Page 25 of Party of Three (Sapphire Cove Suite Secrets)

The business center was a glorified closet.

When Jeff had first found the place, he’d worried someone might accuse him of hogging the room’s single computer.

But in the two hours or so since he’d let the glass door drift shut behind him, no one had so much as poked their head in.

The age of Docusign and personal devices for toddlers probably spelled doom for hotel business centers in general, and in another year this space would be commandeered by the fitness center next door.

At any rate, he was grateful for his solitude. No prying eyes or curious questions. No need to put a polite spin on what he was working on.

I’m coming up with a battle plan for how to make a throuple work with a guy I’ve been in love with for years and another guy who makes me feel like I’m flying whenever he touches me.

He changed the font again. From Times New Roman to Optima this time, wondering if a less rounded typeface might make the whole thing feel less like word salad tossed by a fear-addled mind.

Objective 1

Action Items to Define Terms

1. Buckley defines what “poly” means for him.

2. Buckley experiments with Mateo and another third, see if a “closed throuple” is what he wants.

3. Mateo does same.

4. Up to Buckley and Mateo to define whether these experimentation sessions will include the other partner.

5. Buckley and Mateo must complete at least two experimentation sessions before reporting back to Jeff with results of their findings.

6. Three of us to see each other one day a week when Mateo comes down to San Diego for his therapy session.

Results of their findings?

Jesus, what was wrong with him?

He was talking about something that was supposed to be an affair of the heart like it belonged in cargo bays and equipment lockers.

Was it an affair of the heart, though? Or was it little more than the gyrations of three very horny male bodies over the course of a single weekend?

That’s clearly what all three of them needed to talk about.

Instead, here he was in a lightly air-conditioned closet, tapping away on a three-generations-out-of-date Mac.

Maybe phrases like objectives and action items wouldn’t have seemed so cold and inappropriate if he hadn’t included about twenty-five mentions of each in a single three-page document.

He’d meant to write something focusing, clarifying.

Lean and to the point. Instead, what he’d typed up read like a list of a dozen things Buckley and Mateo had to do on their own before Jeff could feel comfortable risking his heart.

The words closed throuple stared at him accusingly from the screen. A bright, shining diamond of truth amidst the swirl of anxious proclamations.

He’d come undone last night. For the first time, he’d felt the power and force of a physical connection flowing through three people at once, with equal and shattering force.

Like he’d plugged himself into some new power source for the first time and it had rocketed him out of his skin before he’d returned to a body that felt stronger, more powerful, save for one mixed-up head and very confused heart.

He didn’t want to be their guest star or the sex toy or their visiting dick.

He wanted them, both of them. He wanted the three of them together, feeding off each other. Feasting on each other. But who was he to ask them to make that kind of commitment?

He was in his mid-forties and they were barely out of their twenties and discovering their polyamorous sides for the first time. Buckley’s big realization that weekend seemed like the beginning of something—for him. Him and Mateo.

In the Marines, this level of strategic overthink had always helped him.

In his personal life, it ruined things before they’d begun.

And that’s what he felt on the verge of doing now.

Ruining something amazing, unexpected, and wonderful.

He’d put in too much work on the damn thing to delete it, so he added his final summation to the end.

If we pursue this, I want you both to myself.

His hand shook when he clicked the print button.

Halfway across the lobby, a woman called out to him and he spun, having trouble placing the voice.

“I didn’t know you stayed the weekend!” Mateo’s sister Marisol was walking toward him across the lobby, enfolding him in a big, perfume-scented hug before he could tuck his fresh printout to his chest. “Listen, do you know what room they’re in?

The front desk won’t tell me and neither of them are answering my texts. ”

“They’re in one of the villas. 6E. Why? Is something wrong?”

“Wrong? I don’t think so. Intense , maybe.

” She pointed in the direction of the restaurant.

A couple who looked a little older than Jeff sat silently at one of the glass tables, heads bowed in deep thought, hands linked across the table.

Maybe they were praying. The man had Mateo’s height and wavy ink-black hair.

The woman had his rounded chin and curious brown eyes. “Are those…”

Marisol nodded. “I’ll give you the short version. Father Jones, the prick who tried to destroy our family, got caught stealing from the church and sending the money to a girlfriend in Santa Barbara.”

Jeff swallowed, looked to Marisol to make sure she wasn’t kidding. “Catholic priests aren’t allowed to have girlfriends,” he finally said.

“Stealing’s out too. Mom was so devastated she took to her bed two weeks ago.

I didn’t want to tell Teo ’cause I didn’t want to distract from his party.

But the party was tearing her up all weekend.

I mean, it’s not like I don’t understand.

She disowned her son on the advice of a thieving hypocrite, and she was too humiliated to ask him to forgive her.

But this morning, she finally had enough of feeling sorry for herself.

Made me drive them both down here. They want to make things right.

And they want to meet Buckley.” Her eyes lit up, and she clapped her hands together.

“Kind of a great birthday present, right?”

Jeff’s heart dropped. The confidence that had propelled him away from that cheap old desktop computer started to wither away inside of him.

“So I guess Christmas is back on the table,” he said.

Marisol dabbed at her eyes. “Yeah, I think so. Come on. Take us to their room.”

She took his hand and gave it a little tug. Everything inside of him tensed up. His feet turned to concrete blocks.

Christmas , he thought. Mateo’s about to get his family and his favorite holiday back, and it’s been hard enough for him to do that with one boyfriend. But two?

“No. It’s…” He pointed in the direction of the hallway leading to the villas. “It’s that way. This is a family thing. You guys have your moment.”

Marisol nodded, but her smile was flickering and fading as if she could sense his sadness and wasn’t sure what to make of it.

He headed for the motor court before she could question him.

Had he left something in the villa? Of course not. He’d never planned to stay. He’d been a guest, that was all.

The best thing to do was leave, fast. This was Mateo’s moment.

More importantly, it was Buckley’s moment to be accepted by Mateo’s family.

Finally. After months of being made to feel like the guy who’d shattered it to pieces.

And here he was, seconds away from asking them both to make a commitment to him? Insane.

This was exactly the reality check he needed. The weekend had been wild and hot and wonderful. Now it was over.

It was time for Mateo and Buckley to be the kind of gay couple his parents might finally accept.

And it was time for Jeff to go home and be a grown-up about all this.

* * * *

At first, Mateo told himself he was imagining the smell. Sweet and floral and deeply familiar, a constant throughout his childhood and most of his adult life as well—up until a few months ago.

His mother’s perfume.

He’d been watching mindless reality television with Buckley, fighting the urge to take off in search of Jeff.

They needed to give the man his space, Buckley had told him.

Everything had happened so fast it was only natural an A-type like Jeff needed time to pull his thoughts together.

They could expect a lecture and an overly detailed battle plan, for sure, but both things would be worth it if he was willing to make the leap.

So when Mateo shot up off the sofa at the familiar smell, Buckley said “Babe” in a strained voice that made it sound like he thought Mateo was going back on their agreement.

As soon as he opened the door, Mateo found himself staring into those huge brown eyes that had always been able to make him feel either chastised or commended in an instant.

He had those eyes too. His mother’s eyes.

His mother was here. And she was crying.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, she threw her arms around him and exploded with a wrenching sob.

Marisol was next to her, and the story came flying out in rapid-fire Spanish.

Father Jones. Stealing. A mistress. Their father stepped in behind their mother, placed a hand on her shoulder, his head bowed the way it had been when he’d once forgotten to set the parking brake on their truck and it had almost rolled into the street, its back left bumper catching on a power pole at the last possible second.

He’d never seen his parents so crestfallen and weary, or his mother quite this hysterical.

Their hugs and apologies, as incoherent as they were, gave him joy, but their obvious shame made it hard to savor.

Then, once they both caught their breath, they turned to Buckley, who was so stunned by their dramatic entrance, he hadn’t moved from where he’d first stood up.

His eyes were wide and glistening as Mateo’s mother moved to him.

Gently, she took both of his hands in hers.

Then she kissed him on one cheek and then the other.

“Proverbs 12:5,” she said quietly. “The thoughts of the righteous are just, the counsels of the wicked are deceitful.”

“Okay,” Buckley said softly, then he swallowed, which was what he usually did when he was about to cry.

“My son, he is a righteous man. And I allowed a wicked one to drive him from me.”

Mateo’s father stepped forward and gave Buckley a quick, hard half hug.

Mateo had his mother’s full attention again.

“Everything he said to me felt wrong. But I ignored it. I ignored what was in my heart because I thought he was a man of God. But he was dishonest and weak . And you have always been strong, Mateo. And I let that bad man rise above you in my heart.” Taking Mateo’s hands, she looked back over one shoulder at Buckley.

“Will you join us for Christmas? Both of you?”

Both of them…

Behind his sister, who was sobbing quietly into one fist, the villa’s door stood open to the sun-splashed stairs outside. The space beyond was empty.

Both of them…

An invitation for two at the very moment they were about to become three. An invitation he thought he’d lost forever simply for being himself.

He met Buckley’s gaze. His soft, wide-eyed gaze, a look that told him it was his decision to make. Buckley gave him a small nod. It said this decision was his to make.

So Mateo made it.