I felt Porter’s entire body shudder against mine. “You give good poem,” he admitted in a low voice.
“There’s more where that came from if you just say the word…” I teased the side of his neck with my mouth and tongue.
“Sonnet twenty-seven,” he breathed. “Please.”
“Mm. Methinks not, fair squire. We have a million Sunday lumberjacks outside who demand fresh meat.”
Porter groaned and pulled away. “You can’t hand me a softball like that and expect me not to tee it up, Theo.”
I followed him outside, where music was blaring from speakers and a couple of the guys were setting up a cornhole game that Gage and Knox had brought along. The boards had been painted with caricatures of truly manic-looking cows because Knox claimed they helped Gage aim. I was curious to know what that was all about, but I was confident that I’d hear about it in short order.
“Hey, Porter!” his friend Nolan called from a group of fellow classmates taking up one of the picnic tables covered in shared dishes. “Did you ever remember your angry sonnet so you could recite it for Doctor Hot… I mean, uh… Dr. Hancock?”
Beck let out a whoop. “Oh shit. What about the love sonnet? Surely you told him that one.”
I stared at my life partner, the man I held no secrets with. Or so I’d thought.
“Youwroteme sonnets?” I asked. “Original ones? Of your own pure brain? Oh my God. I need to hear these.”
His eyes widened, and he clapped a hand over my mouth. “No. Nope. I’m not sharing, even if you torture me. Trust me when I tell you it was mostly tequila doing the writing?—”
“Mmm. I seem to remember we argued about you trying to rhyme ‘sex me’ with ‘wrecks me,’” Toru mused. “Though, I can’t remember whether that was the angry sonnet or the romantic one.”
“See, I remember gems like ‘cockblock’ and ‘Hancock,’ and I personally feel like we achieved some greatness there,” Nolan said with an enthusiastic nod.
“Everyone’s a critic,” Porter complained. He gave his friends a narrow-eyed look. “Zip it, or I’m calling you a ride home. I’ve got Steve on speed dial.”
They howled with laughter and began answering Porter’sbrothers’ interrogations. I listened to every detail and saved my own interrogation for later.
Porter might claim he wouldn’t give up his sonnets under torture, but I knew better. I’d have him reciting them for me—and maybe coming up with a few more—before the night was over since the torture I had planned for Porter Sunday was long and drawn out, detailed and excruciating. And just like every moment with Porter Sunday, I planned to enjoy it to the fullest.
Somehow, despite my best efforts to circumvent it, the universe had brought me exactly where I needed to be and given me the perfect man to share it with. These days, I was more than merely content; I was blissfully happy…
And I didn’t have a bone to pick with fate about any of that.
