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“Here’s the deal,” Mateo said. “We’ve got a late checkout tomorrow. We want you to stay until then. And until then, we just…go with this. Enjoy it. Then around four tomorrow afternoon we can sit down and have a big talk, and you can pick this apart and tell us how it was a bad idea and we should never do it again.”
“You really think I’d say that?”
“Yes,” Mateo said. “Because I know you. And you have every right to say it.”
“But we’re not promising to agree with you,” Buckley added.
His laughter got the best of him. And there was no hiding the relief in it. Then both men were moving toward him, and the next thing Jeff knew Buckley was sliding a blue polo over hishead and Mateo was dragging a pair of his own white briefs up his legs.
How, after all the debauched things they’d done together, could this be the sexiest thing that had ever happened to him? Two men he was crazy about dressing him with gentle but determined hands, encouraging him not to run.
10
Sapphire Cove’s sundrenched main restaurant sat between the bustling lobby and a soaring wall of plate glass that offered an expansive view of coastal mountains plunging toward the sparkling Pacific.
Buckley was giddy over the fact that he’d gotten both men to agree to his four p.m. Sunday rule. Now, he figured, they could all stretch their limbs and enjoy every inch of space inside this wild weekend they’d declared for themselves. Tomorrow, they could worry about the consequences. Tomorrow, they could talk about what this all meant, and, more importantly, what it might turn into.
Once the server had taken their orders, Buckley said, “Truth or dare?”
Jeff laughed.
Mateo glanced around at the packed tables nearby. “I’m thinking the dare part might be kinda adventurous,papi. Even for us.”
“We do the truth part here, and we bank all the dares. If someone takes that option.”
“Bank them?” Jeff asked with a wry smile.
“For later. In the room.” Buckley waggled his eyebrows.
Until tomorrow’s deadline arrived, he thought it best to schedule their activities, keep them engaged with the steamier side of their adventure in throupling. He didn’t want to overdo it. Didn’t want to turn into chirpy, needy, ten-year-old Buckley, trying to hold his parents’ focus before their minds wandered totheir next luxury vacation—without him. But too much idle time might lead to insecurity and doubt. Better they make the most of the hours they had left together beforereal talkentered the chat.
“I’m down,” Jeff said, “if you go first. Cano?”
Mateo nodded and said, “And Jeff gets first question.”
Buckley nodded. “Deal.”
“Truth or dare?” Jeff asked.
“Truth,” Buckley answered.
Jeff sipped his mimosa, studying Buckley. His intent looks carried more power now, and Buckley found himself suddenly flushed and breathless under its force.
“What’s your biggest fear?” Jeff asked.
“Well, when I was a kid, it was being kidnapped.”
“And now?”
Buckley thought about it for a moment, then told himself that spending a lot of time on this kind of answer was usually a sign you were making one up. “Getting lost. Like on a hike. You know, getting turned around and losing my way and being too far from civilization to call. I’m not a big wilderness person, so…”
“You need people,” Jeff said. “I mean, that’s what both of those are about, right? Getting lost, being kidnapped when you’re young. Those are both about being alone. Being abandoned.”
He felt himself flush. “I guess.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Buckley cut his eyes to Jeff’s, startled to be read in this way. For some reason, the admission, that he’d spent most of his younger years feeling like his parents might lose track of him,didmake him feel ashamed. Like the feelings were his fault, the cause irrelevant.