“Oh, yes, he did.” Rupert rubbed his hands together, clearly relishing David’s horror and awe. “And, of course, it didn’t work out like it did in the movie. No, it did not. Because Elizabeth’s window was one of fifty on that side of the dorm. By the time the second verse started, he was taking fire.”
“Rupert, what are you talking about?” Reese asked with growing alarm from down the row.
Christian, who had been sitting in the corner, madly typing on his phone, perked up. “What’s a boom box?”
Callum laughed. David cringed.
Reese leaped to his feet. “No! You cannot tell that story!”
“I’ll show you a picture,” Rupert promised Christian. “I’ll even play you the song!”
“Rupert!Stop talking.”
“It was amazing. I wish we’d had cell phones with cameras like we do now. To have video of the hailstorm of toilet paper, shoes, pens, and anything else not nailed down in those dorm rooms raining down on him. Half of it had been lit on fire.”
Reese squawked loudly enough to be heard over David’s laughter and the roar of the crowd when the Ice Cats scored.
Everyone except David leaped to their feet, diverted by the action on ice. Oliver stood on his seat to scream like a banshee for Mike, who had assisted on the goal. The five-year-old was the only one in the box suite who’d been paying proper attention to the game.
David would have yelled, too, but had a hand pressed gently over Eleanor’s ear instead.
She was obviously used to sleeping through just about anything, since none of this bothered her in the slightest. Her little bow lips and long eyelashes didn’t so much as twitch. David watched her, smiling, and yearned to have this all the time.
Mati’s hand curled over his shoulder and he pressed a kiss to it. She slipped between the seats to sit on David’s lap, careful not to bump Eleanor. She threaded her finger through one of the bright gold curls, a habit David couldn’t seem to break either.
“Did you hear Reese once tried to do theSay Anythingtrick to woo a girl?” David asked.
“No.”
Rupert lit up again. Before he could speak, though, Reese was climbing over him.
“You are theworst,” Reese said, wrestling Rupert out of his chair.
Rupert cackled. “Revenge is sweet, my friend.”
Reese took his own by forcing his ass into Rupert’s seat.
“Fine, I’ll go snuggle with my husband,” Rupert announced. It would have made for a dramatic exit had it required him to do more than shuffle three feet to his left and sit on Callum’s lap.
“This is a nice change of fortunes,” Callum murmured, wrapping his arms around Rupert’s waist.
David looked away as Callum dragged Rupert closer, tucking his husband’s ass snuggly against him. David couldn’t blame him. Hell,no one who’d ever seen that assblamed him.
Christian rolled his eyes and went back to his phone.
Reese ran a hand down Eleanor’s back. “Would it be weird if I told you how hot you are when you’re holding a baby?”
“A little.”
Mati grinned. “It’s pretty blistering hot, though. I’m not sure how I’ll control myself when it’s our baby.”
David’s heart skipped a beat. They’d agreed they weren’t in a rush, but when he held Eleanor, or assembled Legos with Oliver, or watched Christian practice his figure skating and saw the incredible pride shining from his fathers’ faces, it made David want to start a family immediately.
But then he’d get these two alone in their room at night, and agreed it would be better if they waited a little longer. Not that he worried midnight feedings and diaper changes were going to put a dent in the fire that burned between them.
Nothing seemed able to do that. Not even his nightmares.
He still woke up, but with every passing week, it got better. Reese liked to joke that he and Mati were the cure, but he didn’t believe that any more than David did. The cure was patience, time, therapy, and letting go of the notion that he was supposed to be anything other than what made him truly, deeply happy.
