Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

“Well, you know, as my…uh…”

“Boyfriend?” Wyn provided.

Yves smiled at his mom. “Yeah, that.”

She glanced at Sabre, who was shoving a crab cake in his mouth, then she said, “By all means, phone him with urgency before Sabre eats all the food and we look ungracious due to the fact we’ve asked him to a meet the parents and yet we can’t offer refreshments when he arrives. But instead, he’ll be mocked by a variety of catering trays with nothing but crab dust inside.”

That was when Remy laughed.

“I knew you’d say yes, and me and Yves double date, so I also know how much that guy puts away. I’m getting my fill before he gets here,” Sabre stated with his mouth full.

“You double date?” Wyn asked.

Sabre shrugged…and shoved another crab cake in his mouth.

“How long have you and Theo been together?” she asked Yves.

“We hoo…um, started dating in April,” Yves answered.

Wyn nodded to her youngest, wisely not making an issue of the fact that he’d hidden a boyfriend for six months. Yves had his reasons, and they didn’t need to put him on the spot to explain them.

He’d come out, and a few days later, shared about the boyfriend.

All good.

Also, a reminder to Remy of something else about his wife.

With the way he’d grown up, he’d had no clue how to be a parent.

She did because she’d had excellent teachers.

From the beginning, they hadn’t fought about it, and he hadn’t fumbled. He knew the foundation she was standing on with her parenting, so he’d watched and taken her cues.

He couldn’t say they’d never disagreed on parental decisions, case in point, him feeling with his sons he should demystify booze (however, he had not missed she’d done the same with their daughter, but since he agreed, he didn’t call her on it) so it wouldn’t seem the illicit thrill other kids thought it was.

But on the important things, like this, they were always rock solid.

She looked to her oldest.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked Sabre suspiciously.

Sabre shook his head and swallowed more food. “No, and I’m not hard to look at, but I’ll sure be able to tell how into me she is when we sit down and eat with two Adidas models.” He turned to Yves who was shoving his phone in his jeans, after no doubt texting Theo. “Which, by the way, I’m batting zero, man.”

“Let me get this straight…” Wyn started.

Oh shit.

“…you test your dates by using your brother and his boyfriend?” she finished.

“Babe,” Remy murmured.

“Yeah. And it’s good I do because they all fail,” Sabre said to his mother.

She looked up at Remy and her hazel eyes flashed more green than brown, and he absolutely knew what that meant.

When she wasn’t angry, they were an equal mix of both.

When she was a little angry, they were an equal mix of both.

When she was pissed, out came the green.

“You get to handle this one,” she ordered.

“Relax,” he replied. “It’s actually kind of ingenious.”

Those eyes flashed again as they widened.

Jesus, he fucking longed to kiss her.

He’d longed for nothing in his life.

Not parents who loved him, not even after getting hers and knowing how much he’d been missing.

Not the end of their dry spell, as decreed by Wyn, that they couldn’t have sex for one month prior to their wedding, “So on our wedding night, it’ll be special.”

Before that (and after, honest as shit, he didn’t know how either of them were able to walk enough to get on a plane after their honeymoon), they’d fucked like rabbits, and she was phenomenal.

And she’d been so happy and excited in the run up to their wedding, she shone like a goddamn sunbeam.

It had been torture.

But he longed to kiss her right then.

In the kitchen they’d renovated, next to an island he’d eaten her out on countless times and fucked her on countless more.

Christ, what had he done?

“Remy?” she whispered.

“Right here, baby,” he whispered back, tasting acid in his mouth and feeling it drip down his throat into his gut.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Mm-hmm, fine. Good,” he muttered.

She studied him a second and he noticed the green was gone.

Now, her eyes were more brown than green.

He knew what that meant too.

She was worried.

But she muttered back an unconvincing, “Okay.”

She turned to the island.

Remy drank half a coupé glass of champagne before he did the same, and it wasn’t near enough to wash that acid away, and that had nothing to do with how much liquid a coupé glass held.

But when he took them in, he caught their kids in various versions of pretending they weren’t watching every move and listening to every word their parents said with the intensity of the world’s highest-powered microscope.

And that was when he thought…shit.

He better not fuck this up.

No.

He’d already fucked this up.

And Christ.

Now?

He simply could not fuck this up.





CHAPTER 9