Yes to Everything (51 page)

Boyd tilted her face up and said, “I can’t believe you got all that out in one sentence without passing out, baby. Wow. Okay, let me break this down for you. First of all, we know you love us both and we’ve kind of noticed your obsession with equal, Sidney. You count out Oreos, for god’s sake. Neither of us is going to feel angry, left out, or hurt. Not going to happen because we’re both going to consider any children you give us as ours, not mine or Zane’s.”

“Second of all, we aren’t territorial with each other over you and believe me, you’re a woman who inspires possessiveness. There is no fault because it could be either of us and you didn’t do anything but let us love you. But what we’re both reeling from is that you’d consider having another one. That you’d give the non-biological father a baby, too. Are you serious about that, Sidney?”

She nodded with a little pout, “But it would have to be sure. There could be no question on the second one. Do you understand? There couldn’t be any doubt or I’d freak. So whichever of you ends up being the biological father, you’re on condoms until I conceive again and I don’t care how long it takes. I know they suck but too bad.” Sidney looked from Boyd to Zane, a sad little sniff betraying her firm tone. “Okay?”

They kissed her deeply and came back to the table. All the men toasted and Brooke noticed Jeanette had been drinking iced tea all night, just like Sidney. “Jeanette, is there something you’d like to share with the rest of the class, babe?” She shook her head and seemed to give Brooke a silent communication. Sidney stood up and walked around the table, sitting beside their friend and taking her hand.

“You’re pregnant, aren’t you? You don’t want to say anything because you want me to have all the attention.”

“Sweetie, I already have my little Sofia so you enjoy this moment because I am so incredibly fucking happy for you that I can hardly stand it. We’ll talk tomorrow and make plans,” Jeanette said as Mack pulled her face to his, his brows arched in question. “Baby, I had no intention of sharing tonight. I just got the results from the doctor this afternoon and you were already gone. We got so busy, then we found out about our Sidney and I wanted to wait. I decided to talk to you first then share. This is her first and we need to love her up and make it special for her.”

For twenty minutes Mack held her on his lap and talked to her quietly in her ear while his hand rested on her stomach. Sidney smiled, “Jeanette is so calm and classy in everything she does. I’m a total space case and she’s cool as a cucumber. This is going to be great. She’ll be able to keep me from, you know, messing up too bad.”

After a long time, both Sidney and Jeanette looked at Brooke expectantly. “Oh lord, don’t look at me like that. No, I’m not pregnant and how on earth would I explain it if I was? The religious groups would destroy all of us. Our situation is a little different than yours, Sidney baby. You guys can tell people to fuck off. We don’t have that luxury. Think how those fanatics act with Planned Parenthood clinics? I’m not putting a target on our backs. Hell no. I’m proud of what we have but I’m not stupid. I’ll never be able to live as openly as you do.”

Sidney graced them with a wicked smile and hands on her hips. She stood and began to pace. All of them were instantly afraid. “Really? Funny since you’re with twins, silly ass.” Brooke shrugged but the Bradshaws were staring at Sidney with dawning understanding.

“Hello? We cut their hair exactly the same, dress them so close people can’t really tell. Then you can go back and forth between them and the world will be none the wiser. As far as kids, they’re twins so their DNA is going to be identical. Girl, you could technically have a whole pack of kids and they’d be biologically the same and their daddies look exactly alike. No one can tell them apart most of the time now. We can use that.”

“Okay, you want me to what? Just have babies and not know which of them is the father? Pretend to be with the same one all the time? That doesn’t sound fair to the other one, Sidney. Honey, you have literally counted out exact amounts of peanut M&M’s in my kitchen for your men. I’m no different.” Brooke’s hands were shaking.

“Which is why a nickname works so well.” Leaning back on the laps of her men, she said, “Buzz works well for me. For instance, you could call them Dilly and come up with a funny story about the nickname. You spend time with both, in the open, without anyone realizing you’re dancing and kissing both of them, Brooke. You’re expected to play to both of them onstage. It’s your private life where you want freedom. Since they have the same last name, so will your kids. If you ever marry one of the brothers, which your fans will expect if you have little ones, you’ll all share it. I’m telling you, their being twins is perfect for your high-profile relationship.”

Brooke looked hopeful, “But how would we decide which of them I said I was dating if reporters really push?”

“Coin toss,” Zane, Boyd, and the twins all said together and grinned.

Chuckling, Boyd said, “Brooke, don’t over-think it, honey. Men in ménage relationships are not like, say…Mack. We don’t have that territorial thing when it comes to the other male. Instead of ‘me and you’ it becomes ‘us and her’ meaning you bond together to make sure every need is met in every area for your woman. So, say you do a coin toss and according to the world, you’re dating Logan. Because they’re twins, you can go out for date nights with Decklan and he can answer to Logan. At the CMA’s you can say Dilly and I and they’ll constantly change places. I’m sure they’ve traded places before in school, to their parents, to girlfriends. Hell, I would have totally abused being a twin, no kidding. A coin toss is as unbiased as you can get.”

Leaning into her, Decklan took out a quarter and held it in his fist. “Brooke. We’re going to toss this coin. Whoever the winner is, the world is going to think you’re dating that Bradshaw brother. You’ll technically marry that Bradshaw brother after the tour. That brother will be on the birth certificates of our children.”

Logan continued, “The other will interchange identities based on where we go and what we do. You’ll call us a nickname in public which will further confuse everyone. In private, you’re ours, together. You’ll be Brooke Bradshaw either way, wife to both of us, you’ll have children for both of us and Sidney is right, it doesn’t matter if we know for sure because we’re brothers, twins. We’re biologically the same and both madly in love with you, Brooke.”

Decklan stroked a finger over her cheek, “We’ve known you for five years, baby. We’ve been through so much together. We’ve all learned that life is too fucking short not to grab hold of every moment of happiness you’re lucky enough to find. The house should be finished by the end of the tour and we can live there. We think you’ll love it. Our security is going to be the best that can be designed. Say yes, Brooke.”

“To…to everything?” she asked quietly.

“Say yes to everything, Brooke. We love you so much, that’s a fact. Say yes to marriage and children. To happiness and healing and love. Say yes.” Decklan never looked away from her as he took a small box out of his jacket.

Logan pulled an identical box from his jacket, “Say yes to everything, baby. To living together and letting us love you as hard as we can for the rest of our lives. We love you, you love us. We know it and so do you. Say yes, Brooke.” They opened the boxes, one held a beautiful engagement ring, the other a wedding band. Both were three fine platinum bands braided together.

The effect was stunning and she stared unblinking for a long time. As she raised her eyes and looked back and forth between them, she said with a smile, “Yes…to everything.”

Decklan flipped the coin but Brooke didn’t wait for the outcome. She pulled them to her and kissed them with everything she had. Everything they’d earned from her. Everything she’d waited a long time, and gone through a lot of heartache, to give them.

As one, they pulled her up and put her against the wall at the back of the room. They whispered how much they loved her, needed her, and wanted her. She touched her forehead to both of theirs, her hands in their hair, and told them, “I am so proud of the men you grew into. So proud of your hard work. So proud to call you mine, and to have your love.”

They hugged her close and Brooke sent a silent prayer to Rex, reminding him she’d always cherish his love and love him in return. She thanked him for being the example these men, her men, had needed to fight their demons and learn what love truly was so they could make their way back to it. Logan and Decklan crushed her breath out of her body and she knew.

Everything was going to be spectacular.

Get to know Riya and her subjects in the novel that started it all…“The Barter System”…keep reading for a sneak peek of the novel described as an emotional journey filled with steamy sexuality.

Chapter One – The Dissertation

Last week of August…

Riya O’Connell perused the profiles of each man she’d chosen, reviewing the data she’d gathered from them as well as her own carefully performed background checks. A photo accompanied each file and she felt as if she already knew them. Strange since she’d never met them or even spoken to any of them on the phone.

The applications submitted to her website The Barter System had originally numbered more than thirteen thousand before the deadline at the end of May. In the last two months, she’d trimmed the list to five hundred, then one hundred, then thirty. Those prospects had been painstakingly narrowed to the final eight just two weeks ago. The best selections for one reason or another. The ones that meant her overall success or failure.

Sean

Age 37, Internet Entrepreneur, Orlando, FL

Victor

Age 31, Fisherman, Savannah, GA

Joshua

Age 22, College Student, Austin, TX

Lucas

Age 42, Rancher, Billings, MT

Ricardo

Age 32, Police Officer, Los Angeles, CA

Micah & Max

Age 34, Financiers, Manhattan, NY

Bobby

Age 27, Musician, Boston, MA

There was nothing left to do. She’d said goodbye to her few friends and family. They had no idea what she was undertaking. The people who loved and cared about her would have at least a thousand questions and even more warnings. Therefore, they knew what she could tell them and no more. They thought she’d be visiting college campuses across the country, studying the sexual habits of young men coming into adulthood.

It had been implied - though not exactly stated - that she’d be doing no more than conducting interviews. And for the sake of argument, she would indeed be interviewing her subjects.

That just wasn’t the whole story.

Only one person, her best friend Tawny, knew just how extreme her research was and to what lengths she was going to gather it. Tawny knew everything about Riya but no one else knew anything about her website or her other…hobbies.

She took her time scanning her handwritten notes into her laptop, making sure she didn’t miss a single piece of information or a letter received through ‘snail mail’. She didn’t want to have to worry about searching for details later. There wouldn’t be time for that.

Everything she needed for the next three months fit snugly into a large canvas duffle bag. Her backpack protected her laptop and few research supplies.

She updated her Always the Fucking Good Girl blog and posted a few comments while she was online. This site wasn’t linked to anything else she did and she was careful to ensure no one knew she was the woman behind the scenes.

The blog was an online diary she’d kept since her senior year of high school. She’d catalogued her limited sex life, experiments with toys, been honest about her short addiction to porn, talked about things she wanted to try one day, gave voice to her forced celibacy over the past couple of years as a test of her willpower, and wondered if there were any men out there who could ever live up to her ridiculous expectations.

Lots of men offered to be her guinea pig and she always turned them down gently. Women wrote in with suggested reading. Some wrote in with suggested men.

It wasn’t long before her own books started showing up as suggested reading by her subscribers. Riya wrote steamy erotica for women. Initially, it started as a way to purge her surprisingly naughty thoughts. It gradually changed into a valid way to keep from ever touching her trust fund.

Now, it was an outlet to express her ideas because she enjoyed the possibilities of sex, though she hadn’t had much personally. She certainly hadn’t had any worth using as a plot but she was still hopeful.

The next morning, she would leave South Florida, traveling a set itinerary around the country until she reached her final destination in Boston. It was the end of August. She estimated she’d arrive to the last location right around Halloween. Her mode of travel was already arranged and her stops had been coordinated.

She was ready.

This was primarily research for her psychology dissertation but perhaps just as much for her secondary degree, and personal passion, in creative writing. The fact that she was curious as a woman didn’t technically figure into the equation. She’d been compiling her data for the past year of graduate school and anticipated the end eagerly. There was no fear of the unknown but she wasn’t completely without a little nervousness.

Sex for most women was intrinsically linked to their emotions. If you believed popular media, the recognized view of men when it came to sex was much less emotional and more juvenile. How men were typically portrayed, and her own less-than-stellar experiences could not be all there was. It was the cornerstone of her dissertation as well as the driving force behind her erotica work that men and women were not so different after all.

She scanned the last documents and backed up her files to the server maintained by Tawny who hosted multiple websites and kept her data secure. There wasn’t a hacker alive who could infiltrate the complex network. Anyone who tried found themselves, and their own systems, falling down a rabbit hole of epic proportions. When it came to hacking, Tawny had no mercy.

Her best friend was also her emergency contact in case of trouble. Riya doubted she’d have trouble, but that’s why they were called ‘emergencies’. Tawny was scared for her but kept it well hidden, knowing doubt only pushed her lifelong friend further toward her goals. Each of the women had a throw-away phone that would be their only method of communication if there was a problem. Riya would upload data direct to the website while in the field, but nothing else could impact her research. She had phone numbers for local cab companies in each location, hotels, and airlines.