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  I sucked in another breath. “It’s not like he was any worse than usual tonight, but I just started yelling at him. Why did I do that?” I grabbed her arm with clammy hands. “That’s not me, Hannah. You know that’s not me.”

  “It’s not, but I guess it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I would’ve broken eventually, too. I shouldn’t have kept leaving you alone to deal with him.”

  I shook my head. It wasn’t her fault I couldn’t keep my cool. But I couldn’t remember the last time I’d flat-out yelled at somebody like that, even before I got into yoga and everything.

  “You were just stressed,” Hannah told me. “It’s natural. You’re already looking for a new job. Soon you’ll be out of here and you won’t have to deal with people like that ever again.”

  I hoped she was right. I really did. “I swear no one else could’ve made me act that way,” I said softly. “That man just gets under my skin.”

  And as she nodded sympathetically, I added a last few words in my head.

  In more ways than one.

  Charlie

  Every time a plane took off, I was glad my hearing protectors blocked out almost all the sound. At this distance, these things were literally deafening.

  Still, every time one of my planes left the ground felt like another small victory for me. Even after the number of years I’d been on this job, I felt a thrill of pride when I saw my effort had helped one of those giant machines launch into the air. I knew all the science of how they worked, yet some little boy deep inside me still thought it was magic.

  Today, seeing the plane take off didn’t make me smile. I was still smarting over the encounter in the coffee shop last night. It’d really taken me by surprise. Sure, I’d been more stressed than usual. I’d had to work a little late and I’d really been looking forward to that coffee.

  Seeing the twinky barista chatting it up with his coworker had somehow irritated me. Then she’d scrambled away, like she always did. Not that I minded having the chance to feast my eyes on Cutie McCoffee’s face, but did that girl really think I didn’t notice how she ran away from me?

  I did tend to be in a bad mood when I got to the coffee shop, but I was also always coming from work. Cutie McC seemed impervious to my crankiness, and I felt better after I got my shot of caffeine. Okay, maybe the eye-feast had something to do with my improved mood, too.

  So what had gone so wrong last night? I’d somehow managed to piss off the barista, and then both of them were yelling at me and telling me to leave and never come back.

  I strode over to the bench where the aircraft engineers could rest between tasks. I did have another plane to work on, and checking messages during a shift wasn’t exactly encouraged, but I could take thirty seconds to peek at my phone.

  There were actual good things going on in my life, after all. Like the hot guy my husband wanted to bring into our bedroom. Maybe Jasper had something to say about that.

  My hands were greasy, so I rubbed them on my cargo pants before touching the phone. I did have new messages. Several, actually. Seemed Jasper had created a group chat. Hmm… seemed he’d invited the other guy into that group chat.

  A grin came over my face as I poked at the screen. The conversation was short, but damn, it was tantalizing.

  Jasper: Hey, thought I’d “introduce” you two on here. Scheduling can be tough when there’s three people involved. ;)

  Reuben: Cool! I’m looking forward to seeing you again, Jasper. And to meeting your husband.

  Jasper: We definitely are, too.

  Jasper: To fill you in, Charlie, Reuben is a yes. At least for meeting up.

  Reuben: An enthusiastic yes!

  Jasper: I love it. Charlie, you’re going to love him.

  Reuben: So when are you guys free?!?

  My grin widened at the sight of the question-exclamation mark combination. This guy was eager, all right. And if he was anything like Jasper said, I’d be eager too.

  I wondered if he’d be this enthusiastic once we got him alone. Now that Jasper had set this up, I had half a mind to skip the drinks and invite him straight over to our place.

  Me: When are you free? Is right now too soon? ;)

  Jasper: He’s joking, Reuben, he’s still at work.

  Me: But I should be off at 5, if everyone happens to be free tonight…

  I got back to work, although I desperately wanted to reach for my phone. The planes weren’t going to check themselves—or fix themselves, when there were any mechanical problems. I got roped into tagging along on a check flight, meaning I stood in the cockpit watching the system indicators while the pilot put the plane through its paces. By the time that was done, I figured I’d earned the right to look at my messages.

  I let out a low whistle as I looked at them. Seemed that in my absence, the other two had decided we should meet up tonight. And I was definitely not opposed. Sounds good to me, I wrote.

  Pulling my safety visor lower on my forehead, I got back to work—and, oddly enough, I was humming!

  Tonight couldn’t come soon enough.

  Reuben

  At five on the dot, I arrived at the bar Jasper had told me to come to. It was pretty early to be meeting up for something like this. On the other hand, I didn’t want to wait a second longer than I had to. And besides, if everything went well, we’d be spending the entire evening together.

  I shivered a little as I thought about it. I really wanted things to go well. Possible scenarios kept running through my mind. What if Jasper’s husband wasn’t attracted to me? What if I wasn’t attracted to him?

  Or what if everything went great tonight but then one of them liked me too much and I ended up tearing their marriage apart? I’d had a long conversation with Hannah about threesomes, which she’d definitely done her research on. Without knowing I was planning to have one, she’d put a thousand nightmare situations like that into my head.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. Not this time. I was going to meet a gloriously attractive older bear, along with his equally glorious husband. I still didn’t know what Charlie looked like, but Jasper obviously had good taste if he’d picked me.

  Things were going to go perfectly. We’d have an epic night together, filled with orgasms and gaiety. And then we’d say goodbye and never see each other again.

  I was glad I hadn’t had to work today—it had given me time to think through everything, and I was fairly sure I was making the right decision. Even if I generally wasn’t into hook-ups, this was different. It’d been so damn long since I’d been with anyone. I’d break my dry spell with a “bang,” then get back to real life with a hot memory to treasure.

  I looked around the bar, searching for Jasper’s face among the happy-hour crowd. Ah, there he was—already sitting in a booth and waiting for me. No one else was with him, and I must’ve had a questioning look on my face as I slid in across from him.

  “Charlie’s on his way from work,” he said. “At least I assume as much. I haven’t heard from him.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Jasper already had a beer in front of him, which I eyed longingly. Now that I was here, my heart was pounding. It’d been nerve-wracking enough to meet him for networking purposes. With sex on the table, his presence was overwhelming.

  “Want a drink?” he asked. “I’ll get you one.”

  He disappeared to the bar, and I took a second to breathe deeply. Feel the calm like a shining light entering through your crown chakra. Let it spread through your mind, then allow it to penetrate the rest of your body. I shook my head at myself. Alcohol was going to be a lot more calming than any shining light. And all I wanted to penetrate my body was Jasper. And possibly Charlie.

  “I’m back,” Jasper said, handing me the beer. “Forgot to ask what you wanted, so I went with Bud.”

  “Everybody likes Bud,” I said, taking a grateful sip.

  “Charlie does exist, by the way.” Jasper winked. “I didn’t just make up a husband so it would be easier
to seduce you.”

  “To seduce…” I coughed, getting beer stuck in my throat. “Why would you have to make up a husband to seduce me?”

  “In case you were secretly curious about being with a couple.” Jasper shrugged.

  “It’s definitely intriguing,” I admitted. “But I would’ve been more than interested in you on your own.”

  The smile Jasper gave me was wide, but with a predatory hint to it. Fuck,I loved it. What in the world did this man have in store for me?

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he said softly. “Although Charlie definitely does exist, and he’s very much looking forward to meeting you.” He leaned closer. “So, should I assume you’ve never done anything like this before?”

  “That would be a fair assumption.” I leaned back, a little embarrassed at my inexperience. “I’ve always been a one-guy-at-a-time type of person.” I drew a line down the condensation on my beer glass. “But I’m willing to try anything once.”

  “Good to know.”

  Jasper was staring at me so hard, I felt like he was about to lean over the table and devour me. The tension between us was so strong already. What would it be like when a third man was added to the mix? I just hoped and prayed that nothing would go wrong. I tried to never count my chickens before they hatched, but wow, I’d be pretty freaking disappointed if this particular chicken didn’t pop out of its egg.

  Apparently Jasper also felt the need to cool things off. “Well, Charlie still isn’t here,” he said, sitting straight and crossing his legs. “We should talk about something else until he gets here.”

  “Sure, yeah.” I wondered if he was getting hard like I was. “So, what does Charlie do?”

  “He works over at the Fort Lauderdale airport,” he said. “Airplane mechanic.”

  “Oh, cool.” I paused. “A lawyer and a mechanic?”

  “Mechanical engineer, really.” He smiled. “He was working on his degree when we met.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Fifteen years.” A different kind of smile played on Jasper’s lips now—a soft, gentle one that betrayed all the affection he had for his partner. “It’s hard to believe it’s been so long, but it’s true. We’ve spent our entire adult lives together.”

  I nodded mutely, still wondering if I really wanted to enter a bedroom with two people who felt that deeply about each other. I wasn’t hung up on sex having some deeper meaning or anything. Sometimes it was just a physical act between two—or more—people. But surely when someone smiled about his husband like that, he didn’t want a third person getting in the way.

  Still staring at Jasper, I swallowed hard. Even if I didn’t somehow screw up their relationship, this could hurt me instead. I was already wondering why no one had ever smiled about me like that, and whether anybody ever would.

  Oh, right. I was supposed to say something at some point. “How’d you guys meet?” I asked, slightly flatly.

  “At a club.” Jasper sighed, practically glowing with happiness. “I know no one thinks they’ll meet their life partner in a club, right? I wasn’t planning on it either, but it happened.”

  I swallowed again, drawing another line on my beer glass. My too-full beer glass. I grabbed it and drained half the bitter liquid.

  Jasper wasn’t done. “I’ll tell you straight out, because I don’t think I’m in any position to be discreet here—both of us intended it to be a one-night stand. I just wanted to relieve some stress, and he’d been sleeping around like crazy. But after I took him home, he stayed until the morning, and we went at it again.”

  I nodded, wondering why all of this was making my gut clench up and twist around.

  “I’m more the relationship type than he is, and even so, I wasn’t expecting it to become anything. As it turned out, he couldn’t get enough of me.” Jasper shrugged with visible pride. “He still can’t.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said softly.

  Jasper blinked and pulled out his phone. “Still no word from him. Wonder if he’s being kept late. It happens sometimes.” He took a gulp of his beer. “Anyway, enough about us. Tell me more about you.”

  “Sure, but you already know a lot about me.”

  “What am I missing?” He put both elbows on the table. “Surely there’s some important aspect of you that I don’t know about yet.”

  “Well, I do a lot of yoga and meditation and stuff. That’s probably the main thing I do outside of work. Actually, I probably wouldn’t have gotten through law school without it.”

  “Ah, so you’re enlightened,” Jasper said.

  “Not exactly. I’m into, like, my own mind. Knowing myself, you know what I mean?” My cheeks were going a little hot. Talking about this stuff always made me a little self-conscious. “I did have an experience when I thought I did briefly reach enlightenment.”

  “What happened?” He looked genuinely curious.

  “I went to the Himalayas when I finished my bachelor’s degree. I took communication studies, and I had no clue what to do with it.” I drew my finger along the rim of my glass. “I’d meditated before, and it never did much for me. But when I got there, the spiritual energy of the place was overwhelming. I sat down and I paid attention to my breath, and I wouldn’t let my awareness go anywhere else.”

  Why was I even telling him about this? I got self-conscious talking about this stuff in general, and now I was opening up about my most powerful experience to someone who was essentially a complete stranger.

  But he was listening, so I continued. “I think hours might’ve passed without me realizing it. I wasn’t aware of my body anymore. If I was stiff or achy, I had no idea. I started seeing things behind my eyelids. Bright lights and patterns and images.” I bit my lip, remembering. “Eventually I stood up. I slowly shifted back to this reality, and I was so incredibly happy and calm and peaceful. It felt like everything was all right. I couldn’t have said why or how, but I just knew that it was.”

  “Wow,” Jasper breathed.

  I nodded. “Things were so clear to me in that moment. And they kept being clear for the next couple of days. I was still meditating a lot, but even during the rest of the day, I felt so aware, like nothing I’ve ever felt before. That was when I realized I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to help people, like LGBT refugees. I saw that path laid out for me.”

  “So every time you struggled in law school, you had this clear goal that you were working towards.”

  “Exactly.”

  Jasper shook his head. “Wow,” he said again.

  God damn. I kind of hated the look he was giving me right now. It was a look of desire, sure, but also respect and maybe even admiration.

  I cleared my throat, sitting back in my chair, desperately wishing Charlie would show up.

  I didn’t know how much longer I could stop myself from kissing his husband.

  Charlie

  I glanced at my watch. Four-fifty-five. I could leave in five short little minutes. In just three hundred seconds, I’d be on my way to meeting up with the sexy twink my husband had found for us to share, and all the fantasies we’d come up with together would be on their way to coming true.

  Feeling a tap on my shoulder, I swung around to see my boss. Frank was a no-nonsense type, and I immediately pulled off my ear protectors to hear what he had to say.

  “Denton, I need you to stay late tonight. There’s a flight coming in and Hartman had to leave for some family emergency.”

  Biting back an objection, I nodded. Work had to come first… even if I also had an urgent situation to get to.

  I reached for my phone as Frank started to walk away. He must’ve seen me out of the corner of his eye, because he turned back around. “And enough with the texting. I’ve turned a blind eye to it all afternoon, but this is excessive. There’s no time to waste. Put the phone away.”

  “Of course.”

  I frowned as I patted my pocket. I wished I could at least text Jasper and let him know I’d be late. Not more
than an hour. Two, at the most.

  It took a while before things cooled down enough for me to look at my phone again. Jasper had already messaged me a bunch of times asking where I was. I barely glanced at the texts, instead writing him back one of my own. I didn’t have time to wait for a response.

  The plane I was working on was in bad shape, and it was supposed to fly out of here in an hour. If all went well, I’d be able to join Jasper and Reuben at the bar shortly after that. Surely they’d wait for me.

  I worked and worked, trying to get this done as fast as humanly possible. Not an easy task when my mind was so far away. Since I was so distracted, I double-checked everything I was doing. I didn’t want an aircraft full of people crashing because I was too horny to make sure I was doing a good job.

  Finally the end was in sight, and I stepped aside to glance at my phone again. I assume you’re coming soon, Jasper had written. I’m bringing Reuben over to our place. We won’t do anything without you.

  He’d sent another message a few minutes later. I know you should be here for this but you’re on your way and there’s literally zero chance you won’t like him. Now hurry up and get here!

  I should’ve been mad. Neither of us had ever done so much as kiss another guy without the other around. Jasper hadn’t asked for my approval to bring Reuben home. And I still didn’t even know what the guy looked like!

  Somehow, I wasn’t mad. As I turned back to my work, I was mostly just turned on. I worked as quickly as I could, biting my lip as my hands flew over engine parts.

  I couldn’t wait to get home.

  Jasper

  The cab ride was short, but in my state of excitement, it felt like it lasted forever. I made stilted conversation with the driver while Reuben stayed silent, his hand slowly creeping onto my leg. The slight contact made me tense up, and I grabbed his wrist to keep him from turning me on any more.

  His fingers were long and slim, with the slightest bit of hair on the knuckles. I traced lines along each finger, then over the palm. His cologne wafted into my nostrils, and I lost track of what the cabbie was saying. So much for not getting turned on.