Page 44 of The Princess, the Prick & the Priest (Confessions 4)

“I can’t tell you that. You’re spot-on,” Priest said, and this time when he looked at Robbie’s father, he didn’t feel nervous. He felt a sense of acceptance and a strange sense of camaraderie. And that was the only reason he could think of as to why he blurted out what he did next: “We want to marry your son.”

The entire room fell silent, and Priest looked over Antonio’s shoulder to where Julien stood beside Sofia. Her eyes were as round as saucers, and Julien looked slightly caught off guard. But not because they hadn’t planned this, more because Priest had gone off script.

The one person in the room that didn’t appear all that shocked, though, was the one who was regarding Priest very carefully.

“You want an awful lot, don’t you?” Antonio said, and glanced at Julien. “Both of you do.”

Julien stepped around to join Priest. It was imperative that Robbie’s parents understood that he and Julien were in this together. That what Priest had just said came from both of them.

“Yes,” Priest said, and Julien added, “We do.”

“Is…” Sofia started, and then placed a hand on her chest. “Is that even possible? How can you do that?”

“By having a ceremony,” Priest said, blunt and to the point, and Julien smiled before turning to Robbie’s parents to explain.

“We want to invite the people he loves to celebrate this with him. We know we can’t have a traditional, legal marriage, per se. But Priest’s working on the best way to make everything we own legally equal among the three of us, and we have a plan to make him feel just as connected, just as loved, as we are.”

As Robbie’s parents stared at the two of them, Priest wondered if this was the moment where they told them to leave and never come back. He wouldn’t be surprised at all. This was a lot for most. But then again, most people didn’t have someone as unique as Robert Bianchi as their son.

“You’re going to make sure he’s taken care of?” Antonio said.

Priest and Julien nodded.

“Yes.”

“Oui.”

Antonio looked to his wife and shook his head. “That boy of ours. You always said he marched to the beat of his own drum.”

Priest was positive his heart was beating in time to that drum right now, as he looked into Julien’s eyes and saw the same yearning for acceptance from these two, because they both knew their lives would be so much better with this family in it.

“Have you asked Robert yet?” Sofia said.

“Non,” Julien said. “We’ve wanted to for a little while now. But not until we met all of you. Which is why we were so excited he finally brought us up here. We’d like your blessing before we ask him.”

Sofia’s eyes blurred as she looked to her husband and nodded.

“You have our blessing,” Antonio said. “Mainly because I need two more men in the family to balance out all the estrogen. But if you hurt him—”

“We won’t,” they both said.

“—I will hurt you. Capito?”

As the same question from the first night was directed at them, they both answered much more quickly this time around: “We do.”

“Okay,” Antonio said, and held his hand out to Priest, and after he shook it, Antonio turned to Julien and did the same. “Then we wish you luck. It’s probably good there’s two of you, anyway. That boy is a handful.”

Priest wasn’t about to agree or disagree with that, and luckily for him, Sofia spoke up.

“All this talk about getting engaged—can I show you two something?” she said.

“Of course,” Julien said, as she reached for one of the thick photo albums up on the shelf. As she flipped through it, Antonio put on one of Sinatra’s records, and when she finally found what she was looking for, Sofia handed the album over to them.

“I’ve been telling Robbie and the girls about this place for years—any excuse, really. My only regret is I didn’t take more photos than this one,” she said, as she pointed to the gorgeous black-and-white image. “That’s where we got engaged. Nothing but the two of us…and love. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

It certainly was, and as Sofia used this as her latest excuse to revisit the past, both Julien and Priest knew one thing right then. However they planned to do this, they wanted it to be something that Robbie was telling years later, with as much love in his eyes as Sofia.

Chapter Thirteen

We’re never going to be able

to say no to him again, are we?

~ Julien & Priest

JULIEN STEPPED OUT of the bustling Chicago street Wednesday afternoon and into the elegant marble lobby of the building that housed Mitchell & Madison. He’d called ahead of time to check if Priest was back from his morning in court, and then Julien had suggested he swing by with lunch.

---