Summer Son (25 page)

That, I wasn’t expecting.

I swallowed hard as Zane leaned up and pressed the softest kiss to my lips, then one to Harrison’s temple. This was my family. It had taken a while for me to find but was no less perfect for the time spent searching.

As our friends clapped and hollered, Zane laughed and let me pull him into a hug. Harrison clapped too—this he knew how to do.

S
INCE
IT
wasn’t really a wedding, there wasn’t really a reception, only trays of buffet food from a local caterer, which was surprisingly delicious, and more champagne—lots more champagne. The only thing Zane had insisted on was cake, so much cake I didn’t know what we were going to do with all of it.

There was a giant cake carved into the shape of a number one for Harrison, with a little green dinosaur sitting on the cake board. Our wedding cake was a traditional three-tier stacked, decorated in Zane’s theme colors. Two more little green dinosaurs sat on the top, one wearing a bow tie, the other a top hat. For a gathering of about forty people, it was ridiculous.

I let Harrison go, content in the knowledge that there were plenty of people around to watch him, and yet more who wanted to play with him or coo over how much he’d grown. Zane got to introduce him properly to his mother, Harrison’s new grandmama, and the two appeared to get along swimmingly.

Hyder and Faris shook my hand and repeated their brother’s warning to take care of Zane. I liked them on sight, even if their congratulations came with thinly veiled threats of violence if I hurt the youngest Hadlin-Al-Jazari brother. With the eldest brothers came wives and children, nieces and nephews whose names I’d have to try and learn at some point.

In one evening, my family doubled.

The weight of a ring on my finger didn’t feel like a reminder of anything I’d known from my past. It was something new, a promise of our future. Zane didn’t stray far from my side. Whether that was because of my newfound status as his husband or that he just wanted it that way, I didn’t ask. His thumb seemed to rub over his ring almost unconsciously, and I watched the gesture with growing affection.

“I don’t normally smoke anymore, but I’m dying for one,” Zane admitted after pulling me to one side. “Do you mind?”

I shook my head. “That’s fine.”

“I’ll go bum one off Az.”

“Good plan.”

In the meantime, I was cornered by my mom and Meg, who were, when combined, a truly terrifying duo.

“Why?” my mother demanded. “Why couldn’t you have let me know? Would it have killed you to give me just a little hint?”

“Yeah. We nearly had a heart attack when Zane said you were getting
married
,” Meg added.

I held my hands up in defense, mentally planning escape routes in case I needed to run. “We didn’t tell anyone,” I said. “Not even Harrison.”

That was a lie. In bed that morning, I’d asked Harrison if he wanted Zane to be his daddy. They absolutely did not need to know that, though.

“That’s not good enough.”

“I wanted—” I said, and then I sighed. “I wanted something that was right for us. Something simple and laid-back and about our family, not about suits and flowers and place settings.”

My mom’s face softened. “Oh.”

“So, that’s what we did.”

“You told me you were never going to get married again,” Meg accused, poking a finger at my chest. “We didn’t get you a wedding gift or anything.”

“We’re saying for people to donate to the center instead of getting us stuff,” I said. “And I thought I didn’t want to get married. This isn’t about me, though. It’s about me and Zane and Harrison, and what’s right for all of us. This is right.”

Mom squeezed my arm and kissed my cheek, then went off to find her new ally—Zane’s mother. I was slightly worried about the force of nature that could be the two of them together, but there was no stopping them now. They’d already exchanged phone numbers, and Mom was talking about taking a vacation up to Vermont.

That just left Meg, and Nae, and Lupe.

“Oh, God.”

“What?” Nae demanded. “We just wanted to congratulate you. On your new husband.”

“I fucking knew you’d do this,” Lupe added, grinning mischievously. “I knew it.”

“Well, you were right.”

“You’ve got your family now.”

“Yeah,” I said as Zane came back in with Az and gently took Harrison back from his mom.

“… lost him now.”

“What?” I asked.

“I said, we’ve lost you now,” Nae said. “Go on and get him. Them.”

That was an order I was happy to obey.

There was always going to be a time limit on the night, a point where things naturally wrapped up. The center wasn’t equipped for late-night partying or heavy drinking, and we had a one-year-old who needed to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

He was almost asleep in my arms by the time we said our last good-byes, our last thank-yous, and Zane used his set of keys to lock up behind us. Zane shouldered the bag with all Harrison’s things and slipped his hand into my back pocket, since both my arms were full of baby.

We were quiet on the way home, partly to avoid disturbing Harrison, partly because it didn’t feel right to fill the cool evening with pointless conversation. It had been everything I’d hoped for, and more.

When we got home I stripped Harrison out of his jeans, socks, and sneakers and put him to bed in his diaper and T-shirt. Changing him into pajamas would just wake him up. I was more concerned about getting him to sleep.

It was a late night for him but an early one for Zane and me, although we too went to bed without argument.

Zane shut the door behind us, then slowly unbuttoned my shirt and pressed both his hands flat against my chest.

“I’ve never had my husband make love to me before,” he said quietly. “Would you be my first?”

I nodded, not trusting my words to be as perfect as his.

He pushed my shirt off my arms and continued to explore my chest with his fingertips as he leaned up and caught my bottom lip between his and licked it quickly. I wanted everything from him: the sweetness, the heat, the edge of wild that simmered just below the surface, ready to come out if anyone was willing to search for it.

We didn’t know everything about each other yet, and there was a lot I needed to tell him. At some point I would tell him more about when I married Oliver. How, that night, we both got so drunk there was little we could manage except to get out of our tuxes and fall into bed. Then the next day we were too hungover to even crawl out of bed, let alone have sex, so our marriage wasn’t consummated until days later.

I would tell him, one day, about how he fit in my arms like no one ever had before. How the simplest touch of his body against mine made me shiver and tingle, like the spark between us continued to sizzle and grow whenever we were close.

Getting married this early in our relationship was probably stupid and irrational, but I’d long since learned that sometimes the best things in life don’t always happen with careful planning. Harrison came from a quick jerkoff in a cup when I was rushed on my way to a meeting, no time for anything more.

Zane came from an impromptu night out.

Our marriage came from the fact that I was terrible at picking birthday presents.

“Mine,” I whispered as I helped him out of the rest of his clothes. “My husband.”

“I like the way that sounds,” he said with a grin. “Your husband.”

“Me too.”

He shuffled back on the bed, reaching out for my hand to tug me on top of him. I took my time with his body, wanting to worship every inch of him, outside and in.

“Most beautiful thing,” I murmured, “I’ve ever seen.”

Zane laughed breathlessly.

Tonight was about keeping it pure, simple. We made love facing each other, his knee pulled up close to his chest so I could move easier inside him. His lips were never far from my skin. If we weren’t drinking kisses from each other’s lips, Zane had his face pressed to the curve of my shoulder, each gasp and exhale cool against my chest.

I teased the noises from his throat, from breathy moans to the low, guttural grunts when I found a good, deep spot, and stored each sound in my memory. He told me he loved me, over and over, until his words became another part of the background noise of our lovemaking.

His heel dug hard into my lower back, urging me on when my movements grew slow and lazy. Any thoughts of controlling this—controlling him—were forced away. The feel of his fingertips scratching through my hair, rubbing my scalp, made me come undone.

“Tell me again,” he asked.

It took me a moment to understand. Then my gut twisted, and I clenched my eyes tightly shut as I whispered, “My husband,” right next to his ear.

Zane’s palm, which had been spread wide over my back, suddenly clenched into a fist, and he came between us, crying out with need and pleasure and something much more raw than all that.

“My husband,” I told him again, and he whispered my name as I came inside him.

It took a long time for us to disentangle ourselves from each other, to wipe the sweat and come from our skin, before he tucked his body around mine and murmured, “Wow.”

I laughed and rearranged our bodies so he was even closer to me.

“Night, Zane.”

“Good night.”

Chapter 19

“I
BROUGHT
cake,” Nae said when I opened the door to her. Sure enough, she had a large bakery box filled with the leftovers of last night’s celebrations.

“In that case, you can come in.”

“Thank you.” She leaned up and kissed me on the cheek and rubbed my arm quickly before ducking into the kitchen.

“Zane,” I called. “Cake.”

Harrison toddled around the corner just before Zane. He seemed to only have one speed at the moment, which was fairly fast, making for more crash landings than controlled stopping.

“You want cake too, huh?” I said and lifted him up onto the counter.

“And me,” Zane said. “Hi, Nae.”

The slices were a little bashed but still good, especially when I topped them off with a scoop of frozen yogurt (the kind Zane liked best). The fact that it was only eleven in the morning and probably too early for cake and ice cream was beside the point. All rules were going out the window this weekend—we’d get back to normal soon enough.

There were wheels on Harrison’s high chair, meaning I could take him through to the living room, and I positioned him in front of me so I could help him with the ice cream. The cake was mostly smeared over his face or squashed in his little fists, and I had to take a photo of him because he looked simply too cute. These pictures were being stored in a file on my computer called “future blackmail.”

“I’m going to try and get him to nap for a while,” I said, hoping Nae would hang out for a bit longer so Zane wasn’t left on his own. Sometimes he’d join us for a snuggle, but Harrison usually wanted to play, not sleep.

“No worries.”

In our room, I kept the curtains closed and the fan on, to keep the room cool despite the heat of the day, and got Harrison to settle down on my chest. There was a baseball game on, which wasn’t something I normally watched, but it was a good distraction while I hummed songs to Harrison under my breath.

He seemed to sleep in fits and bursts during the day, drifting for ten minutes at a time, then waking himself up. Each time I had to soothe him back to sleep, holding my breath and hoping he’d drop off again.

I could sort of hear Nae and Zane chatting in the living room, about weddings, from what I could hear. She had told me they were looking for somewhere to book for next spring, a big, family-oriented white wedding. Nae was a princess—I expected nothing less.

I was a bit confused when I heard them duck into Harrison’s room. Then I heard him clearly over the baby monitor.

“Oh, my God, Nae.”

“Tell me everything.”

I smirked to myself. They clearly didn’t realize the monitor was still on.

“It was incredible,” Zane said. “Just… perfect.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were going to get married!”

“We didn’t tell anyone. I swear, Nae, we didn’t. He asked me a couple of weeks ago—”

“Wait,” she said, interrupting him. “Go back. He proposed?”

“Not really. He asked what I wanted for my birthday, and you know what I’m like. I asked him for paint.”

“You ask everyone for paint.”

“Exactly. He said he wanted to do something special… then we just got talking about Harrison and how I wanted to be his dad. A couple of days later he came back and said Oliver was never going to give up parental rights, not for me, but the next best thing he could do as far as making it official was making me his stepdad.”

“Ellis is a fucking nightmare.”

I rolled my eyes at that and carefully turned the volume on the monitor up a bit louder.

“He was so sweet about it,” Zane said, defending me. “I knew he never wanted to get married again, but he wants this to be his family, so fucking bad, so he kind of changed all his beliefs just to make this happen.”

“Okay, he’s a nightmare and a sweetheart.”