Page 53 of The Princess

The scene at the Bennett’s had gone both better and worse than Nash imagined. Worse, because he’d never have wanted any of this to happen in the first place, and yet here they were. Knee-deep in bullshit. But Damon had stood up for him. For them. To Colby. He’d been the one to give him hell about it. Laying claim to Taylor and Nash and telling Colby off, sparing Nash from having to find the words to do it.

“Thank you,” Nash said. “For what you did. For talking to Colby for me.”

Damon flicked on his turn signal and pulled into the parking lot of the building, and Nash was stunned to find that they’d already arrived. Either Damon had broken some serious land-speed records, or Nash had been lost in his own head.

“You’d do the same for me if it was Jonah who pulled this shit. Or other boneheaded shit.”

“I would,” Nash agreed. “But still, it means a lot to me. You sticking up for me. For us.”

Damon pulled into Nash’s space and killed the engine. His face was half hidden in the streetlight, but Nash could still make out his soft, adoring smile.

“I’d do anything for you. I didn’t want this to fuck up your friendship with him.”

“I don’t think it will. I think he caught shit from everyone tonight. Did you see the look on Jonah’s face?” Nash unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed out of the car. “Come on, I want to go check on Taylor.”

Once inside, Damon unlocked the door for Nash, who had his hands full carrying the cake. He left it on the counter and stepped further into his quiet apartment. They found Taylor curled up on the couch in one of Nash’s shirts. His hair was damp from the shower and he looked serene, sitting there scrolling on his phone. The fire log channel was on the television, and Taylor was buried under Damon’s blanket, nursing a beer.

Taylor had shown up in a state and Nash half expected him to still be upset, but he looked okay.

“Hey, scooch over,” Damon told Taylor, who obediently shuffled into the middle of the couch so Damon could take one side. Taylor patted the empty spot next to him and looked at Nash expectantly.

“Dare I ask how it went?” Taylor stopped scrolling through his phone and set it aside.

“Well, Damon yelled at Colby a whole bunch. In front of everyone. Turns out that Nash and I weren’t as subtle as we thought and everyone knew about us the whole time. Or at least suspected. We sort of outed the three of us to all of them, though.”

“That’s fine. It had to happen.”

“For what it’s worth, I think Colby has learned his lesson.” Nash slid an arm around Taylor.

“Doesn’t matter, my mind is made up. I think I need to move out.”

Damon looked at Nash, but kept his mouth shut.

“I work with my dad and I live in his basement. My brothers are over on a regular basis, both to the diner and the house. I don’t have any privacy apparently because, for better or worse, this is the second time in recent months that Colby has jammed his nose face-first into my business.” Taylor let out an annoyed growl.

“It’s a lot of togetherness,” Damon agreed. “I imagine it gets frustrating.”

Taylor flopped sideways and leaned into Damon’s side. “Plus, now I have two really hot boyfriends and what if I wanted to have them over to my place one night? I can’t very well do that if my dad is upstairs.” Taylor shuddered. “No way.”

“We can help you find a place to rent, if you’d like,” Nash offered. In his head, Taylor would move in with him and Damon whenever Nash found a place to buy. That would leave Nash’s current apartment vacant. It made the idea of buying the unit in the same building more appealing than moving closer to the diner. They couldn’t talk about any of this yet. Not tonight. Taylor’s emotions were too raw, and so were Nash’s.

The idea of losing Colby was only overshadowed by the idea of losing Taylor. Never in a million years had he imagined his love life would take such a turn, but here he was, cuddling on the couch with his boyfriends. Plural.

“I’ll probably take you up on that.” Taylor yawned, covering his mouth. “But not tonight.”

“Oh, your dad said to tell you he can cover the diner in the morning if you want,” Damon said, stroking his fingers through Taylor’s hair.

“Nah. I can make it in.” Taylor burrowed into Damon’s side and closed his eyes. Nash put a hand on Taylor’s ankle and held it. Taylor wiggled his toes, smiling slightly when Nash took the hint and started to massage his foot.

Taylor was asleep in less than ten minutes, and Damon and Nash shared a look. No matter how badly the night had started, it had ended pretty well. They let Taylor drift off between them and only roused him to get him to bed.

CHAPTER 24

DAMON

It would have been nicer to have the pleasure of waking up with both his men when one of them wasn’t grumpy and the other one wasn’t worried about the grumpy one. Damon wasn’t sure how much of Taylor’s early morning surly attitude was because of the night before or because only crazy people woke up happy at five in the morning.

Damon followed Taylor out of bed, leaving Nash to sleep. While Taylor showered, Damon made him a cup of coffee and a couple slices of toast with cinnamon sugar. Taylor came out a few minutes later and grunted what was probably a thank you before taking the coffee and ignoring the toast.

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