Page 16 of Party of Three

They’d ended up back where they’d started this evening, but Buckley seemed delighted to be there again, and damn if Jeff didn’t feel a powerful heat in the hand with which he gripped Buckley’s, damn if he didn’t find it impossible to look away from the twinkle of a mischievous smile in Buckley’s stare. Damn if it didn’t thrill him to think about the sweaty and passionate hoursthis strutting, confident man had spent drawing out the flirty, comfortable, self-assured version of Mateo he’d fallen in love with all over again that night.

He couldn’t decide if he wanted to turn Buckley Mitchell over his knee or taste him from head to toe, and he was starting to suspect if he put the decision to Buckley, the guy would say,Why choose?

“Lawyers for parents, right?” Jeff said. “You’re good at interrogations. Both sides of them.”

“My dad sold a tech company he started when I was a baby. My mom was his business affairs person. They were retired as long as I remember. Mostly they partied and traveled.”

“Gotcha. So raised by one lawyer, and you put people back together for a living. Sounds like you were the only adult in the house growing up.”

“That’s fair. And you?”

“Only lawyers my family ever dealt with were public defenders. I raised my little sister. Our parents weren’t really in the picture.”

“How’d that go?”

He hoped the memory stabbing him in the gut didn’t show on his face—he and his baby sister standing on the front porch of their old double-wide, their uncle pacing furiously before them as a dark realization set in. It wasn’t the first time their parents had gone off on a bender. But it was the first time they’d been gone more than two weeks. And how did their uncle react once he realized he had no choice but to take in his alcoholic brother’s kids? Blamed them for their parents’ addiction, that’s what.If you kids hadn’t been so much stress, he’d said through clenched teeth,they wouldn’t have run off like this. Forty plus years later, Jeff tried to breathe through the memory of the most stable person in his family accusing him and his sister of destroying their family through the crime of being six and seven years old.

It didn’t take a therapist to see why Jeff struggled to feel like he belonged in any place where he wasn’t given a specific rank along with a manual outlining standard operating procedures. And boy, was this night lacking in both.

“She’s a doctor today at Parkland, so I’d say, well enough.”

Buckley nodded, studying him as if he’d sensed the memory moving through him like a dark but fast-moving cloud. “You certainly did a good job with Mateo,” he finally said, softly, as if he wanted the words to be a comfort to a man clearly fighting pain.

“He’s not my child.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Thank you. But I’m still telling him you lied to get me here.”

He felt an arm curve around his shoulders, thought for a second that Buckley had grown a third one, then realized Mateo was enfolding them both in a wide embrace as he crooned the last words of the song. Then he kissed them both on the cheek and tried to ruffle Jeff’s close-cropped hair with one hand, but his hair was so short the gesture turned into a rough rub that sent delicious chills coursing down Jeff’s back. The same response Jeff had whenever Mateo touched him. Crazy thing was he was getting it from Buckley’s grip now too.

But Mateo’s expression showed that same mix of fear and excitement Jeff had heard in the guy’s voice when he’d asked Jeff to slow dance with Buckley.

Buckley said, “Jeff’s going to come back to the villa with us after and hang out for a bit. He has something super important to tell you.” Buckley rolled his eyes so hard Jeff thought about smacking him on the butt. “I’m going to go hand out some tip money and start wrapping things up. It’s 6E in case anyone gets lost. Try to hold off on the big revelation until I get back.”

Then Buckley was gone, and Jeff was trying to forget the villa number as hard as he could, even as it carved itself into his memory.

6

On the southern edge of Sapphire Cove’s promontory, the resort’s private villas were accessed by sloping stone staircases that traveled downhill between each row. As they waited for Buckley, Mateo pretended to listen to the story Jeff was telling him about an old Marine Corps buddy of theirs, a straight guy who had deluded himself into believing that most of the subscribers who watched the naked workout videos he posted on his OnlyFans page were female.

While he laughed in all the right places, he only heard every other word.

I can do this, he thought, over and over again. Wecan do this.

But his pulse was roaring in his ears. He tried to stop himself from playing with the collar of his shirt. It wasn’t that tight, and he wasn’t wearing a tie. No doubt Jeff’s big revelation was going to be that Buckley had brought him in for a surprise three-way. He couldn’t work up the nerve to ask him about it while they were alone. But if that was the case, why had Buckley rolled his eyes before walking off? There were parts about this night that weren’t making a lot of sense, but maybe that’s how you always felt when you were about to try something new and naked. With the two men you loved more than anyone.

For the entire party, he’d been working up the nerve to get to this moment, and as he’d watched them dance together, felt waves of desire turn his first flare of jealousy into something deeper and more powerful and hungrier, he’d convinced himselfhe was ready. Now, standing in the shadows with the man who’d saved his life, the man he thought he’d lost forever, he wasn’t so sure.

Maybe some more champagne would help.

When they heard Buckley approaching, both of them stood up straight.

Buckley must have been nervous too. He avoided both of their stares as he opened the villa’s door with his key card.

Inside, the lights had already been dimmed. Battery-operated pillar candles flickered on most of the surfaces. The deck door had been left open. Beyond the fluttering drapes and the compact terrace, the coastline to the south twinkled, the lights pouring out of the night-dark hills like little rivers of golden magma. A champagne bucket rested in the center of the sitting room’s coffee table. An intimate evening for two had just added a special guest.

The beauty of the room flushed his nerves away.

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