Daye, Rainey - An Unconventional Love (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (34 page)

“Huh?” Rita asked.

“Ida Turner was Alex’s aunt by marriage. She was married to his mom’s brother, and it was Ida’s family that had the money. I hear it was quite a scandal that she married a ‘nobody’ instead of the man her parents had been grooming her for. They cut her off in an attempt to get her to come to her senses and buckle under. But she was a ‘tough old broad,’ according to Alex. She and her husband lived hand-to-mouth while Uncle Owen put himself through school, and they had a bunch of babies. After the fifth one in seven years, all boys, her family realized that not only wasn’t she going to come crawling back to their familial bosom, but no man from society would be willing to marry a woman who already had five kids. And since she was an only child, well, they eventually reinstated her into the family and gave her this house as a conciliatory gesture. But contrary as she was, she gave the house her married name rather than her birth name.”

“Wow!” She heard a couple people in the room breath in surprise, although she still couldn’t tell if they believed she actually lived there.

Maggie hit a button on the remote again, bringing up more pictures of the grounds, sides, and back of the house as she continued with the story. “Uncle Owen was killed in a car accident when Alex was seventeen, though he did spend a lot of time with both of them prior to his uncle’s death. As Alex likes to say, he gladly did anything Aunt Ida asked and some things that she didn’t, as long as he could use her pool.” With that, Maggie clicked the remote and brought up multiple images of the pool area, and she was satisfied to hear audible gasps of awe now.

“Alex and his cousins are convinced that she simply lost the will to live once he was gone. Although she had been in perfect health and was a force of nature according to those who knew her, within two years after her husband’s death, she died in her sleep.

“Anyway,” she continued after clearing her throat. “When her will was read, Alex found himself in possession of Turner House. As you can imagine, he was shocked. But his cousins were rather pleased. They had received quite hefty cash inheritances of their own, and since each of them already had their own lives and careers out of state, they were happy that Aunt Ida was keeping the house in the family by giving it to Alex. So Alex asked his best friend Jess to move in with him, and after a year or so, they thought about getting another roommate. Jess knew me from our study group and knew I was desperate to get out of the dorm, so that’s how I got the invite to move in with them.”

Maggie clicked to more interior shots. “This is my bedroom,” she said. “It’s on the front right side of the house. There’s another bedroom in the front, but it extends partway over the garage, so it’s used mostly for storage.” She didn’t have any pictures to share of the other bedrooms, not that she would have included them, her bedroom pictures adequately displaying that her room was bigger than most of their living rooms, and she had made sure to include views that showed her private bathroom and walk-in closet with the California shelving.

She clicked through more pictures, which showed the curved oak and iron scrollwork staircase, the formal dining room, the gourmet kitchen, the large living room, which doubled as a family room or den with its large stone gas fireplace, and the office on the first floor. She then showed them the custom gym that Alex’s dad had put together for him in the basement, explaining that his dad was a highly regarded personal trainer in their area and even had a few celebrity clients, and then showed them the media room in the basement. As each picture came up she described each room, and they even laughed as she told them that Jess’s mom was a gourmet chef and had taught both men how to cook and they were now taking on the challenge of teaching her, at which Rita had quipped, “Do they know that you were voted Most Likely To Burn Down A Kitchen in high school?”

“No, but they know I’m pretty much hopeless. Though Jess did succeed in teaching me how to nuke potatoes in the microwave, and I make a mean pitcher of iced tea.” This garnered even more laughter from the gathered neighbors.

“So, you live with two men?” Old Mrs. Peterson finally said in a disapproving voice as she shot a look of contempt toward her parents.

“Yes I do. Two sweeter, kinder, or caring men you will never meet. They treat me like the sister they never had and are constantly looking out for me. And before you say anything else, they both have a serious girlfriend,” Maggie said, catching her parents’ eyes to let them know that they wouldn’t have to listen to any more Aunt Tanya comments that they would have probably heard otherwise if she had revealed that her roommates were gay.

“Oh,” the old woman said, not being able to find any fault with two men who treated a woman like their sister, while her mother nodded in acknowledgement of what she assumed was a lie on Maggie’s part and gave her a smile to indicate her gratitude for said lie.

Maggie took a deep breath then and debated whether she should click on the final pictures on the disc. But since both men would be coming to her hometown, people would be seeing them anyway, so she might as well get it out of the way. Biting her lip, she clicked the remote again, revealing a photo of two men walking into the foyer, obviously unaware that a camera was trained on them. “The brunette is Alex, and the blond is Jess,” Maggie said nonchalantly to the quick intake of breath that practically sucked all the oxygen out of the room, though her parents had already seen photos of the two men.

She then started flipping through the rest of the photos, which were mostly candid shots of the two men, even a couple of Alex looking dashing on horseback during their first date and Jess posing for her in the foyer before their date. She had included pictures of the two men goofing off in the pool or grilling out on the kitchen patio or cooking in the kitchen. A couple of shots of them sitting at the dining-room table with their heads bent over their textbooks as they took notes. And at the end of the disc were pictures of her that the men had taken. Some were of her alone around the house while others were of her with either one of the men. “Sorry if those pics are a bit blurry,” she said about the pictures that she was in. “The guys say it’s only fair that they snap pictures of me when I’m not looking since I snap pictures of them all the time. Photography is not their forte, though.”

The slideshow ended with a couple of posed group shots of the three of them together. Maggie ejected the disc then and put it back in its sleeve before she turned to face the room and the barrage of questions she knew she was about to be peppered with.

* * * *

Troy showed up for dinner that night, just the four of them. Her mother spent the entire meal gushing about Troy and dropped not-so-subtle hints that they should go out together and get reacquainted and catch up. Troy offered to take her to the Fourth of July fireworks show in the town square, and since it was a public setting, Maggie agreed. Since it was an all-day celebration culminating with the fireworks display, he offered to pick her up at noon, and Maggie easily said, “We’ll be ready.” When Troy looked askance at that, Maggie blithely clarified, “Me and my folks.”

“Oh, of course,” Troy replied, and Maggie shushed her mom when she tried to protest by pointing out that she had come home to visit her parents and she wanted to spend time with them.

Seeing this train wreck coming, Maggie called Rita after dinner and suggested that she meet her and all their high school girlfriends at the fountain in the town square and they could make a day of it and catch up. She was confident that if her mom tried to abandon her to Troy, she would have her girlfriends there to run interference, whether they realized it or not. She then fired off a quick e-mail to the guys to let them know that they hadn’t been outed after all and then crawled into bed.

The next morning at breakfast, her mother tried to beg off going to the celebration with her and Troy, and Maggie put her fork down to look her squarely in the eye. “Mom, I love you, and I know your intentions are good, but I am
not
interested in picking back up with Troy. So if you are going to spend my entire vacation playing matchmaker, let me know now, and I will pack up and head home before you piss me off so bad that I won’t ever want to come home to visit again.”

Her mother wisely backed off.

The only other bump that day was when Troy suggested that they find a spot away from the crowd so they could have a better view of the fireworks. But Maggie was no longer one to pussyfoot around a subject. Her boyfriends had taught her to speak her mind, clearly and concisely, and to ask the difficult questions bluntly.

“Are you trying to get back together with me, Troy?” she asked.

“And if I were?” he asked with a coy smile.

“Then I would tell you that I’m not interested in either picking up where we left off or just fooling around with you while I’m here.”

“Oh,” he said, taken aback. “Why not? Your parents said you weren’t dating.”

“I’m all grown up. I don’t tell them everything. If I did, they would never have let you walk in the front door. Hell, if I told them half the things we had done together, my dad would come after you with a shotgun.” Troy laughed, conceding her point.

“So, there’s another guy?” he finally asked.

“You could say that. Let’s just say that I am very happy with the direction of my personal life and refuse to do anything that might jeopardize that happiness.”

“Fair enough,” Troy said. “Whoever he is, though, I hope he knows what a lucky bastard he is.” Maggie shot him a smile in gratitude.

After that the next two weeks flew by in a blur. By the end of the first week, everyone in town had viewed the disc she had put together, either to “oh and ah” over the house or to drool over her roommates. The disc left the house that first night and made the rounds before it was returned to her parents at the beginning of the second week.

While her parents were at work, Maggie spent her days either out with her high school girlfriends laughing and giggling and filling each other in on their lives, or she spent time IM’ing her boyfriends, since they had told her to save her minutes by not calling, and they missed her so badly that they knew they would wind up on the phone for hours. “Besides,” Jess had said, “phone sex would just frustrate me right now.”

Maggie and two of her friends had just entered her house on the evening of her fifteenth day back home when her dad said from the living room, “Maggie, you have a visitor.”

Dropping her purse by the door, Maggie and her friends walked into the living room, where she let out a squeal of delight when she saw Jess rise up from the couch where he had been sitting talking to her folks. Maggie rushed forward and threw herself into his arms, hugging him tightly. Heedless of their audience, Maggie would have kissed him, but Jess laughed and firmly set her away. “Hey, Mags. Hope you don’t mind me dropping in to visit,” he said in his warm tenor.

He shot her a warning glance, and Maggie valiantly tried to get her libido under control. “Well, I know my folks invited you and Alex to come and visit so they could meet the guys I was shacked up with,” she said in a teasing tone, “but when I told you about my Dad’s gun collection, you two seemed to suddenly find excuses as to why you would have to decline.”

Her parents and friends all laughed aloud as Jess said, “Hey, you assured us that they were real guns and that your dad knew how to use them. Alex and I aren’t fools. We know when to duck and run.”

“Speaking of which, where’s Alex?” Maggie asked, looking around.

“Like I said, we aren’t fools. Or, in this instance, Alex isn’t. I drew the short end of the stick so came down here first to provide your dad with target practice. If I survive, then Alex said he’ll drop in later.”

“You didn’t tell us your roommates were funny,” Rita breathed to Maggie as she stepped forward and offered her hand to Jess, introducing herself and their other friend to him.

“Jess is the funny one. Alex is more laid-back, and his sense of humor is much drier,” Maggie said.

“You don’t mind that I came down?” Jess asked to be polite.

“Are you kidding? I’m thrilled you’re here. Now I get to show you all the sights,” Maggie replied earnestly and allowed Jess to take her hand and draw her down onto the couch next to him. Her girlfriends lingered for the next hour as they talked, while Maggie was acutely aware of Jess’s proximity and the fact that she had to control her impulses.

After her friends finally left after having flirted and batted their eyes at him, and Rita not so subtly got Jess to confirm that he did indeed have a girlfriend that he was very serious about, Maggie’s mom announced that dinner would be ready in about an hour, so Maggie said she and Jess were going out in the backyard to catch up.