28. Adam

28

ADAM

“ L ior is right. How do you all not get what’s going on here?” My brothers’ shocked expressions met me as I sat up, pulling the sheet flush with my body.

I already felt bare coming from under the covers. There was no need to be completely naked too.

I looked at River, his eyes meeting mine, a silent question lingering in his gaze. I wanted nothing more than to melt back into the warmth of his arms, to forget the world beyond this bed, but I couldn’t ignore my brothers and Emery’s presence.

“Could have told you if you’d asked,” Lior’s voice sliced through the stillness from the living room. His I-told-you-so tone almost made me laugh.

“Baby, we’re going to have a serious conversation when we get home,” Noah shouted back.

Lex’s expression was a contorted puzzle of confusion and curiosity as he stood there, his gaze flitting between River and me. “What’s all this? Just a sleepover gone…wild?” He gestured vaguely toward the tangled bedding and our bare skin.

“Lex, have you ever had naked sleepovers with your best friends?” I asked, locking eyes with him.

He shifted uncomfortably, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Well, Emery’s my best friend, so…sort of, yeah.”

“Case in point,” I said, rolling my eyes. “This is what we’re doing.”

River put his arms around my waist, anchoring me. After the conversation we’d had last night, I knew he’d be understandably concerned, but I was tired of hiding.

If I couldn’t be myself with my brothers, who could I be honest with?

“Told you so,” Noah said, turning to Lex.

“You did not.”

“You said you saw them kissing when you were fourteen. How are you surprised by this?”

“You saw it?” I asked in shock. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Lex shrugged. “I figured you’d tell me eventually, and when you didn’t, I thought it was just an experimentation that didn’t mean anything.” He chuckled. “We all experimented, right?”

“Some more than others,” Noah, the resident sexual prodigy, said.

I turned to River. “I’m sorry our first kiss…wasn’t our first kiss…”

River brought his hand up to my face and ran his thumb over my cheek. My eyes fluttered closed before I opened them again to gaze into his green depths. “No, baby. Our first kiss was my first kiss. Your first kiss with me was definitely not that kiss when we were fourteen.”

“How does that work?” I chuckled.

“You know that feeling you got when we kissed? I got that all those years ago. It’s just that you took a little longer to catch up. It’s okay. Your skill has improved a lot since then.”

“Oh yeah?” I smiled, my gaze moving back to his soft lips and the short beard that framed his face perfectly.

A cough reminded me we weren’t alone.

Crap.

“Hey,” I whispered. “How legal is it to kill your siblings?”

“Not legal at all.”

I turned back to my brothers and Emery.

“Any chance you guys can fuck off so we can get dressed?”

The three of them crossed their arms and stayed put.

“What will it take for you fuckers to get out of the room?” I asked in exasperation before they started making kissy noises.

I turned to River, who winked at me before pressing his mouth against mine in the dirtiest kiss to top all dirty kisses.

My brain fully stopped when all my blood rushed to my cock.

I didn’t know at what point they all left the room, but I hoped it was before I straddled River, taking the covers with me.

“Hmm, fuck, baby, I only wanted to give them a taste of their own medicine, not a show,” he said into my lips as I chased his for another kiss.

“Then you shouldn’t have kissed me like that. You know your mouth makes me stupid.”

He chuckled. “It’s not on purpose.”

“Sure, it isn’t.” I kissed down his jaw and his neck, sucking a patch of warm skin. “So, fourteen…”

“Huh?”

I pulled back to look at him. “You really liked that kiss when we were fourteen.”

“It’s lived rent-free in my head ever since, although it has recently been replaced by other life events.”

“Like me entering your body and claiming you?”

He placed his hands on my ass, pulling me closer and grinding our cocks together.

“I take that as a yes,” I said, freeing the covers trapped between us. I moaned when I finally felt skin on skin. “Fuck, River. Feels so good.”

“Your door is still open. We can hear everything!” Noah shouted.

“Then you have a choice: leave or cover your ears,” I shouted back before turning to River. “Do you think if we’re really loud, they’ll leave for good?”

His laughter was a rich sound. “I have to work today, remember? But to be fair, we deserve the payback.”

I pouted as I glanced at our still-hard cocks pressed together. “Sorry, guys. Not my fault.”

River laughed, but then he caressed my face gently. “Are you okay? As coming outs go, this was quite a spectacular one.” His question was gentle, eyes searching mine for signs of panic.

“Yeah, I think I am.” The reality of what lay ahead was daunting. The conversation that awaited outside the sanctuary of River’s room was filled with explanations and admissions, but I knew my brothers loved me no matter what. They’d understand, maybe more than anyone apart from River, what I was going through.

We dressed in silence, an easy routine we’d become used to. When I pulled one of his T-shirts from his drawer, I realized I’d been doing that a lot lately.

When he’d run out of clean ones, he’d gone to the other bedroom and brought mine over to his drawer, so they were all mixed now.

I stopped in motion, my brain taking me back to when I’d moved in with Victoria. There had been a clear delineation of which spaces were hers and which were mine.

River buttoned his work shirt, rolling up the sleeves until I was able to catch a glimpse of his tattoos. He caught me staring but said nothing. Just sent me a brief smile that said more than any words he may have shared.

“Time to face the music,” I said, turning to the bedroom door.

If I had expected the air to be heavy with anticipation or my brother’s curious gazes to follow our every move as we entered the living room, I’d have been wrong.

“We made you coffee,” Lex said, pointing at the two mugs on the coffee table.

“Pancakes are coming right up,” Emery shouted from the kitchen. “Sorry, I was hungry.”

River’s hand found mine, a silent show of support…that I didn’t think I needed because it looked like the shock of finding us in the same bed had worn off and they were being their usual selves.

“Good morning, Lior,” I said.

“Morning,” he replied with his coffee cup in hand while Noah sat crossways on his lap. “Once again, my apologies for this morning.”

I smiled. “I think it’s safe to say we deserved it.”

“Damn right,” Lex said. “I need to take Emery home after this to detraumatize my eyes.”

“You don’t have ice cream,” Emery said accusatorily, coming in from the kitchen with a stack of plates in one hand and a plate with a huge stack of pancakes in the other.

“That’s okay, baby. We have all the ice cream at home,” Lex said, holding his hand out to Lex, who took it after putting the load he was carrying on the table.

“So,” Noah started. “Are you guys dating?”

“We’ve had two dates, so yeah, I guess,” I said.

“I don’t think we can count painting rooms as a date,” River said.

“Sure we can. First, I took you out for breakfast, and then we kissed.”

We exchanged a look and smiled.

“Fuck me, this is serious,” Noah said.

I stared at him. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Look, I can’t profess to say I know what it’s like to be a late bloomer because we all know I so wasn’t.”

Lior snorted.

Noah hit his chest lightly before continuing, “But you guys have always been super close. Like more than best friends are. It was only a matter of time until all the parts of your body caught up. And for once, I don’t mean your dick.”

“I really didn’t know, you know?” I said, and they all gave me understanding smiles. “It was like one day we were friends, and the next, I was checking out his ass and having all these other thoughts.”

“Aww, baby, you’re so romantic,” River joked.

“Wait up, when did it happen? Because…you know…the wedding,” Lex said.

My hand paused on the way to adding a couple of pancakes to my plate.

Even though my non-wedding day turned out to be a blessing, I still couldn’t shake off everything that had happened. Having to tell everyone I knew, and then the radio silence from Victoria. It was still a sore point.

“The honeymoon,” I muttered.

Lex gasped. “So, all the jokes we made…”

I shook my head. “Nothing happened for a few weeks. That was just when I started paying attention.”

“Anyway,” River said, changing the subject. “What did you come here for? I know it wasn’t to catch us in bed, and it can’t be all about our dinner with David Lima and his husband.”

“We pulled some strings, so Drew and West’s fundraiser auction is in two weeks. We have a lot of work to do, so we’re skipping Sunday lunch and going to the office. We’ll get takeout later. We were coming to pick you up.”

I laughed. “All those things could have been conveyed via text.”

“Yeah, but we wanted to ask you about David Lima.”

We shared all the gossip until River had to go to work and I had to leave with my brothers, Emery, and Lior to go to the office where West would meet us since Drew was also working.

“See you later, boyfriend,” I said, tasting the word in my mouth, and fuck if it didn’t feel right.

River stared at me in shock. “Adam…”

“It doesn’t have to be that now, River, but I’d like it to be at some point.”

He pulled me into his arms and kissed me hard. “See you later, boyfriend.”

The catcalls from my brothers as we kissed were totally unnecessary, but I wouldn’t deny it felt good to have approval from the people who mattered the most to me.

It felt damn good. Now, all I needed was to convince them to not put me up for auction at the fundraiser because there was no way I wanted to give up any of my future free time to anyone who wasn’t River.