I had spent my entire life planning carefully and working hard to get what I wanted. While that got me far, the only thing that made life really worth it was being able to relax and let my intuition lead the way.
I always believed that I should lead with my head and not my heart, but it took two men to convince me otherwise. They were right, though. Listening to that little voice in my head had gotten me everything I could have ever wanted.
Epilogue
Whitney
“I’m really nervous about this, Whitney,” Chad said, pacing back and forth in the kitchen. “I don’t want to do this right now.”
“Ted’s not freaking out,” I said, pointing to Ted, who was busy seasoning raw steaks.
“Ted isn’t having his parents over for dinner,” Chad said. “Aren’t you nervous to see them?”
I shrugged. In fact, I was extremely nervous, but I didn’t want to freak him out any more. He was already at his most frazzled. I couldn’t stand to see him get any more upset.
“Listen to me,” I said, cupping his face in my hands. “The sooner we get this over with, the better. We’ll have one dinner, and then we can figure out how to proceed from there. Can you stick with me?”
He nodded slowly and took a few deep breaths.
“Good,” I said. “Why don’t you set the table? They’ll be here soon.”
I went into my bathroom to get ready. In all of the stress, I hadn’t even brushed my hair or washed my face yet. Those boys were stressing me out with all of their nervous energy.
For the first time in over a year, my mom and her husband were having dinner with Ted, Chad, and me. I still kept in contact with my mom and occasionally visited her, but Chad wanted nothing to do with his dad. Chad was stubborn and said that if he promised his dad that he didn’t need him, he was going to stick to that. I tried to remind him that there was a difference between needing someone and having them over for dinner, but he wasn’t very receptive to anything I had to say on the subject.
I hadn’t gotten into the specifics of the ins and outs of our relationship, but my mom knew that I was seeing both Ted and Chad. She was pretty confused and upset the first time I told her, but I think she’s coming around to it.
The thing I wanted to emphasize most with her was that it wasn’t just some crazy sex thing we were having. While I could admit to myself that the sex was fantastic, there was more to our relationship than that. I was living with my two best friends who also loved me more than anything. When it came down to it, we were three people who managed to put jealousy and social norms aside to work out an agreement that was beneficial to all parties.
It took quite a bit of talking for her to realize that my relationship with Chad wasn’t as icky as she’d previously thought it was. Once she understood that we got our start before we knew about her relationship with Paul, she became more reasonable. We didn’t grow up together, nor did we spend any time as stepsiblings before we got together, so it hardly seemed wrong. She even admitted that it wasn’t our fault that our parents happened to get married in the early days of our complicated relationship.
Even though Chad didn’t talk to Paul, I knew that my mom did. My mom always got her way, so even if Paul didn’t like what we were doing, at least my mom made an effort to get him to understand. He didn’t like our agreement, but he wasn’t completely in the dark about it.
“They’re here,” Ted said, looking out the window. I saw their black BMW in the driveway and swallowed hard. I was nervous.
Ted and I exchanged knowing looks. It was one of our rules to never keep secrets between just two of us, but this time, it was different.
Chad entered the room looking pale and sweaty. For someone so easygoing, he was really panicking. I hoped everything went smoothly for no other reason than for Chad to keep his sanity.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, giving her a hug as she entered the house.
“Hello, everyone,” she said softly. “Did you get new furniture? It looks nice.”
I nodded. “It arrived last week.”
Paul wandered inside behind my mom, clutching a bottle of wine in his hand.
“This looks nice,” I said kindly, taking it from his grip. “I’ll put it in the fridge so we can have it with dinner.”
We sat down around the table as Ted brought in piping hot food from the grill. It looked delicious, but I didn’t have much of an appetite. When I looked over at Chad, sitting next to his father, he was gripping his silverware until his knuckles turned white without even eating anything. Ted was a bit of a nervous eater and practically swallowed his steak whole.
As we ate, or tried to eat, we made small talk about the usual subjects like our work and the weather. Paul had just retired, and he and my mother were planning some big sailing trip. Luckily, their plans brought us to the end of the dinner. Chad survived that much without having to say more than a few words.
When we were finished, Ted cleared the table and I poured everyone another glass of wine. It was time to say the things that had been weighing on my mind for what seemed like an eternity.
“Mom, Paul,” I started, my voice shaking. “I have something I need to tell you.”
They both winced slightly, knowing that whatever was about to come out of my mouth would be shocking to them. I wanted to spare them as many details as possible, but it wasn’t the time to mince words.
“As I think you might have figured out, Chad, Ted, and I are in a relationship together. They love me and I love them, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.”
My mom nodded in understanding, and I took a sigh of relief. At least the first part of my announcement was over. Now it was time for the hard part.
“Chad,” I said, taking his hand, “I’ve been waiting to tell you this, but I just found out that I’m pregnant, and the baby is yours, of course.”
Chad’s eyes widened. I couldn’t tell if it was in surprise or horror. Finally, a tiny grin spread into a wide smile.
“Why didn’t you tell me immediately?” he hollered, picking me up from my chair and twirling me around.
“I wanted it to be a surprise. Are you okay with this?”
“Of course I am! I’m so happy.”
We embraced, not caring how our parents felt about seeing this firsthand. Once we settled down, we sat back in our chairs, our fingers still interlaced.
I looked toward our parents. My mom looked shocked but still pleased. Paul looked shaken.
“The reason I brought you here is because I wanted you to see how happy these two make me. I’ve already talked to Ted about it, and even though the baby isn’t his, he still wants to help raise it.”
Ted and Chad beamed at each other. Ted clapped him on the back. “Congrats, Dad.”
“Congrats to you, too,” Chad replied.
“Since you two are this baby’s grandparents, I wanted to ask you if you would accept our relationship and be in our lives again. I understand if you don’t like it or it doesn’t make sense to you, but your support would really mean a lot to our little family.”
They were silent for a moment, trying to process this information, before my mom reached over and gave me a big hug.
“I’m so happy for you, Whitney. I only ever wanted you to get whatever you wanted in life. You know I just wanted whatever was best for you.”
“I know,” I said, my eyes welling up with tears.
“Paul?” my mom asked her husband. “Is there anything you’d like to say to the kids?”
He gulped and nodded. “I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you, Chad. I realize now that I don’t always know what’s best for you. If you’d let me, I’d like to have a chance at being a more supportive father and a grandfather to your little one.”
Chad blinked rapidly before nodding his head in response. “I’d like that.”
By now, the tears were freely flowing. I hugged everyone in the room about twenty times before I regained my composure.
Things finally felt compl
ete. I had a great job that fulfilled my professional needs, my parents were supportive of me again, and I had two amazing men in my life who gave me more love than I thought was possible. The only thing that could make the moment sweeter was the tiny life, created by love, developing in my belly.
I had spent my entire life planning carefully and working hard to get what I wanted. While that got me far, the only thing that made life really worth it was being able to relax and let my intuition lead the way.
I always believed that I should lead with my head and not my heart, but it took two men to convince me otherwise. They were right, though. Listening to that little voice in my head had gotten me everything I could have ever wanted.
Thank You
Stephanie Brother writes scintillating stories with stepsiblings as their main romantic focus. She’s always been curious about the forbidden, and this is her way of exploring such complex relationships that threaten to keep her couples apart. As she writes her way to her dream job, Ms. Brother hopes that her readers will enjoy the full emotional and romantic experience as much as she’s enjoyed writing them.
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A MFM Menage Stepbrother Medical Romance
Chapter One
Emma
Libreville was the small town where I grew up. Where a lot of people —certainly a lot of the ones I knew back in high school—cleared out of as soon as they were of legal age.
I was one in that crowd, clearing out of town the evening of high school graduation, looking for something better in the closest city without much to my name. Most of that crowd didn’t come back, and the few that did visit did so rarely it would be a miracle if I met up with anyone, certainly not this weekend.
I’d even called ahead and none of the friends I knew would be around for the weekend.
Like plenty of the smart kids from back then, I could have gone away and stayed away. But here I was, back in town, late and feeling exhausted, practically falling out of my car. Only to end up, standing on the front lawn, feeling like I was about to face the firing squad.
“You’re late, “said a woman’s voice out of the darkness.
Should I get back in the car and drive away? I thought it, but I didn’t say it. I was too tired to get far, anyway, after the day I’d had, but I was seriously tempted to.
I felt like she should have been more grateful. She was the reason I still came back here, after all.
Every two months, I made a point to drive out to Libreville to visit my mom. The time was significant, but I felt it was still too frequent. She didn’t seem to appreciate it either. Not for the first time, I wondered why I still bothered.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” The apology grated, but I knew she expected it. I wanted to get inside, out of the cold, and away from possible peeping neighbors. I wanted to lie down and rest.
“You said you’d be here at six—”
I cut her off. “Yes, and it’s eight, now, I know. I had some problem with the car on the way.”
Why did I even bother to visit her? Sharon never visited me, not once since I’d moved out. Even when it was phone calls, I was the one to reach out. Like it was all so far beneath her; Sharon Davis would never deign to contact her daughter because she thought as her daughter I was obligated to, or something.
Sometimes, I wondered, if I just stayed away, gave her complete radio silence, if she would remember I still existed. Plenty of times, I felt sure she wouldn’t.
“Look, Mom. I’ve been driving for hours, and then there was the issue with the car breaking down. I haven’t had anything to eat since this morning, and I would really like a shower.”
To start with. I didn’t feel hungry, but I probably needed to eat. Then I needed to sleep.
“Is that all you can think of? If you’re hungry, then maybe you should have thought of that before getting here this late. Or bought something for yourself on the way. I knew you were coming at six, so I prepared dinner at six. I ate at seven, still waiting for you to get here, and I gave the leftovers to Mrs. Wright from across the street to give to her cats thirty minutes later. You could have made it here at least half an hour earlier.”
I stared at her. I didn’t think she was kidding. I knew the woman that lived across the street, she had half a dozen cats and about as many great-grandchildren. Those cats of hers were always hungry.
“You couldn’t have held it for me? I would have eaten it cold.”
She just shrugged, folding her arms over her chest and sticking her chin up. “I figured if you were that late, you weren’t going to show at all. You could have called at or before six to tell me you would be late.”
I could have, but by that point, I was back on the road, and I didn’t call and drive. Stopping along the highway just to tell her I was going to be late so she could hold dinner for me would have been stupid.
What if I never made it back, would she not have wondered something could have happened to me on the way? Or would her assumption be that I lied and stayed home?
Or would she not have cared.
I didn’t look too closely at that, though it worried me that I didn’t have a definite answer.
Mom hadn’t changed much from her old tyrannical ways. I hated it in high school, and even more now when I didn’t have to take shit from her because I was no longer living under her roof. Well, except for the weekend I’d be in town. But I didn’t have to stay at home.
“I’m sorry I’m late but I couldn’t predict that something would happen with my car.”
It wasn’t old, and usually, it was dependable. My stop wouldn’t have taken so long, except I didn’t know much about cars. Luckily, I’d only had to walk a bit to the nearest town and look for help there. It could have been longer than two hours.
Mom didn’t seem to care about the details.
“Next time, come earlier. If something happens with your car, tell me so I know you’re on the way, not back at home or in a club somewhere, doing who knows what, with only Lord knows who. If you’re gonna bother to come out here anyway, at least make it when you say you will, would you?”
More staring. Like she had no idea what I did when I was at home. I called and updated her more frequently than I made face-to-face visits. I didn’t have time to go out to clubs, still studying for exams, and with my internship underway. I worked odd hours at the hospital, got maybe six hours of sleep on a good night—sometimes day when I had a night shift.
Did she really think all I did was waste my time?
I rolled my eyes and turned away. I didn’t have to stand there and listen to this bull. I ignored her calling my name, after a short pause. Usually, I would just stand there and take it, I’d been doing it all my life so I had the practice. But I was on a short fuse already. After the day I’d had, my patience was shot, not enough of it left to handle my mother.
Had mom always been this unbearable, or did she grow worse? I couldn’t remember.
It was a long time in coming, though. I’d been working up to it for years; twenty-six and I was finally having my teenage rebellion.
Though, if I thought abou
t it, it was probably more that mom was the same she had always been, and I’d just grown out of the needy little girl that thought the only thing that mattered in the world was for her mother to love her. I had a life away from home, a life that didn’t revolve around her. That wasn’t going to change just because I came for a visit.
I reached into my car for my purse, then locked the doors and dropped the key into my purse. My luggage was still in the trunk, but it wasn’t like I would be staying long, so it wasn’t much. I left it there and continued walking.
There was a bar close by. Technically, in Libreville, you could walk just about anywhere, but the place was less than five minutes away on foot. I’d passed it plenty of times during previous visits, but I’d never stopped there for a drink before. It was a wonder why.
I’d spend the weekend drunk to deal with Sharon’s antics. This would be the last time I came to visit.
Chapter Two
Carl
Oh, to be home.
The thought was, of course, sarcastic. Libreville was fine when you were a kid, or someone looking to settle down. When you were a guy barely in your prime and looking for excitement, it was boring as hell.
There was at least a bar in the area or I wouldn’t agree to stop no matter what my brother said. Dad didn’t need us to stick around for so long, and besides, we visited often. There was no reason to stick around for three freaking days, shooting the shit when we could just as easily have done it over live chat and it would have been less unbearable.
But my opinions were almost always ignored because I wasn’t the smart twin.
I pushed open the door to the bar and headed for a booth. There weren’t that many people around, probably because it wasn’t sports season. That was usually when the place pulled in any worthwhile crowds. It was fine with me, anyway. I didn’t need to see or talk to anyone. I’d had friends in high school, but they pretty much all cleared out about the same time we did, and I didn’t need to get stuck with relatives missing their boys and girls trying to take a trip down memory lane.
Forbidden Prescription 3: MFM Ménage Stepbrother Medical Romance (Forbidden Medicine) Page 13
