I found the right lever for the large flat head that created a heavy rainfall in the center of the room and turned it on. When the temperature was just right, I stepped under the water and turned my face up, basking in the glow of the warming light.
“Look at that.”
I opened my eyes at the sound of Neil’s voice and sluiced water through my hair to hold it back. He and El-Mudad stood framed in the doors. That both of them were mine absolutely baffled me. How had I gotten so lucky?
“I am,” El-Mudad said with a grin as he looked up and down my body. “I’m committing every curve to memory.”
I shook my head, my sodden hair swinging behind me. “You guys are going to give me an inflated ego.”
Neil joined me in the spray, looping an arm around my waist. He kissed my forehead. “Then, you’ll have a spare.”
If we hadn’t been in the shower, I would have shoved him.
After we’d washed and dried ourselves, I padded back to the bed, my feet making wet little slaps on the floor. El-Mudad followed, a towel slung around his hips, and Neil came behind him a moment later, his hair still dripping and slicked back.
“I’m going to get a few bottles of water. Is there anything else we need?” he asked, looking between the two of us.
“Just the water,” El-Mudad said, but I piped up, “Can I have my fluffy robe?”
“Water, and a fluffy robe for Sophie,” Neil added to his list. “What about you, El-Mudad, would you like a fluffy robe?”
“There’s one with kitties, and one with stars,” I informed him, as if to further tempt him.
He pretended to consider. “No, but in the future, I would prefer the kitties.”
Neil laughed and left us, and I turned back the covers on the bed. “It’s way too early to sleep, but a little nap before dinner would be amazing.”
“I try to take a nap every day, if I can.” El-Mudad made an “after you” motion for me to get under the covers, and he joined me. “Having someone with me is a unique pleasure.”
I slid into the butter-soft sheets and fluffed up a mound of pillows behind me. I pushed the bolster to the end of the bed. El-Mudad went to bed alone, while Neil and I cuddled up every night? That wasn’t fair.
“Sometimes, naps make me feel guilty. Like I’m wasting my life or something.” I’d been struggling with that for a while, now. Losing someone reminds you of your mortality in the strangest ways.
“Waste a little on me?” His dark eyes were so earnest, so intensely focused on mine, my stomach fluttered.
It was all I could do to say, “All right.”
I snuggled into the crook of his arm and let him draw the covers over us. Neil came back with the water, my robe draped over his arm. He looked at me, burrowed down beneath the blankets, and said, “Why did I bother to bring this, then?”
Reaching for it, I sat up. “I’ll still put it on. I’m always cold.”
“I don’t understand women,” Neil said, to El-Mudad, not me. “Have you ever in your life met a woman who wasn’t constantly cold?”
“Should we put you between us, so you don’t freeze to death, Sophie?” El-Mudad teased.
I gave him a little push, and Neil protested, “No, no. She can’t have you all to herself.”
Neil laid back on the pillows and lifted his arm, and El-Mudad leaned against his chest. We lay in silence for a few moments, Neil running his fingers through El-Mudad’s hair, me with my face against his chest, breathing in his scent. He was becoming so familiar to me, now; there were details about him I’d forgotten I could remember.
I wanted to say something profound, to let them know what the moment meant to me. How it felt like we’d taken some first incredible step together, how it existed whether we wanted to acknowledge it or not.
Neil was so much more eloquent than I. “It seems as though we’ve arrived at the irreversible.”
El-Mudad and I both looked to him, and he went on, “Oh, we might believe we can keep this all to a timetable, but does it truly feel as though this isn’t going to happen between us?”
I giggled softly. “No, I wanted to say…”
“You think it’s already happened,” El-Mudad finished for me with a slow smile. “And why put off admitting that?”
“You guys?” I said, and paused for effect. “We didn’t even last a full week.”
****
We took El-Mudad to Ruby’s, a fun little waterside spot in South Hampton. The seafood was amazing and the atmosphere super casual, which was a nice change from the places we usually went. Plus, they had a band on Saturday nights.
“We stopped coming here for a while,” Neil noted grimly as we approached the door. He interrupted himself to thank El-Mudad for holding it for us, then continued, “Because I was avoiding bars.”
“But you’ll be all right tonight?” El-Mudad asked quietly, as though he were undecided whether or not it was his question to ask.
“Absolutely,” Neil agreed.
The hostess seated us at a table near the dance floor, and I clapped my hands a little in excitement. The band—a Billy Joel cover band, judging from their name and the fact they were playing “Big Shot” at the moment—had already started their set. The dinner crowd was already loosened up and absolutely full of Baby Boomers, which promised a good time. Something about receiving that AARP card made them restless. One pitcher of beer and they were ready to go wild, in the most entertaining ways.
“This is…” El-Mudad looked around with wide eyes and settled on, “lively.”
“Have you ever been in a restaurant that had prices on the menu?” I teased him.
“Get used to this,” Neil said, never looking up from his. “She loves to point out her humble roots, as though our nanny isn’t carrying around a Birkin as a diaper bag.”
“They hold everything!” I protested. And really, it wasn’t like it was the most expensive kind. “Besides, there’s no reason she can’t look stylish. She gets up with Olivia at night. It’s the least I can do.”
“Fair point,” Neil conceded with a laugh.
“For your information, Sophie,” El-Mudad said, his lips tilting into an amused smirk, “I do occasionally descend from my golden tower to mingle among the peasants.”
“Oh, shut up, both of you.” Honestly, if being in a committed relationship with the two of them meant being ganged up on like this…
I would still take it. Gladly.
“My only real complaint is the music tonight,” Neil said, pulling an exaggerated grimace. “I would rather saw both of my feet in half than listen to Billy Joel.”
“That’s a bit dramatic,” El-Mudad said.
“The long way,” Neil emphasized.
After the waitress took our order, Neil excused himself to use the restroom. It was strangely awkward to be alone with El-Mudad, now, and it took me a second to realize why.
“You know, we haven’t been alone together since we talked about…” How was I supposed to even phrase it? “The three of us becoming an us.”
“It’s a bit strange,” he agreed. “But if we do decide to, as you say, become an ‘us’, then there will be times that we can’t all be together at once.”
“Like when I go to work on Monday,” I pointed out.
“Yes. I’m nervous about that.”
I blinked. “Why?”
“Well, I worry about how you might feel. That you might worry I’m trying to…”
“To steal Neil away?” I shook my head and looked down at the tabletop. “No. I could think a lot of things about you, but not that you would do that.”
“A lot of things?” He looked taken aback. “Should I be concerned?”
I tried to smile, but it faltered. “I didn’t mean that. I’m just… My only reservation is that you and Neil have more in common than you and I. And even he and I when I really tally it up. I’m worried I’ll feel left out. Or like a third wheel.”
El-Mudad considered silently, for long enough that I worri
ed I might have offended him. Then, he said, “No. You and I share some very important things in common.”
My eyes watered, remembering. When Neil had been in the hospital after his suicide attempt, El-Mudad had told me his own story of a past lover—the one who’d inspired him to use the name Emir—who’d had a problem similar to Neil’s.
Their story hadn’t turned out as well.
“On the surface, we don’t have much in common,” he went on. “But those things you feel Neil and I share don’t bind us the way you believe they do. It was the last year that brought me to this point, to love you both the way I do.”
I thought back to that week he’d spent with me, the way he’d come to stand by me at the darkest time in my life. He’d told me he loved me, and he’d proved it in a hundred small ways. Reminding me to change my clothes, take a shower, eat a meal, care for myself when I didn’t care about myself. He’d pulled me back from the brink of my own crisis, and he’d been under no obligation to me or to Neil.
And he’d taken an enormous risk to get involved, after what he’d been through, himself. How had I not realized that before?
“You do, don’t you?” I asked, stunned. “You really do love us.”
“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.” He never took his eyes from mine. “I’m sincere in all things, Sophie. I don’t have the unkindness to hurt people for sport.”
“I would never have thought that of you.” I was just confused at how and when it had happened. “But I also never thought you would fall in love with us. Or that we would fall in love with you.”
My heart swelled. I loved him. Neil and I love him. How was that possible?
I’d been raised to believe that love was between two people, and anything outside of that was cheating. If you fell in love with another person, it was a problem—not a blessing. In a few short years, all of that had been turned upside down.
“If I had ever imagined it would turn out this way, perhaps I would have run,” he admitted, toying with the napkin rolled around his silverware. “This is a frightening prospect to me, Sophie. You worry about me having more in common with Neil, while I see you with him and think it isn’t possible to have that same connection with the two of you. But if I could change my feelings…I wouldn’t.”
“My, my, don’t we look tense?” Neil startled us both, and we looked up guiltily. But why? We hadn’t been discussing anything he couldn’t hear. This was as much his conversation as ours.
“Not tense,” I explained. “Just working some things out.”
“Sophie is afraid she might become a third wheel,” El-Mudad stated bluntly. “Because you and I share so many common interests.”
“Oh, I don’t think that would be a problem,” Neil said, as though it would be the easiest thing in the world for us all to trio up without someone being left behind. And while his easygoing dismissal might have been a little rose-tinted, it did make me feel better. Neil and I were married. Without flattering myself, I could say that I was one of the most important people in his life. It did seem a little silly to think he’d throw me over just because El-Mudad could talk about supercars with him. And El-Mudad and I cared about each other; he’d no sooner hurt me than I would hurt him.
“That’s what I said.” El-Mudad gave an easy shrug. “And there are still so many ways we must get to know each other.”
Ways that don’t involve tragedy, I finished for him mentally.
“Like dancing?” He inclined his head toward the dance floor, where a few couples danced—badly—to “Uptown Girl.”
“By all means,” Neil said, not bothering to hide his disgust.
I rolled my eyes. “That would be lovely. Even if this is a weird song to dance to.”
“Only Baby Boomers know how,” Neil joked.
“You’re a Baby Boomer,” I reminded him as El-Mudad helped me scoot my chair back. I took his hand as I stood and let him lead me to the floor.
“It isn’t a weird song to dance to,” he said, gesturing to some of the other couples on the floor.
“Yeah. If you pull out your very best wedding reception moves.” Still, I couldn’t complain about El-Mudad’s arm around my waist, pulling me into his body.
He took my hand and held it up like we were going to waltz or something. “Like this. Slow, quick, quick, slow, slow—”
My feet tangled; I was not a good dancer.
“You’ll get it,” he promised. “Trust me, there is a way to dance to any kind of music.”
“I had no idea you were so into dancing.” It was hard to concentrate on my feet and talk at the same time, so I had to let him drag me around quite a bit.
He didn’t seem to mind. Or even break a sweat. “You wanted to get to know me better. There’s something you didn’t know before.”
“I’m intrigued. What other fun little hobbies am I going to find out about?” I already knew about the cars and the kinky sex. Dancing was a surprise.
Without any warning, he spun me away from him, and my natural reaction was to go with the flow. Then, he jerked me back, and the skirt of my black floral print Diane Von Furstenberg dress flared out a little too much. I smoothed it down in a moment of panic. Standing on my tiptoes, I whispered into his ear. “Don’t do that, again. I’m not wearing panties.”
He pulled back to look me in the eye, shock on his features.
“You wanted to get to know me better,” I reminded him.
He laughed and leaned down to press his forehead against mine, swaying us both to the goofy beat. I glanced over at our table, where Neil watched us, grinning, despite his personal feelings about the music. It felt natural. It felt like…
Like we belonged together.
The overwhelming giddiness of new love rushed over me; I hadn’t felt it since Neil and I had started dating. It was like revisiting an old friend. I hadn’t felt this feeling in years, but it seemed like only yesterday. And I wasn’t the only one caught up in it, which made it even better.
How did people do this? I had no road map for being in love with two people at once and making a relationship out of it. But this felt so natural…if we just went with it, was that all it would take to make it work?
Should I just let my emotions drag me around, the way I was letting El-Mudad drag me around the dance floor? I hoped it would involve a lot less tripping and stepping on someone else’s toes.
“What about you?” El-Mudad asked. “Besides fashion and not wearing panties, what do you like?”
“Probably nothing that would impress you,” I admitted. “I don’t dance. I don’t drive expensive cars. I’m a trophy wife. I work more part-time than I should, shop too much, and sit around watching stupid TV shows.”
“All right,” he said with a bob of his head. “What kind of stupid TV shows?”
I highly doubted a guy who traveled the world and had all sorts of exciting experiences would be that acquainted with Netflix. I rolled my eyes and answered, “Once Upon A Time?”
“I know Once Upon A Time,” he said, almost admonishingly.
I laughed at him. “You do not.”
“Of course I do. Amal and Rashida watch some American television to improve their English. Or, at least, that’s their excuse.” He put both of his arms around my waist, no longer keeping up the rhythm of his now-battered feet. “I think they just have a crush on Captain Hook. We wait until the season is finished and watch it together on the weekends, so it will last longer.”
Admittedly, it surprised me that they knew about the show, living in France. I hadn’t realized our television had that kind of reach. But it was beyond enchanting to think of El-Mudad, mega-billionaire with male-model looks, sitting on a couch between two teen girls and consuming vast quantities of Disney fantasy. That gave me tummy flutters for sure. “Okay, so, thoughts on ships?”
“Captain Swan,” he said with a grimace of unwavering rightness.
I made a face. “Are you kidding? Emma and Regina. Swan Queen all the way.
”
“You and Amal would get along,” he said confidently.
The song came to an end, and El-Mudad released me to clap for the band. I stood frozen in place. El-Mudad’s kids. Olivia. How would any of this work when they were all inextricable parts of our lives?
How could the three of us work when it would never truly be just the three of us?
Chapter Eight
The weekend flew by too fast, and leaving for work Monday morning was more of a bummer than I’d expected.
We sat in the kitchen while Julia cooked breakfast—an amazing French toast bake with bananas and walnuts, with a side of the most incredible turkey sausage on the planet—and lingered over coffee while I waited for my hired car.
It was difficult to keep up appearances in front of Julia, when all Neil, El-Mudad, and I wanted to do was be handsy. For the past two days, we’d been nothing but stupid in love with each other. It was incredible. It wasn’t all between the two of us and El-Mudad, either; something between Neil and I had rebooted, and now, all three of us were somehow caught up in new relationship euphoria, despite having known each other for years.
“So, what will the two of you be up to while I’m gone today?” I asked, leaning against the island. I resolved not to sulk at being excluded if it sounded really fun.
“Neil is taking me to his driving club,” El-Mudad said, grinning from ear to ear. “I’m going to test out the Chiron.”
“Oh, that.” I wrinkled my nose and took a sip of my coffee. The Chiron was a recent purchase Neil had made that I hadn’t cared for. “It looks like an ugly car emerging from the husk of a much better-looking car.”
“It’s gorgeous,” Neil insisted. This was the latest in a series of disagreements on this theme.
“No matter its appearance, I look forward to driving it,” El-Mudad said, nudging Neil with his elbow.
“Okay, well, as long as I know I’m not missing out.” I sipped my coffee then jumped when my phone chimed. “The car is here. I’ll be back around seven.”
The Sister (The Boss Book 6) Page 12
