Sandy was in the kitchen, talking to Darren on the phone. Darren had been called in to his office, and Sandy was telling him that he’d already picked out what Darren was going to wear. I could practically hear Darren protesting but knew it was all for show. The Queen had tamed the King, and he’d do whatever Sandy asked.
“This is going to be fun,” Vince said, his libido apparently ebbing slightly, for which I was eternally grateful. I had a feeling it wouldn’t last long, but I would take what I could get.
“Maybe,” I muttered. “Or it could blow up in our faces and turn out to be the worst thing we’ve ever done.”
He eyed me up and down. “I like your hair.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m going to lay on you now.”
“What? Vince, no! You’re not going to—”
But when Vince Melody Auster wanted to lie on you, it happened. He jerked my legs up onto the couch, pulled me underneath him, and stretched out on top of me, his head smooshing down my freshly done hair. He was heavy, outweighing me by a good sixty pounds, and I could barely breathe.
It felt good.
“That’s better,” he said happily. “You looked like you needed it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I mumbled into his neck. He smelled good. Homo jocks usually did. It was how they trapped unsuspecting normal people.
“Nah,” he said. “You do. But if you don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay. We can just stay like this for however long you need.”
“Or however long it takes for Paul to come out.”
“That too,” he agreed. “But if I know Paul, he’s arguing with Charlie about every single little thing, so we have time.”
“He’s nervous.”
Vince nodded against the top of my head. “Yeah. It’s not really in his comfort zone, you know? But I think it’s important that we try new things, because if we don’t, how will we know if we like them or not?”
Vince might be smarter than the rest of us combined. He saw things more simply, and there were times when it was necessary. “That… makes a lot of sense.”
“I know,” Vince said. “Pretty cool, right?”
“Yeah, Vince. Pretty cool. But what do you do when you know he’s uncomfortable?”
“I remind him that I would never make him do something he didn’t want,” Vince said. “Unless it was for his health, or whatever. And I would tell him that as his husband, I only want the best for him. I would tell him it’s real, and that it always would be.”
“You like that, huh? Being his husband.”
“So much,” Vince said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “I’ve done some dumb things in my life. But I’ve also done some good things. But Paul? He’s the best thing. When he’s happy, I’m happy. When he’s sad, I want to find and kill whatever made him that way. I got lucky with him because I know he feels the same way about me.”
“He does,” I whispered.
“And what’s even better is that with him, I got all of you,” Vince said. “And Nana and Mom and Dad. I didn’t have that before. Not really.”
“We’re pretty much the best people ever.”
“We are,” Vince agreed. “Which is why I think it would be nice for Jeremy to be part of that. It sucks being lonely, you know? I was lonely for a long time, and then I wasn’t. It could be the same for Jeremy.”
I sighed. “We can be a bit… much.”
“Sure,” Vince said. “But so is life. If you can’t laugh at it and yourselves, then what’s the point? And even if it doesn’t work out like we hope it will, at least we’ll have tried. You gotta try, Corey. And as long as you can look back and say you tried your hardest and actually mean it, then it’s going to be okay, no matter what happens.”
“I’m glad you found us too,” I told him, and he hugged me tighter.
We heard Paul’s loud protests from down the hall as the bedroom door opened, and Charlie telling him to shut the hell up and get out there. Sandy told Darren he had to go and came out of the kitchen. Vince climbed off me, narrowly avoiding kneeing me in the balls. He stood up next to the couch, anxiously watching the hallway.