It was kind of sweet the way they did that. Truth be told, he wouldn’t have minded having both Ryan’s and Graeme’s phones connected to his so that he always knew where they were, too.
Where they were for the moment was in a pile of stuff that had been hoarded for the past two hundred years.
“Wow,” Graeme said, glancing around as Ryan stepped deeper into the musty, dusty space to turn on more of the lights, most of which were bare bulbs that hung from ancient cords that had been tacked into the crossbeams decades ago. “This is like my gran’s attic times a thousand.”
“One of the advantages, if you can call it that, of having a massive manor house is that there’s a ton of attic space to shove things into and forget about them for a few centuries,” Ryan said, picking up an old snuff box from a dusty tray atop a bureau that was likely from the eighteenth century. “Rebecca had an idea last year that we should call in one of those antiques shows to go through the place and find stuff to take to auction.”
“And get rid of your family heritage?” Art asked indignantly, climbing over to the shelf full of old diaries and envelopes of letters that someone had curated maybe a hundred years ago. “What a terrible idea.”
“I don’t think I’d like some television show going through my family’s stuff,” Graeme agreed, picking up a crumbling book that looked to be from the late-nineteenth-century with the title “Gardens of England” embossed on the cover.
He was instantly absorbed in that. Art already had a good idea of what he wanted to fetch from the attic, but since the real purpose was to distract the other two, he stepped past the shelfto an old chest he’d briefly looked at a few weeks ago and opened the lid.
Ryan came over to join him as he dove in to examining the contents. “This trunk must be hundreds of years old,” he said, crouching by Art’s side to go through the contents.
“It belonged to your great-great-great-granduncle, Cornelius Hawthorne,” Art said, taking a seat on the floor and lifting a pile of papers tied with a string onto his lap. “I peeked in here last week, but I wanted to look around a little more.”
Ryan dropped from his crouch to sit crunched up in the narrow, empty space, his knees brushing Art’s. “How do you know Cornelius Hawthorne is my great-great-great-granduncle?”
Art glanced up at him as he tugged at the string. “I researched your family tree first thing, once I knew I would be sticking around for a while.”
Ryan arched an eyebrow at him. “Sticking around for a while?”
Art glanced to the side, where Graeme was now sitting in an ancient armchair, leafing through the book. He then looked back at Ryan and said, “Graeme seems to be coming along surprisingly well at accepting the three of us are a three of us. When are you going to get on board, too?”
“I am on board,” Ryan argued, taking the top few crumbling papers from the stack that Art handed to him.
“We should be wearing cotton gloves to look through these,” Art said, shaking his head. “I’m not a very responsible archeologist. And you’re still afraid of what people will think of you having two partners.”
“I am not,” Ryan protested.
Art lowered the papers he held. “Really?”
“I’m not!” Ryan laughed, but there was a huge amount of tension in his body as he did.
“Fine.” Art twisted toward Graeme and called out, “Oy, sweet cheeks. Could you join us for a moment?”
“I swear, I’m not,” Ryan repeated, this time with a touch of panic.
Graeme glanced up from his book with a questioning look, closed the book, then made his way over to them. “Did you find something?” he asked.
“I did,” Art said, putting the stack of papers back into the trunk and scooting over to make a very small space for Graeme on the floor beside him. “Have a sit.”
Still confused, Graeme sat with them. The space was tiny and cramped, so they had to move around a bit before figuring out how they could all sit together. By the time they did, their limbs were tangled over and under each other, and they were close enough that Art could make out the different soap and deodorant scents of both men.
“Cards on the table,” Art said, choosing the kamikaze approach to dealing with their growing relationship. “We’re a throuple, a threesome, a triad, a daisy-chain, whatever you want to call it.”
Ryan and Graeme just blinked at him at first.
“Are we?” Graeme asked, barely above a whisper.
“He wasn’t asking a question, love,” Ryan said, taking one of Graeme’s hands, but staring at Art, almost like he was annoyed Art had forced the issue so bluntly.
“It wasn’t a question,” Art confirmed with a nod. “And frankly, I’m getting a little tired of the three of us dancing around it. I’m a boy with needs, you know. I haven’t gone this long without frequent, satisfying sex in ages.”
“You two…just the other day,” Graeme blurted awkwardly.
Art grinned. “That was just one quickie,” he said. “I need more. I need skin on skin, groping and fondling. I need my mouth and my hole stuffed full, possibly at the same time.And I need to hump one or both of you like a jackhammer as frequently as I can. It’s not good to hold your semen for so long.”
