by Alie Nolan
“So, you’re not screwing around with Elliott behind Caleb’s back? Because that’s definitely what it looked like to me.”
“No,” Matty insisted. “I’m not.”
“Then what the fuck was that?” Matty spat.
There was a pause, and then shuffling noises.
“Elliott, Caleb, and I… we’re…” Matty trailed off.
Caleb marched forward, pulling the lounge door open wider and stepping inside. I followed closely behind.
“Dating,” Caleb finished Matty’s sentence for him.
Caleb linked his fingers through mine, and we walked over to where Matty and Jake were sitting on adjacent sofas, Jake’s body angled away from Matty.
“What?” Jake asked, his face contorting in confusion.
“The three of us,” Caleb smiled cautiously at me. “We’re dating.”
“The three of you?” Jake exclaimed.
“Yes,” I answered.
Jake was looking back and forth between the three of us, an expression of shock plastered across his face.
Caleb and I sat down on the sofa beside Matty, Caleb in between Matty and I, and we both laced our fingers with Caleb’s.
I could see the concern on Caleb’s face, and I knew he was terrified about what Jake would say next. We all knew this could be the moment that Jake told Caleb to fuck off out of his life again.
I really needed that not to happen.
Jake didn’t look as angry as he had before—now that he knew I wasn’t cheating on his brother, I guess he’d started to calm down—but he did look confused, and maybe a little hurt?
“Please say something,” Matty pleaded to Jake.
“I…” Jake murmured. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say anything, literally anything, please,” Matty said.
“Well,” Jake started. “I’m… confused.”
“Confused is fine,” Caleb told him. “You have questions?”
“Since when? How?” Jake asked.
“A couple of months,” Matty answered. “And, to be honest, I’m not sure any of us have an answer for how.”
“It just kind of happened,” Caleb added.
Jake nodded thoughtfully.
“Are you pissed?” Matty asked Jake.
Jake looked like he was thinking about his answer, before shaking his head.
“No,” he answered. “I was,” he looked at me. “When I thought you were cheating on Caleb.”
“I would never cheat on him… or Matty for that matter,” I added.
He looked calmer, and I even thought I saw the hint of a smile on his lips, before it quickly disappeared.
“So, this thing,” Jake waved his hand between the three of us. “It’s serious?”
I didn’t even have to look at Caleb or Matty for reassurance.
All three of us spoke at once.
“Yes.”
“And…” Jake said tentatively. “What if it doesn’t work out?” He spoke so quietly I had to focus to hear him. He looked at Caleb. “I can’t lose you again.”
Caleb untangled his hand from Matty’s and reached out to place it on Jake’s thigh. “You won’t. Ever. I swear,” Caleb said adamantly. “You are stuck with me for life now. I’m never leaving again.”
The smile that spread across Jake’s lips at Caleb’s words told me that he was slowly coming around to the idea.
Thank God.
He didn’t seem to have an issue with the three of us being together, but he did need a lot of reassurance that he wasn’t ever going to lose Caleb again, even if things with the three of them didn’t work out—not that it was even a possibility in my mind.
We were forever. I knew that with every fibre of my being.
There was a moment of awkward silence, before Jake broke it. He turned to Matty. “So, you’re like my cousin and my brother-in-law now then?”
“I guess, kind of,” Matty answered with a shrug, and they both laughed.
My heart skipped a few beats hearing Matty agree with the words brother-in-law.
It made me realise that the fantasies I had in my head about one day getting to call him my husband too, weren’t just fantasies, but were actually a possibility now.
“Are you okay?” Matty asked Jake.
“I think so, but it’s weird, you know?” Jake replied, and Matty nodded his agreement.
I was just starting to relax, because Jake seemed to have calmed down, and wasn’t yelling anymore, or trying to run away—but I felt Caleb’s grip on my hand tighten ever so slightly.
When I turned my head to look at him, I saw the tense expression on his face, his mouth pressed into a firm line and his eyebrows furrowed. I ventured a guess at what he was gearing up to say. We’d talked about getting everything out in the open, including the reason he left ten years ago, and Caleb and Matty had decided that when we finally told Jake about us, they would tell him that too.
No more secrets, ever.
“Jake,” Caleb said quietly, and I saw Matty give Caleb’s hand a squeeze. “I want to be honest with you about why I left.”
“Okay…” Jake said hesitantly.
“We,” Caleb looked at Matty. “Matty and I, were together as teenagers.”
Jake’s eyes widened, exposing the white all the way around his irises, but he didn’t say anything, he just waited for Caleb to continue.
“I didn’t mean to fall in love with him back then, but I did. And I was terrified that everyone was going to find out,” Caleb paused, taking a shaky breath. “That they would kick us out, and I couldn’t be the reason you lost this family, Jake.”
A few tears raced down Jake’s cheek.
“I’m so sorry for leaving you,” Caleb said, his voice cracking.
“I’m sorry you felt you had to,” Jake replied, his voice in no better shape than Caleb’s. “Thank you for telling me the truth. And just so we’re clear, I’m not angry at you for leaving, so you don’t need to be sorry. I always knew deep down that whatever made you leave, you were doing what you thought was best for me by leaving me with Mum and Ma.”
Caleb released Matty’s and my hands and lurched forward, taking the seat next to his brother, and wrapping his arms around him.
“I love you,” I heard Caleb whisper to Jake.
“I love you too,” Jake whispered back. “Be good to Matty, okay?” Jake’s voice was so low I could barely make out his words, and I doubted Matty had heard.
“Always,” Caleb told him in a hushed voice. “I promise.”
They pulled back from their embrace, and the four of us sat quietly for a moment.
“You don’t hate me for keeping this from you, for lying to you all these years?” Matty asked Jake.
“No,” Jake leaned over and hugged Matty. “Not at all. You were protecting me too, I know that.”
After a few more hugs, Jake asked, “Are you going to tell everyone else?”
“Well, you know, Max knows, and Grandad knows,” Matty said.
“What? When did Stanley find out?” Caleb asked.
“Fuck knows,” Matty laughed. “He guessed somehow. Spoke to me about it briefly earlier on today,” he shrugged. “Anyway, if three of you know, it won’t be long until one of you lot lets something slip… so I guess the sooner the better.”
I nodded.
The sooner the better.
THIRTY
Caleb
It was early on Sunday morning, the day after the barbeque, and since Elliott and I had closed the bakery for the entire weekend, we had no need to rush out of bed.
For the first time in forever, Elliott and I had woken up without Matty in our bed.
After the events of the day before, Matty had decided to stay the night at Little Hollow, with Jake.
They needed some time alone, and Elliott and I appreciated that.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t wish there was a second body pressed against me in bed as I slowly came awake that morning.
“Mornin
g,” Elliott pressed a soft, slow kiss to my lips.
I cleared my throat and opened my eyes to see my beautiful husband facing me with a smile. “Morning,” I smiled back.
He snuggled closer to me, and I wrapped him up in my arms, so his hard body was flush against mine.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. “Now that Jake knows, and everything is fine?”
“Like we need to tell everyone else,” I answered honestly.
“Same,” he agreed. He paused, like he was thinking over what to say next. “I want to move,” he blurted, and we both laughed at the abruptness of his statement.
“I want to move somewhere between here and Wiltonham,” he said. “And I want it to be a house for all three of us. A house we can grow old together in. A house we can raise a family in. And I…” he trailed off.
“You what?” I prompted.
“I want to ask him to marry us.”
I rolled him onto his back and blanketed his body with mine.
“You think he’ll marry us?” I asked, knowing full well that the answer was yes.
He nodded and I pressed a quick kiss to his mouth.
“How should we ask him? Have you thought about a plan?” I asked.
“I do have an idea,” he smiled.
“So, do I,” I chuckled.
“Regardless of plans, we need to tell the family first,” he said.
I nodded. “Then let’s tell them.”
I rolled off Elliott and grabbed my phone off the bedside table.
Caleb: We need to tell everyone.
Matty: Today? :)
The smiley face made his one-word question sound like it held a note of excitement.
In the corner of my vision, I saw Elliott reach for his phone and read the messages we’d sent it our group chat.
Elliott: Yes. Today.
Caleb: Can you gather everyone?
Matty: I’m on it.
Knowing that I wasn’t going to lose Matty, or Jake, regardless of the outcome of today, made the idea of telling everyone easier.
And the fact that us being a secret was the only thing holding us back from asking Matty to move in with us, and marry us, made me one hundred per cent positive that telling them was the right thing to do.
“Hey, bro,” Ethan hugged me as I walked into the house.
Bro.
I’d heard him call Jake that, and even Alec once on a video call, but he’d never said it to me.
“Hi,” I said as I hugged him back.
“Do you know what’s going on?” Ethan asked. “I got a demanding text from Matty to be here at six on the dot.”
I didn’t know what to say in response to that, because I did know, but I wasn’t sure I should say that.
Luckily, before I was forced to answer him or be sucked into an awkward silence, Jake poked his head out of the dining room door.
“You’re here, awesome. Get in here.” He motioned with his head for us to come to the dining room.
Jake knew what this was about. I’d called him before coming over to Little Hollow, to give him a heads up, and to make sure he was okay with us telling everyone—he was.
Knowing I wasn’t going to lose Jake, Elliott, or Matty, was reassuring to my nerves, but as I walked into the dining room and looked around the table, I realised I couldn’t bear losing any of them.
Each and every one of them were my family now.
Especially Ness and Steph, who had been treating me as their son since the day I walked back into their lives.
I didn’t want to lose this.
But we needed to tell them.
My hands started trembling, and Elliott reached out to take one of my hands in his.
Matty was sitting with two empty seats either side of him, and he turned around when we entered the room and shot us an excited, but also nervous, smile.
Elliott and I each took a seat in one of the empty chairs flanking Matty.
We appeared to be the last people to arrive, and everyone’s eyes were on Matty from the second we sat down.
The room was oddly quiet for a Logan gathering.
You usually couldn’t hear yourself think, but on this occasion, the only noise I could hear was my own rapid heartbeat.
“Well, this is intense,” Matty laughed nervously.
“You’ve never called a family meeting before,” Grace said.
“Yeah, we’re all pretty sure you’re dying,” James added. “So, hurry up before we all go out of our minds with worry.”
Matty nodded. “Okay…”
Each of his hands grabbed for one of mine and Elliott’s under the table, and we both eagerly took his smaller hands into ours.
“I called a family meeting,” he started. “Because… well… because, Caleb, Elliott and I are dating.”
There. It was done. No going back.
The previously quiet room erupted into chaos.
There were so many people talking over one another, and I couldn’t actually decipher what anyone was saying or asking.
“Shut up,” Jake said loudly enough that everyone stopped talking immediately. Everyone looked in Jake’s direction. “One at a time.”
“I swear sometimes we need a system where only the people holding a designated object can talk,” Harri, who was sitting next to me, muttered under her breath before chuckling.
“Not a bad idea,” I whispered to her.
“All three of you?” Rainy asked.
“Yes, Mum” Matty answered, giving my hand a light squeeze as he did.
Rainy nodded thoughtfully.
“This works for all of you? You’re happy?”
All three of us nodded, and Matty answered, “We are.”
“And, you’re okay with this?” she asked Jake.
“I am,” Jake nodded.
Rainy shrugged. “Okay, then I’m happy for you, sweetie. For all three of you.”
“That’s it?” Matty answered, sounding shocked.
“That’s it,” Rainy smiled at her son. “I just want you to be happy, that’s all I want for everyone at this table.”
“Same here,” Steph added.
There was a round of “Same” from various people at the table.
It couldn’t be that easy, could it?
“I’m a little shocked,” Ness said. “But if this is what you want, then I’ll support it.”
Stanley smiled widely at me and shot me a quick wink that brought a tear to my eye.
I wasn’t sure if they’d have been this supportive of Matty and I being together when we were teenagers—and I couldn’t let myself think about those what ifs—but all that mattered was that they were okay with it now.
I was going to get to keep Elliott and Matty.
And I was going to get to keep the rest of my family too.
I couldn’t believe I’d built this up to be something so much worse in my head.
I remembered the night I’d left Little Hollow—how lost and sad I’d felt—and compared it to how I felt now. Now, I felt a level of happiness and contentment I’d never experienced before.
I was sitting next to the two men I loved, looking at the faces of my family who I now knew would love me and accept me, no matter what.
A tear escaped my eye and slowly rolled down my cheek as I thought about how lucky I was.
THIRTY-ONE
Matty
“I love you both, so much,” Caleb said as he alternated kisses between me and Elliott.
I never got tired of hearing either of them tell me they loved me.
“I love you too,” Elliott and I both replied.
They sandwiched me with their bodies as we stood naked in their bedroom.
Caleb at my front, Elliott at my back, and they shared a passionate kiss over my shoulder as their erections rubbed against me.
“Fuck,” I moaned and wriggled between them.
“What do you want, baby?” Elliott whispered in my ear, sending shivers through me.
“Anything,�
� I breathed.
“You want to fuck me?” Caleb suggested. “Both of you?”
“Yes,” I answered quickly, grinding my leaking cock against him.
“You sure?” Elliott asked Caleb, as he stroked a thumb across Caleb’s beard.
“One hundred per cent,” Caleb answered.
“How does this work?” I asked, not totally sure of the logistics.
Elliott went to the bedside table and came back with a bottle of lube. “Both of you lie on the bed.” He pressed a kiss to my cheek and gave my arse a gentle slap to get me moving. “We need to prep him, really well.” There was so much heat in Elliott’s gaze that I was sure my body temperature spiked under it.
Caleb and I did as Elliott had told us to, lowering ourselves onto the bed.
Elliott came to lie on the other side of Caleb and kissed him before pouring a generous amount of lube into his palm and passing the bottle to me.
They’d done this to me more times than I could count, so I was confident I could help Elliott make the prepping process enjoyable for Caleb.
I kissed Caleb as my hand came to join Elliott’s between Caleb’s legs.
We teased Caleb until he was moaning and panting as he writhed between us, until he was so desperate, he started to beg.
“Please, please,” he whined.
Elliott’s slick hand held mine, and he used my hand to slowly slide my index finger into Caleb's hole.
Caleb’s hole was so tight as my finger breached the ring of muscle that I was sure there was no way Elliott and I were both going to fit inside him.
Caleb moaned as Elliott began using my finger to fuck him, and Caleb’s channel began to relax around the intrusion.
Elliott added a finger in alongside mine, and Caleb bucked off the bed. “More,” he demanded, his voice raspy and desperate.
We slid our fingers out.
“Caleb,” Elliott rasped. “Lie on top of me, back to my chest.”
Caleb did as he was told. They were both bigger than me, so it made sense that Elliott be underneath Caleb. If Caleb were to lay on me the way he did Elliott, I’d have been crushed to death.
Caleb rested his head back onto Elliott’s shoulder, and angled his head so that he could reach Elliott’s lips with his.