After dinner just before everyone gathers in the family room for gift exchanges, my father says, “Livia, I'd like to speak with you alone in my study.”
I exchange a glance with Soren, who looks pissed that my father seems to be trying to interfere with his evil plans. But he quickly shifts back to his charming smile as he volunteers to help my mother clear the table. He's at least earning points with her.
Vivie trails behind him with her own plate talking his ear off about flowers and how she's going to be the flower girl, even though I'm sure she has no idea what that is, either—not unless the Disney Princess training has started way early.
I follow my father to his study.
“Shut the door,” he says.
I shut the door and sit in the guest chair across from his desk.
“You're not marrying that man,” he says flatly.
For a moment I'm speechless. I am, after all, a grown adult woman. And although this whole wedding situation is far more sinister than he could possibly suspect—and my hand was forced—there is a rebellious part of me that wants to flounce off and elope just because I'm being told I can't marry Soren.
Something my father and Soren have in common—a controlling streak, which is probably why they got along so famously out in the foyer and had to be seated at opposite far ends of the dinner table with a large centerpiece blocking their view of one another.
“And why is that?” I ask. I don't bother to fall into some over-the-top crying fit or to say but I love him like a trashy daytime talk show. My feelings for Soren are very conflicted and confused these days.
“He's a rogue.”
“Ummm... This isn't a Regency romance novel. Nobody says rogue anymore in that context.”
He pierces me with a glare. “He's a player. I've heard some very unsavory things about some of his activities with the opposite sex. And some of the unsavory parties he's been at.”
He keeps saying unsavory.
I would ask where he could have possibly heard these things. It's not as though he runs in the same social circles, but my father is a decently paid CPA, and most likely heard some rumor from one of his higher-end business clients. And in order for them to know this about Soren they would have had to have been at those same parties. But I don't bother mentioning this fact.
I'm not even a little shocked by this revelation. I've known Soren wasn't the guy you bring home to your parents almost from the beginning. But my libido staunchly refused to let me remove him from the roster, even when I knew I should—and now it's too late.
“Well? Aren't you going to say anything?” he asks.
I shrug. I'm not sure what there is to say. I actually am marrying that man because if I don't he'll destroy me, and my father has no power or pull to stop it. What Soren wants, Soren gets. His unsavory rogue-ish ways hardly matter in this scenario.
Finally I say, “Instead of talking behind his back, maybe you should discuss this with Soren and see what he has to say about it. Doesn't it seem a little unfair to convict him without a trial?”
“Fine. Send him in. I'm sure I can persuade him to put a stop to this. The last thing his company needs is another scandal.”
I want to ask which company, but now doesn't feel quite like the time. I get up and go into the living room to get Soren.
“My father wants to talk to you in his study,” I whisper to Soren, who the rest of my family seems to adore.
He just nods, gets up, and leaves the room. I find myself wondering if my father can actually persuade Soren to leave me alone. And if he does, what does that mean for Griffin and Dayne? Would they leave, too? Do I want them to leave, too? Can I pretend that any of them is pure and clean in all of this, that I could trust them after this?
What will my family think if Soren leaves in the middle of Christmas Eve? Or if the wedding doesn't happen? My adorably clueless niece seems to have really latched onto him and the idea of being in my wedding. Does she know what weddings are? I'm trying to remember when I first understood what weddings were in even the most vague way.
A tense silence descends on the room as we all hear shouting—my father's—from down the hall. Then things go quiet in there for a long time, and I'm worried one of them has killed the other. Fifteen minutes later the door opens and there's... laughing? Both of them are engaged in what sounds like a friendly conversation like they have inside jokes... like they've been friends for ages.
I have no idea what Soren could have possibly said to diffuse my father and win him over, particularly when their initial meeting in the foyer was so tense. The two of them rejoin us in the family room. My father sits next to the fireplace and puts more tobacco in his pipe. Soren joins me without a word, but he seems far more relaxed.
The rest of the Christmas Eve festivities of gifts, gingerbread cookies, and hot cocoa goes off without another cross word from anyone, and I'm left more confused than ever.
11
Soren
The Video Proposal
Six months ago. A week before Christmas.
We're out in the middle of the ocean off the coast of Miami. We've taken a short break from the cold just before the holidays. Livia lies on the deck in a skimpy red bikini, the sun licking her bronzed skin in all the places I want to put my own tongue. It seems unfair that the sun should be allowed this intimacy with her. That is my body to heat up, consume, and devour. No celestial body should ever get to touch her. The only others who will touch her are Griffin and Dayne, but that's different.
I met the guys during rush week at Dartmouth. It was a period of serious hazing even though it was against the rules. But we weren't the kind of pussy ass little bitches who were going to whine and complain and cry to the administration like little girls. Every generation before us made it through, and we would too. We were fucked with and humiliated to the point I was ready to rip heads off and mail them back to the families in question.
I was livid at the treatment. I shouldn't have to experience it. I had money and power. But so did everyone else. It didn't hold quite the same threat that it did in broader society. At the top, money and power is as common as the Internet. Oh you have an Internet connection? Amazing. Me too.
The things that happened during that period bonded the three of us together not just as brothers, but as lovers. Then once we were in and the pussy was flowing like wine, we started to share women. We didn't think about it, it just seemed like a natural progression at the time. It didn't even occur to us to be jealous because what we had was between us, and the girl was our toy. Nothing more. Our friendship always came out on top against any woman who became our fourth.
But it wasn't a part of my life I shared with anyone outside our circle. Despite how progressive the world seems, it isn't—not beneath the surface. People like to virtue signal so they can get cookies from the wider society to show what good little obedient followers they are.
The average person accepts same sex relationships as long as everyone stays in an identifiable category. You can be with another man, but you can't be an alpha male at the same time—at least not in the eyes of most. People are comfortable with things they can label. Anything else is too scary and makes life too uncertain.