I click on a promising new hostess job and scan the requirements. “Bobby, do you think I could work front of house for Theïkós?”
“That Michelin star place? Definitely.”
His tone makes me suspicious. “How do you know?”
“I… have a good feeling?”
I swat his shoulder. “I want to get a job at a restaurant without Doc threatening the owner or Eli calling the health inspector or you… I don’t know… hacking their email and changing my résumé around.”
Bobby cracks up. “Hacking their email…”
“You know I don’t understand how that stuff works!”
He tosses his phone aside and rolls onto his back, spreading his arms. “C’mere, baby girl.”
I climb onto his bare chest and snuggle into him. Bobby rubs my head, making my scalp tingle. “If you really want a job, why don’t you let us find you one?”
“Because I want to earn it!”
“And we can all appreciate that, but nepotism makes the world go round.”
I roll my eyes. “Eli still doesn’t want me to have a job. He’ll just pretend to help me, then sabotage it.”
“True. But he can’t help it if you’re such a good housewife he wants to keep you close.”
I bury my face in his chest hair. I know what he’s referring to. Last night I made handmade gnocchi in red wine ragù—Zia Teresa’s showstopper dish. Eli tasted it and then dragged me into the next room and went down on me while everyone else listened. It was flattering and terrifying and so hot. Kind of like how everything has been since I got to Velvet House.
“Hey.” Bobby strokes my lower back. “Are you embarrassed about what we’re doing here?”
He means ‘are you freaked out about sleeping with four men?’All the guys keep asking that. Yesterday I helped Adriano skin another deer and he told me there was still time to choose a proper husband and he’d never leave me, no matter who I picked. I was so shocked I cut myself with the knife. I spent the next two hours begging him to believe he is as much my choice as any of the others.
“I’m super comfortable,” I tell Bobby. “I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. If anything, I’m worried about you guys.”
Bobby snorts. “Don’t worry about us.”
“But you’ve never shared a woman before! Won’t you guys be the ones who’ll want someone else to sleep with every night or to… you know… whenever you feel like it?”
I flush. I’m still not very good at talking about sex.
“Baby,” Bobby says in a calm voice. “You seem to have this opinion that before you showed up, Velvet House was a non-stop party fuckfest. We run a billion-dollar business. We work all the time and when we want to unwind, we do shit on our own. Adri goes hunting and Doc swims and Eli looks at fancy rocks and I watch ESPN.”
“So, none of you ever slept with anyone before me?”
“I’m not saying that. But we would duck out and show up again later, or we’d go to Doc’s clubs. It all fits into our schedules. We never had anyone we cared about, and we never needed anyone to care about. Until you.”
“Oh.” For a second my heart lifts, then all my doubts drag it back to earth. “But what if I don’t have enough time for all of you?”
“JJ, we’re all still working twelve hour days.”
“No, you’re not!”
“Where do you think Doc and Eli are right now?”
“I don’t know…”
“They’re working. Doc’s with his crew at Flare, that nightclub we have in Harlem, and Eli’s negotiating a construction security agreement with some guys in Florida.”
“He’sinFlorida?”
