Gabe placed his hands on my neck and stroked my jawline with his thumbs. “You’re right.”
“Yes, I am,” I boasted proudly.
“And so fucking adorable.” Gabe lowered his head until our lips nearly touched. The intensity and adoration in his dark eyes nearly made me melt into a puddle at his feet. I thought it was an absolute travesty that people lived without having someone look at them the way that Gabe looked at me; and not just in that mushy moment either. I always saw respect and admiration in his eyes. “Only forty-eight hours until you become Joshua James Roman-Wyatt.” Then he pressed his mouth fully against mine, and I lost myself in our kiss.
“And you become Gabriel Allen Roman-Wyatt,” I told him once we unlocked our lips and tongues.
“I do,” Gabe said like he was practicing for the big event.
“Wow, you’ve got that part down perfectly.” An excited shiver worked its way through my body, and I wondered how I was going to react when he said those words for real.
“I’ve been practicing in the mirror,” Gabe said playfully. He regaled me with ten different ways of saying those two words—from the serious to the hilarious. My favorite was his attempt at a British accent; it wasn’t half bad, and I thought maybe we could have fun with that one someday. I opened my mouth to suggest it, but I was interrupted by the doorbell ringing. “Uh oh,” Gabe said, his eye sparkling with mischief, “your future in-laws are here.”
“Yours are too,” I said, matching his tone and expression. Our parents lived only an hour apart and had become great friends once we introduced them at dinner in February, so they flew together and drove to our house together. “Last one to the door is the worst son-in-law,” I yelled before I bolted for the door.
“Oh no you don’t,” Gabe said. He caught me before I left the room and playfully shoved me out of the way. Gabe had a strength advantage and agility from years of playing sports, but I was fast as lightning when I had nothing but open space in front of me, so I did what any man would do once he cleared the staircase and had the front door in his sight. I tripped my future husband and leaped over his body as he fell to the floor so I could get to the door first. Gabe grabbed for my shorts while I was in the air and managed to pull them down to mid thigh, which slowed me down a little but didn’t stop me.
I laughed in exalted pleasure when I reached the door first and yanked it open. I just didn’t realize how it would appear to the parents when I stood there red-faced and panting from exertion with my pants hanging low around my hips like I’d just yanked them up, which I had, but probably not for the reasons they thought.
“Gabe’s coming!” I said between ragged breaths, adding to the impression that they’d just interrupted sex. “Behind me,” I added, making it worse. My face flamed in embarrassment as soon as the words left my mouth. Our dads’ lips twitched as they fought to keep the smiles off their faces—probably to spare me further embarrassment—but my mother wasn’t feeling quite so generous.
“Yes, I imagine that happens frequently. Had we known we were interrupting we could’ve circled the block a few more times,” she said, pushing past me to enter the foyer. “Oh my lands, this house is beautiful, Joshy.”
“We weren’t having sex,” I told them. “It was a race to determine the best son-in-law. Here I am, the one to greet you while Gabe,” I looked over my shoulder to see my man standing there with a huge smile on his face, “laughs at me behind my back.”
“Darling,” Martina said, looking at me then her son, “we’re all adults who know what it’s like to be in love and have sexual urges.” Gabe started to retch by that time, and it was my turn to grin smugly. “Save your excuses for when your future children catch you in the act.”
“Yeah, like that time the kids came home early from the pool,” Al said then started to laugh. “Dylan wanted to know what we were doing beneath that blanket, and your mom told him we were wrestling.”
Gabe plugged his fingers in his ears like a child and said, “Not funny.”
“My parents told me they were hiding Easter eggs when I caught them going at it in the kitchen pantry,” I told Gabe, hoping to make him feel better.
“Is that the same little room where you whip up your hair potions?” Gabe asked.
“The one and the same,” I said. I could tell he fondly remembered the two times we fooled around a little in that same room. “That’s also how I found out there was no such thing as the Easter Bunny.”
“Josh demanded to know why we were hiding the eggs when the Easter Bunny was supposed to be hiding them. I panicked,” my dad said then laughed at the memory. “He was really pissed when he made the connection later in the year that no Easter Bunny also meant no Santa Claus.”
“Wait, you didn’t make that connection right away?” Gabe asked. His tone was curious, not scornful, so it didn’t hurt my feelings.
“Some people believe only in what they can see while others cling to the belief that the fantastic and implausible must be true—or at least attainable—on some level,” I told Gabe, aware that all eyes were on us. My parents weren’t the ones who pissed all over my dreams of fairy tales and fantastic things, but I lost them for some time. It got so quiet that you could’ve heard a pin drop. I wanted the moment to remain lighthearted, so I said, “You should’ve seen how pissed I was when I found out that Mary Poppins wasn’t real.” It got the laughter I wanted to break up the emotion building inside me. “How about a tour of the house that starts with the kitchen so I can feed you. I know damn well you didn’t eat much on the plane.”
“Yes,” the parental units said exuberantly.
“My peanuts were stale,” my father said.
“My Coke was flat,” Martina added.
“They gave me two little cubes of ice in my cup,” Al said. “You know how I like a lot of ice.”
“They wouldn’t give me a mimosa,” my mom complained. “Hell, I offered to pay for it.”
I looped my arm through my mom’s and said, “I got you covered, Mama.” I had squeezed the orange juice that morning and made sure Gabe picked up champagne when he bought the scotch. “Follow me if you want to eat,” I said in my best Terminator voice. I glanced at Gabe on my way to the kitchen, and his shrewd gaze said that he saw I changed the subject, but he winked at me instead of commenting.
I didn’t realize how ravenous our folks were until Gabe had to pull me to safety when I set the platters on the kitchen island. I wasn’t sure what everyone would like, so I made chicken, tuna, and egg salad sandwiches using a variety of bread for a nice selection. I had a second platter with various veggies and dips.
“Put the potato salad on the island with your right hand because I’m going to need your left hand later,” Gabe said.
“He’s ambidextrous, sweetheart, so play time would still be okay,” my mom said between bites of chicken salad on a buttery croissant. “Get the potato salad, and I promise no one will get hurt.”
“Oh my God,” I muttered quietly on my return trip to the refrigerator. “I can’t believe my mom just implied I could jerk you off with either hand.”
“She was telling the truth,” Gabe said humorously. “I wasn’t thinking about sex for once; I was referring to the hand that will wear the ring that marks you as mine.” There was a touch of growliness in his voice because he still didn’t like that we took off our rings. I tucked them away in our sex toy drawer with another type of ring until our wedding day.
“What’s the status on the potato salad?” Al asked a little frantically, not at all sounding like his usual calm self.
“Coming right up,” I replied before I pecked a kiss on Gabe’s lips quickly then returned to the island with the covered bowl. “Holy crap!” I looked at the platter of sandwiches and saw there were only two out of the dozen I’d made left. It was a damn good thing that we’d eaten before they arrived. “How long were we at the refrigerator?” I asked out loud.
“For the love of God! Bill, use a fork,” my mom demanded
when my dad acted as if he was going to eat the mound of potato salad on his plate with his hands.
“Baby, I made a list of things to pack in our carry-on luggage, but I think I’m going to have to amend it,” I told Gabe. “That’s a long flight.”
Gabe leaned over and pressed his lips against my ear. “Don’t forget the lube.” His breath tickled my ear, and his words delighted other parts a little lower.
“I was talking about snacks,” I whispered back.
“You’re my favorite snack.” Gabe nipped my ear with his teeth to demonstrate the validity of his words. Then he growled and made me laugh by nibbling on my neck. “Much better than some granola bar you plan on feeding me.”
I looked up when I realized how quiet the kitchen had become and found four sets of smiling eyes locked on us. Our fathers beamed with pride while our mothers looked at us with joyful tears in their eyes. Emotion rose inside me so swiftly that my head felt like a balloon, but the weight of Gabe’s confident hand on my hip tethered me to him so that I couldn’t float away. It wasn’t an oppressive kind of feeling, he made me feel safe.
“Protein bars,” I corrected, “and I planned other things too.” I honestly hadn’t put any food items on the list, but I was going to remedy that right away. “I’ll come up with a new plan,” I promised him. My first act as a nurturing husband would be to make sure Gabe landed in Honolulu with a full stomach and empty balls.
We took the parents on the grand tour and told them about the renovations we’d made. They fell in love with Savage and Sassy who’d turned into a freaking comedy routine by repeating the lines from movies we watched. I saw the wistful looks on the moms’ faces when I showed them the empty bedrooms we hoped to fill with kids. The looks on their faces when they saw their guest suites made all my fussing worthwhile.
“This room looks like something I’d expect to find in a hotel,” Martina had said. “It’s beautiful.”
“Oh, my favorite flowers,” my mother had exclaimed. “Thank you.” She moved to hug me, so I pointed to Gabe because a glory hog wasn’t an attractive trait in a human being.
We went to dinner after the parents had a chance to rest for a bit. I had wanted to cook but our moms overruled me, insisting that I had enough going on and needed a night of fun. Gabe pulled the keychain for Charlotte off the hook and handed it to me. I just stared at him for several minutes because he’d indicated that no one except him, and maybe his dad, would ever drive her.
“What’s mine is yours,” Gabe said softly. “I want to see you behind her wheel.” There was an emotion I couldn’t quite place in his eyes, but it disappeared behind a brilliant smile when I accepted the keys and his gesture.
I was overly cautious at first because she drove nothing like a modern car and I was terrified of putting a scratch on her. Gabe made fun of me and said that the kid down the street was pedaling his Big Wheel faster than I was driving. I relaxed a bit once I got used to the steering and had a lot of fun.
Dinner with our parents was a riot, and like last time, our fathers squabbled with one another over who should pay. I snatched the bill and paid it without them realizing it until it was too late, like Gabe had done in Miami. I was starting to get suspicious that the geezers were pulling a fast one on us. I meant to bring it up with Gabe once we were alone but forgot all about it when he convinced me to practice how I was going to “quietly pleasure” him on our flight to Hawaii. He returned the favor, of course, and I discovered that trying to keep quiet enhanced my orgasm.
Once we finished, I rested my head over his heart and thanked him for giving me back the joys of fairy tales. Gabe had turned the fantastic and implausible into reality, and made me believe once more.
THE BRAIN IS A strange organ capable of both awesome and terrifying things. I considered myself a calm and cool guy, but I was overwhelmed by a case of nerves the next morning. It started when reality invaded my dreams again, but instead of Jimmy shooting Josh, my birth mother and sisters rejected me. I had no logical explanation for the path my brain chose in my sleep, yet I woke with an aching heart in the early hours of the morning.
The sun hadn’t fully risen yet, so I silently pleaded with my brain to let me get back to sleep. It didn’t take me long to realize my begging was futile. I rolled over onto my side and watched Josh sleep instead. I loved the play of light and shadows on his face as the sun rose higher in the sky. I wanted to touch him but knew where it would lead if I did, and he needed the rest. Instead, I slipped out of bed, pulled on some pajamas, and went downstairs to make a pot of coffee.
My mom had always been an early riser, so I wasn’t surprised to find that she was up and made coffee already. “I think I love this room the most,” she said when I joined her in the sunroom in the rear of the house. It was my favorite place to read the paper and drink my coffee on Sunday mornings because it reminded me of the porch at my childhood home. “I imagine it will get chilly in here during Ohio winters,” she said.
“I don’t think it will be too bad,” I replied after my first sip of coffee. “These are triple pane windows, we upgraded the heaters, and added a fireplace.” As much as I hated snow, the thought of watching it fall silently to the ground while cuddling with Josh beneath a blanket while a fire crackled was very appealing to me.
“It’s going to be beautiful,” my mom said.
“Yes, it will.” She was talking about the winter landscape, but I was talking about what would happen when cuddling with Josh became something more.
“Are you ready for today?” she asked softly. I knew she wasn’t talking about the wedding rehearsal or dinner.
“I think so,” I said honestly. “I don’t have a reason to feel nervous…”
“… But you are anyway,” she finished for me. “I think that’s pretty reasonable, Gabe. You’re only human after all.” She smiled softly, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes, which didn’t make sense to me. She had encouraged the reunion from the very beginning. Why did she suddenly look as nervous as I felt? “Don’t you go loving her more than me.” Ah, that was it. “I’m sorry, son; I should never have said that to you when you’re already nervous about meeting Bonita.”
Her words were the jolt back to reality that I needed. “There’s no way in the world that I could ever love her more than you. It doesn’t matter that she was the one who gave birth to me; you will always be my mother. I’m hoping to be great friends with Bonita, and I want to know my sisters, but I’m not looking to replace you or the memory of my brother. They’re not mutually exclusive, and it’s because of your unwavering love that I know I don’t have to choose. I can have it all.”
“I have been proud to call you my son every single day of your life, but moments like this just take my breath away. Gabriel, you are a remarkable man, and I love you so very much.” She swiped at the tears that streamed down her face. “Oh, I promised not to get too sappy this weekend, and here I am squalling already.”
“I plan on getting super emotional this weekend, so I think it’s okay if the mother of the groom cries a little also.” I had no intention of holding back the joy that swelled inside me when I saw Josh standing across from me at the altar in his tuxedo, or when I slid my ring on his finger and heard the judge pronounce us as married. I knew that I would shed some tears and I didn’t care what anyone thought.
Mom covered my hand with hers and said, “You chose well, Gabriel. There’s no one better for you than Josh Roman. I have never seen you look as carefree and happy as you are when he is near. Seeing you like this makes my heart so happy. Your father and I adore him.”
“Thanks, Mom. Your support means a lot to me.” I was glad to have their approval, but I didn’t need it to marry Josh. I knew he was the best thing for me and nothing and no one was going to get in my way. Except maybe Jimmy De Soto. I stomped down that thought as soon as it popped into my head. There was no way I’d let that asshole ruin my weekend or my life.
“Dylan would adore him too,” my mom said
quietly. “He’d love the way Josh jabs at you, but mostly he’d love the way that Josh looks at you as if you alone created the universe.”
“I think about Dylan every single day of my life, but his loss is felt even stronger on certain days. Tomorrow will be one of them,” I told her. I was thrilled to have found friends like Adrian and John in my life, but no one replaced the big brother I adored so much.
“He’s with us, baby. We can’t see him or hear his laughter anymore, but he’s looking down on us. He’ll be with you every step of the way, and you’ll feel him in your heart.” I hooked my arm around her shoulders and pulled her against my chest. She tucked her head under my chin, and we cried quietly together for a few minutes. My mom wiped her eyes, cleared her throat, and said, “Today is not about being sad; it’s about welcoming your birth mom and sisters into your life. I want you to tell Bonita that I’m looking forward to seeing her again. Will you do that for me?” she asked.
“Gladly,” I replied, kissing her on top of her head.
The early morning chat with my mom helped me push away any lingering nerves that remained. I focused on the important things like kissing Josh awake and luring him into the shower for some wet, naked fun. Neither of us wanted to abstain from sex leading up to our wedding nor would we spend the night apart. We were doing things our way because it had worked well for us up to that point. Why fix something that obviously wasn’t broken?
I was my typical calm self when I pulled into the parking garage at the hotel where Bonita and her family were staying. We had arrived fifteen minutes early, so I was surprised to find them waiting for me outside the doors of the restaurant. I observed their family dynamics as we walked toward them because they hadn’t spotted me yet. Bonita looked as anxious as I had felt that morning after my dream, but my sisters practically vibrated with excitement. Dear Lord, their beauty was more captivating in person than on Skype. I felt my big brother instincts kicking in again as I saw more than one guy checking them out. I thought it was too damn bad my gun was locked in the glovebox of my car and not on my hip.
I Do, or Dye Trying (Curl Up and Dye Mysteries,#4) Page 18
