“Take a seat, Chuck-let,” Spencer says, patting the spot next to him. Happily, I crawl onto the mattress and lie on my back, my head on one of Church’s fur-covered pillows, my gaze on the dark sky above us. The stars are so bright up here, I can even see the swirling brilliance of the Milky Way.
Spence covers me up with a blanket and then lays down beside me. Ranger crawls in on my other side, with Church next to him, and the twins on the other side of Spencer.
For a little while, we all just lay there in silence, staring up at the sky.
“This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever done,” I whisper, not wanting to break the quiet perfection of the moment. I’m not even mad when one of those stupid owls hoots in the distance.
“I’m not sure that I’ve ever stargazed before,” Micah says, his voice contemplative. He hesitates for just a moment before he adds, “Happy Birthday, Chuck.”
“Happy birthday,” Church adds, sitting up and grabbing the champagne bottle by the neck. He pops the cork—very likely that dad doesn’t know about this part of the plan—and then pours us each a glass. “To Chuck,” he says, and we all raise our glasses, clinking them together.
I salute the sky and then down my own drink, handing the glass back to Church, so I can snuggle into Spencer’s side.
“We have plenty of food if you’re hungry,” Ranger says, still sitting up and holding his champagne in one hand. “We cooked a feast for an army.” He nods his chin in the direction of a table, laden with those silver serving trays that caterers always seem to use, the ones with the little flames underneath to keep the food warm.
Damn.
They really put a lot of work into this, didn’t they?
My pulse pounds out an excited rhythm as Spencer puts his arm around my waist.
“Good, because I can eat for an army.”
“Just let me know if you want one of these fucking strawberries,” Ranger adds, hooking a thumb in the direction of the tray. “Because I’m feeding them to you—personally.”
“Oh, you want to feed me now?” I joke as Spencer chuckles beneath me. “Is that your new kink?”
“Fuck off, Carson.” Ranger sets his glass aside and lights up a joint. He passes it to Micah first, sending a white tendril of smoke curling up into the still air. “I bet if we get high enough, we can stay here all night and talk existential theories about stars.”
“Or other things,” Tobias suggests, like they’ve all got a certain subject in mind that they’ve been planning on bringing up. Right away, alarm bells go off and I start to wonder if this might be about our relationship.
I sit up, accidentally elbowing Spencer in the side and making him groan.
“What other things?” I ask, hoping I don’t sound too much like a crazy person.
Several of the boys exchange looks as Spencer uses his elbows to prop himself up, a blue-green scarf tucked underneath his chin.
He told me he was okay with me dating the twins because he was confident that I’d pick him, that they were no threat. All along, I felt like he was hoping I’d choose him at some point. So maybe that’s it, why we’re here? After all, it wasn’t realistic for me to expect them to share forever, right?
“We wanted to talk to you about your engagement to Church,” Tobias starts, but he’s smiling at me, one knee casually propped up on the mattress, his breath fogging in the cold air. “It’s not fake anymore, it’s real, so we need to figure out where we’re going with all of this.”
My eyes widen, but I don’t interrupt; I want to hear what they have to say.
“You know that Tobias and I always planned on sharing a girlfriend or, one day, a wife.” Micah pours himself another glass of champagne and then knocks it back in one swig. “But we didn’t want to share with anyone else.”
“I didn’t want to share at all,” Ranger says, glancing at Church. “But that’s not how things are working out.”
“How do you mean?” I ask, struggling to control my racing heart. If this goes from the best birthday ever to the worst, I swear, I’ll flip one of these mattresses off the roof and into the trees. Good luck getting that out of the canopy, Eddie.
“We’re all in agreement that we like how things are going with you,” Church says, and then he smirks. “That sounded fucking clinical. What I mean is, we all like you, and that doesn’t seem to be changing.”
“We figured since we were going to the same college anyway, that we should just … make a mutual agreement,” Tobias tacks on, ruffling up his hair like he’s concerned he might be messing this up.
