Stitches

by Sam Mariano

  “Could you hear us?”

  I nod my head at the door to the adjoining master bathroom. “Door was open. Sounded like a fun shower.”

  “I’ll probably have to take another one after I go for my run,” she tells me, running her hands across my chest. “Feel free to join me.”

  Between her invitation and the sensation of her soft fingers against my skin, my head is suddenly flooded with images of fucking her in the shower, and my cock with a vehement desire to be buried deep inside her.

  “I will accept that invite,” I tell her. “Provided I’m still here by then.”

  Seb steps out of the closet, buttoning up his dress shirt. Apparently he caught the tail end of that comment, because he says, “Today’s your day off, isn’t it?”

  I glance at him as Moira climbs off me and goes over to help him with his tie. He certainly doesn’t need help with it, but I get the impression it’s part of their routine.

  “It was supposed to be,” I remark. “Since I flaked yesterday though, I figured I should probably work today.”

  Shaking his head, Seb meets my gaze. “Nah, you need a day off. Take it. Stay here with Moira. Relax. If you need to get any work done, just do it from here. I have a late meeting tonight anyway so I won’t be home for dinner.”

  Apparently this is the first Moira is hearing about it. “You won’t?”

  His attention shifts to her as she smoothes her hand down his shirtfront, over the perfect line of his tie. “You two are on your own. Modified date night,” he offers, lightly.

  “I can work with that,” Moira says, nodding.

  Since I’m planning to shower with Moira after her run, I just pull on a pair of sweats to go down for breakfast. Seb takes a seat and starts reading his paper while Moira makes the coffee.

  “What can I do?” I ask Moira, leaning against the counter and watching her fiddle around at the coffee maker.

  Flicking a surprised glance at me, she tells me, “You can cut the grapefruit in half, if you’d like.”

  I make a face at her since she knows I hate grapefruit. “You’re not gonna make me eat it, are you?” I ask, reaching for the cutting board.

  “No, I’ll be nice to you. Though the health benefits—”

  “I’m okay with dying a few weeks early if it means I never have to eat a grapefruit,” I assure her.

  Moira shakes her head at me. “Your priorities are all out of order. It doesn’t taste that bad.”

  “It’s gross,” I inform her, grabbing the fruit and slicing it in half.

  “Thank you,” she says sweetly, retrieving the halves and putting them on small plates. She drops one off on her end of the table and takes the other to Seb. He pauses in reading the paper for a kiss and a thank you, then she comes back to start on the rest of breakfast.

  “What else?” I ask.

  “I’m just making eggs, I don’t really need help. You can get out the butter and jelly for the toast, if you’d like.” Glancing back at the table, she tells Seb, “See? He helps me cook and everything.”

  Without looking up from his paper, Seb remarks, “Why do you think I got you a second husband? You’re welcome.”

  “I can do dishes, too,” I volunteer.

  “And laundry?” Moira asks, with exaggerated gusto. “Best second husband ever.”

  “Knock yourself out,” Seb tells me, but he can’t help smirking. “You know you don’t have to work so hard to impress her, right? She’s already yours.”

  I roll my eyes at him. “Says you.”

  “I find you both exceptionally impressive,” Moira states, preemptively cutting off any competition we could cook up. “I have the best of both worlds and I couldn’t be happier. What about you guys? Both getting enough Moira time? Of course I’m satisfied; I have two men. If anyone ever needs more of me, you’ll have to tell me.”

  “I get more of you than I ever got from a woman I didn’t have to share,” I state.

  She wrinkles her nose up. “Yuck. Ashley’s on my shit list.”

  “Mine, too,” I offer, dryly.

  Now Seb glances up from his paper. “I told Griff he should move in with us once we get everything settled.”

  Moira brightens. “I love that idea.”

  Once the food is cooked, we all sit down to breakfast together. It’s so strange, sitting together like this every morning. I enjoy it, but it’s not the kind of thing I’ve done since a couple of the try-hard foster homes I was shuffled in and out of. Back then, whether because it was or I was just a self-defensive asshole, it always felt phony. The kind of thing people usually do as a family, only those people weren’t my family. They were glorified innkeepers that I would have to move on from a few months later.

  This isn’t, though. For once in my life, I have permanence. For once in my life, I have a family of my own—traditional or not.

  It’s something I’ve thought about a time or two given Seb and I rarely use protection with Moira, but since we’re doing this, I figure I might as well bring it up now. “I have a question about the future. Or potentially the present, depending on the answer.”

  Seb infers by my delivery that this is going to be a serious thing, so he puts down his paper and meets my gaze. “What’s that?”

  “We both have sex with Moira.”

  “Correct.”

  “Neither of us consistently uses condoms. You never do. I have on occasion, but not on a regular basis. So… pregnancy? Is that something we should discuss?”

  Moira replies quickly, before Seb has to. “I’m on the pill.”

  I glance at her, taking in her eagerness to resolve and file away this topic. I can’t imagine Moira not wanting kids, so Seb must be the problem.

  “Okay,” I say, looking back at him. “So, we’ve got it covered now, but what about later?”

  Seb sips his hot coffee, eyeing me over the brim. From the look on his face and the glance he cuts in Moira’s direction, I gather he would have preferred I ask him about this without her present, but that’s bullshit. She’s more involved in this decision than either of us. She’s the one who would be carrying a baby. So how the hell is that supposed to work?

  “We’re not looking to have kids just yet,” he says, vaguely.

  “But when we do. If we’re planning to do this long-term, that’s something to consider, right? How the hell are we supposed to do that? There’s two of us and one of her. Do we take turns? You get first kid, I get second? Do we both just fuck her without protection and see whose sperm gets there first? Do we all even want kids? I want kids. I assume Moira wants kids. Obviously I didn’t think you were going to be involved in this part of my relationship, so I never thought to ask you about it.”

  “We’ll have kids eventually,” he assures me.

  “But which one of us?”

  “You know,” Moira begins, in a tone I can tell means she thinks she’s being helpful, “There’s this HBO show called Big Love that we should totally watch. It’s not our situation, obviously, and it’s multiple wives instead of husbands, but they have kids. It is done. Obviously the show is fictional, but… I think kids are pretty adaptable. Everyone’s parents do something to make them ill-adjusted; at least our lack of convention is born from a place of love. Could be worse. And kids have multiple parental figures all the time. It’s no different than if Seb and I got divorced and I married Griff, except there’s no bitterness and we all live together as a happy, functioning family. I think it’ll be fine. I think we can be completely functional in this arrangement with a baby—and it would be years before we even had to explain. Babies don’t take inventory of their family members.” Cutting a look at Seb to make sure he understands, she adds, “I still want babies. This does not change that.”

  “I realize that,” he replies dutifully, then cuts me another look of mild annoyance. “Thanks for this, Griff.”

  I shrug unapologetically. “It’s an important thing to know.”

  “We can figure that out when it come
s up.”

  “Moira, do you even want to have babies with me?” I ask her. Obviously Seb is the man she married, the man she planned her life out with. Even if I’m a welcome addition, something she has adjusted to and decided she could want, having kids together is another level of intimacy.

  Reaching across the table, she places her hand over mine. “I think you’ll be a wonderful father, Griff. I’m not sure how this works, I’d rather let Sebastian work out the details, but as long as it makes everyone happy….”

  “When it’s time,” Sebastian adds, more firmly. “Which is not right now. Moira’s adjusting like a sport, but let’s not leap ahead, hm? Give her time to adjust. Let the honeymoon period wind down first, for fuck’s sake.”

  I shoot him a mild look of annoyance. “I’m not trying to leap ahead; I’m just trying to figure out how this works in the big picture.”

  “It works the way we need it to,” he states. “I’m always looking at the big picture, but this stuff will come up when it comes up. It’s too soon to worry about it now.”

  Bringing up babies at breakfast, it turns out, is a good way to get rid of Seb. He finishes his breakfast in record time, kisses Moira, and leaves for work.

  It’s weird as hell staying here with Moira after he leaves. I don’t take a lot of time off in general—one day a week is good enough for me—and since things have been going so shitty with Ashley, even that has been too much. A day off just means time to think, time to stew, time I’m not busy and I can get lost down a rabbit hole of stress and aggravation.

  Now days off are going to mean something different. It’s foreign but peaceful the way Moira goes about her routine. I stay in the kitchen and talk to her while she cleans up after breakfast. When she’s done with that, she gets out her sketchpad and oil pencils and draws for a little bit.

  I relax on the couch and catch up on a few emails while she works.

  It’s calm and uneventful and I can’t wait for a hundred more days like this one.

  Once she has drawn until she feels her food has digested, apparently, she gathers up her supplies and tells me, “I’m going to change into my workout clothes.”

  “You want company?” I ask her.

  Flashing me a smile, she says, “You just want to get laid, don’t you? Come on up, I’ll go a round before my run. Just don’t wear me out so much that I can’t finish. I’ve gotta get in two miles.”

  A burst of surprised laughter shoots out of me. “I meant did you want me to go running with you?”

  “Oh!” Chuckling lightly, she says, “Sorry, I’m in Sebastian mode. Sure, that would be great. He never runs with me. I asked him to once when we first started dating—I figured he clearly works out, right? Or he’s just blessed with incredible genes. But he won’t run.”

  I shake my head. “Nope. I will, though. Let me finish answering this question real fast and I’ll be right up. I’m not saying no to the sex, if you’re still offering,” I call after her, as she heads for the stairs.

  “Wait until we get back and we can have shower sex,” she calls back, her voice muffled as she heads for her bedroom.

  It’s a damn good day off.

  25

  Sebastian

  When Moira and I first started dating years ago, she surmised a certain truth about me early on.

  “You’re a man who does what needs doing, aren’t you?” she asked one night, a look in her eyes like it impressed the hell out of her.

  I’ll be honest, I like impressing the hell out of Moira, but whether she liked it or she didn’t, that answer would have been the same.

  Yes.

  I am a man who does what needs doing.

  Doesn’t matter if it’s pretty or nice or fair. Doesn’t even matter if it’s what I want to do, in a lot of cases. I’m a realistic man. I know when to push my own agenda, and when to accept I can’t change a thing doing it my way. I know that in order to survive, in order to rise, in order to thrive, sometimes you have to make certain adjustments. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do, learn to accept things that don’t seem right, make compromises more naïve versions of you never thought you’d make.

  In life, you will always end up surprising yourself—it’s your call whether it’s because you get further than you thought you would, or you end up a disappointment even to your own damn self.

  Me, I’ve only ever entertained one option.

  Whatever I had to do, whichever lines I had to smudge, I would never become that disappointment.

  In the interest of success over ego, adapting to change over clinging stubbornly to what doesn’t work, I have become a man who does what needs doing.

  Every compromise comes at a cost, but so does being a pussy whose life falls apart because he’s too caught up on his own fucking principles.

  That’s what I tell myself, sitting at this bar, sipping on this drink, waiting for Donovan to free up so he can give me a few minutes of his very expensive time.

  A young woman in a tight red dress sidles up next to me, stealing not-so-subtle glances at me from time to time while I drink. She’s on my left side and I know she checked my finger for a ring—clearly visible on the bar top here—but after a few minutes she still says, “Hey.”

  I glance at her, but I’m not in the mood to be nice tonight, so I don’t respond.

  Her daddy must not have loved her, ‘cause she gets more interested.

  “Strong, silent type, huh?” she teases, bravely bumping her arm against mine. She shifts and pushes her boobs closer, in case it somehow slipped my attention that she’s attractive. “My name’s Belinda, what’s yours?”

  Her voice is loud in my ear as she tries to talk over the fucking music.

  I ignore her again.

  “I know you can hear me,” she says, playfully.

  Jesus, she is persistent. I hold up my hand to show her my ring, since ignoring the fuck out of her isn’t making my point. “I’m married.”

  “Lucky lady,” she says, though her tone is still flirty.

  Wouldn’t be so fucking lucky if I cared about another woman flirting with me at the bar, now, would she? I don’t say that. I pull out my phone and check the time.

  Come on, Donovan, hurry the fuck up.

  “I’m really drunk,” Belinda tells me so fucking loudly. She leans close. I know it’s just an excuse to get closer to me, but at least she’s not screaming in my fucking ear anymore. “Maybe drunk enough to make a bad decision. How about you don’t even tell me your name?”

  “Wasn’t planning to,” I inform her.

  “You’re really hot,” she tells me.

  “I know,” I deadpan.

  She grins. “I like you.”

  “You need to work on your self-esteem, sweetheart,” I tell her, tipping back my glass and finishing it off. I tap the bar top to the get the bartender’s attention.

  “Sweetheart?” she asks, delighted.

  I roll my eyes. Of course that’s the only fucking part of that sentence she heard. The bartender approaches, and I tell him, “One more.”

  “Long day?” Belinda persists.

  “Yep,” I answer.

  “What is it you do?”

  The bartender makes quick work of getting me my drink. By the time he slides it across the counter at me, Belinda accepts that I’m not going to answer her question.

  Of course, if she hangs out in this club, that’s probably not outside the norm. A lot of shady fucking people hang out here. The smart ones keep their mouth shut about what kind of business they’re in.

  “Can’t tell me?” she asks, suddenly serious. “That’s okay, I get it,” she assures me, like I might be really worried. “But, like, if you do want to tell me, you can. I’m cool. I know the drill around here. Do you know Roscoe? We went out a couple times. We didn’t fuck,” she adds, for some reason, like this might turn me off.

  “Do you ever stop talking?” I ask her.

  Smiling slyly, she says, “When my mouth is
otherwise occupied, I do.”

  “Are you a hooker?”

  Her eyes widen. “No! Why would you think I’m a hooker?”

  “You have about four inches of fabric on and you’re throwing yourself at me even though I’m clearly not interested. Maybe you’re a damaged individual, or maybe you’re just a hungry hooker.”

  Her jaw drops like she can’t even believe what an asshole I am, but a firm hand on my shoulder stops me from having to respond to this little pain in the ass.

  A tall, dark-haired man I’ve seen a few times stands behind me. He’s probably never saved anyone from anything before, since his job is to do exactly the opposite, but I’m sure happy to see him.

  “Donovan’s ready to see you.”

  “Fucking finally,” I mutter under my breath, grabbing my drink and spinning around on my bar stool. I hop off without sparing another glance at the hungry hooker.

  “She’s a pain in the ass, isn’t she?” the man asks, mildly amused.

  “Jesus Christ, yes. Like a dog with a fucking bone.”

  “Yeah, she’s been around. Probably got excited thinking there was new meat on the table,” he says, chuckling deeply.

  I don’t remark further as he leads me through the throng of people. I can see Donovan and his entourage tucked in a long black leather booth. Donovan sits in the middle, his right arm draped across the narrow shoulders of some traditionally attractive redhead. I don’t trouble myself to try to remember her name. Even if I could remember the name of the last girl he brought up, it would almost certainly not be this one. He changes women like he changes suits, and as a pair of women in short skirts pass by his line of sight, I can already see this one doesn’t have much time left.

  So does his flavor of the week. Appearing stressed, she turns suddenly and starts kissing his neck.

  He pushes her away like an inanimate object and offers an amiable smile at me as I approach.

  “Sebastian St. Clair—to what do I owe this great honor?”

  He can’t help mocking people, I swear to god. Ordinarily I’m not a man who appreciates someone talking like that straight to my face, but ordinarily I’m not a man who pays an “operating tax” to a rising kingpin, either; I adjust where I have to.