Page 73 of Teach Me To Sin
Cracking up, I tug on his yellow tie. “What the hell is going on?”
Benji clears his throat irritably. “TheItalian restaurantgot asked to deliver a luxurious candlelight pizza dinner to an incredible boyfriend who canceled his trip, took care of both his men after a fire, and is building them a fucking amazing house. The half-assed waiter who mysteriously lost his accent is supposed to be inviting you to your table and serving you champagne.”
Alek sags against me with a muffled groan, like the boy has broken him. “Benji, I told you it’s a sin to serve champagne with a five-dollar cardboard circle with cheese on it.”
I loop an arm around my long suffering boyfriend and glance between them. “Did you two buy me an entire fountain?”
Alek nods with a weary sigh, but I can tell he secretly enjoys being walked all over by our brat.
“It’s absolutely massive.”
“Right?” Benji gets tired of his apron, which must be entirely for show since he’s not actually cooking anything, and pulls it off. “I told them to give me one that was taller than you,” he explains cheerfully. Out of all of us, he’s the one with no concept of how much anything costs. Now that he no longer has access to his family’s money, at least for the time being, we’re going to have to rein him in. But for now, he can have his absurdly large fountain.
Triss and Hamlet trot past us and out the back door for a nap in the shade behind the house, while I carry my coat-wrapped surprise down the hall and set it on the kitchen counter. “The guest of honor brought a hospitality gift for the head chef, if that’s alright.”
“Fuck yeah.” Benji drops character and hurries over, his bare feet skirting holes in the faded linoleum floor. While we wait for him to fling my windbreaker aside, Alek and I steal a quick kiss that always lingers longer than we intend, because we can’t help it.
“Oh my god, look,” Benji wails, holding the T-rex up like it’s baby Simba from the start ofThe Lion King. “It’s the most perfect thing on earth.” I want to chuckle at how dramatic he’s being, but then it occurs to me that it might be one of the first heartfelt gifts he’s ever received. He flashes me my favorite smile, the goofy one that overflows with uncontrollable joy, like there’s too much for his small body to contain. “Thank you, Cole. Do I have to hide it in a closet so it doesn’t hurt your eyes, or am I allowed to put it outside?”
I step over to the rickety sliding door that only opens half the time. “Let’s go find a good spot for it.”
As we venture into the yard, where the ostentatious fountain is bubbling away, Benji hugs the dinosaur to his chest with both arms, peering around the unkempt lawn. “Where were you going to put that fucking one-of-a-kind rosebush that costs like eight thousand dollars?”
“Thewhat?” Alek shoots me an alarmed look.
“I was going to bring that up later, more tactfully, but never mind.” I gesture to the edge of the grass where it gets the best sunlight. “There.”
Benji skips over and plonks his T-rex right in front of the spot. “They’ll look so good together.” His phone pings loudly. When he checks it, he goes sprinting toward the house so fast he slips and has to scramble up on all fours. “Motherfucker.”
Alek sniffs the air, then pulls a face at the faint acrid undertone. “I don’t think the pizza made it.”
“We need to take cooking lessons. This is not okay.”
Benji bangs the back door open again. “It’s edible if you don’t look at it too hard,” he hollers in an atrocious Italian accent.
Alek shakes his head and cracks up, the sun sparkling in his dark eyes. My knees go weak at how handsome he looks. He holds his hand out across the gap between us, and I lace my fingers through his as we stroll back toward the house.
The pizza hardly looks edible, but we don’t have anything else. Benji didn’t think of a pizza cutter, either, so I have to hack at it with a knife. We pile the ragged, charred slices of pepperoni and sausage on paper towels and carry them down to the dock, where the shadows haven’t chased the sun away yet. It’s such a balmy evening that Alek and Benji both strip out of their suits and lounge around in boxer briefs, which gives me something nice to look at while I pick toppings off my horrific pizza.
Benji eats half a slice, then gets distracted and catapults himself into the lake with a happy scream. He’s flourishing under the stability of having something to do with his time and a home where he’s constantly showered in touch and affection. Alek agreed to start coaching him again at a gentle pace once his cast comes off in a couple of weeks and the doctors give his lungs the all clear for exercise. I can tell they’re both desperate to get back to the pool.
Alek stretches out next to me, the light turning his skin gold, while we watch our boy float on his back and find pictures in the fluffy clouds. For this one perfect hour, I can’t look ahead and plan the future or reflect back on everything we’ve survived. I can only be here, living on the vivid edge of every moment–Alek’s slow breathing, Benji’s splashing, the call of a heron, the taste of burnt pizza, my own heartbeat.
Whether I get to spend five more minutes with you, or five hundred years.
I would do anything.
We stay on the dock, lost in time and in each other, until the sun sets over the trees in a blaze of fire.
Benji
This is the one.
I can feel it.
An entire year of work–six days a week in the pool, jogging with Alek and the dogs, lifting with Colson, eating protein and veggies every fucking day–it all comes down to twenty heartbeats of time as I throw my body forward and slap my hand to the wall. This time, I don’t lift my head out of the water right away. I let myself exist in the knowledge that I did everything I could and there are two men I love waiting to celebrate with me, no matter how I placed.
But if I’m not fucking first, I’m going to be pissed. I atesomany vegetables for this.