Tess
TODAY IS THE first day the temperature has reached above fifty degrees in five months, maybe six.
Outside, I sit on a bench beside Fiona and watch Max climb the stairs to the top of the slide.
This playground is one of the ones Nick and I took him to make a snowman. That seems so long ago now.
Fiona places a gloved hand on my shoulder. “Don’t look so sad, Tess. Ethan said there’s something serious going on in Miami. I’m sure Nick’s just trying to take care of it, and that’s why he hasn’t called.”
I blow out a breath and run a hand raggedly through my hair. “No, Fi, something else is wrong. It’s not like him to cancel on me the way he did, and then not to text or call me either. I really think I scared him the other night when I started talking about how things were meant to be. Christ, I should have just shouted from the rooftop that we were meant to be.”
Her gaze shifts from Max to me. “Stop it right now. It hasn’t even been a full day since he left. Don’t start thinking negatively. He’ll call, just give him time.”
“How can you be so positive when just yesterday you told me to be careful?”
“Because I know you really want this to work, and I want what makes you happy.”
With a sigh, I pull out my phone and check it again. I’ve texted him and called him, but he has yet to respond.
Her voice is soft when she speaks again. “Do you think Ansel saw him last night and said something to him?”
With a shaded hand on my forehead to block the sun, I shake my head. “Even if he did, what would he say, I proposed to my ex-girlfriend and she turned me down.”
Fiona laughs, but then covers her mouth trying to stifle it. “I’m sorry, but how stupid was that?”
“It wasn’t stupid, it was desperate. And I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”
She makes a tsk sound. “Tess, you shouldn’t feel bad about telling him to fuck off. He deserved it.”
“I didn’t tell him to fuck off. I told him I wasn’t in love with him anymore. That I loved someone else. And regardless of everything, I spent six years of my life with him. If nothing else, that gives me license to feel a little bad about hurting him.”
“Well, he didn’t feel bad when he fucked all those women over and over, and hurt you,” she mutters.
“Fi,” I warn.
She raises her hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, but fine, the conversation is over. Want to hear about my night?”
“Oh, my God, I completely forgot. Did Jace come over? What happened?”
She scoots closer to me on the bench. “He got the nanny to keep Scarlett and came over around eight. We’d just gotten Max to bed so it was perfect timing. At first, the three of us sat in living room drinking a glass of Ethan’s brandy—”
I cut her off. “He pulled out his brandy for the occasion?”
“Yes, he does that when he’s nervous.”
“So it’s when he’s nervous. I couldn’t figure it out. Nick said he’d only had two glasses, once when he found out you were pregnant, and then after Jace’s wife died.”
Her face goes solemn. “Yes, after Tricia died, Ethan was a nervous wreck over how Jace was going to be handle everything. He was really worried about him.”
“Wow, I had no idea. He’s doing okay though, from what Nick and you have told me, anyway.”
Max goes running past us over to the small jungle gym. “Slow down, Max,” Fiona calls, and then says, “I guess as okay as a person can do when they lose a spouse. Well anyway, one minute we each had a brandy and were talking, and the next I just stood up between them, crooked a finger, and said come on. I sauntered right up to my bedroom without even looking back, and the entire time I undressed, dropping my clothing as I went.”
I stare wide-eyed at her. “And, what happened next? Did they follow?”
She makes a little face. “At first I wasn’t certain. I waited at the foot of the bed, and waited, and then I heard the soft whisper of bare feet along the wooden floor. They showed up in the doorway both bare-chested, and both fully erect.”
“Were you nervous?” I whisper, although besides Max, we’re the only ones out on the playground.
She shakes her head. “No, not at all. Something clicked for me right then. The sight of the two of them together made my heart pound. I held out my hands, one to each of them, and they took them. I tugged and they came toward me. I put my arms around their waists. Theirs went around my shoulders. I kissed Ethan first, uncertain how he would react to seeing me kiss another man. But when I moved to Jace’s mouth, Ethan ran his hands over the slopes of my breasts and freed my bra so he could suck on my nipples.”
I can feel myself getting lost in her story, and immediately get how she must have been lost to the mood.
Closer still she moves. “We spent some time during those first few minutes figuring out how to best move, and they each removed the rest of their clothes. Soon after that, four hands covered me, and I closed my eyes. Together they removed my panties and spread my legs as I stood at the end of my bed.”
“And?” I bite out, anxious to hear the rest.
“Do you really want to know all the dirty details?”
“Yes, I do,” I whisper yell.
She sucks in a breath. “After a lot of twisting and tangling and sucking, we settled on me kneeling on the bed with Ethan behind me, and Jace on his back beneath me.”
I try to picture it, but make a face of not quite understanding. “Ethan fucked me, while Jace ate me and I jerked him off.”
“Oh,” I yell, and then scrunch my face and say it again. “Oh.”
She nods. “Oh, is right. It was amazing, Tess. Any woman who says they’d turn it down is lying. I felt like a queen who was being worshipped by four hands, twenty fingers, and two dicks.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” I laugh. “And Ethan, how was he after?”
“More loving than ever. After Jace left, we took a shower and he washed me and then took me to bed and made love to me. I really think this is going to be good for us.”
I hope so, I really do.