Crossing the Lines (12 page)

Ignore his whisper, or dive into holiday festivities? Ignore Jay. Right. She hummed and stretched. “I’m not big on the hearts-and-flowers holidays. But I hope you have a happy Valentine’s. Sorry for crashing the party.”

“You’re not crashing.” Adorable astonishment colored his tone. “You’re always welcome.”

She doubted Henry would see it that way. If Jay liked the hearts-and-flowers crap, Henry wouldn’t let the day pass without celebrating.

She wasn’t about to stomp on Jay’s sweetness. She’d slip away discreetly later. Turning in his arms, she pressed her forehead to his. “What’s the situation this morning?”

“Let’s see. Boiler’s still out. Power’s gone off ’cause ice snapped lines somewhere.” He tapped fingers against her back as he counted the day’s troubles. “Emergency traffic ban’s still in place, not that you could drive down our street anyway, ’cause I don’t think a plow’s touched it yet. Umm…it’s still snowing. Buuut
…
”

Jay loved an appreciative audience. She squirmed in his arms and mimicked his tone. “Buuut what?”

“Henry’s making breakfast.” He kissed her nose. “So the day’s gonna be fantastic anyway.”

He pulled back with an earnest, innocent expression. She laughed. Of course Henry fixing him breakfast made Jay’s day perfect. Henry enjoyed cooking; Jay enjoyed eating. The definition of a symbiotic relationship.

They lazed in bed, Jay surprisingly quiet and no more sexual with her than on a contract night when Henry had granted them leisure time. Maybe he had. Jay’s contract had to be more expansive than her own. Living with Henry, he didn’t get days off, did he?

Henry’d called Jay’s room the only place in the apartment where Jay didn’t answer to him. He’d never said if a time existed when Jay didn’t owe him some kind of obedience. Rude to ask, though, and Jay might not be allowed to answer anyway.

She crawled out from under the covers, instantly missing the warmth, and pulled her abandoned robe around her. Sixty degrees, maybe. Shiver-worthy in the nude.

Jay pouted. “You’re leaving me here alone?”

“I’m not taking you to the bathroom with me.”

He exaggerated his sigh. “Fine, but I’m not waiting here.”

He swung his legs out of bed on the far side and stood. Bare-assed, he bent over and snagged a pair of sweats.

He had a sinfully round butt for such a narrow frame. The long muscles of his back stretched as he leaned forward, the sides of his ass tightening, the muscles of his thighs rotating out.
Mmmm.
If not for the damn cold, she’d feast on Jay’s movements all day. Watching him warmed her right up.

Henry’s words tickled her skin in an absent caress. If she initiated, Jay had permission to respond. A surprising, exhilarating, non-Friday power. Henry trusted her to treat his lover with care.

Jay snapped his waistband. “I know. You like what you see.” He hooked his thumbs in his sweatpants and thrust his hips forward with a swagger. “I get that a lot. Women who can’t keep their eyes off me.”

“Yeah? What do you tell them, stud?”

Jay tilted his head. “That I’m a one-woman man.”

Tension ratcheted and locked her in place. Click-click-click. Henry might be okay with Jay scoring one-night stands or whatever he’d meant last summer about packing a lunch. But that stood worlds apart from encouraging his lover to develop a long-term relationship with someone else. On fucking Valentine’s Day of all days.

She forced a laugh. “I thought you were a one-
man
man.”

She’d worried off and on for months Jay might fear she’d stolen Henry’s attention from him. Not once had she considered Henry might need to worry about her stealing Jay.

“I am.” His ease had to be real. Jay lacked the poker face to fake complete unconcern. “But that doesn’t dissuade the ladies from looking.”

He lowered his voice. “Some of them want to eat me up with a spoon. A spoon, Alice. I don’t think they understand how sex works.”

Oh thank God. He’d just played her longer than usual before giving the punch line.

Hysteria tinged her real, relieved laughter. She waved him off and sequestered herself in the bathroom. The cold water worked for now, but someone—Henry, probably—had planned ahead, lining up full buckets of water in case they needed them for tooth brushing or washing up or flushing the toilet.

She emerged to Jay heading in her direction carrying a tray.

“Henry says we’re having brunch in bed. Too cold in the kitchen.” He waggled his eyebrows. “We can shut in the heat in the bedroom.”

“Does he need—”

“No, thank you, Alice.” Henry, coming around the corner in pajamas and a robe, followed Jay down the hall. “All’s well in hand. Back to bed, my dear.”

She scurried in the doorway ahead of Jay and pulled the covers halfway back before climbing in and thrusting her legs beneath. The extra blankets and her two companions would make it snuggly and warm in short order.

“Whatever you made, it smells fantastic,” she called to Henry.

“A bit of a mix,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “It seemed best to use up the items in the refrigerator as much as possible, in the event the electricity remains off long.”

He and Jay settled themselves on either side of her and pulled the covers up. Henry handed her a plate and fork.

“Are you kidding me?” Christ on a cracker. “A bit of a mix” in Henry-speak meant enormous omelets with ham and cheese and peppers alongside a stack of blueberry-banana pancakes.

“You made all this without the stove?” The blueberries were
arranged
. Heart shapes. Jay’s plate confirmed it. Every pancake bore a blueberry heart.

“I find creativity distracts one from the cold. And a camp stove is still a stove. A finicky one, yes, but still a stove.”

They stuffed themselves with little talk beyond her and Jay’s thanks and compliments to the chef, which Henry demurred with customary grace. Afterward, without discussion or direction, she and Jay carried the trays to the kitchen. Henry had done the cooking. The cleanup belonged to them.

The morning’s nonsexual behavior continued after brunch, despite their silent mutual decision to remain warm by huddling naked in bed. She hadn’t opened the overnight bag she’d brought for anything more than her toothbrush.

Henry made a single phone call, to check on the situation with Mr. Nagel, and reported the super expected a boiler replacement tomorrow if the city cleared the roads. Setting the phone down, he picked up a book from his nightstand. He removed his bookmark, laid it aside, and suggested she and Jay might entertain themselves with their cellphones.

Jay bounded out of bed to fetch them and came back insisting he was cold. He seemed plenty warm when he rolled under the covers alongside her and handed over her phone. Making few calls, he sent a slew of texts rescheduling regular courier runs. She checked work messages.

They lay side by side, hip to hip, elbows knocking as they played games (mostly Jay) and followed news of the snowstorm blanketing the region (mostly Alice).

Much as she enjoyed the time together, the lack of sexual tension struck her as strange. She lay naked in Henry’s bed, snug between his hip and Jay’s, and it felt platonic. Comfortably so. Like when she and Ollie were young and she’d take her little sister by the hand, both of them in their jammies, and they’d climb into their parents’ bed while lightning and thunder rode the prairie.

Today the storm was snow, and the prairie the coast, and her parents and sister were Henry and Jay. Like a family. Where she belonged.

Special circumstances, that was all. What was the saying about houseguests starting to smell after three days? She’d been here half a day, and they’d slept for most of it. Besides, she’d bet Henry incapable of making a guest feel unwelcome in his home.

By midafternoon, Jay’s fidgeting became all-out distraction. Inactivity made him restless. He hopped out of bed every ten minutes to stare out the window and give a report.

“Still snowing. Dunno where they’re gonna plow it all.”

“You know that red SUV that always parks by the corner? Completely covered.”

“Kids. With a sled. We should go out. I bet we could get a snowball fight going.”

His exuberance for the idea of playing in the snow died quick.

“We’d take too long to warm up properly afterward, my boy. Surely the snow will be waiting for you Saturday, when we might expect to have heat again.”

Henry’s gentle denial helped, but his offer to read to them sealed the deal.

Jay hurled himself under the covers at full speed, kissing Alice with giddy affection as she laughed.

“Henry has the best reading voice,” he confided.

Story time. Okay. The adapted Kama Sutra for gayboys? Erotic poetry, probably. No, Jay was horny enough. He didn’t need encouragement.

Something sweeter. Love talk. A Valentine’s Day seduction she should distance herself from.

“Mmm. Thank you, my boy. I suspect you may be biased, however. As you’ve so much energy to burn, run and fetch the hurricane lanterns from the kitchen, please, and then settle yourself with Alice while I select something suitable.”

Well, that decided that. If Henry planned to fill Jay’s ears with Shakespearean sonnets or some other classical love poetry, she’d have to sit and listen. She’d call attention to her discomfort if she tried leaving now.

Jay came back with the lanterns. The old-fashioned style and soft yellow glow suited Henry’s design sensibilities. Beneath the covers they were modern, battery-powered models rather than open flames. Much safer. That suited Henry, too.

The sun hadn’t set yet—her phone showed just past four—but the sky presented an unforgiving gray, and night would fall soon enough at this time of year.

“Settling,” as Jay defined it, involved piling the pillows at the center of the headboard, lying back against them, and pulling her between his legs. She leaned against his chest, her head tucked beneath his chin. Arms draped around her waist, he rubbed her stomach.

She resigned herself to listening to romantic declarations on a day she should’ve left to Henry and Jay alone. She’d tried apologizing to Jay, and he wasn’t having it. If she tried to apologize to Henry, he’d say something gracious and ask probing questions and she’d blurt something stupid like “What am I to you?”

Her best bet would be to keep quiet, not ruin Jay’s holiday, and watch Henry for the slightest sign to make herself scarce.

Staying focused while Henry walked around naked demanded more concentration than she managed to muster. Despite the chill, he offered plenty to look at when the book he returned with didn’t block his assets.

Henry sat beside them, adjusted the covers and the lantern, and leaned back against the pillows. “Lovely work, Jay, thank you. Shall we begin?”

They both agreed he should. Her body rocked as Jay snuggled them closer to Henry. She wasn’t sure what she expected Henry to say next, but it wasn’t anything close to what he did say.

“This book came to me through my mother’s mother. My mother read it to me many times before entrusting it to me.” He opened the plain, dark green leather cover and turned the pages with care, smoothing them with his fingertips. “Chapter One: In Which We Are Introduced to Winnie-the-Pooh and Some Bees, and the Stories Begin.”

Her shock leapt into his pause. A
children’s
book?

Henry continued, his voice smooth and low. “Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now…”

Her surprise had just about faded by the time Winnie-the-Pooh discovered the bees and renewed itself when Henry sang Pooh Bear’s little song in a beautiful soft baritone. If Henry’s choice of book had shocked Jay, he hadn’t given any hint.

Maybe they’d made reading together a regular thing. Or a special treat? Or—
or maybe we say fuck it to the questions and enjoy this.
Twenty years since anyone had read to her. Did she have to analyze everything to death?

Not this time. Analysis would wait. Enjoyment lived in the moment.

For the next hour or more, as the world outside the window grew dark, she lay silent in Jay’s arms while Henry read to them from a beloved family heirloom. He even tilted the book to share the illustrations. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d felt so peaceful and safe, her mind and body stilled, outside of Henry’s company.

Don’t question. Accept.