Page 48 of I Do, or Dye Trying
“No damn way I’m going to rush anything.” If it was going to be the last night I could love him without inhibitions until our wedding night, then I was going to take him as often as I could, starting with the foyer wall.
“HOW MANY TIMES AREyou going to fluff that pillow?” Gabe asked from the doorway of the room his parents would occupy for their visit. I looked over my shoulder at him and caught him staring at my ass. “Besides, I see you bent over near a bed, and I get all kinds of ideas,” he said, earning a snort from me He didn’t need a bed nor did I need to be bent over to entice that man. “Okay, you just need to be breathing,” he said, repeating words I’d told him once.
I straightened from the bed and turned to him. They were due to arrive any minute, and I wanted things to look perfect. “I just want your parents to be comfortable and have a nice visit,” I told him. It sounded logical to me.
Gabe cocked a brow and said, “I haven’t seen you fluffing the pillows inyourparents’ bed ten times already this morning.”
“That’s because they’re my parents and they’d love their visit even if I put them in a tent in the backyard,” I said casually.
Gabe straightened from the casual lean he’d perfected, and the amused expression slid from his face.Uh oh.“And you think my parents are somehow different?” he asked, sounding insulted. “Do you think their love is dependent on a mattress that’s ‘plush, but not too plush’ and pillows that are ‘firm, but not hard’?” Gabe walked toward me in what I’d call purposeful strides, but they weren’t angry; his body language and expression were that of a disappointed man. I thought it would be at least a week into our marriage before I earned that reaction from him. “Do you think my parents’ love is that superficial or do you still not know how much you are loved?”
“Um.” How does one answer that question without looking bad? Gabe thought it was one or the other, but it was simply me being me. And shouldn’t a man recognize a fellow pleaser when he saw one? Gay men are supposed to have a radar that lets us know when another gay man is in the vicinity, shouldn’t that be the case with other things also? It takes a pleaser to know one? Wouldn’t that be handy? “Neither,” I said honestly. “I’m doing this for the same reason that you went to two different liquor stores looking for my dad’s favorite scotch and you had the florist order special flowers for my mom because they’re her favorite. It’s not as if they’d yank their support away for our nuptials if those things were not in the house,” I told him. “We’re both making sure our parents feel welcome and comfortable in our new home as we begin our lives together. We’re just expressing it in different ways.”
Gabe placed his hands on my neck and stroked my jawline with his thumbs. “You’re right.”
“Yes, I am,” I boasted proudly.
“And so fucking adorable.” Gabe lowered his head until our lips nearly touched. The intensity and adoration in his dark eyes nearly made me melt into a puddle at his feet. I thought it was an absolute travesty that people lived without having someone look at them the way that Gabe looked at me; and not just in that mushy moment either. I always saw respect and admiration in his eyes. “Only forty-eight hours until you become Joshua James Roman-Wyatt.” Then he pressed his mouth fully against mine, and I lost myself in our kiss.
“And you become Gabriel Allen Roman-Wyatt,” I told him once we unlocked our lips and tongues.
“I do,” Gabe said like he was practicing for the big event.
“Wow, you’ve got that part down perfectly.” An excited shiver worked its way through my body, and I wondered how I was going to react when he said those words for real.
“I’ve been practicing in the mirror,” Gabe said playfully. He regaled me with ten different ways of saying those two words—from the serious to the hilarious. My favorite was his attempt at a British accent; it wasn’t half bad, and I thought maybe we could have fun with that one someday. I opened my mouth to suggest it, but I was interrupted by the doorbell ringing. “Uh oh,” Gabe said, his eye sparkling with mischief, “your future in-laws are here.”
“Yours are too,” I said, matching his tone and expression. Our parents lived only an hour apart and had become great friends once we introduced them at dinner in February, so they flew together and drove to our house together. “Last one to the door is the worst son-in-law,” I yelled before I bolted for the door.
“Oh no you don’t,” Gabe said. He caught me before I left the room and playfully shoved me out of the way. Gabe had a strength advantage and agility from years of playing sports, but I was fast as lightning when I had nothing but open space in front of me, so I did what any man would do once he cleared the staircase and had the front door in his sight. I tripped my future husband and leaped over his body as he fell to the floor so I could get to the door first. Gabe grabbed for my shorts while I was in the air and managed to pull them down to mid thigh, which slowed me down a little but didn’t stop me.
I laughed in exalted pleasure when I reached the door first and yanked it open. I just didn’t realize how it would appear to the parents when I stood there red-faced and panting from exertion with my pants hanging low around my hips like I’d just yanked them up, which I had, but probably not for the reasons they thought.
“Gabe’s coming!” I said between ragged breaths, adding to the impression that they’d just interrupted sex. “Behind me,” I added, making it worse. My face flamed in embarrassment as soon as the words left my mouth. Our dads’ lips twitched as they fought to keep the smiles off their faces—probably to spare me further embarrassment—but my mother wasn’t feeling quite so generous.
“Yes, I imagine that happens frequently. Had we known we were interrupting we could’ve circled the block a few more times,” she said, pushing past me to enter the foyer. “Oh my lands, this house is beautiful, Joshy.”
“We weren’t having sex,” I told them. “It was a race to determine the best son-in-law. Here I am, the one to greet you while Gabe,” I looked over my shoulder to see my man standing there with a huge smile on his face, “laughs at me behind my back.”
“Darling,” Martina said, looking at me then her son, “we’re all adults who know what it’s like to be in love and have sexual urges.” Gabe started to retch by that time, and it was my turn to grin smugly. “Save your excuses for when your future children catch you in the act.”
“Yeah, like that time the kids came home early from the pool,” Al said then started to laugh. “Dylan wanted to know what we were doing beneath that blanket, and your mom told him we were wrestling.”
Gabe plugged his fingers in his ears like a child and said, “Not funny.”
“My parents told me they were hiding Easter eggs when I caught them going at it in the kitchen pantry,” I told Gabe, hoping to make him feel better.
“Is that the same little room where you whip up your hair potions?” Gabe asked.
“The one and the same,” I said. I could tell he fondly remembered the two times we fooled around a little in that same room. “That’s also how I found out there was no such thing as the Easter Bunny.”
“Josh demanded to know why we were hiding the eggs when the Easter Bunny was supposed to be hiding them. I panicked,” my dad said then laughed at the memory. “He was really pissed when he made the connection later in the year that no Easter Bunny also meant no Santa Claus.”
“Wait, you didn’t make that connection right away?” Gabe asked. His tone was curious, not scornful, so it didn’t hurt my feelings.
“Some people believe only in what they can see while others cling to the belief that the fantastic and implausible must be true—or at least attainable—on some level,” I told Gabe, aware that all eyes were on us. My parents weren’t the ones who pissed all over my dreams of fairy tales and fantastic things, but I lost them for some time. It got so quiet that you could’ve heard a pin drop. I wanted the moment to remain lighthearted, so I said, “You should’ve seen how pissed I was when I found out that Mary Poppins wasn’t real.” It got the laughter I wanted to break up the emotion building inside me. “How about a tour of the house that starts with the kitchen so I can feed you. I know damn well you didn’t eat much on the plane.”
“Yes,” the parental units said exuberantly.