I gritted my teeth, only vaguely recalling my desire to be nicer to her.
“He’s not a gigolo.”
“What’s he like, then?” She scrunched up her face. “I think you like them young and pretty. You know, the ones who, with a nice wig and some makeup, could pass for a woman. That’s totally your type. I can see you convincing yourself while fucking that it’s just another woman.”
My stomach revolted at the idea of what she was insinuating and of how wrong she was. August was nothing like that, and even if he had been, she had no right to make such scathing remarks either.
“If you don’t have anything constructive to say, don’t say anything at all,” I snapped at her.
She shrugged. “Hey, I’m just curious about the kind of guy it takes to turn someone like you. You’re a womanizer, Charles, and the newness of all this will wear off soon. I hope the poor thing realizes that. It’d be a shame if he thought it was something more.” She laughed as she walked out of the kitchen, waving her left hand at me. “Perhaps tell the poor bastard you’re already married and there’s no room for a husband.”
I gritted my teeth, holding back the words. To engage her was useless. Better to let her go and focus on something else. Like why August was ignoring me and if it would seem desperate if I texted him and invited myself over.
One thing stopped me from doing it. My stupid pride. He turned me down yesterday, and the ball was in his court.
I wasn’t going to spend all day ruminating on it, though, that was for sure. I strode to my office and had barely sat when my phone rang. My muscles tensed, and my heart skipped a beat. I deliberately let it ring a couple of times before I checked the caller ID.
Declan.
“Hey, Dec, what’s up?” I hoped my disappointment wasn’t evident in my voice.
“What’re you doing?”
“Now?”
“Yeah, are you free? You and Poppy.”
“Poppy just went out. I was just about to get some work done.”
“On a weekend?”
I winced. Yeah, that wasn’t like me at all. When was the last time I’d even been to the country club for a game of golf?
“I’m catching up,” I simply said.
Declan chuckled. “Well, get out of the house for a minute and come over. Owen got me out of the office for a backyard barbecue.”
That did sound better than staying in all day, working on quarterly reports. Pretending to work on quarterly reports. Who was I kidding? I was more likely to ruminate about August brushing me off last night.
“All right. I’ll be there in twenty.”
“Good. Owen’s adamant that we get along with the neighbors, so they’ll be here too.”
I wasn’t in the mood to meet new people. We’d lived there for years, and I had no idea who lived on either side of the vast property.
“Okay, let me change, and I’ll come over.”
By the time I turned into their driveway, it was later than I’d told Declan. It had taken me twenty minutes to change, and the traffic had been worse than I’d expected. Declan came out when I parked the car.
“Come on, let me introduce you to everyone,” he said.
I was relieved having a backyard barbecue didn’t involve the entire neighborhood. Other than Declan and Owen, there was a lesbian couple who hung out in the pool and a heterosexual couple who lounged at the poolside.
“Hey, Charles, want to help me flip these burgers?” Owen asked, and I immediately remembered doing this with August in his backyard. My hand clenched the drink Declan had offered me, and I felt all kinds of sleazy for engaging with this man’s son.
Sleazy enough to put a stop to it? God, no. Not unless August was no longer into me.
“Charles?” Owen prompted.
I opened up my mouth to respond, but Declan beat me to it.
“Auggie’s here, and he brought a friend.”
The way he said “friend” caught my attention. I spun around. August walked toward us with the same person he’d been with at the bar. My heart sank at the way he kept his hand on their arm.
Touching. Way too intimate for my liking. Was this the reason he didn’t have time for me last night?
Chapter Seven
Auggie
I led Jackie through the doors to the patio, then stopped short. Charles. Dad never told me he was coming. Nor the other two couples who observed us as we joined everyone. I’d been about to leave when Jackie called me, and on a whim, I’d invited them to come along with me.
Had I known Charles would be here, I would’ve put off seeing Jackie until later. I was aware of how it must look to Charles to see us together, especially after I’d copped out of meeting him last night.
After my session with Heath, I hadn’t been in the best mood, and Charles would’ve asked questions I wasn’t ready to explain. He shot me an accusatory look, full of betrayal and hurt he tried to camouflage with turning away from us. I had to tell him the truth about my therapy visits.
It would mean going into details about being a Dom and my drops, but that was much better than having him think I was seeing someone else behind his back. Granted, nothing about our agreement said I couldn’t, but I felt too much for him to be unfaithful to those feelings.
As much as he wanted to pretend that all I was to him was a “mistress,” I knew differently. Eventually, he would have to come to terms with that too, and we’d have to decide on the way forward.
I was even prepared to do the baby talk with him. The baby his wife was carrying would be a huge part of his life and his focus for a lifetime. That meant a lot to him, enough for him to remain married to Poppy.
“Hey, everyone, what’s up?” I said, trying to catch Charles’s eyes, but he looked away from me.
“Hey, Aug, just trying to get Charles to use the grill.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tease that he shouldn’t or risk burning our food. Charles stiffened too.
“There’s someone I want you all to meet,” I said. Even though Charles was trying his best not to pay us any mind, he had to hear anyway.
“Same.” Dad preempted me, pointing to the two women in the pool propped up on their elbows. “These are our neighbors Lydia and Valerie. They’re all she/her pronouns. And on the lounge, Alexander and Cecily, he/him and she/her respectively.” He shifted the spatula he was holding to me. “This is my son, Auggie. One of the twins I was telling you about earlier.”
I groaned. What had Dad been saying about me? Hopefully, Charles hadn’t had to listen to him too much. We were already aware of the age difference. I didn’t need Dad emphasizing it by digging into his story bank of whatever mischief had Oscar gotten me in when we were younger.
“Nice to meet you all,” I returned their greetings. “And this is Jackie, a friend of mine. They are nonbinary and prefer to use they/them pronouns.”
I’d already had their permission from the ride over of how to introduce them. Although a little on the shy side, they liked to use their pronouns upfront, and I respected that.
“Hi, Jackie, nice dress.”
“God, where did you buy those espadrilles? They are to die for.”