by JA Huss
We said no.
I open the door for Oaklee when we walk up to Shrike, hold it for her as she walks through, and then enter behind her, slipping my sunglasses up on my head.
“There he is!” Chuck bellows from across the showroom. “We got the cameras out for this one!”
“What?” Oaklee says, looking up at me, confused.
A whole crew of people come over to us. Holding microphones over our heads. Three different cameras filming as we meet Chuck in front of the cash register.
“Just go with it,” I say, squeezing her hand before letting go to first shake Oliver’s hand, then Spencer’s.
I feel like a kid meeting his idol for the first time when he grips my hand and says, “You promise to take good care of her?” as he nods his head.
For a second I think he’s talking about the bike I’m about to buy. The one he made custom many years ago and is now selling to make room for more.
But then I realize he’s talking about Oaklee.
So I nod back, and say, “I promise.”
“You bought this?” Oaklee says, looking up at me.
“I did.”
“Because…”
“Because I’ve always wanted one. And now I’ve got all this money… so… why the fuck not?”
She sighs. Smiles her secret smile. Which makes me smile mine. And then she says, “Well, this is a nice surprise.”
But this isn’t the surprise.
“The money transfer went through this morning,” Spencer says. “So let me tell you all about my little princess here before you take her away.”
“Shoot,” I say. “I want to hear all about her.”
“She’s a little temperamental in the mornings. So you gotta warm her up properly. And she likes to be clean, so make sure you give her a bath after you’re done riding her. And her paint chips easily, so you need to bring her in for refurbishing often. I don’t want my baby girl to go without her pampering.”
He goes on and on like that and the whole time I’m just smiling. Because all these instructions sound a little bit like the deluxe boyfriend package.
It takes hours to get Spencer Shrike to hand me the keys to his baby. But eventually Oaklee and I have it outside, new matching helmets purchased and on our heads. Leather jackets on our backs, boots on our feet… ready to begin the road trip to our future.
And by the time we get up to Indian Hills and pull down the dirt-road driveway to the mountain mansion I closed on last week…
We are fully ourselves.
When we get off the bike I take her hand and lead her around the outside of the property. Showing her the barn, and the confiners that surround the house like a wall. Then I take her inside and show her that too.
The kitchen where we’ll cook dinner.
The dining room where we’ll eat it.
The master bedroom where we’ll sleep at night.
The master bath, where a claw-foot tub awaits our first bubble bath together.
And all the other bedrooms, empty for now, but which one day, hopefully, will be filled with kids.
It’s a weekend house. For now.
I sold my condo and moved into the Bronco Brews penthouse with Oaklee. I’m finishing up the condo renovations on the lower floors and getting ready to put them on the market.
I know. I know. I said I didn’t want to be a real-estate agent anymore.
But I do for this. Maybe I’ll quit after I’m done. Maybe I’ll sell my half of the business to Zack.
But then again, maybe not.
I don’t have that feeling anymore. The one that demanded I make a change. The early mid-life crisis is over.
So I decide to just live the life I’ve been given with the woman I love.
Maybe Oaklee and I didn’t get the experience we signed up for a few weeks ago, but we did get an experience, didn’t we?
The deluxe version, for sure.
The Shrike Bikes show has me on as a guest four times this first season and they’re talking about making me a recurring regular next season.
And Oaklee is back, better than ever now that Hanna is out of her life. She’s already thinking about the label design for her fall and winter seasonals.
I think her mid-life crisis is over too.
Vivi Vaughn started my second tat on my other shoulder. It’s me in a suit, surrounded by a bunch of familiar faces.
That day at the festival is now a local legend. We don’t admit to anything, of course. But rumors fly about how we took down Hanna and saved the Colorado craft beer industry.
I think it was the hipsters who talked.
And that’s fine. Let people talk. Let them turn it into something more than it was if they want.
We don’t care.
We’re too busy planning the Husband Experience.
EPILOGUE - JORDAN
I live in a seven-million-dollar, ten-thousand-square-foot historical mansion next door to the Denver Botanical Gardens. I bought it last fall in foreclosure with the hope of…
What?
What was I hoping?
I live here now because I’m liquidating. I have hopes and dreams too. I need things. It’s all I’ve got left and I don’t want it unless…
There are seven bedrooms, eleven bathrooms, two media rooms, two offices, two kitchens, a game room, a library, and a ballroom.
And I live here alone.
There’s nowhere to drop my keys as I come in the front door because the place is empty. A family lived here before their luck changed. And they left everything behind when they sold it. Even photographs. The happy couple on their wedding day. Pictures of their kids, and I can only assume they did that because they have digitals in Dropbox or some shit, because that part is pretty cold.
Pretty.
Fucking.
Cold.
(But who am I to judge?)
They left everything like it was a holiday home and whatever they kept there was just… extra. Like they went shopping and bought two of everything and so all this was just… the spare set.
Except it wasn’t.
But it’s all gone now. I packed up the photographs in a box and gave them to Lawton. Did he ever return them? I have no idea because I never asked. Then I sold all the furniture in an estate sale last month and bought a desk, a bed, and a couch from IKEA and had it all placed in the fifteen-hundred-square-foot office on the main floor.
I’m pretty sure the IKEA delivery people thought I was crazy, but I don’t care. And anyway, it might be true.
I live in the office. I don’t even bother using the main kitchen because I don’t cook and the office has a wet bar—because all gentlemen who own ten-thousand-square-foot-homes have a wet bar in their office—and it even has a dishwasher to wash the cut-crystal glasses I drink bourbon out of every night before bed, so who cares about the industrial-sized chef’s kitchen on the other side of the house?
On the desk there’s a laptop and on the wall there’s a fifty-five-inch TV, except I don’t have cable, or Netflix, or Hulu, or even Prime, so why I bought the TV, I couldn’t tell you.
If anyone saw me these days I’d get a label.
If I was lucky that label would be… eccentric. But more likely than not, they’d call me…sad.
And that would be accurate.
I am sad. For all the things I lost. For all the ways I’ve tried to make up to the people who matter. For all the things I’ll never have—things that have nothing to do with the size of a TV or the number of bathrooms in a house I don’t even really live in, or a wet bar in the oversized home office.
I feel sorry for that family who lost this house. I really do. Because at least they treated it like a home. At least it was loved.
I don’t love it.
I kick off my shoes as I enter the office and pour myself four fingers of bourbon. I sit on the couch, facing the window that faces the front yard—visible because of the fancy landscape lighting—and think about the game that just ended.
I take a sip of my drink, still staring out the window, and ask myself that question now.
It’s not because of Oaklee. I don’t owe her anything. Whether she knows it or not, she got her boyfriend experience. I don’t owe Law, either. Though I do still need him. If I want to get what I want, that is. I need him, but I don’t owe him. So that’s not why.
So why? Why do I do this? Is it some deep craving for forgiveness?
Probably. But that’s not enough. Not for the kind of shit I pull off.
So why? What is the payoff?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. A lot.
And there’s really only one answer.
I like it.
I smile just thinking that truth.
I like it.
I hired Darrel to work with me for a reason. And Finn, too. They are both decent enough on the outside. But inside… inside Darrel and Finn are just like me. Two morally bankrupt motherfuckers looking to make a new fortune.
I wield a powerful hammer having Darrel and Finn on my side. Some might say it’s not fair, but he who writes the rules of the game wins, right?
Except… I’m cashing out.
All the way out.
Because there’s only one thing left for me to want.
That fucking building.
I pick up my phone and call Lawton, ready to make my move. I’ve liquidated everything I have—except the house, because, well, I haven’t quite given up on that. I have one more game to play and it involves this house.
Lawton answers, “Yeah,” and for a second I forget I called him and hesitate. “Jordan?” he asks.
“So hey,” I say. “I’m ready to make an offer on Turning Point. Did you find out who the owner is?”
“Uh, yeah,” he says, hesitating.
“So how much do they want?”
“They’re not selling. And man, I tried my hardest too. I pulled out all the stops for you, brother. But these people are holding tight.”
“Dude, I pulled together fifteen million dollars cash. Did you tell them all-cash offer?”
“Yeah, they don’t care. I’m telling you, they’re not selling.”
“Who the fuck are these people?” I ask.
“Well, see, that’s the interesting part. They know you.”
“What?”
“Yeah, some woman named Augustine and her husband Alexander.”
“Augustine and Alexander bought my building?”
“It’s their building, dude. They’re not selling. I’m sorry, I know that club meant a lot to you, but I’m sorry. I tried my best and…”
I end the call. Stare out my window. Sip my drink.
And rage inside at the audacity of those two showing up from my fucking past, in my fucking town, buying my fucking building, and then letting it sit there for almost two fucking years as they wait for me to realize…
I just lost my own game.
Fuck that.
It’s time to play dirty.
Copyright © 2018 by J. A. Huss
Description
From NYT Bestselling Author, JA Huss, comes the final sexy standalone in the Jordan's Game series. Can a threesome really work? Or does it always crash and burn at the end?
They were never meant to be just two. It was always three. But seven years ago Jordan Wells broke the trust he’d built with Alexander and Augustine and everything changed.
Everyone moved on and got over it. Put the past behind them where it belonged and started new lives.
But now Alexander and Augustine are back—looking for a new game and the final third to complete their threesome.
And they won’t take no for an answer.
Jordan Wells is about to play his final game.
Will he win? Or will he be too afraid to try?
CHAPTER ONE
How Alexander and I got to this moment really isn’t the point. It’s not. We’re here. He’s got his hand on my cock, squeezing it, only the fabric of my pants separating us.
His eyelids are heavy, but I know him. They always look like that. He could be watching the last innings of the final game of the World Series and his eyelids would still be heavy.
So the look on his face means nothing.
He could be turned on, or not.
He could be doing this for me.
Or her.
Or himself.
None of this is the point.
The only point is… I need him and he needs me, and either we find a way to get through this or we all lose. He will lose her, I will lose the Club, she will walk away and life will probably implode.
Dramatic, I know. I get it. But it feels honest.
“Should I kiss you?” Alexander asks.
I have so many things to say back to him right now, it’s ridiculous. But none of them are the point either, so I just reach up, grab his hair, and pull him in until our lips meet.
He’s not gay.
He’s a little bit bi, which is why he’s here with me. And I’m a lot bi. Which is why I’m here with him.
But this kiss isn’t anything spectacular.
It’s rather stiff, actually. His lips don’t meld with mine. There’s no tongue. There’s no moaning or anything like that.
Fingers thread through my hair.
Not his.
Hers.
Her nails are long and today they’re painted a deep, shiny red. She presses them against my scalp—lightly—as her lips join ours.
Alexander changes immediately. First, a sigh. Then he moves closer to me. His hand gripping my cock tighter. His mouth softer, his breath faster, his eyes closed.
We kiss like that for a long time, it seems. No one is undressed. No one makes a move to undress.
We just kiss.
Which is a little bit nice. I guess. Kinda high-school. Kinda innocent.
But I’m not really out for a little bit nice.
I want to take her over to the couch, lay her back against the cushions, and fuck her like a man in a threesome.
And hell, her husband is welcome. Like I said, I’m a lot bi. So I welcome that part.
He, however… well, let’s just say he doesn’t feel the same way.
“You used to like this,” Augustine says, kissing Alexander’s neck now.
He doesn’t open his eyes and I’m grateful. Because he kinda fascinates me and those heavy-lidded eyes come with an intense gaze when they’re open.
It gives me an opportunity to look at him.
“I only ever did it for you,” Alexander replies. “It was always you who liked this.”
I could make him change his mind. I could. I’m that good. But I’ve given up on the dream of a bonded threesome.
Those feelings have long since passed. I live in a reality of my own making. Which might not be a hundred percent real these days, but it’s a lot more realistic than Alexander ever getting used to the idea of me.
I grab his hand and remove it from my cock.
This is enough to make him open his eyes.
“What are you doing?” Augustine asks.
“Leaving,” I say.
And I do.
I go home. Which isn’t a home. I live in a seven-million-dollar, ten-thousand-square-foot historical mansion next door to the Denver Botanical Gardens. I bought it last fall in foreclosure with the hope of…
What?
What was I hoping?
I live here now because I’m liquidating. I have hopes and dreams too. I need things. It’s all I’ve got left and I don’t want it unless…
There are seven bedrooms, eleven bathrooms, two media rooms, two offices, two kitchens, a game room, a library, and a ballroom.
And I live here alone.
There’s nowhere to drop my keys as I come in the front door because the place is empty. A family lived here before their luck changed. And they left everything behind
when they sold it. Even photographs. The happy couple on their wedding day. Pictures of their kids, and I can only assume they did that because they have digitals in Dropbox or some shit, because that part is pretty cold.
Pretty.
Fucking.
Cold.
(But who am I to judge?)
They left everything like it was a holiday home and whatever they kept there was just… extra. Like they went shopping and bought two of everything and so all this was just the spare set.
Except it wasn’t.
But it’s all gone now. I packed up the photographs in a box and gave them to Lawton. Did he ever return them? I have no idea because I never asked. Then I sold all the furniture in an estate sale last month and bought a desk and a couch from IKEA and had it placed in the fifteen-hundred-square-foot office on the main floor.
I’m pretty sure the IKEA delivery people thought I was crazy, but I don’t care. And anyway, it might be true.
I live in the office. I don’t even bother using the main kitchen because I don’t cook and the office has a wet bar—because all gentlemen who own ten-thousand-square-foot-homes have a wet bar in their office—and it even has a dishwasher to wash the cut-crystal glasses I drink bourbon out of every night before bed, so who cares about the industrial-sized chef’s kitchen on the other side of the house?
On the desk there’s a laptop and on the wall there’s a fifty-five-inch TV, except I don’t have cable, or Netflix, or Hulu, or even Prime, so why I bought the TV, I couldn’t tell you.
If anyone saw me these days I’d get a label.
If I was lucky that label would be… eccentric. But more likely than not, they’d call me… sad.
And that would be accurate.
I am sad. I’m just not a hundred percent sure why.
Maybe for all the things I lost. For all the ways I’ve tried to make up to the people who matter. For all the things I’ll never have—things that have nothing to do with the size of a TV or the number of bathrooms in a house I don’t even really live in, or a wet bar in the oversized home office.