As he returned home that night, totally numb, we didn’t know whether to celebrate or mourn. The garage would’ve kept him on if he wanted to stay — that was a stipulation his uncle had seen to. But other than that, it was an all new place with an all new owner. Tate was a relic, there. As young as he was, he was still just a dusty fixture from the previous era.
“Wanna get out of here?”
They were the words that had changed everything. He’d uttered them as we sat around the kitchen table, the four of us together.
“You mean out out?” Jacob had asked.
“Yeah. Someplace new. Someplace… different.”
“Someplace with snow?” I’d asked hopefully.
Cole had chimed in, totally loving the idea. So had Jacob. And that left me… still in my old house. Still working my old job, even with the newer gigs mixed in.
“I’m in,” I’d told them excitedly. “I’m in, if you guys are.”
That was three months ago. In that time, everything had changed. I sold the house — as well as everything in it — and with the upgraded basement actually made a little bit of money. Jacob easily sold his landscaping clients to a competitor, and Cole declared he could do his job no matter where we ended up.
And where we ended up was up north, almost a thousand miles away. Somewhere that had snow in the winter and flowers in the summer. Somewhere beautiful and fun and new and exciting, where there weren’t any ghosts or even a single link to our past lives.
Oh, except for the GTO.
That we took with us, if only because it represented the forging of our union together. The car had brought Tate to me. Tate had brought Cole. Jacob had always been there, and so it felt natural driving the beautiful vehicle halfway across the country to begin a new life with only the money in our bank accounts and the clothes on our backs.
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And begin a new life we had.
The best part about it was that no one knew us, and there was nothing to hide from anyone. We reveled in being open in public, and the guys never shied away from kissing or touching me or holding my hand.
It took less than a week to get a job as a photographer’s assistant, in a studio I absolutely adored. Tate took one of the empty bays at a local garage. Cole’s business took off almost immediately; a combination of a big construction boom plus a good carpenter with a wide-open schedule.
Jacob applied at the local sheriff’s office and started right back up landscaping while he waited for the call. There were lawns to be cut in the summer, and snow to be plowed all winter long. In no time he was making money again, and on his off days, helping Cole with his many projects.
We took up renting a small house, for now at least. It gave us enough room to live our lives, but also allowed us to save for a bigger place. Everything would come in time. The guys were sure of it. I was even more sure of it… as long as I was with them.
And God, I loved being with them.
By the time we got the invitation for the wedding, we were well-settled in. We’d flown down a couple of days early, enjoying the Bolivian countryside. We’d flown over the rainforest! Hiked the Maragua crater. We’d shopped the colorful Tarabuco market, until our feet were so sore we couldn’t take another step. And now…
Now we were all sprawled out on a springy soft bed, in a bungalow in the middle of Sucre. Exhausted but deliriously happy.
“Is this one bottle of wine really all we have?”
Cole looked forlorn about our depleted supply, but uncorked the bottle anyway. He began pouring.
“Might want to stay sober if we’re going to outlast her,” Tate said, throwing me a wink.
“And when’s the last time you outlasted me?” I challenged.
“I think it was your birthday,” Jacob pointed out. “Or don’t you remember?”
I smiled defeatedly, my cheeks turning two shades pinker as I recalled the details of that night. The guys had taken me out for a delicious dinner and gotten me pleasantly tipsy. Instead of going home they’d surprised me with a nearby motel room, where they tied my wrists to the bedposts and proceeded to drain themselves into me, over and over again, and I passed out from the delirium of climaxing so much.
“Okay, fine,” I agreed. “You won that night. But most of the time…”
“Most of the time you outscrew us,” Cole acknowledged.
“Yes, and you pass out next to me. Sleeping. Snoring…”