It worked for us.
“After you,” Flynn said, gesturing toward the treehouse above our heads.
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious. Let’s go on up.”
“You’ve got to be joking. I barely walked out here. I’m not up for climbing ladders yet.”
He smirked. “True, but don’t forget you have a secret advantage.”
“I do? What’s that?”
He leaned in close and licked my earlobe before answering. “A very hot, very strong guy who’s crazy about you and always willing to give you a boost f it means he gets to touch or look at your sweet ass.”
Laughter bubbled up inside me. It was true—he was all those things, especially the hot part. “Okay, I’m game, but if I fall and break my other leg, you’re making me breakfast in bed for life.”
“Deal,” he said.
We made our way slowly up the ladder with me taking a step with my good leg and then him boosting me up and holding me steady. Our progress was so slow that I didn’t even realize that the treehouse wasn’t empty until my head and shoulders emerged through the trap door.
“Surprise!” the twins shouted, and both Spencer and Flynn reached over to grab me so I couldn’t fall back down.
“What’s going on? Do I smell pizza?”
“Yes,” Lucas said, as Spencer turned on several camping lanterns for light. “We’re celebrating.”
“What?” Had I missed someone’s birthday?
“We’re celebrating you,” Raphael explained with a wink. “We know how hard it’s been for you and we’re as impressed as he—I mean, heck that you walked all the way out here.” While I tried to process that, he grabbed me under my arms and pulled me the rest of the way inside the treehouse, depositing me next to Charlotte.
“Did you know about this?” I signed to her.
“Yes,” she signed back. “Lucas said I can’t keep a secret, but I can.”
“Of course you can, sweetie.”
I’d started learning sign language a few months ago. We’d gotten a tutor to come out twice a week and give us all lessons. The official reason we told the kids was that I needed to learn, and the other adults needed a refresher.
The real reason, which Spencer had learned to his chagrin a while back, was that Charlotte and Lucas had at some point deviated from American Sign Language and now used a kind of hybrid “twin speak” or whatever the sign language version of that was.
Spencer handed out slices of pizza plus Champagne for the adults and juice for the kids. “This was so nice of you all. Too bad Nana couldn’t be here.”
“She’s up on the second floor,” Flynn quipped, and I elbowed him. Nana was likely back at home where she was doing well. All the work we’d done on her place had really paid off because she’d graduated to using a walker and was likely not going to need that for much longer. Plus, our work there launched the business we shared together.
As we talked and laughed and ate, I thought about how lucky I was to have found these people I cared so much about. My life wasn’t what I expected when I moved down here, but it was better. Much, much better.
Each day was an adventure and a learning process, and each night was off-the charts hot. Sometimes I slept with Spencer up in his bed. Sometimes I slept with Raphael in his, since we both decided that there was no need for him to sleep on the couch anymore.
And sometimes, I stayed at Flynn’s place with him. That was always interesting because while Flynn was amazingly hot and dominant in bed, it also meant being woken up repeatedly while he dashed out to the barn to check on a sick horse, cow, mule, or pig.
But my favorite nights were the ones where we were all together, either because the twins were staying somewhere else or because we all snuck upstairs hours after they went to sleep.
I loved all three of my men, and I knew they loved me. As an added bonus, I got to be a combination aunt, big sister, friend, and possibly even stepmom to the twins. That was something I never saw coming, but it meant the world to me. I know it did to them, too. Charlotte and Lucas had lost so much, but they’d grown up surrounded by love, and they have lots of it to gieto give.
This wasn’t the life I’d planned, but it was the life I got, and I was profoundly grateful for it, and I always would be.
I was pretty sure I knew three men and two kids who felt the same.