance, all stayed easy and relaxed as she slithered back to her feet. He smiled on approach and ruffled Jay’s hair. Slipped behind her and nuzzled her neck. “Allow me to cut in, dearest.”
He unspooled them and glided off—with Jay in his arms.
They made a gorgeous couple. Slim and tanned, his ass a splash of pale milk, Jay followed Henry without hesitation. And Henry…He commanded. Wordlessly. His eyes gleamed. His arms formed a framework rigid but flowing. His steps powered their movement and determined their path.
Dancing was his basketball.
She and Jay stood on Henry’s court. He meant to teach them an activity he enjoyed, but he wanted them to enjoy it, too.
In the privacy of their home, Jay poured his energy into learning his lesson and pleasing his master. Gazing adoringly, he glowed brighter as praise fell from Henry’s lips. Jay’s trust and Henry’s leadership blended smooth and sweet. As their song spun into silence, Henry delivered Jay beside her.
She clapped with gusto. They deserved more. “Pretty slick, you two.”
“All Henry.” Loose-limbed, Jay flaunted an orgasmic flush. “I didn’t think about a thing. It’s just”—he wriggled as Henry released him—“letting him move me.”
“Beautiful understanding, my boy.” Henry reeled her in and kissed her lightly. “It’s all right if this proves more difficult for you, sweet girl. You so delight in conquering each challenge I set for you.”
Determined not to miss his commands, she gripped him tight. His slacks, concealing his legs, made the shift in his weight hard to discern.
“Easy,” he whispered.
Three sweeping steps per foot, boxy with diagonals. Plug jouncing with her, she missed the beat. As he dodged her knees, the music passed them by. Henry slowed, and she landed on his toes. “Sorry.”
“You’re fine.” He rubbed warmth into her spine. “Elevate your chin. Watching my feet is counterproductive, strange as that seems.”
He started again, in time with the music. His gentle eyes threatened to pull her away from counting steps. Seeing had to be easier than deconstructing the tug-o-war going on with their hands.
“You’re making yourself cross-eyed, dearest. As adorable as you are, I’ve just the thing to redirect your energy.” Halting their dance, Henry cradled her and sent Jay scurrying to the table. “Bring me both, please.”
On her tiptoes, she peeked around Henry.
Jay waved his finds like victory flags. One black, padded blindfold. One feather-tipped teaser.
Her blindfold hadn’t made an appearance in months. As her nipples hardened, Henry’s dress shirt chafed in an oddly appealing way.
“Even your faintest moans add to our symphony.” Henry stretched past her and accepted Jay’s hand-off. “Precisely what I require, thank you. Our girl needs a narrower focus.” Massaging her ass with his free hand, he set off rolling pleasure. “Not to worry, Alice. We’ll widen your aperture as we go.”
Her ass clenched and her throat opened, spilling another of the moans he praised her for. Graduation waited when she’d mastered her small plug. Henry waited.
“You haven’t worn this for me in far too long.” As he slipped the blindfold over her eyes, darkness descended. “How wary and uncertain you were then.”
Her pulse grew loud. Her skin tingled.
“But some delights are unchanging.” Tracing her ears, he swept back hair caught under the band. “You still tremble with such sweet anticipation.”
Between her thighs, she tightened from her thudding clit to her toy. Floaty and loose everywhere else, she drifted, with the weight the sole anchor she needed to keep her steady and balanced.
“You feel the difference, don’t you?” Voice flowing, he stayed close but on the move. “I see how you adjust your posture.” He grazed her hip. “In tune with your center of mass.” At the base of her spine, he laid a fleeting warm palm. “Anatomy is artistry. Even the smallest weight”—he teased her with a split-fingered tug on the handle between her cheeks—“creates new and beautiful forms.”
His ability to find beauty in the big picture and its finest details seduced her. He’d break this down for her, present the components until she mastered them.
“Your body is always a dance, Alice. Allow me to sketch the lines in your pattern.”
With pleasure.
“The rule of the game is…”
As a breezy tickle brushed her stomach, she bolted back and laughed at herself. Adrenaline and excitement made a potent mix in Henry’s court.
“Excellent. Simply step away from the tease.”
“Action, opposite reaction.” Teaching her could’ve been as easy as papering the floor with shoe-shapes and letting her study, but he hadn’t done that.
“Just so.” With the wisp of a caress along her ribs, he drove her left. “Dancing is about understanding your body.”
What he wanted to teach her wasn’t dance steps at all.
“Knowing what feels pleasurable.” Forward, a graze between her shoulder blades. “Transforming directed motion into natural, inevitable joy.”
He talked of dancing the way he talked of sex. The act of creation, seductive and powerful. Maybe he got as euphoric manifesting ideas in his mind as she did when he flogged or fucked her.
“Consider how much you’ve learned about your body’s capacity for sensual pleasure in the past year.” He brushed the same side, again and again and again, twirling her with his touch. “These steps are as natural to you as breathing.”
He intended to teach her what Jay understood instinctively. To let go of thought and embrace movement. To follow the feather.
“You’re making the shift from thinking to experiencing.”
A kind of hyperaware subspace. None of the decisions hers.
“You live in this moment.”
The feather drifted away. If the pattern held, the tease would land at her back.
“Anticipate the next too quickly—”
He circled her navel, and she flew back two steps.
“—and you miss enjoying this one.”
A tingling mass of sensation, she focused on the long signal in the noise.
“If you are always chasing, you are never feeling.”
Only Henry mattered. If she followed where he led, the rest would fall away.
“Feel the glide in your body.” With feathery touches, he prodded her calves. “Your exquisite muscles melting into new shapes and forms, the confluence of flowing curves.”
So soothing, his voice. So gentle, his touch. Shedding the confusion, the worry, the guesswork, she floated into act-without-thinking escape. “We had to get naked for a dancing lesson?” Not that she minded, but needling Henry came with its own joys. Growly, possessive joys.
“We mustn’t allow anything to interfere with the signals.” His dry amusement accompanied a feather stroke on her back.
She flowed forward. His guidance was native, not an alien here.
“Nor with the beautiful sights.” He hummed, soft and lilting. “Do you imagine how I’m looking at you now, Alice?” Using the feather, he sent her left and back. “Can you envision my hunger and approval?”
Hell yes. His flashing green eyes greeted her in her dreams. Picturing them required no more than the suggestion.
“Your nude form before me, rapt and attentive to my every cue? My voice has guided you for months, but here, in our dance studio, I need only my touch.”
Cradling her, he placed his fingertips where feathers would have fallen. He laid her left hand down gently, his shirt crisp and his shoulder broad, and folded her right hand in his. The slight tug at her clasped hand, the solid pressure at her back, and her own shifting weight made each move memorable. Repeatable. Predictably glorious.
“Good girl. You needn’t see your partner. Only feel the direction he wishes to move.”
A hush fell between them. The music guided Henry, and he guided her. She didn’t stumble, not once.
Bringing them to a stop, he clasped her cheeks and traced the bottom of the blindfold. “You see so clearly in darkness, dearest.” As he raised the shield from her eyes, he kissed her. His lips offered pressure to sink into rather than run from. He waved Jay up from the couch. “Let’s begin again, shall we?”
* * * *
When the stack of Sunday breakfast waffles had dwindled to two, Alice stabbed the top one and hoisted it over to her plate. No sense waiting ’til she finished hers, or Jay’d claim both.
Eyeing her half-eaten waffle and her new, untouched waffle, he pinched the serving plate and dragged the lone survivor to his end of the table.
She pointed her tongue at him.
Henry crossed his fork and knife on his empty plate. “I’d like to discuss a change in our routine for this coming weekend.”
As if anything had been routine lately, with the classes at the club and Jay’s birthday. Yesterday had been as close to normal as they got. Maybe he’d take them out and show off their new dancing skills. With toys.
“Is it a good—” Jay popped his head up. “Ohhh. ’Cause July.” Dropping his attention back to his plate, he dredged crumbled bacon in his syrup-pond waffle. “Okay.”
“July?” Visions of a summer arts retreat replaced the sexy-times movie playing in her head. First Jay, now Henry. Shit, she should hightail it to a continuing ed conference, disappear for a few days and see how they liked it.
“Saturday will be a difficult anniversary for a close friend.” Henry nudged his fork into a straighter alignment. “I’ve traditionally provided support in helping her through it.”
His close female friends could be counted on a single finger. “Emma.”
“Yes.”
“So you want to take her out to dinner or something?” God, let that be it. Henry wore his neutral face, impossible to read, which meant he was busy reading her. “That’s nice of you. Gentlemanly. Jay and I can scrounge up our own for one evening, right, Jay?”
Mouth full of food, Jay glanced her way with puppy eyes.
Shit.
“In previous years, I’ve prepared a meal for her at her home.”
An anniversary dinner. She’d gotten one last year, splayed beneath him across the table. She closed her teeth on her tongue. Fuck, that hurt. “Oh.”
Jay had accepted this state of affairs for years. Henry wouldn’t be the man she loved if he didn’t take care of the people in his life. One dinner. No sex.
“Because you and Will attended dinners there all the time.” Acceptance. Nothing to it.
“Yes. My presence is a familiar comfort for her.” Laying his hand on the table, he patted his impeccably folded napkin. “I’ve also stayed to be certain she would be all right.”
Her churning stomach no longer held room for the food on her plate. “Stayed the night, you mean.”
“Yes.”
Henry, thoughtful and solicitous, smiling as he asked Emma to fetch him the tarragon. Henry, kind and considerate, draping a blanket over her shoulders before he lit a fire in her fireplace. Because of course she’d have a fireplace. That she’d want lit. In July. Henry, tender and sweet, cradling Emma to his chest as he carried her to her bed. Where he’d stay. All night.
The waffle begged to be fork-shredded. Irrational fears should drown as easily in syrup. She unstuck her mouth. “I know you’re not asking my permission.”
“No.” Hands folded, he extended his fingers like crossbeams in a saddle notch and tapped his thumbs together. “But I am opening the subject for discussion, because I recognize this might be a more difficult issue for you than it is for Jay.”
“It might.” Swallowing hard didn’t alleviate her dryness. “Might be a pistachio for me.”
Jay’s fork screeched across his plate.
“I don’t know if—” Sometimes being the submissive sucked. Henry would do this with her blessing or without. “If I can have this conversation without being your equal.”
Jay would. Emma would. Individual molds for individual people, Henry would say. She could only be herself and hope he understood.
“You are always my equal, even when the final decisions are mine.” Eyes pinched, he covered her hand. “Share with me the root of the difficulty, my dear. Allow me to help you.”
Safewording wouldn’t change anything. He’d remain bent on doing this, and she’d hate every second, and they’d argue just as hard. Shaking him off, she shoved back her too-confining chair.
“So say Santa’s wife is out of town, and he’s had a lousy string of weeks. He’s lonely and depressed, and a club temp isn’t gonna deliver human connection.” She paced in bare feet across the floor they’d danced on yesterday. “And I say to you, ‘Hey, I’ll go sleep at Santa’s for the night. It’s just cuddling and emotional support.’ Are you gonna say, ‘Hell yeah, go for it’?”
“I trust you both.” He spoke softly, but the hand she’d rejected curled into a fist.
“Not what I asked, and you know it.” This ran deeper than trust, or parallel, but it growled with a possessive stirring unaffected by trustworthiness. “I trust you, too. And even if I don’t know Emma well, I trust you enough for both of you.” The damn answers never came easy, not with emotions involved. He’d opened her to the truth. All those times she’d severed love from the equation hadn’t stopped feelings from existing. Hiding kept her from admitting and working through them. “You want me to do this, but could you? Could you smile and drop me off at his house and pick me up the next morning and never once have a twinge of discomfort?”
In his silence, the blood rushing past her ears thundered with doubts. She should’ve said nothing. Kept the peace. Stopped using logic as a weapon.
He rapped his knuckles. “No.”
She sidled up to her chair. Under her hands, the wood top rail rose and fell in a smooth wave.
“This night is a ritual, Alice. I cannot pass such a sacred trust off to another, and I cannot ignore the anniversary and leave her alone.” Like a draft horse straining for that first inch of ground in a pulling contest, he leaned in, bowed his head, and exhaled in a whoosh. “He was my friend and mentor for fifteen years. Their boy was my godson. I, too, need to honor and remember them.”
The chair anchored her wobbly arms. “Emma had a son?”
“Thomas.” He hummed, the notes falling flat as a grimace twisted his lips. “Victor drove up to collect him from summer camp. Their joke of the season had been how strange it felt to play spontaneously at home for the first time since his birth.”
Syrup soured with bile in her throat.
“Even now, I doubt she’s forgiven herself for enjoying that freedom.”
“They both died?” She hushed her voice to match his, a whispering echo in a vault he’d never opened to her before.
“An evening thunderstorm.” Rubbing his fingers, he drew shapes on the table. Or erased them. “A tree across the road. The car—” His fingers stilled. He shook his head. “So I listen to her stories, and she listens to mine.”
He could tell those stories to her. To her and Jay. They’d listen. “You—”
But not remember.
When he reminisced with Emma, they bonded over shared experiences. The love and the laughter and the grief that followed.
“I what, dearest?”
God, he had the softest eyes. Not always. He did flinty and hard with the toughest minerals. But just now, she drowned in him the way she drowned in Jay. Henry trusted her with his vulnerability.
“You should be with Emma.” One night. She and Jay had him three hundred and sixty-four nights out of the year. He deserved this. Someday, they’d all toast the memory of the boy who’d died too young and the man who’d helped make Henry what he was. But she’d leave this tradition to Henry and Emma. “So you can remember the people you both loved and respected.”
Inhaling deep and slow, he leaned back in his chair. As he exhaled, he released the tension in her, too. “I see two people I love and respect in front of me, sweet girl.”
Jay returned to cutting his waffle. “How come you don’t bring Emma here? Maybe staying in the house with the reminders makes it worse. Sometimes talking about stuff somewhere else helps. Or with someone else. Like it’s okay to. You don’t have to lock it all away like you’re ashamed to be sad or scared.”
Jesus Christ. She and Henry needed to learn to shut the fuck up and let Jay solve the world’s problems.
“What?” Stopping his fork at his mouth, Jay glanced down. “Did I get syrup on my shirt? I can take it off.”
“You may remove your shirt if you like.” As faint, lilting wonder lifted his voice, Henry stared unblinking at Jay. “But you are perfect as you are.”
Shrugging, Jay popped waffle into his mouth. Two seconds, three seconds—his fork clanged on the plate and he wrestled with the bottom hem of his shirt.
Henry turned his gaze on her. “Alice, would that—”
“Yes.” Oh hell yes. Have them both here instead of some nebulous otherwhere.
“You’re certain you’d prefer another woman here, on your territory? You’d be displaced for the evening.”
Like Mom and Dad’s dinner parties. Hustled off to bed early with Ollie, the two of them creeping down the hall to see what was so funny that adults had to sit around a table of beer bottles and cards and laugh so loud all night. Now she had a nobler purpose, choosing to stay away and not eavesdrop. “I’m sure.”
“Alice and I can go on a date.” Slinging an arm around his chair back, Jay comically puffed out his bare chest. “I’ll take her out on the town for a night she’ll never forget.”
She snorted. “Arcade-style virtual reality kayaking is not unforgettable.”
“Think of the pizza.” He mimed scooping up a slice and biting down. “All dripping with gooey cheese.”
“You ate a hundred waffles. How can you be hungry for pizza?”
“I wouldn’t be if I had that waffle trapped on your plate.”
She scooted the plate down the table and dropped a firm kiss on his syrup-sticky lips. “All yours.”
With a swipe behind her knees, he dropped her in his lap. “All mine?”
She campaigned to tweak his nipple.
“Thank you both.”
Play paused for Henry’s smile.