Page 145

To thank them for working so hard on this with me, I bake them a little treat one day, wanting to surprise them. It’s a riff off the first thing I ever made for them, that lemon cake with herbal drizzle, and I hope they understand the significance of it.
I can hear them arguing good-naturedly from the kitchen while I pull the cake out of the over and start drizzling syrup over it while it’s warm.
“Who taught you how to paint?” Dominic asks one of them. “I can see every brush stroke you’re making.”
“That’s what second coats are for,” Xavier fires back, so he must be the one being called out. “They erase all sins.”
“You know what helps? Not making as many sins in the first place.” That’s Tristan in his steady voice, and I snicker a little bit, amused at his sass.
“Why don’t you show me the way to do it better, O Painting God,” Xavier quips back.
There’s the sound of more paint being poured, and then I assume Tristan is giving Xavier a lesson on painting.
“You want it to be even,” he says.
“That looks exactly the same as mine.”
“Maybe you’re just both bad at painting,” Dominic says.
It’s the perfect time to come out with the cake, and I do, bumping out of the kitchen backward, holding a platter. “Okay, enough bickering from you three,” I tease them. “It’s time for a break.”
Xavier’s nose is already in the air, scenting what I made. “I knew it!” he crows. “I knew you were baking something in there with lemon and thyme. Oh, is that like the cake you made the first time?”
I beam at him, pleased he remembers. “It is. An updated recipe. I want your opinions and to thank you for working so hard for me.”
All three of them wash up and then dig into the cake, making appreciative noises. Xavier’s moans of delight are practically pornographic, and even Tristan looks like he’s in bliss while he eats.
“No notes,” Dominic says. “This is perfect.”
“Thank you,” I reply, including all of them in that. It means a lot that they’re so open with their praise. “And thank you for all your help. I couldn’t have done so much without you.”
Tristan shakes his head. “You have nothing to thank us for, angel. We’re exactly where want to be, doing what we want to be doing.”
The three of them share a look, and they do that so often these days that it’s hard not to pick up on it. “What’s going on?” I ask, glancing between them.
“Well, we were thinking. And we wanted to do something to show you how much you mean to us,” Xavier explains. “To show you that we want forever with you.”
I blink, surprised at the sudden declaration. “What did you do?”
They all take off their wedding rings and hold up their hands. I lean in closer and see that they’ve gotten something tattooed on their fingers and it takes a second for me to realize that it’s my name.
I gasp, my hand coming up to cover my mouth. “You guys…” I breathe. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Dominic shrugs. “We wanted to. This is permanent. You’re permanent in our lives. This is just a symbol of that.”
I lean up and kiss each one of them, lingering between the kisses so they can feel how much this means to me.
“I want something too then,” I tell them. “Something permanent that can be a mark of how much I love you. And how I’m yours.”
“We can come up with some ideas,” Tristan replies.
I shake my head. “I already know what I want. I want your bites.”
The reaction to that ripples through the three of them. Their eyes go dark and hungry, and they close in around me.
“Are you sure?” asks Dominic. “Before, you said…”
I nod. “I know what I said, but that was a long time ago. Or it feels like it was. Now I know what I want, and it’s to belong to you. I’ve never been more sure of anything.”