Page 126 of Season of Gifts

“Fuckin’ right,” Alice whispered.Clearing her throat, she folded back the sheets on her side of the bed and perched there, her hip angled toward them and her bare leg a pale triangle against the green.“And that’s why you’re sleeping in the middle tonight, Henry.”

She didn’t quite use her dominant bossy voice.But she came awfully close to the coaxing voice she used during room checks—lower, with a purr over the stern teacher tone underneath.She must’ve taken Mom’s hint about being direct too.

No way would he leave his co-sub hanging out on that ledge alone.“I was gonna say the same thing.The middle should be yours, Henry.”

“Your thoughtfulness is delightful, both of you.”Henry swept his hand down Jay’s arm, leaving a trace of his touch behind, the briefest circle of fingers and thumb around Jay’s wrist.“But for practicality’s sake, I ought to be where I’ll least disturb your slumber if Mother calls for assistance in the night.”

The handset for the baby monitor sat on the nightstand on Alice’s side.So far so good, nothing but steady breathing.

“Then we’ll get up, too.”Alice flopped back onto the pillow, her landing poofing out the case with a whoosh of air.Wheat-gold waves of hair spread like sunbeams around her.“That’s the whole point, Henry.It’s not all on you.We’re a unit; we carry our burdens together.We don’t load one person up like a pack mule and demand they shoulder everything.”

“In sickness and in health.”Jay pushed his chest out and leveled his chin.They couldn’t go back to the last two weeks of polite waiting.Not ever.“Just ’cause we didn’t say the traditional vows doesn’t mean they don’t apply.We still signed up for the good and the bad, and the ‘important even when it’s inconvenient for sleep’ stuff.”

“You’reours.”Alice rolled onto her side, propping her head up with her weight on her elbow.“You claimed us, and we’re yours, but we claimed you, too.It’s okay for you to need us.”

More than that, even.

“It’s like a requirement.”Heat spread from his chest and firmed up his voice.He was right about this, and Henry deserved to hear it.“Sometimes, you’re gonna need us like we need you.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Henry murmured.His eyes grew wet and shiny, and he swallowed hard.The lightest touch of his hand at the back of Jay’s neck drew Jay closer.“I always need you, my brilliant boy.”

Henry brought their mouths together so gently he might’ve been fancy crystal or an heirloom knickknack, fragile and irreplaceable.Like he could break any second—except maybe it was Henry who might break.Henry who felt fragile and sensitive.Jay let go of the heat stirring in his shorts and leaned into the press of lips and nose and forehead.

A soft sigh parted them, Henry resting cheek to cheek with him.“You and Alice are my heart and my soul, all the wisdom and empathy and intellect I could ever hope to hold.”

Henry wrapped Jay up, banding his arms around him.Standing chest to chest, breaths passing each other’s ears—how many times had he lain beneath Henry just like this, sated and sleepy, his head full of wonder and his heart full of love?He didn’t have the smooth words Henry did.But he breathed in Henry’s scent, and he nudged with his face like a loyal pet should.“Come to bed, then.Hold us.Let us hold you.”

With a quiet hum, Henry slipped into bed beside Alice and settled on his back, his arms out and welcoming.She rolled up against Henry, accepting his kiss even as she reached across his chest and waved Jay forward.He tucked the covers behind him; he’d kick them off later, in his sleep, like he did most nights.For now, he burrowed alongside Henry, matching Alice’s cozy drape, laying his head on Henry’s shoulder and meeting Alice’s hand with his own.She wove their fingers together and rested them over Henry’s heart.

Henry rubbed the dip in Jay’s spine, his hand broad and familiar.Jay’s cock twitched in the curious flicker ofdo you need me, boss?But he relaxed his legs and let his eyelids sink, and the urgency didn’t surge through him.

Alice asked something, her voice a soothing stream of music without form.Her thumb slid along his in a slow-moving figure eight.

Henry’s lower rumble carried further.Something about his mom’s art studio.Setting it up in the attic when he was a kid?Days painting in the garden, together, close by, but focused on different things.Laughing at his little-kid frustration when a bird landed in the middle of his subject.Learning to be still and observe until the birds perched near him like he was just another tree in the garden.

Jay hadn’t done a lot ofstillas a kid.Moving, that he’d done by the bucketful.Moving to be out of someone’s way.Moving to escape the buzzing under his skin, the anxiety he didn’t have a name for then.Moving to be free, to feel the sun and the wind on his face.Moving away, moving toward.

Only Henry had taught him to be still without aching to go.Waiting pose could be a joy, a place to rest in the trust that good things would happen soon.Maybe they’d be in a season of waiting pose while Henry recovered from the stress.That could be okay.Their sexual bond wasn’t broken.It was sleeping, like the animals in their burrows for winter.On warm days, they would burst into a flurry of motion again.But the snoozy haze, that was good too.

They had lots of ways of being intimate—sharing stories, sharing meals, sharing praise.Maybe that was how Henry could last so long when Jay was begging to come, because the orgasm wasn’t his focus.Being together, touching each other, driving Jay and Alice into a frenzy with his voice—he didn’t need his dick for that.But was it because Henry was older and had more experience, and Jay would get there eventually?Or was it part of what made him and Henry different?

There wouldn’t be sex tonight.But he didn’t miss it all that much, not when his sleepy body sagged against Henry and met a soothing embrace without yesterday’s tension.If tomorrow could be like today, that would be the best gift.

Chapter sixty-seven

Alice

Twenty-threedifferentpamphletsonheart attacks or heart failure and diet and exercise and how to fucking stay alive when your body was trying to kill you.Alice read every damn one in the waiting room at the cardiac rehab center.Mother’s Olympics of appointments Monday had started straight after breakfast.Alice and Jay’s marathon of keeping Henry company in the waiting room lasted through the physical therapy and the therapy-therapy sessions.

When the staff called Mother back for the actual doctor meeting, Henry got to his feet and took her arm.

Alice thrust a flyer at him.“Here, this should help.”

He tipped his head.He was about due for a haircut, though he wouldn’t be competing with Jay for shaggiest style anytime soon.“I should inquire about water aerobics?”

“No, I mean, yes, you should, but—” She flipped the paper in his hand, revealing the list of questions she’d scrawled from meshing the info from various pamphlets with Mother’s day-to-day needs.“Ask about these, too.”

He scanned the list, glanced at the door the nurse was holding open for them, and bent toward Mother.“Perhaps Alice ought to accompany you today.”

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