Page 20 of Bottoms Up
Highlands is only a few miles from Transylvania County, known asThe Land of the Waterfallsfor a reason, and we planned to spend the week after the wedding hiking, climbing, and enjoying time together in the wilderness. The SUV was packed with gear: camping supplies, ropes, packs, food to last for days.
But we weren’t roughing it theentiretime. We’d booked a few nights in scattered B&Bs, including a mountaintop Swiss-style resort I was dying to see, and we planned to end our trip at a luxury spa in Asheville.
Okay, so maybe Idospend money sometimes. The spa suite alone was fourteen hundred dollars a night, and that didn’t include the massages, facials, or all the other overpriced pampering we had on the schedule. I reserved it under my card, which meant I beat Benji to it for once, and yeah, he’ll probably try to make up for it by covering meals, but I don’t mind. He usually plans our trips and ends up paying for most of it anyway. Not that it’ll make a dent in either of our accounts — he’s well onhis way to being a billionaire, and while I have no desire forthatmuch money, I still have more than I know what to do with.
But Benji has the answer to that, because he invests my money for me. I play around with a small portion, but he gets way better returns than I manage.
The wedding was beyond beautiful, and I met another ancient god. It seems Jupiter has taken an interest in Will’s threesome, and he wasn’t content to just attend. He insisted on officiating both the wedding and commitment ceremonies.
He had a little spiel he said before the wedding part of the ceremony, and the words touched me.
“Fully committed love makes us braver, it allows us to go forth into the world knowing the shelter of someone’s love awaits us at day’s end. And yet, we are most vulnerable when we love unconditionally. True love gives us a sweetness beyond any we’ve ever tasted, a treasure beyond any measure of value we’ve ever known.”
The words hit me like a sledgehammer.
True love.
Is that what I have with Julian?
Did I love him unconditionally? Did he love me unconditionally?
I couldn’t think of any I’d put on him, or any he’d placed on me. He accepts and loves me completely as I am.Unconditionally.
And I’d never asked him to be anything but mine.
Except…
I hadn’t told my friends who he really is to me. I hadn’t introduced him to the band. Not properly. Not like someone I was building a life with.
All because of the one condition I hadn’t wanted to name.
His slavery to Marco seemed to be a condition I’d put on us. Not on him, but onus, on who we are to each other, because I was waiting until he was no longer a slave before I told my friends about him.
Julian has no reason to be ashamed, so why was I feeling shame on his behalf?
My silence, keeping him a secret — that was an unfair condition.
Maybe it was time to stop waiting for freedom papers that might never come. Maybe it was time to tell the people I love who Julian really is to me.
And so, while I watched the most brilliant sunseteverform behind three people officially merging their lives into one, I decided it was time to introduce Julian to my bandmates when I returned from my vacation with Benji.
It didn’tquiteturn out that way, and it took a little longer to make it happen, but I didn’t know that, at the time.
After the ceremony, at the reception, imagine my surprise when I found out my brother knew one of the vampires, Bran Petrescu. I know what Bran is because he’s close to both Hailey and Micca, and he’s been to the Beast Castle a few times, so I was shocked when Benji shook his hand as if they were old friends.
But I didn’t have time to ask about it, because I was needed on stage.
We performed a new song for the first time publicly during the reception. Will wrote it for Micca and Davy and had kept it a secret from even them. Honestly, if you just read the words, it’s way over-the-top with the starry-eyed romance, but Hailey worked her magic with the music, and itworkswhen you hear it.
I took a dress for the wedding, but I changed into a suit for the reception, which means that’s what I was wearing when we performed. I took the tie off during the performance because it bothered me, so it was draped around my neck when I walkedaway from the stage afterward to talk to Benji and Bran, who seemed to be waiting for me.
“Let’s step away from the crowds for a minute,” Bran told me. “If it’s a good time?”
I looked around, saw Will holding both Micca and Davy, and nodded. “Seems to be.”
“I made a phone call at your brother’s request,” Bran said. “I’ve verified you’ve been oathed by Josef, but I need you to also confirm it for me.”
I glanced at Benji and looked back to Bran, my pulse flickering a little faster. Why was Bran asking this in front of my brother?
