'Nother Sip of Gin - Rhys Ford Page 0,66
of any other way I’d like to spend the rest of my life except with you.”
Two! Only Two!
“SHE’S ONLY getting the two,” Forest muttered, digging through his suitcase for the pair of jeans he knew he’d packed in its voluminous interior. “Shit, I didn’t even give birth to them and I feel every single damned stretch mark and worry line a mother’s got. No more. We’re not having any more.”
“Babe, why not?” Connor called out from the depths of their en suite bathroom. His deep voice was muffled, dampened by the heavy Irish rain hitting the slate roof and the cottage’s thick plaster walls, but not so much that Forest didn’t hear the humor in his husband’s voice. “What’s one more?”
“What’s one more? If it’s tiny, then there’s feeding. Around the clock feeding. Did you forget that?” Unable to find the jeans, he began to unpack the whole case onto the bed, then realized halfway through his digging, the clothes in it were about two sizes larger than what he normally wore. “Fuck, these are Con’s. Where the hell is my suitcase?”
A weathered three-bedroom cottage perched on the sloping coast along Dunworley Bay in County Cork probably wasn’t the first place most men thought of when they wanted to get away on their honeymoon, but Forest hadn’t married a typical man. Connor Morgan was as Irish as the wind sweeping up the cliffs outside, teasing out a keening moan from a nearby watch tower ruins’ sentry stands cut through the crumbling stone. The island called to him, a birthplace siren he felt pulling at him even as he built his life in a city halfway around the world from the wild, rolling hills he’d rambled through on long, endless summer days.
Forest felt Connor’s slight inhale when he’d answered “Ireland” to his then-clandestine husband’s query about where they should go after Brigid Morgan dragged them up the aisle to be married in front of God and all He created, then caught the full force of Con’s sweet, sexy smile before he gathered Forest up into a tight hug. No one in the family questioned them taking yet another honeymoon once Con had a long period of free time, and most of them had gone out of their way to smooth over any bumps in their planned getaway. Relatives were called to be gently warned off dropping by the isolated cottage for a visit, and a distant aunt promised to stock up the place for a two-week stay before they got there, including making sure there was enough firewood to hold back the chilly Irish wintery wind when it came up off the sea.
The cottage was owned by someone in the Morgan clan, but Forest had long lost track of the connections from one to another. For all he knew, it was a Finnegan who was hosting them, but he’d learned from the moment Connor Morgan brought him home to meet the family for the first time, both sides were as intertwined and as tight as any bond could be, woven together by Donal and Brigid’s fierce love and devotion to their brood.
They’d left SFO on Christmas Day, worn out from a morning spent opening presents and gulping down mouthfuls of food put in front of them, then fell asleep on the flight over, only to be woken up by a gentle-voiced flight attendant warning them they’d be landing shortly. Stumbling out of the terminal, Forest blindly followed Connor as he maneuvered easily through the rental car stand, then piled everything into a Rover barely big enough to hold Con’s shoulders. A few gray, rainy hours later, Con pulled up in front of the desolate cottage and announced they were home.
A blast of warm air greeted them when Connor opened the front door after a brisk five-minute search among the flower pots for the key, and while Forest was imminently grateful for the heat, he’d been left speechless by the sweet scent of pine coming from the freshly cut and lavishly decorated tree someone in the family set up for them in a corner of the sea-facing living room and the logs set in the fireplace, waiting to be lit by the men who’d come to Ireland to celebrate their marriage.
“Your suitcase is over here,” Con said, padding out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a pair of loose cotton pants so worn thin every line of muscle was visible through the fabric, and Forest instantly spotted his husband wore nothing beneath