Page 78 of Theirs

Chapter 21

The guys and I take the week of Thanksgiving off to prepare for their families, and to get most of the house back in order with the help of Gwen before she leaves for the holiday. The construction crew finished our new bedroom, and master bathroom, but two of the old guest rooms are still under construction that will resume after the holiday. Colin’s having those turned into two additional offices for the guys if they ever choose to work from home. He still has three more guest rooms to spare, so losing those two wasn’t a big deal. I try to push the thought of this all happening so quickly out of my mind. When you know, you know, right? And we don’t really have a normal relationship, so do typical rules apply to me and my guys?

Our new bed and linens were delivered this morning thanks to Colin upgrading to overnight shipping, and it took me and all the guys to be able to put the gigantic sheets on the bed. Gwen offered to do it, but I wanted to do the honors since this is the bed I’ll be sharing with my boyfriends. The mattress is huge, I’ve only seen one this size once before and it was on some influencer’s TikTok page. Ben picks me up and tosses me onto the bed where I squeal when I hit the mattress.

“No!” I say, pointing my finger at him. “No funny business. We’ve got to make sure the house is in tiptop shape before our guests arrive.”

“Aw, come on, Lav!” Ben says, crawling on the bed toward me. “I just want to play for a bit.”

The other guys chuckle, but don’t make a move to join us. “No,” I tell Ben, trying to roll out of the gigantic bed. “Colin gave Gwen the rest of week off, so there’s tons of prep work we have to do...”

“Like what?” he asks, grabbing my foot just as I make it to the edge of the bed, pulling me back toward him. “Gwen keeps this place clean as hell, the guest rooms they’ll be staying in are ready, my moms don’t get in until Thursday morning, and Colin’s parents arrive Wednesday night. There’s nothing to do for the next 24 hours.”

He rests his body over mine, and I deflate under him. “I’m scared. I’m trying to keep myself occupied, that way I don’t have to think about meeting the parents.”

“Oh, Lav,” Ben says, nuzzling my nose with his.

“We’ll give you guys some time alone,” Mac says, and I watch as him and Alex leave our room. Colin sits down on the other side of me.

“You have nothing to be worried about,” Colin says, as I sit up. He soothes my hair out of my face.

“You don’t know that!” I protest.

“I do know that,” he says. “I told my parents about our relationship yesterday while you were out. About all five of us.”

“You did what?” I ask, my jaw dropping, heart racing.

“I told my moms as well,” Ben says. “I didn’t want you getting upset if shit hit the fan. We wanted to protect you, just in case. We told them if they couldn’t respect it, not to worry about coming.”

“Well, what did they say?” I ask, looking between the two men.

Ben chuckles. “Well, after my mama Jen gave me shit for not being enough of a man for you, they both told me that as long as we’re all happy, they’re happy for us, and they can’t wait to meet you. They said we’ll probably meet people in life who don’t agree with this lifestyle, but so be it.”

“My parents said roughly the same thing,” Colin agrees, wrapping his arm over my shoulder and pulling me against him. “They can’t wait to meet you.”

I let out a breath and stare at the duvet. “I’m worried Kane and Kristen won’t show up.”

Colin reached out to Kane and invited him for dinner, but it was over voicemail and Kane has yet to call or text back. I haven’t had the guts to reach out to Kristen to see if she heard about the invite, I’d rather just pretend like I don’t know about it.

“If they don’t show up,” Ben says. “You can have my slice of pie; with all the whipped cream your heart desires.”

I chuckle, and bump my shoulder against his. “But seriously,” I say. “What if— what if he no longer wants to be a part of my life, just like my parents.”

Ben places his hands on my cheeks, making me look at him. “Baby, if that’s what he decides, it’s his loss. It’ll hurt like hell, but we’re here for you. We know Kane though, maybe not as good as you, but I know he has a good heart.”

I nod, my throat dry. “He’s got the best heart,” I say as Mr. Snuffy jumps up on the bed and curls up onto my lap, sensing that I need a little extra comfort. I pet his soft fur, and his purring vibrates against me.

Even though Kane wasn’t there to protect me when I became a victim, he was a good big brother. He always gave me the taller glass of soda, the bigger bowl of ice cream, the pancakes that had the most chocolate chips, he ran any of my boyfriends off that made me cry, even threatened to bury one of my high school boyfriends after I caught him cheating on me after school one day in his car. Kane has always been good to me. I don’t want him to beat himself up over what happened when he wasn’t around, what happened that he didn’t know about until recently.

I take a deep breath and stand up, twining my fingers together. “Okay, let’s just go do something to take my mind off of all this.”

***

I’m a bundle of nerves as I pace the living room while waiting for Colin to return to the house from picking his parents up at the airport the next day. I’ve fixed my makeup and hair about half a dozen times, I’ve changed three times, worried that my first dress wasn’t modest enough, the second showed off too many tattoos, and now this one looks like something off the set of Little House on the Prairie. I jog back down the hall and rip the dress over my head, flinging it into the laundry basket because I’ve managed to sweat through the armpits in it.

I grab a pair of black skinny jeans, and an oversized, cream sweater with an innocent V-neck. There. Perfect.

I walk back to the living room, and bump into Alex as he comes in from the garage. I let out a squeak as I run into his muscular chest.

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