Page 28 of Their Wicked Ways
This time Jett’s chuckle sounded real. “Hopefully I was a good present.”
“Best one ever,” I said honestly.
Jett’s expression flickered to that needy, seeking one but quickly settled back into a smirk. “Good to know.” He hooked his thumb behind him. “I’m gonna head back before anyone starts asking questions.”
When he was out of sight, I checked the time on my phone. We had about ten minutes left of our break.
“Do you think he’s in shock? Or is he really fine with everything?” Wes asked.
“No clue.” I slipped my phone away. “Honestly, I think he’s still in panic mode. But if he’s able to crack jokes and he sought us out, then hopefully that means he’ll be okay when the dust settles.”
“What are the freaking odds he’d be here?” Wes leaned against the building next to me. “Like, I’d love someone to do that math because this whole situation is insane.”
“It is.” Slipping my hand into his, I gave it a gentle squeeze. “But I think it’ll all work out.”
“You do?” Wes rested his cheek against my shoulder.
“I do.” I squeezed his hand again. “We’ll give him lots of space, be prepared for some weirdness, and eventually it’ll blow over and be a funny story.”
He snort-laughed. “It’s a pretty funny story now. Showing up on our first day at a new job and seeing the guy we railed into oblivion is the kind of shit that happens in movies. Not real life. How the hell are we going to face Quinn or Jesse again if they find out we like to play with thirds?”
Sighing, I let go of his hand and threaded my arm behind him so I could hold him against my side. “We knew the truth would come out eventually.”
We weren’t ashamed of our arrangement, and I didn’t give a flying fuck who talked shit about me or what I did in bed, but Wes was different. He cared what people thought. Being the subject of gossip and having people dissect his sex life and make assumptions based on what they thought they knew about us hurt him.
And anything that hurt Wes hurt me.
“Yeah.” He leaned more heavily against me. “I just hoped it wouldn’t be at work. I know Quinn said the guys are cool, and they seem nice, but they’re all in committed relationships. They’re not going to understand that we’re just as committed to each other as they are with their guys, we just have a different arrangement.”
“I know.” I pressed a soft kiss against his hair. “But right now we need to focus on what we know about the situation,” I said, trying to give Wes’s brain a break from catastrophizing. “So far Jett is the only one who knows about what we do. He’s not going to tell anyone, and we don’t know what anyone else’s reactions are going to be. Quinn and Jesse are sex workers, and I’m prettysure strippers are technically sex workers, so we really have no idea what they’ll think about it. I’m not saying they’ll be cool with it because of their jobs, but you’d think sex workers and their partners would be more likely to be open to the kind of stuff we do.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Is it weird that I kinda wish it hadn’t been so good with him?”
“I get what you mean.” I kissed his hair again. “If it had been like the other times, then it wouldn’t be as big of a deal.”
“It figures we’d find our unicorn, the one guy who can give us both what we need, and this happens. The universe couldn’t just let us keep the memories. She had to make him our new coworker.”
“She has a twisted sense of humor, that’s for damn sure.” I squeezed his hand again. “We should head back. Our break will be over soon, and you need to eat something.”
“Yeah.” Wes made a grumbling noise; the same one he made when I woke his ass up in the morning and he didn’t want to get out of bed. “Can we do movie night when we get home? I need cuddles and a comfort watch after today. And takeout. Something with lots of carbs.”
“You got it.”
I gave him a few more seconds to compose himself, then gently tugged him away from the wall.
Time to go back to work and try to make a good impression on our new crew.
“Is no one going to bring up the elephant in the room?” Gray asked from where he was perched on Noah’s tailgate.
We were five days into working with our new crew, and so far everything had gone smoothly. Jett still got a little pale when he saw us in the morning, but we’d all managed to keep our shit together and pretend nothing happened.
We were settling in and had fallen into an easy camaraderie with the rest of the guys. They’d been nothing but welcoming. Hopefully they’d keep that energy if they ever found out about our private life.
River looked around in confusion. “But we’re outside.” Realization dawned on him, and he grinned. “And this is why I ran away from an invisible bee in the sixth grade.”
“Translation?” Quinn asked Zane.
“One of his bullies called him dumb in sixth grade,” Zane said. “But he was trying to be fancy and spelled it out and said Riv was D-U-M. I pointed out that there was a bee, and Riv ran away because he hates bees while his bully started smacking himself in the face and shrieking about getting stung.”