Page 80 of Outside the Lines
Kevin laughed. “Too late.”
I smiled down into my bowl of ice cream. Lydia was right. This night couldn’t get any weirder, but that was fine. My attention strayed to the frozen image of Bruce Willis on the screen. “Hey, why don’t we finish watching the movie?”
It was a plan everyone agreed to, so Ian grabbed the remote and hit Play.
By the credits, Lydia was curled up in my lap, and Ian had his head on my shoulder. My heart couldn’t be more full of joy.
From the other section of the sofa, Hunter gave me a thumbs-up.
“Welcome to the Wolf’s Landing family,” Ian murmured.
I tousled Ian’s hair, but it was Lydia who said what I thought. “Welcome to ours.”
Yup. Life was weird, but absolutely perfect.
Seven months later
Moving in winter in the Pacific Northwest was a crapshoot, but nature was kind and gave us one non-rainy day to transfer all my belongings from my old place into Simon and Lydia’s house.Ourhouse now. Took another couple weeks to integrate my stuff into theirs and pick what we wanted to keep, what would go into storage, and what we’d sell or give away, but in the end, the house had become the three of ours. My items nestled next to Simon and Lydia’s, my movies and books shelved in with theirs. I made dinners and picked up items at the store for both of them. They brought me soup in bed when I got wretchedly ill with bronchitis.
We’d become a family I’d never expected or known I could have, and I loved it. Simon was as much mine as he was Lydia’s and his own, and between the two of us, we constantly reminded him that he was damn lucky to have us both.
Not that he ever forgot.
After that wacky movie night, Lydia and I ended up instituting regular date nights for us—a way to bond and have a relationship separate from Simon—and I found myself inexplicably head over heels for her too. Still had no desire to fall into bed with her, but I loved her, down to feeling giddy to my toes when she smiled at me. The internet told me this was actually a thing—that romance and sexual attraction weren’t the same. And yeah, that was me: in a romantic relationship with both my partners, but only interested in banging one of them.
I did that in spades, and so did Lydia. Simon was insatiable and delighted and well and truly fucked. A week after I moved in, over dinner, he blurted out, “I don’t want anyone else.”
Warmth from my head to my toes. Good. Yes. We hadn’t talked about the openness of our relationship, but I’d already decided I’d found perfection. “That’s fine with me.” I’d made curried chicken for dinner. I pushed some rice into the sauce. “I got more than I bargained for with the two of you. I don’t think I could handle another person.”
Lydia patted my arm and grinned. “You poor man.” She studied her wine glass. “I love you both. You’re both my everything.”
“But . . .” Nothing but adoration in Simon’s voice.
“I’m still figuring things out,” she said.
“We have time.” Maybe it was because I’d worried so much about being the third wheel in the beginning, but I kind of understood the hesitation to change up what had worked for her. Iwasa huge difference in their lives.
“All the time in the world.” Simon reached over and took Lydia’s hand. “Let us know if or when that changes.”
“Always.”
So that was that. We all had each other. Simon and I were both fine with our little trio—and fine with Lydia potentially wanting someone else besides, as long as we all knew what was going on. I waited for the pang of jealousy, but none came. None had ever with these two.
I was happy. Incredibly so.
We were also all incrediblybusy. When the news broke about the art theft, not only did Lydia eventually end up with a tidy pile of money—payment for her stolen work—she ended up with the recognition she so rightly deserved. Because of that—and her newfound friendship with Hunter and Kevin—she was invited to be the artist for a new Wolf’s Landing graphic novel they were writing.
It was Kevin who’d finally uncovered the identity of the thief. Just as we’d thought, it was one of the users on the Fandom Landing site—a woman who’d ended up meeting a Wolf’s Landing merchandizing guy at a bar during WolfCon the previous year, gotten into him, and lied about being an artist to keep the dude interested inher. When he wanted to see her art, she followed up by sending him Lydia’s work and of course he’d gone nuts over it. The whole situation was stupid, yeah, but lust made you do weird shit.
Unsurprisingly, End o’ Earth had become a happening place to be—as crowded as Howling Moon—especially when Carter and Levi swung by for their comics.
With Lydia’s schedule changing and the extra customers, Simon had scrambled to hire and train new employees to fill in the gaps. Jesse had taken over as assistant manager and ran the shop with glitter and pink and a no-nonsense attitude that had everything working smoothly. Dexy had as many hours as she wanted. Even I worked a few shifts on weekends.
In return, sometimes Simon came with me to the set and helped out when we needed an extra hand in props. That was allbeforeLydia had gotten the invite to be a guest artist at WolfCon. Now? God, we were in a hurricane of activity.
So, I’d no idea how Simon had managed to do what he’d done without me knowing, but there it was, on the kitchen island when I walked in, a month to the day after we’d unloaded my life into theirs.
The dragon. The one I’d given him to paint.
