“But not you,” Mati added gently.
David let out a half laugh. “Well, I suck at ironing. And I’m a guy.”
“And that matters because…”
Mati watched David struggle with the answer. She understood too well the pressure to conform to expected gender roles, how society and the media reinforce the messages regardless of whether or not it was the same message sent at home. She had girlfriends from families far more liberal than hers who had successful careers and still felt they had to keep a perfect home, cook healthy meals, and raise well-adjusted children. Meanwhile, their husbands only felt pressure to bring home a paycheck, and their help at home was viewed as some kind of bonus for their wives.
This shit was not easy to get over, for anyone.
“It wasn’t an option,” David said at last. “Not in my neighborhood. Not back then. Maybe not even now. Men don’t—didn’t—”
Do the things you love to do.
“Hey, I get it,” she said, holding out her hand. “Come here.”
David crossed the gap to the island, sliding his hips between her thighs, one arm looped around Reese.
She wondered if David realized how naturally he did that. How they all moved around each other, making sure it was the three of them, not just two. Mati and Reese had poked at David pretty hard, but he didn’t hesitate to come to them.
Mati held them both tight. “It’s never too late to do what makes you happy.”
David nodded slowly. “I do like protecting you two,” he said, the emphasis on theyou twoan almost-admission about how he felt about protecting anyone else.
Mati smiled. “Yeah. About that. Reese and I have a confession to make.”
“You do?”
Reese ran his fingers through David’s hair. “We didn’t ask you to come home with us to protect us.”
“Oh,” David said. “But…”
Mati pressed her palms to David’s chest. “I feel safer having you here, but that’s not why I wanted you to come home with us. We wanted you to see Sydney, and Cape Breton, and to love it.”
David looked surprised but pleased. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Mati agreed.
“If you want,” Reese said, “I can ask Hodges to hire someone else to be our protection.”
“No,” David said. The flash of his smile, the bright white teeth against his dark skin, was still like a punch to Mati’s chest. “I want to be the one. And we don’t want another person underfoot. We’d have to behave.”
Mati laughed. “Yeah, but does this mean you won’t have sex with us in the pool ever again because you won’t let your guard down?”
“It feels like my guard is always down with you two,” David said quietly.
Hope uncurled in Mati. She wriggled to the edge of the counter, confident David wouldn’t let her fall, and hooked her legs around both men, pressing them together.
“Is that a yes to sex in the pool?” she asked.
“Well, notinthe pool,” Reese interjected. “Not unless you want to clean the damn thing for the weeks Hodges goes on strike.”
David threw back his head and laughed.
Mati looked at Reese incredulously. “Are you serious right now?”
“What?” Reese said. “It’s true.”
David’s hand curled around the back of Reese’s head, tugging him forward for a thorough kiss, their tongues sliding from one mouth to another.
