Page 52 of Party of Three

“Yeah,” Mateo said, scooting across the sea of wrapping paper so he could slide an arm around Jeff’s back, “but it’s an hour away.”

Buckley said, “That way you won’t have to drive an hour south when you need your special wrench set because mine is apparently”—Buckley mimed air quotes—“not fit to tighten the screws on a toy train.”

Looking back and forth between the two of them, nostrils flaring from deep breaths he was trying to restrain. “You boys expecting me to do some work around the house?”

“Maybe,” Buckley said softly, looking up at him. “Once it’s yours.”

“Once you move in,” Mateo added.

Jeff smiled.

Was the man tearing up a little? He had a tendency to do that, mostly when he thought Buckley and Jeff weren’t looking,in moments when he seemed happier than he’d ever been before.

Their mouths met, one after the other, and then in a sequence more random and frenzied.

“Fine,” Jeff said, “but we’re going to need a bigger bed.”

Buckley smiled. “As long as I can sleep in the middle.”

Jeff slapped his ass. “Who said anything about sleeping?”

But they did sleep that night, all three of them, and peacefully, knowing they’d passed another milestone in the journey that had begun during one wild weekend at a place called Sapphire Cove. A journey none of them wanted to end.

Connor and Logan After Dark

I’ve reached the end of everything Buckley shared with me earlier that night. A silence falls as I caress my husband’s thickening cock underneath the sheet.

“Sweet story,” Logan finally says, but the raw edge in his voice betrays the arousal I can feel in my grip.

Maybe it’s just my hand that’s doing it, or maybe he’s as turned on as I am by the tale I just told.

Or maybe it was how I told the tale that got him hot. Like it was some naughty piece of smut I downloaded off the internet purely for our pleasure. What I’ve really done is push us further and further away from what disturbed me about Buckley’s call to begin with, and I’m not sure how long we can hover in this space before the real reason for my sleeplessness intrudes again.

“So why did it freak you out?” Logan asks.

And there it is,I think. One of the great things about our marriage is that it’s almost impossible for me to deflect. He always gently zeroes in on the source of my discomfort. Even if I sometimes find myself singing and tap dancing to have the same effect on him.

I look at him through the shadows of our bedroom. The sheet’s fallen away from his torso, exposing his tan, tree-trunk-thick thighs.

“I’m worried,” is all I manage. As he waits for me to finish, he reaches out through the dark and caresses the side of my face. His brow is gently furrowed.

“About what, my prince?”

I’m never going to speak my truth if I don’t stop playing with my husband’s magnificent cock. We have, quite often throughout our relationship and marriage, used sex to avoid difficult topics. He used it when it came to discussions of our wedding, the planning of which raised complicated feelings for him that delayed everything until they were addressed.

Slowly, I lift myself into a seated position and lean back against the mountain of pillows, taking one of his hands in mine and holding it to my chest. I clutch it tightly, as if the conversation we’re about to have might tear me from him like a twister’s winds.

“I’ve never said anything to make you feel like I want a three-way, have I?” Logan finally says. “’Cause that’s really not something I want.”

“No, but…some of Buckley’s fantasies. The things he talked about feeling about Mateo…I feel them about you. Like, I think about you with you other guys. A lot.”

“Like in a freaked-out way or in a—”

“Like in a jerking off at home when you’re visiting Donnie down in San Diego kind of way.”

My husband is clearly trying not to laugh as he curves his free arm across my shoulders. “I see.”

“Do you, though? ’Cause I’m not sureIdo. Does it mean I’m polyamorous too?”

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