Page 4 of Pretty Nightmare

“I need you to talk to McKay.”

“About?”

“You know. The sex and stuff. I’m tired of bed-hopping. And it’s so freaking clear that he and Adam want to be together, it hurts. And if McKay can’t come to terms with it, we’ll be stuck in this holding pattern for decades before we get to sleep together.”

He side-eyes me for a moment. “What about me?”

“What about you?”

“Well… you never asked me if I wanted to share you with McKay and Adam.”

Hmm. Donovan and I aren’t having sex, but we’re definitely skirting the rules on the nights we spend together. His hands will wander. Or my hands will wander. And then… can we help it if we get off on that?

“So you’re not gonna do it?”

Donovan grins at me. “Never said that either.”

“Gah,” I say. “Can you just talk to him? I feel like we’re wasting time. Like we’re stuck. I don’t like it.”

He reaches for me. His hands find their way to my body easily and they settle on my hips as he pulls me close. Then he kisses me. It’s a nice kiss too. I’ve kissed Donovan a lot over the years. He and I had a thing going after Maggie was born. McKay caught us once, watched us, but didn’t join in. That’s how I know we’re gonna have to initiate this, otherwise McKay’s inability to commit to what he already knows to be true will keep us apart forever. And I’m getting restless.

I pull back from the kiss. “Talk to him, Donovan.”

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“No. Not tomorrow. Now.”

“He and Adam are watching TV in the pavilion. What am I supposed to do? Go down there and interrupt them?”

“I’ll tell him you want to talk to him and he should meet you in the kitchen. Then I’ll keep Adam occupied. I have questions for him anyway.”

Donovan sighs and looks over his shoulder at the stairs. “Fine. But if this goes sideways, it’s gonna be your fault.”

“Kiss him, Donovan.”

“What?” Donovan laughs, then pulls me into his room and closes the door so Maggie can’t hear us if she’s spying. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Kiss McKay. It’ll help him feel better. I’m sure he feels the same way about Adam as Adam feels for him. And I’m sure he’s spent the past twenty-five years trying to picture himself kissing the guy. If he just gets it over with, then he can stop thinking so hard about that.”

“First of all”—Donovan holds up a finger—“he will punch me in the face.”

“He will not. McKay is not reactionary like that.”

“Are we talking about the same man? Tall guy? Eyes filled with mystery and pent-up hate? Hobbies include training little girls to kill people?”

“You’re being stupid. Why are all of you so stupid? And he has no pent-up hate. That’s utter bullshit.”

“Second”—he holds up a second finger—“I’m one hundred percent certain that Core McKay has spent no time—not a single fucking moment of time—wondering how his first kiss with any man, let alone Adam, would go down.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh, I do know that. Third”—he adds to his finger count—“you really don’t see the pent-up hate inside McKay? Or was that just a flippant remark?”

“McKay is not hateful.”

“I never said he was hateful. I implied he’s got… issues. Long-time lingering issues, Indie. And all of them have to do with Adam and how he came to live with the Boucher family.”

I huff, then sigh. “He loves Adam.”