“I know you’re not,” Mitch says quietly.
“I’ll never be that kid again. That kid died when you left me, Mitch. He fucking died,” he rasps, pushing hard against Mitch’s chest. But my man’s a fucking rock, solid like he was built from a block of granite. “I fucking hate you, Mitch! I hate you so fucking much.” Mitch nods and just takes it. All of Ty’s anger and hurt because it’s mostly just hurt that’s oozing off him right now as he’s right up in Mitch’s face, pounding his hands against his chest. “I hate you so fucking much, Mitch.” Ty full-on sobs now as he continues to dig his knuckles into Mitch’s chest.
“It’s okay,” Mitch reassures him, carding his fingers through Ty’s bangs. “You’re allowed to feel that way,” he says. Ty looks up, fire in his eyes, his lips puffy.
“Stop telling me what to do!” he throws at Mitch. “You can’t tell me what to do or how to fucking feel! You’re not my dad. You made that perfectly clear when you walked out on me eight years ago without looking back.” I can tell that Ty’s words are hurting Mitch, digging into him like tiny knives, but I know that this is between them. It’s unavoidable. It had to happen sometime, and apparently, the time is now.
“I didn’t just walk out, Ty. That’s not true.”Iknow that there’s more to the story, but I don’t thinkTydoes. How Dale took over Catarina’s life, micro-managing it, keeping Mitch away with threats of getting a restraining order. How he probablyconvinced her that Ty was better off without Mitch in his life. “Please, Ty, if we could ju—”
“Stop calling me that! And you did! You did, Mitch,” Ty cries, his shoulders starting to slump. Anger sweeps across Mitch’s face, as he finally seems to react to the fact that his past has come back to haunt him. Unfinished business in the shape and form of a lost kid who I know he still loves. Who he never stopped loving.
“I had no rights! I had no claim on you, Tyler!” Mitch yells.
“You had every claim!” Ty yells back, getting up on the toes of his beat-up motorcycle boots and grabbing the collar of Mitch’s shirt. “You still do!” The air crackles between them and I almost lose my balance, taking them in as they both seem to realize it, too. Mitch nods, licking his lips.
“You’re right. I did. I’m sorry, Ty,” he whispers. “I’m so, so sorry. As long as I live, I’ll never forgive myself for that. For leaving you behind. It’s my biggest regret.” Reaching out my hands, one for Mitch and one for Ty, I swallow, “Maybe we should just ta—” but that’s all I manage before Ty mumbles, barely audible, “But you did it again. You…” Ty looks between us, his eyes so sad, sorrow spilling into new tears. “You just dropped me off earlier… like we hadn’t just… and then you just went home… and I was just… I was just alone again,” he swallows.
“Oh, love,” Mitch’s voice breaks along with his face, his eyes wet from unshed tears. “Is that what you think? That this weekend didn’t mean the same to us as it did to you? That…” he looks at me briefly and I nod before he looks back at Ty again. “That Cal and I don’t want you? Love, we want you. We want you so much, Ty. It’s all we’ve been thinking and talking about since we dropped you off. How much we want you, love.”
The softly spokenlovelingers between them while I hold my breath. This is it. There’s no going back from this. Mitch has put it out there and it’s exhilarating and fucking frightening at the same time.
“You want me?” Ty croaks, looking at first Mitch, then at me in disbelief. “You too, Cal? You want me, too?” I nod, the words getting stuck in my mouth. I’m afraid that I’ll break if I speak. I can only hope that the truth is written across my face. “As in youwant me-want me?” His vulnerability nearly breaks my heart and before I can say something, anything, to reassure him and remove any uncertainty from his beautiful face, my husband steals the words from my mouth.
“We want you here. With us. Every day. All the time,” Mitch says, his voice steady as a beat, while he squeezes my hand. The words have barely left his lips before Ty stumbles, flies, and falls into Mitch’s arms, the glass of water dropping from Mitch’s hand and landing on the floor with a crash. Mitch just manages to catch him, before Ty presses his lips against first his lips, then his chin and his cheeks repeatedly, small whimpers accompanying every kiss. My husband’s right hand flies to the back of Ty’s head, fingers tangling into his wild curls, an outdrawn growl building in his chest, spilling from his lips. As Ty continues to shower a stunned Mitch with kisses, still crying but smiling too, my husband finds my gaze above Ty’s head, his light blue eyes overflowing with something I have no words for but that I feel more deeply than anything. Fear. Relief. Joy. Confusion. Love. So much fucking love. And no doubt. Not one trace of it. No doubt. Ty belongs with us. Like the air in my lungs and the blood flowing through my body, Ty belongs with us.
Chapter Sixteen
Tyler
I’m kissing Mitch. Okay, let’s just rewind. I, Tyler, am kissing Mitch. But that’s not even the craziest part. The craziest part is that Mitch is kissing me back. And he’s not just kissing me. No, he’s basically invading my mouth, his tongue licking into it, circling around my tongue, sucking it into his soft, warm mouth with an unparalleled hunger. Shit, I guess he wasn’t kidding. He wants me. They want me, too. And as fucked up as it probably is, I can’t seem to care. Because, holy fuck, while Mitch is kissing me like there’s no tomorrow, Cal has moved up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. As Mitch plunders my mouth, growling around my tongue, Cal whispers sweetnothings against my neck likeours, precious, safe.Andbaby. Oh, so manybabies.
At this point, I’m almost certain that I’m dreaming. I must be. Things like this don’t happen to a guy like me. With the amount of alcohol I inhaled tonight, I think I probably went into a coma and now I’m dreaming all this shit up. I must be. Well, fuck it. I’ll deal with the brutal reality when I wake up.Please, drunk body, never wake up.
And then I’m suddenly flying above the ground and maybe I’m not dreaming after all. Maybe I’m already dead, and the good ol’ Lord beamed me up to heaven. Although, I never in a million years figured the elevator would be going up. But here I am, going up, up, up.
Two large hands are grabbing the back of my thighs, and I now realize that they’re Mitch’s hands, hoisting me up into his arms. On instinct, I wrap my legs around his waist, slinging my arms around his shoulders and holy fucking fuck train, Mitch is hard. All over. Hard planes of muscle beneath my fingers, making my mouth water. Whining pitifully, I ground my hips against him, our mouths still fused together. Shit, he smells good. Like all musky and manly and… like top-tier potent pheromones. His scent is like crack and it’s doing stuff to my body, to my dick. To my hole. It’s full-on clenching and unclenching, almost like it’s trying to clap some horny-ass tune.Fill me, fill me, fill me riiiight uuuupppp!
“We need to talk,” Mitch groans into my mouth, interrupting my butthole serenading his dick. I miss the connection instantly as he pulls away from me. Chasing his lips, I keep my eyes squeezed tight, because fuck no! No, no, no, I donotwant to talk. I don’t. Talk is overrated. It always gets me into trouble and rarely the good kind. “Look at me,” Mitch chuckles, his chest rumbling against mine, his flannel-clad, bulky belly warm and soft against my bare stomach. “Look at me, love,” he purrs,and I slowly blink my eyes open. And holy hotness, Mitch looks fucking wrecked. His eyes are swimming with want, his lips all bruised and puffy, glistening with saliva. His hair looks fucking wild, too, sticking out in all directions, an explosion of browns and grays. He looks 100% edible, fuckable.. and now he wants to talk.
Shaking my head, I decide to bring forward my most sophisticated weapon: the bratty pout. I have many kinds of pouts in stock, ranging from the pretend-offended to the mock-horrified, but the bratty has, to this day, proven to be the most effective. It landed me a trip to St. Croix once when Mom forgot my birthday in one of her valium hazes, and aGuccibiker jacket to die for from a lover who wanted to watch me pee. Huh, I haven’t seen that in a while. Not the pee. The jacket. Wonder where it went.
“Ty,” Mitch sighs.
“I don’t wanna,” I whine, batting my eyelashes for good measure.
“Jesus,” Cal laughs, shaking his head. “Does that usually work?” He leans in, pressing a deliciously scruffy kiss against my cheek. “We. Need. To. Talk.” He presses the words into my skin with each kiss. Squirming, I shoot him my deadliest death glare.
“I. Don’t. Wanna!” I pout like I fucking mean it, and if I weren’t hanging around Mitch’s neck like a bratty baby kangaroo, I would be stomping my feet by now. “I wanna make out,” I huff and puff, then huff some more in Mitch’s arms. Fuck me, he’s strong. Ruthless. I wonder if he fucks ruthlessly, too. I bet he does.
“Yeah, there’ll be none of that before we’ve talked,” Mitch laughs and fuck, if that deep, growly, grizzly laugh of his doesn’t drive me even wilder with want for him. But from the look on his face—and the stern and extremely hot, manties-melting glare that Cal is shooting my way—I know they won’t cave. Andsomehow that’s even hotter than I thought. It’s like good cop, mean cop, only they’re both mean Daddies. Oh shit, I clamp my mouth tightly because I think I just said that out loud.
Scowling at him from under my eyelashes, I see Mitch looking at me, stunned, his mouth agape like his jaw is two seconds from falling right off and hitting the floor. Electricity crackles between us, and I try to wiggle my way out of his arms as I gulp, “I mean… I… that was not…” Mitch continues to hold me close, a fire in his eyes that I haven’t seen before. Does he…? Did he find that…hot? The Daddy stuff?
Cal clears his throat, then croaks, “Let’s go to bed.” And because I apparently haven’t humiliated myself enough already, I stupidly blurt, “Yes, Daddy.”
“I… I know I should’ve tried harder. Back then. To fight for you,” Mitch whispers into the darkness, his chest heaving beneath my cheek. “I was afraid, I guess.”
“Of what?” I murmur, my fingers tangled in his T-shirt, Cal’s beefy arms wrapped around me from behind, as he presses soft kisses against my neck. It still feels surreal. This whole evening, night, whatever. Cal calling mebaby. Mitch calling melove. Them telling me they want me. With them.All.The.Time. That’s what Mitch said. All the time. The kiss. The kiss of all kisses. Cal eventually taking charge, throwing me over his shoulder in a realfirefighter-style carry, bringing me off to bed while I pretended to be all mortified, yelling, ‘Let me go, you fucking brute. You ain’t the boss of me,’while my slutty little boy heart secretly rejoiced, ‘He is! He is! He sooo is the boss of you!’Shut up, traitor heart! Go drown in the traitor soup!
