Wood Worked

“Not if we have the date here,” Flynn said.

“But still, if there’s even a chance—”

Raphael put his hand on her arm. “The whole town already knows you’re staying here while you recover, so there’s no point in hiding from that. We just need to be careful not to do anything that attracts suspicion.”

“Which should be easy since, right now, you’re pretty much homebound,” I said.

She nodded, but she still looked torn. “So the date would be here?”

“Yes—Friday night. The twins are going to a sleepover.”

“They are?” Her eyes widened at the idea of us having the house to ourselves. “They’re both going?”

“Yep, it’s coed. That’s not all that uncommon at their age. They’re both friends with Tina, and her mom is one of my second-grade teachers. I trust her with the kids.”

“So… the house won’t have anyone under five feet tall present?”

“Nope. Just us.” Raphael grinned. “We can’t go to a restaurant, but we can still dress up and have a nice meal down here.”

“That sounds nice,” Alyssa said, but there was tension on her face. I wondered if what I planned to say next would relieve it or make it worse.

“Then… if you’d like to, we could take the date upstairs.”

Her jaw dropped. She knew damn well that I wasn’t talking about the small office up there. “Really?”

“Really.” Flynn took over. “If you’re ready for that. We figured it might be the best way to determine if this can work.”

I heard her gulp from across the table. It was a big step. “If you’d rather do something else after dinner, we could—”

“No,” she said, her voice steady now. “I want to see if this can work, too.”

“Are you sure, cher?” Raphael asked.

“I’m sure.”

“Then it’s a date,” I said.

We chatted a little more after that, but Alyssa soon excused herself, saying she was tired.

That was a valid excuse. Even though her ribs were better, using the crutches took a lot out of her. The full-leg cast was hard to maneuver, and it threw her balance off.

But something told me that wasn’t the only reason she headed back to her room. I was both a father and a principal. I was used to people not telling me the whole truth.

If I were a betting man, I’d bet that right now, she was in her room texting her friend Kylie. Whether out of excitement, fear, or just a desire for advice, I didn’t know, but I was pretty sure that’s what she was doing.

I didn’t share my theory with the others, though. We finished our beers in silence until Raphael spoke up. “Are we rushing her?”

“Yes,” Flynn said. “But we’ve all done things individually with her. We know we’re good one-on-one. What we don’t know is if we’re good as a group.”

That was true, but it didn’t sit quite right with me. “Don’t say group, that makes it sound like we’re aiming for an orgy or something.”

“Foursome?” Flynn said.

“Too clinical.”

“Family?” Raphael suggested. The three of us were family, and Lyss was already starting to feel like part of it, but that seemed too… something. I didn’t want to lump the words family and sex in the same sentence.

“Team. We’re a team.”

“That works,” Raphael said, and Flynn nodded.

“So let’s go over some ground rules for Friday.”

“This isn’t something you make a lesson plan for,” Flynn said.

“Maybe it should be. It’s not like there’s an instruction manual for this kind of thing.”

Flynn looked at me like I was the dumbest person on earth. “Have you ever even heard of the internet before?”

Yeah, right. Like I was going to find a gangbang online and use that to learn how to treat a sweetheart like Lyss. “I just mean, this is new to all of us. We should be on the same page.”

Raphael and Flynn exchanged glances that I couldn’t interpret. “What?”

“It’s not completely new,” Raphael said.

“What do you mean?”

“He means he’s had a threesome,” Flynn growled. “I have too, with two women.”

Even though Flynn had dated pretty heavily for years while I was raising my kids, that surprised me. “With who?”

“Lauren and her friend Liz, a few years ago.”

“Oh, crap,” Raphael said.

“What?” Flynn asked. “Who was yours with?”

“Lauren and her friend Marissa, back in high school.”

I scowled. “Maybe Lauren should write the lesson plan.”

Raphael waved off my suggestion, even though he had to know it wasn’t serious. “It doesn’t matter who did what in the past. This is a new situation. A unique situation.

“And I can tell you the lesson plan right now: we each focus a hundred and ten percent on Alyssa. Our only goal is her pleasure. Everything we do, we do for her.”

“Isn’t that a song lyric?” Flynn asked. “But yeah, that’s a good plan.”

“Are you going to be okay with this?” I asked Raphael. “Seeing me with her, I mean?”

He nodded and gave a small smile. “Sure. As you said, we focus completely on her. I won’t even know you’re in the room.”