“Me too,” he said. “I’ve missed you more than you know.”
“I’ve been around,” I said, half-challenge, half-accusation. “You’re the one—”
He cut me off. “I know. I was trying to give you time.”
I scoffed up at him with a grin. “I love you so much, and you’re one of the most amazing people I know. But sometimes, you’re a stupid, stupid man.”
With a boisterous laugh, Noel tilted his head back, his Adam’s apple leaping. “Wow. I love you too.” The next kiss sizzled and burned. It held promise for more, but he pulled away with a frustrated sigh. “So impatient,” he grumbled a moment before a knock sounded at my bedroom door.
As the door opened, Jai stepped inside, and Noel rolled off me. I scrambled to cover my semen-covered groin with the sheet, but Noel did nothing to hide the evidence of our activities. He stood and stretched, causing Jai to freeze in the doorway, dark eyes wide.
“Get dressed, Riley,” Noel said as he sauntered to my bathroom.
Jai tracked his every move, his fist clenched around the door handle so tightly his knuckles were white. Noel glanced over his shoulder, waiting for Jai’s gaze to crawl up his body. When they made eye contact, Noel’s eyebrow arched. Jai looked sheepish.
“Stop staring at my ass,” Noel teased.
Jai grinned. “It’s a nice ass.”
“You’re damn right it is.” Noel winked at me before spinning on his heels and disappearing into the bathroom. Jai and I watched him go, only looking at each other when the door shut behind him.
“What was that?” Jai asked.
I shrugged. “Flirting?”
“Fair enough.” He didn’t look like he knew quite what to do with that. “Um, get dressed. The cinnamon rolls are done.”
“Okay.”
Once Noel and I had cleaned up and dressed, we met Jai and Gideon in the living room. We ate cinnamon rolls and exchanged gifts. It wasn’t anything extravagant, but it was nice.
Gideon gave me a personally fitted weapons harness to wear over my battle uniform. “If you’re going to start training and fighting, you need to be ready,” he said.
Jai’s gift was a fancy paintball gun with matching mask and gloves. “For the next time we go,” he said.
Noel handed me a framed charcoal drawing. “It’s not much, but…” He blushed.
At first glance, I couldn’t tell what the drawing was. But in time, the black lines came together. The swoop of my jaw. The curve of my shoulder. Hands, his and mine, twined together near my chin. It was what he saw when he lay behind me, looking down on me as I slept.
“I love it,” I said, and he beamed. To all of them, I said, “Thank you. These are all amazing.”
After handing out their gifts, I sat back and fidgeted as they ripped through the wrapping paper. Jai inspected the new guitar picks and recording headphones I’d ordered. Noel squealed in delight at his new paints and paintbrushes. Gideon smiled his secret smile as he unveiled a framed collage of pictures.
Gideon had been the hardest to choose a gift for, but knowing how he cherished pictures of his family, I settled on this idea. I gathered photos from the past year and a half, and Noel helped me find older ones. I wasn’t very artistic, but I did my best to make the collage look nice. Gideon seemed to like it.
I received kisses from Jai and Noel, and Gideon bundled me in his lap, pecking my temple. Noel started cleaning up the shreds of wrapping of paper, but Jai smacked his arm to get his attention. He waved an envelope in his face.
“What’s this?” Noel asked as he sat back down on the floor.
Jai’s piercing clacked against his teeth, hand still offering the gift. “It’s for you.”
Noel’s face fell. “I didn’t get you anything.”
“That’s okay. It’s not anything—just—” Jai ripped open the envelope himself and shoved the two pieces of paper inside into Noel’s chest. “Here.”
With furrowed brows, Noel scrutinized the small rectangles of papers. “Tickets?”
“In San Francisco. There’s this art thing.” Jai picked at the carpet as the skin beneath his beard darkened. “I thought we could go.”
“Like an exhibit?” Noel asked.
“Yeah, like for painting and shit,” Jai said irritably.
Biting back a smile, Noel fingered the tickets. “But you don’t like art.”
Jai cleared his throat and shrugged. “But you do. It’s cool if you don’t want to go. I just thought we could, you know, go look at paintings or whatever.”
“Just us?”
With another half-hearted shrug, Jai scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah. If you want.”
Noel’s smile was tender and shy, his cheeks flushing. “Okay.”
As if he hadn’t expected Noel to say yes, Jai’s head jerked up, and he eyed Noel doubtfully. “Okay?”
Noel nodded, gaze dropping to the tickets. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go. It sounds cool.”
“Good. Okay. Cool.” Jai looked away, clearing his throat again.
I almost laughed at their absurd awkwardness, but I swallowed it down. Gideon watched in utter confusion, and when his lips parted to speak, I covered his mouth with my palm. I shook my head.
As subtly as possible, I rose from the couch and hauled Gideon up after me. “We’ll clean up the kitchen,” I said, pushing him out of the living room before he could protest.
Hesitating in the doorway, I watched as Noel crawled across the carpet until he and Jai were almost nose to nose. Jai’s Adam’s apple bobbed. Noel smiled. Then he leaned in and pressed his lips to Jai’s.
The tension in Jai’s body melted away as they kissed, their lips moving together like they’d been created for each other. In a way, I supposed they had been.
When they parted, Jai lifted his hand and cupped Noel’s cheek. Noel nuzzled into his Other’s palm. They sighed. I turned and walked away, leaving them to it.
“Do I wanna know?” Gideon asked as we stood side by side and washed the breakfast dishes that didn’t fit in the dishwasher.
“I think…” I handed him the baking pan for him to dry. “I think who we are to people can change.”
Our eyes met, and he smiled in that way of his, the way he only smiled with me. “I suppose you’re right.”
Later that night, I kissed Gideon goodnight on the base of the stairs under a makeshift mistletoe sprig that Noel had crafted. Jai showered while Noel and I fitted my bed with fresh sheets. We fell asleep in a tangle of limbs, me squished between them. I kissed them each in turn, then watched with wonder and desire as they shared an intense kiss above me.
It was the best Christmas I’d ever had.
Once the holidays had passed, I started training with Jai and Noel in the lower level of the Grand Hall. The Council was putting together a team, but Gideon wanted me to start slow. I hadn’t forgotten my training from the past year, but I needed to build back my muscle mass and endurance. And I was happy to do it with Noel and Jai as opposed to Uriel.
I’d seen my mentor in passing a few times, but every time he attempted to speak to me, I found a way to avoid him. I knew it was only a matter of time, especially since I was hanging around the Grand Hall more often. I told myself I’d be ready when the inevitable confrontation happened. I wasn’t.