Joelle blushes. “A little.”
“That’s going to be a deal breaker,” says Alex. His voice is still soft, but implacable now. “What we do together is nothing to be embarrassed about. Shame has no place here, not between us.”
Joelle nods slowly. “I’ll have to work on that. It might take some time.”
She looks so goddamn pretty, snow swirling around her like that. I can’t stand the tears in her eyes, though, so I reach for her hand, drawing her gaze.
“I suspect—um, that’s at least partly my fault,” I say, stammering. I clear my throat and try again. “The way everybody found out about us… that was my doing. I should never have exposed you that way, not until you were ready for it. Or until we were all ready for it. And I definitely should never have made you think you were to blame. You weren’t, Joelle.”
Joelle looks at me a long moment, then nods. “Apology accepted.”
“I’m not done yet,” I say, laying my hands on her shoulders to turn her toward the street. “Do you know what that is?”
“The modern world’s very first food truck.”
“Not quite,” I say drily. “Though I’ll admit, she needs some paint.”
“She?”
“As of about an hour ago, that is the newest location of Duckbill.”
Joelle and Alex turn twin looks of surprise my way.
“Are you serious?” asks Joelle.
“As a heart attack,” I say, reaching for her hand again. “Joelle Munroe, will you do me the honor of coming to work with me again? I promise to honor, respect, and pay you until culinary school do us part.”
I was hoping to make her laugh, but all I get is a half a smile as she cuts her eyes away.
“About that,” she says, trying to pull her hand back. I’m loathe to let her go and after a few seconds she gives up, twining her fingers with mine. “Culinary school is on hold.”
“What?”
“Why? What happened?”
“Hah, funny story, actually,” she says. “I got a phone call this morning from Sizzle. The cable network?”
Alex nods and when she looks at me, I roll my eyes.
“It’s ninety percent of my DVR. Of course I know what it is,” I say.
She laughs again, nervously this time. “Yeah, them. So… they called. They like my blog, especially the videos. I have a meeting with them next week to talk about possibly filming a pilot for a show. For my own cooking show.”
My jaw drops so fast I can practically hear it hit the deck. Alex looks about the same as I feel—utterly poleaxed—until I start laughing. I scoop up Joelle and spin her around, loving the yelp it draws from her as she grips my coat.
“How about we take this inside before you fall and break each other into pieces?” says Alex, unlocking the door. Truth be told, I’d kind of forgotten about the snow and, you know, the freezing-ass temperatures. Just getting to talk to my two favorite people in the world was enough to keep me warm, but Alex has a point.
Plus, inside means fewer clothes between us, and I can always get behind that.
Alex cuts me a look as I walk past him into the living room like he knows where my head’s at. He probably does. I mean, who am I kidding? Subtlety is not my forte.
“You missed the rest of the show just now, Joelle,” says Alex, settling on to the couch beside her. I take her other side, same way I did the first night, all those weeks ago. “When Elliot drove up in that rattletrap truck, I thought he was going to run it into the house, he was so mad.”
“Really?” Joelle’s eyes go wide.
“Honking the horn at us, shouting, the whole nine,” he says, mischief in his eyes.
“You were hugging the Ice Bitch,” I shoot back. “What was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know about ‘supposed to’ but I definitely wasn’t expecting you to run through the snow yelling ‘I love you’ at the top of your lungs like a crazy person.”
Joelle gasps and turns to me.
“Did you really?”
There’s an itch at the back of my neck I can’t quite get.
“It wasn’t that dramatic.”
“It makes the top five most dramatic things I’ve ever seen you do,” says Alex, grinning now. “Maybe even top three.”
I mutter something about keeping score. Alex scoots off the couch and kneels in front of me, his eyes on mine.
“Did you mean it?” he asks. I’m painfully aware that he hasn’t said it back and I’m pretty sure it’s too late to save face on this one so I just tell him the truth.
“Yes.” Joelle’s sniffling tugs at me and I turn to her. “I love you, too, you know. I’ve been in love with you almost since the minute I met you.”
Alex lays a wide hand on my knee, doing the same to Joelle, and squeezes us both.
“I love you,” he says. “Both of you. I don’t know how this is going to work but I want to promise you right now, I’ll do everything in my power to earn you.”
“Dumbass,” I say. I’m not crying. It’s allergies. Joelle, though—tears are streaming down her face as she leans over to kiss Alex. It’s slow and soft and the stuff of classic Hollywood cinema. Then she turns to me and does the same for me.
“I love you both,” she says, wiping her face. “But I think you already knew that.”
“And now Diana knows too,” I say. “She sure took off in a hurry.” Joelle giggles, but I’m looking at Alex. “You wouldn’t really go back to her, would you?”
He rolls his eyes. “Don’t be an idiot.”
I want to protest, but we’re here and she’s not, so I guess he’s got a point.
“She came back to apologize, more than anything,” says Alex. “I guess she got over whatever hang-up she had about me being bi. So you can stop calling her the Ice Bitch now.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say. “But not now. Right now I’ve got more important things to do.”
“Such as?” Joelle asks. I reach over, tugging open the top button of her blouse.
“Celebrating your inevitable fame and success, for one thing,” I say, popping the second button open.
“Anything else?” This comes from Alex, whose voice has dropped about sixteen octaves.
“Oh, yes,” I say. “I’ve got a list. Want to see it?”
“See what?” smirks Alex. “Your list?” He sweeps Joelle up into his arms and starts for the stairs.
“That too,” I say, one step ahead of him. “It’s upstairs. It’s rather… long. And in desperate need of attention.”
29
Alex
A few months later…
* * *
I stack up the last of the paperwork I brought home, making sure to put away the files before Elliot gets here. Last time he caught me working from home, it took me three days to find all of the client’s paperwork because Elliot swore he just couldn’t handle watching me work.
I mean, I can’t say I minded the inconvenience. Considering how those papers got scattered and what happened on that desk after.
Even so, I lock up my paperwork and set it aside, knowing he’ll be home any minute. Joelle, too. She had another meeting with Sizzle today. The pilot episode of her show aired last week to rave reviews, which surprised no one at all. She’s an absolute natural. If they don’t ask her for more episodes, they’re morons. I’ve never been so proud of anybody in my life.
Except maybe Elliot these last few months. Putting the original Duckbill to bed devastated him, but taking the restaurant on the road with a new food truck was a stroke of genius. I know he hates it that he can’t rehire every single one of his former employees, but he managed to call in favors all over town to make sure they all had jobs elsewhere after he was forced to close the doors.
Now that my work’s done, I grab my personal computer and a beer and head for the front porch. Spring is in full effect and I intend to enjoy it while I can, settling into the porch swing and pulling up my email. Sure enough, there’s today’s sales repo
rt from Elliot. There’s a screenshot attached, which is unusual. I squint at the thumbnail.
That’s not a screenshot.
I click the photo open and Elliot picks that exact moment to pull into the driveway. I’m tilting my head left, then right to get a better look as he climbs the steps.
“You know,” I say as he approaches. “It’s a damn good thing I didn’t open this on my work phone. They still check that shit, you know.” Elliot leans over to see the screen and snickers.
“What can I say? I know how to take a dick pic.”
“You’re impossible,” I say, closing the laptop and setting it aside, but not before saving the photo in a designated hidden file on the hard drive.
“And you love me anyway.” Elliot sets his fists on the swing just alongside my thighs, leaning in to brush his lips against mine.
“I know.”
Several minutes pass before he pulls back and sits down on the swing next to me. As sunny as it is this afternoon, I’m kind of surprised he packed it in for the day already, and I tell him so.
“Had to,” he said. “We sold out of everything we had prepped.”
“That’s great news. Congratulations,” I tell him, pulling the cooler closer with my foot to grab another couple of beers.
“That’s not the only good news,” says Elliot. “I got a call from Jimmy today.”
“The accounting kid?”
Elliot snorts. “He’s the same age as Joelle, you dirty old man. But yeah, that Jimmy.” Elliot sips his beer. “He got his CPA license last week, and got a job offer practically the same day.”
“No kidding? Good for him.” It had torn Elliot up that Jimmy wouldn’t take another restaurant job after Duckbill closed. Jimmy swore up and down he was getting by just fine on his savings. He’d told Elliot he just wanted to concentrate on studying the last couple of months before taking the exam. Sounds like his plan paid off.
“That’s not the best part,” says Elliot grinning. “Guess where he’s working now.”
I shake my head.
“Sizzle.”
“No shit?” Now I’m grinning too. “Helluva coincidence.”
“Tell me about it. I told him to ask for Joelle next time he goes into the office.”
“Bet he got a kick out of that. Speaking of Joelle, she should be here by now. Do you think everything’s okay?”
Elliot picks up his phone and swipes it open to show me a text.
Swinging by Dad’s first, be there soon.
“She’ll be along,” says Elliot.
Joelle’s dad had adjusted pretty damn well to our admittedly unconventional relationship. It helped that Connie outright demanded me and Elliot were obliged to come to Sunday family dinner, a weekly event Joelle tells us wasn’t even a thing until Connie decided to make it one. Which happened about a week after Joelle told her dad about us. I suspect Hank puts up with us because Joelle decided to keep staying with him after all. I know it gets awkward for her when she stays the night with us, but most nights she sleeps in her own bed.
I hate it. I hate her staying away from us. I hate it with the fire of a thousand suns—which reminds me of something I need to tell Elliot.
“I think today’s the day,” I say, setting my beer down on the table to my left.
Elliot looks over at me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. What do you think?”
“I think you should have asked her New Year’s Eve,” he says. I snort.
“Right, because she didn’t have enough going on then,” I say.
“We’re all always going to have a lot going on,” says Elliot. “It’s life. And we’re going to have more of it than most people, since there’s three of us.”
“So you’re still on board with the idea?”
Elliot rolls his eyes. “Dude, I was on board with it before it even crossed your mind. Ask her already.”
I nod, picking my beer back up. The neighbor across the street shuts off his lawnmower, waving at us as he pushes it back to his garage. The sweet smell of cut grass drifts over, and I think it’s a sign. Spring is the season of beginnings, right?
This can be ours.
Elliot and I are talking about preseason when my phone rings.
“Hey Mom,” I say, standing up from the swing as I answer. I gesture at Elliot to grab the now-empty cooler and we head into the house.
“How are you, dear?”
“Great. Is everything all right? You sound a little hoarse.”
“Oh, I’m fine. Just a little souvenir from class last night,” she says.
“Class? Wait. I thought you were taking a cooking class.”
“I am. You’d like the instructor, dear. If it wasn’t for Elliot, I’d say he was just your type.”
My face goes pink and Elliot raises a brow at me, though there’s no way in hell he could have heard Mom from across the room like that. If I didn’t know for a fact that Mom adores Elliot and Joelle both, I’d be worried.
“I just wanted to make sure you’re all still coming to dinner next week,” she continues. “We started on soufflés this week and I can’t wait to try it on my own.”
Joelle and Elliot are directly responsible for Mom’s new cooking class obsession and as such, we’re her favorite test subjects. Mostly it’s fine... mostly.
“Soufflés, huh?” I say, catching Elliot’s eye and watching him wince. “We’ll be there.”
“With bells on,” calls Elliot, making Mom laugh.
“Tell that handsome man I said hello, and give my love to Joelle. Has she heard any more about the show?”
“Not that we’ve heard yet,” I answer. “Possibly this afternoon, though.”
“I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Andrew’s a big fan of her blog, so I’m supposed to keep the whole class in the loop.”
“Andrew’s your teacher?”
“He is, and quite a dish himself, if you’ll pardon the pun.”
I pull the phone away from my ear to stare at it.
“Okay, Mom,” I say. “I’ve got to let you go now.”
“I love you, Alex.”
“Love you too.”
Elliot lets out the laugh he was obviously holding down the last few minutes.
“Andrew, huh?”
“You heard that?” Elliot wags his eyebrows at me.
“I hear everything,” he says, coming in close. “Should I be worried you’re going to throw me over for some hot young cooking class instructor your mom likes?”
Elliot’s gotten a whole lot more comfortable with the whole bisexual thing the last few months, though it took some adjusting. I keep telling him there’s no rush, not for any of it but least of all with anything physical. But every now and then, he surprises me with something like this.
He covers it up with teasing but I see the worry in his eyes. Like he feels what he does for me and for Joelle isn’t enough. It’s the sweetest thing I know about him, even if it pains me to see it.
I set the phone on the counter and turn to him, cupping his face in my hands.
“Look at me.” I wait until his eyes catch mine. “There is not even the smallest chance of another person taking your place in my world. How could they?”
His face is flushing, and I can feel the heat rising into his cheeks. When he speaks again, it’s so low I can’t make out the words.
“Say again?” I ask. Elliot clears his throat.
“I want to try,” he says, blushing fiercely now. Is he—? Does he mean—?
“I want to fuck you, Alex.”
Jesus Christ. The blood rushes from my head so fast I’m dizzy. We’ve been holding off on this. Considering the upheaval of the last few months, we all needed the extra breathing room. Not to mention, the last thing I’d ever want is to push Elliot into something he’s not ready for—Joelle either. It’s not like we’re in danger of running out of creative ways to make each other feel good.
“Are you sure?” My voice cracks but I’m too giddy to be embarrassed by i
t.
Elliot nods, his lips parting as I move in to kiss him, backing him up to the refrigerator so I can press our hips together.
“Feel that, Elliot?” I ask, nipping at his earlobe harder than usual. “Can you feel what it does to me, knowing I’m finally going to have you inside me?”
Elliot’s groan tells me all I need to know about whether he’s into the idea—that and the ridge of his erection bumping up against my fly. I run my palm over him, savoring the way it makes his body jerk.
It’s still surprising to me, how much he wants this. Sometimes I’m still surprised by how much I want it—that it’s okay for me to want him like this. We were friends for so long that it took us a little while to figure out how to be lovers, too.
Guess we’re still figuring it out. But like I keep telling Elliot, we’ve got time.
Elliot yanks at the button of his jeans, pulling the zipper down before working his cock free of the fabric of his shorts. He boosts himself up on the counter and grabs my shirt, pulling me in between his legs, wrapping them tight around my hips to keep me close. The last layer of clothing between us is unbearable so I set to work, opening my belt and fly, yanking the pants down my hips.
The counter is just high enough to let me line our cocks up, but before Elliot can make it happen for me, I shove his knees wide and bend forward to suck him deep.
“Fucking hell, Alex,” he groans, hands already in my hair. I can taste the precum already leaking from the head of his cock. Pulling back off him with a pop, I look up at him.
He’s watching me suck him, that wide, sensual mouth open and gasping. His face is so familiar it could be my own.
“I love you.”
“I love you too,” he gasps. “Now for God’s sake, what are you waiting for?”
My laugh is eclipsed by a louder one behind us.
“Not me, obviously,” says Joelle. She’s standing in the doorway of the kitchen, shoulder propped on the frame, arms crossed like she’s been there a while. Her smile is wide, the color in her cheeks visible from here.
“Couldn’t wait ‘til I got home, huh?” she says, toeing off her shoes as I step back from the counter, wiping my mouth. Elliot hops down and makes a beeline for her.
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