defiantly. “You picking it up?”
He tsked and looked at Will. “I think we might have to do a food road trip one of these days.”
“Oh, no,” Will said with mock exasperation. “Please don’t make me travel around trying food in different places.”
Aaron chuckled. So did I, and I hid another rush of relief that they were casually assuming this would go on beyond tonight. I mean, it could easily have been just conversation, and they had zero intention of ever going anywhere with me—in public or on the road—but I took the relief where I could get it.
We’d finished eating, so Aaron and I cleared everything away. Then we moved into the living room. Will took the middle of the couch with Aaron to his left. I glanced back and forth between the armchair and the space to Will’s right.
Before I could make up my mind, he patted the cushion. “Come on. Sit.”
I sat beside him, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. With a sigh, I nestled against him. Aaron picked up the remote and handed it to Will, but Will didn’t turn on the TV yet.
“I meant to ask you,” he said, stroking my arm. “How are things going with your house? You mentioned you were starting to work on it.”
“Ugh.” I stuck out my tongue. “It’s…a lot of work. I’m seriously tempted to rent one of those Pods and just start throwing crap in until it’s full. Then I’ll go through what’s left.”
Aaron laughed, twisting a little to meet my gaze across his husband. “I thought about doing that before we moved in here. Someone”—he gave Will a pointed look—“wouldn’t go for it.”
Will rolled his eyes and covered Aaron’s mouth with his hand, smothering a cackle of amusement. “You’re a brat, you know that?”
Aaron just shrugged.
Will kissed his temple, then turned to me. “There’s a place in town that rents those things. And it’s not like it’s your stuff, right?”
“No, it’s not, but my siblings might want some of it, so…eh. I think it’s just like any big project—getting started is intimidating as all hell because there’s just so much to be done. It’s a lot easier to ignore it than to actually do it.”
Chuckling, Will nodded. “Oh, I can relate to that. That’s me with most big projects.”
“It is?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yep,” Aaron supplied, but he was smiling. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, so as long as you don’t take that first step, you don’t have to do the other thousand miles.”
“See, when you put it like that,” Will said, “all my procrastination makes sense!”
This time it was Aaron who rolled his eyes. “Oh my God.”
I laughed quietly “Well, I’ll get some of it done before my brother gets here, at least. Otherwise he’ll wonder what the hell I’ve been doing since I got to town, and I, um…” I gave them a sheepish look. “I don’t think I want to tell him?”
That made them both laugh. Will reeled me a little closer and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Secret’s safe with us, don’t worry.”
“Definitely.” Aaron’s expression turned serious. “And you’re good after earlier, right? You know it was just…” He gestured at himself.
“Yeah, yeah, we’re good.” I smiled despite the lingering nerves. “As long as you guys are.”
“Totally,” Will said without hesitation.
“Same,” Aaron said.
“Okay.” I smiled. “Then we’re good.” I gestured at the TV. “So, um—movie?”
“Right. Right.” Will picked up the remote. “Let’s see what’s on Netflix.”
Even as the three of us shifted our attention to the TV and tried to settle on a movie, my mind stayed on that brief conversation, and the relief hung in there too. Earlier this evening, I’d been so sure this thing between us had imploded and there was no going back, but more and more, I believed them when they said a safe word wasn’t the end of the world. Tonight hadn’t been a good night for Aaron, so we’d shifted to Plan B: dinner and a movie. And slowly, I was relaxing into it as much as they clearly had.
When tonight’s disaster had turned out to be nothing more than a minor hiccup instead of a major setback or a dealbreaker, it had made me realize just how much I’d thought I was about to lose. Because the thing was, I wasn’t just worried about losing access to the kinky play. Aaron and Will were the only people I knew in town. I was still getting to know them, but they were