Lydia
I didn’t fault Pat even a little bit for struggling with the holidays, the party, or with socializing. Jon was mildly irritated with him, but I gave the older man a stern reminder that he’d had a long time to cope with the loss of his parents, Patrick had barely known his father for a week before the man was gone.
It was difficult to make it through the night, I could admit that, but I refused to leave Pat’s side after he broke down on the dancefloor. We needed to take care of each other, that was the only way to make it through this.
It was nearly three in the morning when people finally started to leave and the venue slowly emptied out. I was sitting in the back room with my shoes off and my hair down, Jon sat behind me while he massaged my shoulders, Patrick had his mom leaning into his side while Nora finished thanking one of her guests.
“What a night,” she whispered, touching her forehead. “Mon chou, come here and give me a kiss before we go.”
Patrick smiled warmly and pulled the other woman to his side to give her a kiss on the cheek. Nora and Lucy said their goodbyes and the three of us walked them to the back door where their private car was waiting to take them to the hotel for the night. I noticed Pat’s nose still looked a little red and his eyes had dark circles under them. Reaching out, I took his hand in mine and laced our fingers together. He cast me a gentle smile in return.
The ride to his apartment was slow, it had down poured most of the evening and then stopped just long enough for everything to freeze over. I cuddled up in the plush seat and fought the urge to take a nap in the car. I really couldn’t sleep in this dress anyway, the sequins were too uncomfortable. Besides, if I did I would have missed Jon covertly holding Patrick’s hand for most of the ride.
I wasn’t entirely sure why we were spending the night at his place though, it wasn’t that I didn’t like it or anything, but we usually just defaulted to Jon’s apartment because we all agreed it was more homey.
The Maybach slowed to a stop in the parking garage, and I yawned loudly before following the guys out of the car. The florescent lights were too harsh and made me squint as I clung to Pat’s arm for support, my heels suddenly feeling way too unstable. The door felt like it was a fucking mile away. I was too distracted thinking about how many horrible more steps it would be to the elevator when the person I was using as a human cane came to an abrupt halt.
“The bed is through those doors,” I complained, glancing up at him. “I can’t exactly go to bed in the parking garage.”
“Bed can wait,” Pat replied, suddenly very chipper. “How do you feel about going for a drive?”
I’m five months pregnant and I haven’t slept or eaten a decent meal all day, I will fucking kill you. Kill was a little harsh, maybe just gently maim him. The glare I gave him must have spoken well enough for me because suddenly Jon burst out laughing and Pat had to look away to hold himself together.
“I’m guessing that’s a no then?” he asked.
“What gave it away?”
“Ah, well…” He sighed and pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. “I guess I’ll just have to find a better home for your car if you hate the idea that much.”
Those weren’t my keys, they didn’t even have the tacky Texas branded cowboy boot keychain with the working spur. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had to drive my car, Pat let me drive the Porsche all the time.
“My car is back at Jon’s,” I said evenly. “And my keys are somewhere in office.”
“Hidden until you get the airbag light fixed,” Jon chirped. “You’re not getting them back until then.”
Alright and maybe I drove Pat’s cars because mine had some minor problems that were currently keeping it off the road, nobody is perfect.
“Well luckily you won’t need your old keys,” Pat continued. “Because I have your other Christmas gift right here.”
Suddenly I focused on the keys in his hand. A Cadillac keyfob with a single gold heart charm from Tory Burch. Not my keys, certainly not his either. My gaze slid from the keys in his hand to the car parked next to his red Jaguar convertible. A gleaming white Cadillac Escalade taking up his third and final spot.
My brain couldn’t process what exactly I was seeing. I knew what this meant in abstract but all together I couldn’t quite accept it. Mine? How? In what world would that ever be mine?
I already knew the answer, it was the same reason the AMEX Centurion was mine and I lived in a luxury penthouse.
I guess I should have felt more “ashamed” that they gave me this sort of life, but I didn’t.
I fucking loved it.
Tiredness disappeared in an instant as my scream rang through the parking garage and I jumped on Patrick, throwing him back against the hatch and setting off the alarm. He got me a car, a car! Cameras be damned, I was willing to strip down right there if the guys would have let me.
“You’re so lucky I’m already pregnant,” I praised through a barrage of wet kisses that decorated him in pink lipstick. “Because if I wasn’t then I would be after this.” With twins, and the conception would be done against the car, we could celebrate it again later in the backseat.
“You like it?” he asked with an embarrassed laugh. “You’re sure? I know you joked about the whole PTA mom thing, but I wasn’t sure if you really meant it when we went to the dealership.”
Ohmigod, they remembered. The PTA mom was a running joke that I would be the most involved soccer mom this city had ever seen. The ladies on the Upper East Side weren’t ready for me to show up in my brand-new escalade to drop my kids off at school. And the Escalade was a quintessential mom car, the OG, I could live out my fantasy perfectly. Allie would be dying to hotbox it while the kids were at school.
“Am I sure?” I repeated indignantly. “Really? Do you need to ask that?”
He had me back on my feet and the alarm turned off as I finished saying it, the instant my feet hit the ground my hands went to his belt and it came undone without any hassle. Patrick had a dazed smile on his face, but Jon remembered where we were and grabbed my hair from the side.
His mouth met my ear and he whispered, “I like some exhibition and voyeurism as much as the next pervert, but we don’t need to show the security team that.”
There were limits. There would always be limits. No one looked under the table when Jon fingered me during the meeting, the restaurants we went to had a lot of privacy in the booths, people couldn’t see my harness or chastity belt. But this was different, and I knew we had been in the news for our escapades enough for one lifetime.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered back.
“No, you’re not.” He turned me toward the doors. “Come on, we can finish this upstairs.”
Daddy led me to the doors with my Master following close behind, his hand on my back, hiding the fact that he was slowly working my zipper down with each step.
There would be no more tears tonight, just blind love and sex. We could talk more in the morning.
***
I woke up cuddled against Patrick, holding him like my life depended on it. He was laying on his back with my head on his chest, behind me, Jon was the big spoon for a change. I couldn’t lie and say we always slept in the same bed, just most of the time, but usually if Jon wasn’t being utilized as a human pillow, then he went off and slept in another room. I had done that myself a few times when I was unable to get comfortable, but that wasn’t a problem tonight, and even Jon seemed to sense that it was important that we stick together.
My only issue with it was that I sandwiched in and desperately needed to pee.
“Someone needs to move,” I warned them sleepily. “Otherwise, I’m not going to be careful when I get up and you won’t like where I step.”
Jon groaned and almost instantly rolled away from me. “I’m getting up, give me a second here.”
Patrick laughed, clearly unafraid of my threat. I waited for Jon to get up and start his shower before going to the bathroom. The idea of using it while they were in there had stopped being extremely weird to me when they wouldn’t stop peeing while I brushed my teeth, now I just accepted that using the toilet in private was reserved for times when I was home alone.
Afterward, I grabbed my toothbrush and went to lean against the shower stall next to Jon.
“What are you doing today?” I asked him.
He glanced at me over his shoulder and shrugged. “I was hoping to get together with Charles later, it looks like a good day for singles.”
Tennis wasn’t generally the first thing I thought of in the morning, but to each their own. “Would you be irritated if I asked you to hang around here?”
“Of course not.” He reached for the body wash. “What’s wrong, dove?”
“Nothing, I just wanted to have a day in with Pat.” I paused long enough to rise my mouth out. “You’re gonna hate this, I just know it, but I wanted to corner him later and I figured we could all just…talk.”
Jon froze and I watched his brows knit together in confusion. “Talk?”
“Like what we’re doing,” I teased. “But like, with more emotions.”
“…Like a sharing circle?”
“A sharing triangle. A pyramid even.”
“Pyramids have four sides.”
“Then call Christine and she can help decipher your baggage.”
He turned and pointed at me with the shampoo bottle. “If Christine is coming over it’s to teach you some obedience and I would be recording every second of it. My baggage is already unpacked as it is, it’s someone else’s turn now.”
I wasn’t going to tell him that I would gladly let Christine do whatever she wanted to me because deep down the Halloween party at Plaisir still turned me on like nothing else. That would just not be the best thing for this relationship at the moment and we really didn’t need to complicate things further.
“We’re gonna put a pin in that and return to it when I’m not pregnant. For now, I want to focus on Pat,” I told him after a moment. “I don’t care if it’s silly, I think this is important. We can’t keep having tiny conversations that don’t go anywhere, we need to actually talk about what’s bothering us.”
“What’s bothering you?” Jon asked suddenly. “Because you know you can always talk to us—”
“Jon,” I interrupted. “It doesn’t feel like it. I don’t think it ever has.”
He was silent for the longest time before he finally agreed and turned his back to me. I went out and gave Patrick a kiss with a warning that he had to spend the day at home, I even stopped him from locking my harness back onto me. We had to do this on a level playing field, with openness and free from the sex half of our relationship.
Pat didn’t argue with me, but I don’t think he was pleased when I spent most of the day locked in his study, rearranging furniture and having the staff prepare some easy finger foods for dinner. I would have liked to be out in my new car, maybe taking us on a picnic, but this was more important and the car would still be there tomorrow. I chose the study because it was where we sat when I showed up in the middle of the night, it was where we were first open and honest with each other and the turning point where we were officially in a relationship. Was that really almost a year ago? That wasn’t even that long, but it felt simultaneously like a lifetime and the blink of an eye.
I pulled three of the couches into a triangle formation so that we could all face each other with the rounded coffee table in the center and a variety of hors d'oeuvres to pick at. To add to the element of “truthfulness” I just brushed out my hair and didn’t do my makeup, I even stayed in my satin pajamas. I could at least keep the cute shorts on after all, it wasn’t like that was anything less than the usual for me.
A little while after lunch, I called the guys into the study and had them take a seat. Jon spread out on the sofa with his arms along the back, watching us as we got comfortable. I forced myself to sit normally, not with my legs under me that is, so that I could look more professional. Pat slumped tiredly in his seat and watched with clear indifference.
“So!” I clapped my hands together. “I’m going out on a limb to say I’m the only one whose done group therapy.”
“Yes,” they said in unison. The dread in their voices made me smirk.
“Alright, so here’s how this is going to work: we’re all going to take turns talking about shit that bothers us.” I gestured to Jon. “Small things first to get warmed up, and slowly get to bigger issues. You can opt out if you want, but that isn’t going to get you very far.”
“When you say small things…” Pat trailed off.
“It bothers me when you disappear for an entire day and don’t even check in,” I said in lieu of an answer. “That’s small, it isn’t the end of the world, but it gets on my nerves.”
“It bothers me when you leave mostly finished cans of Sprite around the apartment,” Jon said dryly. “I know you only have one a day and all that, I get it, but you leave them in nooks and crannies that the staff sometimes miss while cleaning.”
“And I can be more mindful about just leaving things lying around.” I shrugged. “I’ll stop treating your apartment as a dumping ground.”
“We’ll see how that holds up in a week.”
I glared at him. “Alright, we aren’t here to make this more hostile, I’m trying to ease us into this because it sucks for everyone involved until later you feel like a massive weight has been lifted. Like exercising, but for emotions.”
“Sweetheart, I already hate the entire premise of group therapy,” Pat interjected. “I can’t pretend like I’m excited to do this.”
“You don’t need to be,” I argued. When they didn’t look convinced, I huffed. “Okay, look, I spent like four or five consecutive years going to therapy and every second of it sucked, but afterward it felt good. Like I’d just binged an entire Chinese buffet and purged it as soon as I got home. It was cathartic.”
They looked absolutely horrified at my metaphor, but I wasn’t here to beat around the bush about why I had spent so long in therapy. Besides, I was allowed to make light of my own trauma, it was my trauma after all.
“I don’t think I like hearing you talk like that,” Jon said finally, looking positively disturbed. “I think I could have gone my whole life without that visual.”
“Tough shit, you heard it now you get to process it.” I gestured to Pat. “It’s your turn, start small.”
“Uh…” He leaned back in the chair and rubbed his hands back and forth across his thighs. “I guess it bothers me when big decisions default to being Jon’s choice.”
“I don’t think they default to me—”
“Don’t argue,” I interrupted swiftly. “Pat, can you tell us what sorts of decisions specifically?”
“When we agreed to move it was just handed off to him like it was nothing, no one even asked for my opinion.”
That was fair. “We shouldn’t have just handwaved it,” I agreed. “I guess that’s my fault more than anything, because I just wanted us to enjoy picking out venues together instead.”
Pat snorted indignantly. “Which no one enjoyed.”
I rolled my eyes. “Either way, I apologize for not letting it be more of an ongoing discussion, it wasn’t fair to you or Jon to hand off that responsibility.” With a deep breath, I went on. “Alright, mine is that it upsets me when the two of you whisper and keep secrets, which you both still do all the time.”
Jon shot a side glance at Pat but neither men spoke up. I crossed my knees and bounced my foot as I watched them shift uncomfortably, waiting for one of them to own up to it.
“It’s not intentional,” Jon began. “I mean it. I just think that it’s not important to concern you right away and come back to it when it’s more relevant. Like the interview, that was over a month away and I just didn’t think it was worth bringing up yet.”
“We just don’t want to worry you,” Patrick added. “That’s all, it’s not malicious.”
“But it feels malicious,” I pointed out. “And I’ve told you this before but it never gets better.”
“Then we’ll work harder to be more open,” he promised. “Which I guess means it’s the best time to tell you that I might have accidently planned a four-way with Edward McNamara and now I’m not sure how to get out of it.”
“Uh, pardon?” I gawked at him, waiting for him to say “sike” but it didn’t happen.
“It’s a long story, and I’m not expecting you to say yes either, I’m just sort of avoiding his calls right now.”
Later, we will deal with this one later. Putting a mental pin in it, I forced myself to shake it off and smile. “Alright, we’re gonna talk about that one more in-depth at another point in time.” Maybe when I can drink again to get over the fact that you’re trying to pimp me out. “For now, thank you for understanding my need for transparency.”
“I did say that you might be interested in his wife, Kim,” Jon offered. “I know you wanted to see Eloise again so I just thought that might be a nice substitute for now.”
“Jonathan,” I said tiredly. “That’s really not helping my feelings on the issue.”
They both laughed and my smile immediately became genuine. It was nice to feel some of the tension leave the room and let myself relax just a little bit. We kept going around in no particular order, talking about anything that bothered us. Some of it was small, Pat didn’t like Jon eating from his plate, I wanted them to stop arguing with me about how I wasn’t a maid when I did small things around the apartment, Jon needed us to stop trying to kiss him before we’d brushed our teeth. Tiny, inconsequential things. But the bigger stuff was harder of course, Patrick asked me to stop referring back to his money when we talked about him not having a job, that wasn’t the point of him looking for work so desperately. Jon said it bothered him when Pat was dismissive of Christine and it hurt him to hear the derogatory way the other man talked about his previous relationship. I asked them to make more of an effort for us to be a triad, that I wanted us to feel like a unit and not pieces of a whole.
Then we got to the meat of it. The stuff that wasn’t about each other, the general things we dealt with on a daily basis that made it hard to get through the day sometimes. These were the pieces of us that it was difficult to voice out loud.
Jon went first, quietly admitting that this was the first time in a long time that he felt he had a complete family, but he had a lot of guilt because of Maritza and feeling like he should have done more for her. He didn’t know how she fit into our lives as a whole now and that made it painful for him. We assured him that Mari was our family too, and she always would be, but I understood his pain.
Afterward, there was silence and a medicine ball sized lump in my stomach. I took a breath and decided to take a turn. “My dad died when I was five and sometimes it’s really hard to pretend that I’m happy about being pregnant or that we’re getting married because he isn’t here.” I paused to collect myself when my voice started to shake. “I want to believe he would be happy for me, but I honestly think he would be disappointed in my choices and I’m glad that he didn’t get to see what happened in the summer.”
I could feel the guys looking at me but I didn’t have anything else to say. It was difficult being vulnerable and I forgot just how much of an emotional toll group therapy could take.
“He would be happy for you,” Jon soothed, reaching for my hand. “You were his only child; he would have done anything to make sure he was there for you even if he didn’t always understand your relationships.”
Like Michelin. I nodded and wiped my eyes. Silence fell again like a blanket over our little group. We all knew it was Pat’s turn, but he had to open up on his own. I picked at the fruit on the table quietly, watching him tap at the screen of the watch I gave him for Christmas. When he stopped, he almost looked deflated and finally just sighed.
“I miss my—” Patrick broke off sharply. “I miss Aleksy. There’s no other way for me to phrase it. And I hate A.J. and Bianka and Halina for keeping me from him, I feel petty and mean because I wish I’d never given them the house back. They haven’t spoken to me since the funeral.”
“You did a really good thing for them,” I offered. “Even though they didn’t treat you fairly, you still stepped up and did better.”
“For what?” he demanded. “They’ve blocked me out completely, I have nothing left of my father and his life except for some properties that he never even lived at.”
I nodded but stayed quiet, I could tell he wasn’t done. I could see the wall cracking under pressure the way it had last night. It was now or never.
Patrick’s eyes were watering when he finally continued several minutes later. “I don’t know how to live with the fact that I lost everything in my life and the man that I spent my childhood dreaming of died before I could even get to know him. And he only got to see me after I had failed so publicly that even he had seen the media coverage.” He sniffled and leaned forward on his knees. “I have nothing. I’m trying so hard to move forward and I just keep losing more and more.”
“You haven’t lost everything,” Jon said gently. “Not even close.”
“Yes, I have!” Patrick yelled. “I don’t even live in the place that I bought myself, I live in your apartment, with yourgirlfriend, your baby, watching you move into another career like its nothing and every second another piece of my sanity is gone.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks and I had to look away. This wasn’t my moment, it was his, and I was hurting for him.
“That’s our baby.” Jon’s voice was hurt but he looked absolutely devastated. “We talked about that…”
“And this is our relationship, but it doesn’t fucking feel that way all the time,” Patrick retorted.
“You’re right,” I cut in hoarsely. “It is Jon’s baby.” All eyes turned to me and I watched Jon’s mouth set into a firm line, Pat just stared despondently. “It’s half me, half him, and I can’t change that. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want you around, that I don’t wish it was your baby too. But I still hoped you would think of him as your son anyway.”
Maybe that was unfair of me, but that was what I had held out hope for. I thought that both men would feel that way when I had our second, but now that didn’t seem like the case.
“I do,” he promised, his gaze meeting mine. “But that doesn’t mean that I can’t be upset that everything I wanted has been taken away from me.” His gaze slid to Jon and both of us blushed.
“I…” Jon trailed off and I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed forcefully. “I owe you an apology.”
“I think I do too,” I agreed.
“Well, I’m waiting with bated breath.”
“I’m sorry for being a complete dick,” Jon apologized. “I’m sorry for purposely ignoring your boundaries with Lydia and being selfish. It wasn’t fair or right, and I thought it was okay when you and I got together, but I know that just made things harder to talk about.”
Patrick nodded and swiped at a rogue tear. “Thank you.”
I watched Jon pull him in for a hug, moving to the other sofa and clutching the man to him hard, staying like that for almost a minute. My heart hurt watching them, knowing that their relationship would always be something different than what we had together, but I still loved that they had each other.
“I’m sorry too,” I said when Patrick was finally free from the hug. “For not being honest from the beginning about my feelings for Jon, for pushing you to keep him involved when you already told me it made you uncomfortable. I’m sorry for not being better when you deserved it the most.”
He stared at me long and hard, it took every ounce of control not to look away from him, but suddenly he smiled and the air in the room lightened. Pat held open his arms and called me over. Wiping my watery eyes, I ran to him and curled myself into his embrace, my legs thrown over Jon’s lap, my arms around Pat’s shoulders.
I’d given up pieces of myself for them, thrown myself to the wind so that they would take me on this ride with them, I barely even thought about the toll this was taking on them. That needed to change. This wasn’t just fucking around anymore and we were very quickly approaching the due date, we couldn’t keep going without some degree of uncomfortable honesty from everyone involved.
“Your dad would be proud of you too,” I murmured as I nuzzled against Pat’s cheek. “He always was.”
“Thank you, baby,” he said, running his hand through my hair. “I just wish we’d had more time.”
“Me too.”
He gave me a chaste kiss that tasted like salt from our tears. Jon’s hand rubbed up my leg as we all sat there. This was the most dysfunctional and loving family I’d ever been a part of, every part of us had to be in this together for it to work. Even on the hard days, even when grief overtook us, we had to support each other.
And I would always fight for them, for us, because it was worth it. It would always be worth it.