Page 12

CHAPTER 12

KENO

I’m holding my breath. My mother’s eyes are fucking wide. My father looks blank-faced, unsure of what to think.

But it’s Edna’s expression that makes my heart stop. She’s not happy.

“Really?” Edna asks. “Are you joking before you tell us something else to take the edge off or something?”

“No,” Etna says. “I’m marrying Keno. We’re getting married this June after we don’t win the Stanley Cup but someone else does.”

His father snorts.

“But… why?”

“Edna,” his mother hisses again.

Edna huffs. She’s not happy. Not at all. She’s glaring at me and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. When she looks at Etna, I half expect him to tell her he’s joking. We’ll think about it. Something so she’s not upset.

“I think you should think about it,” Edna says.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” his mother huffs. “I swear, if you weren’t an adult, I’d send you to your room for how rude you’re being.”

Edna doesn’t answer her. She doesn’t look away from Etna.

I’m holding my breath again. Unsure how this is going to go. It comes puffing out of me when Etna wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me into his side.

“Your only response should be to be supportive,” Etna says.

“But I?—”

“Enough!” Etna snaps and Edna flinches. “I love you, Eddy. You’ve always been the most important person in my entire life. I expected a whole lot better from you. I’m marrying Keno. Your only option is to get on board and support me. Do you understand?”

She presses her lips together but doesn’t answer. Her eyes say it all. She’s pleading with him to change his mind.

We just met. How can she possibly hate me? You turned my brother gay . The accusation makes me cringe, even if it’s just from my own mind.

“Congratulations,” my father says.

When I turn my attention to him, my mom is smiling. She breaks away from where she’s standing and wraps us both in a hug that we have to bend over for. Relief floods me.

“Thanks, Mom,” I whisper.

“I’m sorry for the initial reaction,” she says. “I’m surprised. I know what the media says, but you always assured me you’re…”

“Not gay,” I supply. I shrug. “There’s a longer explanation for that, but maybe it can wait until morning. We’ll let things settle tonight.” My eyes flicker to Edna.

“Of course, baby,” Mom agrees.

I’m even more relieved when Etna’s parents both wrap us in a group hug together. I could almost cry. The idea of not being supported and accepted by his family would have fucking wrecked me.

“We are happy for you. As Luciana said, we were surprised,” Etna’s dad says.

Etna nods. “I know. We wanted to tell you in person. It felt like the right thing to do.”

“It was. Let’s turn in, hm? We can talk about it further tomorrow,” his mom suggests.

Thankfully, we do that. I practically run down the hall to escape into the bedroom. Etna hesitates in the doorway. He sighs. “I’ll be right back.”

I nod and watch as he backs away, closing the door behind him. His sister doesn’t have the power to make him change his mind, does she? The way my gut twists has me concerned I might throw up. This should be a good first Christmas together. It should set the tone.

I’m not feeling so good about it right now.

I sit on the bed and wait for Etna once I’m finished in the bathroom. He’s gone three more minutes and looks aggravated when he steps into the bedroom. He meets my eyes, gives me a tight smile, and disappears into the bathroom.

He’s gone again for what feels like ages. I’m ready to shatter when he finally returns. “You want to rethink this?” I ask.

Etna stops and looks at me. His shoulders sag. I’m surprised when he crawls on the bed and brings his mouth to mine. It’s a longer kiss than we’ve shared yet, though still just a lips-to-lips kiss. “No,” he says, bringing his hand to the back of my neck to kiss me again. “I’m never changing my mind about you, Keno.”

“But… I don’t want to come between you and your twin. I know how close you are.”

He shakes his head and pulls me down on the bed so we’re lying face to face. “Edna is the exact opposite of me. I’m rational and think about shit before I speak about it. Especially if it’s something big and important.”

“Which is evident since you let a week go by before you brought up my joke,” I answer.

His hand is still at the back of my neck, his fingers playing in the hair at the base of my head. His smile makes my stomach flutter. Or that might still be nerves. “Yes. Exactly. I want to know how I feel about something before making myself look like an ass.”

“That’s good of you.”

“Eddy is the opposite. She reacts, even when she doesn’t understand why she feels the way she does. Which is the case right now. She can’t give me a reason for why she’s objecting because she doesn’t have one. She doesn’t know why she feels the way she does. She’ll come around.”

“What if she doesn’t?” I whisper.

He pulls me to him and wraps me in his arms. I’m not a small man by any means. If anything, I think me and Etna are about equal in size, weight, and build. My body structure might be a little leaner, but not by much.

Somehow, he manages to envelop me. Not just in his arms, but his leg hooks over my hip, making sure I’m as close as I can be. That’s his dick against my thigh. Not mine. My heart stutters as my body waffles on how to feel about it right now. Definitely going to take some time to get used to.

“She will,” Etna promises. “I’m really sorry she acted that way. I hate that you saw that first from her.”

I’m not sure how to answer so I don’t. We lie in bed for a while. The house is silent. Everything is peaceful.

“We’re nailing cuddling,” I murmur.

Etna laughs. “Definitely. Best cuddling ever. Right here. First try, knocked it out of the park.”

I grin and pull back to look at him. “I wish we could have had a better reception. I imagined excitement and whatever. But I’m not sorry we did it this way.”

He kisses my nose. “I’m not either. I’m glad our first Christmas together will be with our families. Maybe it’s something we can pull off every year.”

“I don’t see why not. We can always make it happen in a hotel room if necessary.”

“Last resort, but yes.”

“Let’s stuff the stockings. Then I have a couple presents for you I didn’t think were appropriate for the whole family.”

Etna grins. “Same. Wonder if we duplicated.”

The next morning is quiet. No one brings up our engagement. Edna is still sour. She continues to glare at me and refuses to look at her brother at all. Her attitude is getting on their mother’s nerves.

We eat breakfast then settle around the living room. I think our intent was to begin with presents and stuff, but Etna decides we need to talk before.

“I don’t know that we’re going to be able to enjoy gifts and stuff without talking, so… what questions do you have for us?” Etna asks.

No one answers for a minute. Eventually, his mother says, “I’ve never gotten the impression that you two were more than friends. Despite the popular bromance status I see all over the internet.”

I laugh.

Etna grins. “We weren’t.” He looks at me and I nod. I think we’re going with the truth. Maybe an abridged version.

“Okay. This is unconventional, but this is what we decided, and we’re not changing our minds. I need you to keep in mind that we did talk about this thoroughly and we’re very happy and excited about our future together.”

Five sets of eyes stare at Etna. I can only imagine what they’re thinking. I lean in and say, “I think you’ve had the opposite effect you were going for, dude.”

He snorts. “Yeah, okay. Look. Keno’s my best friend. We hit it off immediately. It was clear since we first started hanging out that we just clicked. I think it was in that first month of knowing each other?—”

“That you drunkenly kissed on the beach?” my dad supplies helpfully.

I let my head fall back and groan but appreciate the chuckles from our parents.

“I wasn’t going to bring that up,” Etna says. I can hear the smile in his voice, though I’m going to continue looking at the ceiling until my skin stops burning. “But yeah, that too. I was going to say that within that first month, we were already making plans for a future where we’re always right next door. We’d have families together. Raise our kids together. Take family trips together.”

“We know,” Etna’s mom says.

I finally brave a look and my shoulders relax when I see her smile. Especially when she turns that warm smile on me.

“We got to talking about different marriage practices around the world and how in some cultures, it’s becoming more common to marry a friend you’re compatible with in multiple aspects of life—lifestyle, finances, whatever. We decided to remove all the outside factors and marry each other.”

“You’re supposed to marry for love,” Edna says, her glare heavy on Etna.

“And I am,” Etna answers, and fuck does my heart jump. “I love Keno. I think anyone who has ever met us and spent any time with us knows I love Keno. Just because it’s not a romantic love right now doesn’t mean I don’t love him. We’re talking longevity. Sustainability. Building on a life we’ve already started. I know romantic love will happen now that we’ve opened ourselves up to it.”

“How can you know?” she whispers.

“Because he’s my other half, Eddy. He’s my soulmate. Even you said as much when I started talking about him. You don’t get to take that back when it’s uncomfortable for you.”

She sniffs and turns her head.

“I’m sorry that this isn’t traditional and maybe this isn’t what you want to hear. But we’re happy with this decision. We’re moving full steam ahead. My house will be on the market after the first of the year and we’re going to stop pretending to live separate lives and just move into his house until we find a bigger one on the lake. We set a date. We have a long and intimidating to-do list to make our wedding as amazing as we can. This is happening.”

“Good,” Mom says. She claps her hands together. “What’s the date?”

I sigh. “June twenty-eight.”

Both of our mothers take out their phones.

“That’s a Wednesday,” Etna’s mother says.

“Yes. That means we’ll have more of a chance of booking the venue we want when we find it, since we’re not fighting for a weekend,” Etna explains.

She grins. “Smart.”

“What else have you planned? I want to know everything,” Mom says.

“Nothing,” I admit, shaking my head. “We decided two weeks ago while we were on the road. So we got some long, scary wedding lists together and have been battling what to do about housing, and… we’ve just started. According to the lists we found, we’re like six months behind already.”

Edna presses her lips together as soon as I say that we’ve only been at this for two weeks. But she doesn’t speak. Even as our parents start asking us questions, Edna remains resolutely quiet.

She continues like that throughout the day. As we search for stockings, unwrap presents, play games while we eat lunch, and then prepare for dinner, Edna hasn’t spoken a word.

I know it’s bothering Etna. He’s both pissed and hurt. I’m not sure how to fix it without giving her what she wants. And… I’m going to be selfish. I’m not doing that. I might have only officially had this man for two weeks, but he’s mine. I’ll fight a fucking Minotaur to keep him.

It turns out to be a really good day, despite Edna. Since she’s so quiet, I can almost pretend she’s not there glaring at us all. Etna doesn’t do so well pretending, but he doesn’t try to get her out of her mood either.

When we head to bed late, he doesn’t try to talk to her again. He follows me in and shuts the door behind us. I turn, wrapping my arms around him. Etna sighs, hugging me in return. We stand just like that for several minutes.

“There’s definitely something to hugging,” I murmur. “It’s kind of healing.”

“More than kind of. We’re going to have to sneak off for hugs periodically. At least until we’re public. Then I’m hugging you wherever we are. I needed this.”

“I’m sorry?—”

“Don’t. The only one apologizing for this holiday is Eddy. It’ll be a while before we get it, but it’ll come.”

“You sound confident.”

“I am. I know my sister. Give her time with no one to interrupt her feelings and she’ll figure her shit out. Then she’ll apologize.”

“I’m really glad you want to marry me,” I whisper.

“Every day that goes by, I want to marry you more and more. I become more convinced that this is the right decision. The best decision I’ve ever made.”

“Can we get into bed now?”

“You mean among all the sex toys we left out?”

I glance at the bed and my skin heats. We opened the gifts we got for each other and we definitely both stocked up on lube. Got that note loud and clear. But where I went practical with condoms and sexy jock straps and a vibrator I thought I was totally being risqué on, Etna went adventurous with dildos and butt plugs and cock sleeves for maximum pleasure. He even bought a sounding rod that had my cock trying to crawl back into my body.

“Yes,” I answer. “Let’s lay amongst our spoils.”

He snorts. “Good idea. Get used to feeling them against our skin.”

“Ohmygod.”

Etna laughs quietly. “I’m not sure if I never noticed before or it’s just the change in our relationship, but you’re so damn cute when you blush.”

That makes me blush more. He grins, softly moving his thumb over my red cheek. “So cute,” he murmurs.

“You get better and better,” I say. “Everything out of your mouth makes my heart race.”

“We can definitely work with that. Let’s go, fiancé. We need to brush our teeth and cuddle up with our toys like they’re stuffed animals.”

I crinkle my nose as Etna takes my hand and leads me into the bathroom. I’m pretty confident our marriage is going to be super fun, if nothing else.