Van glanced behind him briefly. “So we still have over an hour of time. However shall we spend it?”
Benji laughed. “However shall we?”
Joshua mimicked waving a flag. “If you two wanna make googly eyes and jerk off together, feel free. I’m down for a while.”
“I would hope so, you greedy bastard, considering you’ve come twice already.”
“What can I say? Van knows how to rock my body right.” The cliché made Benji smile, but for whatever reason, Joshua looked stricken. “Shit, not that you don’t rock my body, or anything, because you do.”
“It’s okay.” Benji held up a hand. “I’m not offended, I swear. You and Van connect differently than you and I do, and that’s okay. That’s why we work as a trio, right? We all get something unique from each other.”
“I know, I just don’t want you to ever think you aren’t as important to me as Van is. I love both of you so much.”
Van blinked hard; Benji’s heart soared. Joshua had finally said it out loud, making it all more real. Their triad. And maybe Van still hadn’t said the words, but Benji felt it in his actions and saw it in his eyes. Van would say it when it was right for him.
“We love you too,” Benji said.
Van kissed Joshua’s cheek and nipped his earlobe. “What he said.” To Benji, he said, “Tell us more about your last few shows. Good crowds?”
They easily shifted from hot sex to animated conversation that ended up filling the rest of their time. Benji hated saying goodbye, but he had drying spunk in his shorts, and he needed to get into the shower before the risk of his band mates returning increased. After a lot of endearments and promises, Benji ended the call.
His heart sank as the screen went blank where his two smiling boyfriends had been seconds earlier. The long-distance relationship with Joshua had never hurt this much when they said goodbye. He’d never been so ready to hail a taxi to thenearest airport so he could fly home to his lovers. To the other parts of his heart and soul.
But they couldn’t travel with him, and Benji wasn’t prepared to quit the band. He’d worked too damned hard for too many years to get here. Maybe they weren’t the overnight sensations that Dominic and Trey were after performing at Unbound Nationals, but Fading Daze had a loyal fan base. They had a manager who was constantly working to get them a record deal. They had real talent, goddammit.
One day he’d be in a position to settle down, but not yet. Being apart hurt, but it was a hurt he could live with.
For now.
Benji managed two more calls with his boyfriends in the weeks leading up to the anniversary party, and each one left him both elated and sad. Elated for having shared some intense, beautiful, orgasmic moments with Joshua and Van. Sad because after it ended, he was the one always alone. No one to cuddle him or kiss him. No actual contact except his own hand.
The one bright spot was that Van had finally agreed to attend the party, quietly, as a friend of the family. No one wanted to tear the spotlight away from the Boundses by using the party to come out as a triad. Van did demand that he foot the bill on a hotel room that night for the three of them. No staying with Benji’s parents, no prying ears to what they got up to in private.
Benji was cool with that, because it allowed for Bobby, Danielle, and Andy to stay with his parents and save the band the cost of another hotel room.
Guests were told to arrive at the senior center by one o’clock in the afternoon, with the guests of honor arriving at one-thirty.Taisha and her husband were escorting them, and through Dominic, she reported they seemed oblivious to the set-up. The ruse included their youngest daughter Starr spending the afternoon at a friend’s house. Starr was autistic, and having her there during the initial surprise would send the girl into fits, so the plan was to have her big sister Roxy —in town for two days, and consciously missing her Monday college classes—pick her up and bring her to the party a bit later.
The senior center was innocuous enough on the outside when their van pulled up and parked near the back of the lot. No signs announcing the party or the supposed chicken and dumplings dinner, but the jammed lot suggested something was going on.
Benji charged inside, eager to see his friends again, who’d all texted that they’d already arrived. The long room was set with oblong tables, each one covered in a white cloth, with arrangements of colorful gerbera daisies on each one. A buffet was in the process of being set up with covered chafing dishes of food.
“Dude!” Dominic’s cry caught Benji’s attention.
The group was clustered off to the right. Dominic and Trey, Lincoln and Emmett, Van and Joshua. Dominic’s eldest brother, Percell, and his girlfriend, whose name Benji didn’t remember. A blonde woman who looked a hell of a lot like Lincoln, with a redheaded guy on her arm.
Benji threw himself into the group, hugging and back-slapping his friends. Kissing Joshua soundly, and wishing he could do more than hug Van tight. Van seemed to be working just as hard to control himself. His promises of kissing Benji for an hour straight lingered in the air like lit sparklers.
The blonde woman turned out to be Lincoln’s sister Mercedes, and her new husband Terry. The siblings had stayed in contact after Lincoln was kicked out for being gay, and sheknew he’d only landed on his feet because of Robert and Zelda Bounds. “I owe them so much,” Mercedes said.
“They sound like amazing people,” Van said. “I can’t wait to meet them.”
“You’ll love them. Everyone does.”
“So I’ve heard.” He made a quick show of patting down his pockets. “Hell. I think I left my phone in my car. Be back in a few.”
Benji glanced at Joshua, who winked, confirming the set-up. A brief chance to say hello properly, without a captive audience. “Where’s the bathroom in this place?” Benji asked. “I’ve been holding it for hours.”
“Back by the entrance,” Joshua replied.
