Page 27 of You're Ours

“Spawn has been acquired!” Sky texted. “She’s so excited to see Mammy and Pa, she made up a song aboutit.”

They were taking her to see Sky’s parents for the weekend, since they were technically a part of her big, convoluted family. They’d come to visit the previous year, and it had just so happened to coincide with one of the nights Tyler was watching Layla. The three of them had immediately fallen in love with each other, and they’d gone to visit a few months ago with Stephanie and Clara. This would be her first time visiting without her moms, and Tyler was glad to see she didn’t have any jitters.

Tyler threw his arms around Jackson’s neck the second he was within reach, nearly crushing the flimsy certificate the CEO had handed him.

“Careful, love. You almost crushed our recognition for six months of back-breaking work,” Jackson joked, pulling the certificate out from between them.

A member of Tyler’s team came up to them and shook hands with Jackson, and they all joked about the absurdity of a certificate. The accounting department took up almost a floor and a half of the building. Where were they even going to hang the stupid thing?

“Guess you get to hang it up in your office, boss,” Tyler said, slapping Jackson on the shoulder as they walked to the elevators.

“Maybe I’ll leave it on Quinn’s desk,” Jackson mused, using the corner of the certificate to jab the up button. It left a little crease in the paper, and Tyler snorted as he wrapped an arm around Jackson’s back. When they stepped into the elevator, blessedly alone, he slid his hand into Jackson’s back pocket.

“Behave yourself,” Jackson said, but he brought his unoccupied hand around to Tyler’s ass and squeezed it, not even bothering with his pocket.

After they gathered their stuff from their respective offices, Jackson went to the CFO’s office to drop off the certificate, and Tyler called them a ride-share. The drive was a bit longer than it used to be, but the quieter streets and larger space of their condo was completely worth it.

“I told you we should have driven separately this morning,” Tyler said, as Jackson unfolded himself from the back of the admittedly small sedan.

“Yeah, well, you and Sky were taking so long in the shower, I figured if I left without you, you’d both be hours late.”

Tyler smirked as a still frame image of Sky’s face flashed across his mind. Water was running down the soft crests of his cheekbones as he stared up at Tyler from his knees.

Jackson shoulder-checked him, almost sending him crashing into Sky’s azalea bush. “You two are insatiable.”

They really were. Tyler had never had so much amazing sex in his life. He didn’t take a single moment for granted, though. Not the time Sky fell asleep mid-fuck because he’d stayed up till four am the night before playing a new cozy island game, or the time Jackson fell off the bed and dented their nightstand with his shoulder. He regretted his own stupidity the time he’d ripped the shower rod out of the wall because he was convinced it would hold his weight while Jackson took him from behind. But, even so, he’d savored every minute he spent hunched over YouTube with Jackson trying to figure out how to reinstall the damn thing, Sky laughing the entire time.

The smell of garlic and pepperoni met them at the door, followed shortly after by a singing Layla. It turned out the song about Mammy and Pa was just their names over and over at varying volumes and pitches.

Tyler scooped her up and followed his nose into the kitchen. He found his gorgeous partner leaning against the kitchen island with his arms folded, a soft smile on his pretty lips. Sky turned his face up and accepted a cheek kiss from first Jackson and then Tyler.

Over dinner, Layla told them, in exorbitant detail, every single thing she wanted to do at Mammay and Pa’s house. Tyler tried to jot down mental notes at the beginning, like the exact shape of mac n’ cheese she wanted and the flavor of juice she was excited about. When she began listing out the very precise shape and type of spaceship she required for her trip to Mars with Mammy, Tyler stopped taking notes and switched to slowly gazing around the room at three of the most important people in the world to him.

Jackson was nodding enthusiastically as Layla stared directly into his soul and described the types of cake she was pretty sure existed on Mars. He was tilting forward over the table, curling his shoulders in so he appeared much smaller and was closer to Laya’s height in her booster seat. One of his hands was holding a slice of pizza and the other was hidden under the table, either resting in his lap or possibly on Sky’s leg.

Sky was reclined in his chair, both arms crossed loosely over his chest as he gazed fondly at Layla. Every few minutes, he’d interject with increasingly farfetched suggestions for the community Layla was planning to form on Mars.

“What do you think, love?” Sky asked, turning his crystal blue eyes on Tyler. “Should there only be pizza and cake on Mars, or do you think we should have a vegetable or two, like–”

“Corn!” Layla interjected, waving her piece of pizza in the air, sending several pepperoni flying.

“I like corn,” Jackson said, grabbing one of the pepperonis and placing it on his last bite of pizza.

Layla fell into a fit of giggles at Jackson eating her “table pepperoonie!”

Tyler searched under the table with his foot until his ankle found Jackson’s. Jackson immediately pressed back, and that spot under Tyler’s ribs fluttered to life. He reached for Sky, who immediately unfolded his arms to take Tyler’s hand. Sky squeezed once before threading their fingers together and resting their linked hands on his thigh. That spot gave a few frantic pulses and then settled into a pervasive warmth Tyler felt all up and down his chest.

He could feel Jackson’s gaze on him as he stared into Sky’s sparkling eyes. “Mine,” he mouthed, and a smile like sunrise on Christmas morning broke across Sky’s face. Tyler glanced at Jackson and repeated the word.

Jackson pressed against his leg as Sky squeezed his hand. Layla launched into a new rendition of her song, and Tyler was just barely able to make out two soft voices whispering, “Ours.”