The touch of regret in his voice when he said her name twisted my heart. I bit my tongue against apologizing. She was my best friend. “No,” I said slowly. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” he said. “Although, I did want to talk to you because I think I have some good news for you.”
“For me?”
“Yep, you mentioned before Christmas that one of the worries about getting married was the lack of a legal component to the ceremony.”
“It’s not so much just a legal component, but—I feel like they should have rights if something happens. I mean, we’re talking about kids eventually and—I want to have rights where they are concerned. If there’s an accident, if one of us ends up in the hospital, or when we have kids, they should all be fathers and all have rights where the kids are concerned. I know it sounds weird…” I was fumbling for this.
“You want security for them and for you,” Dominic said, his expression gentle, but he paused as our food arrived. The waitress also brought us fresh glasses of ice water and neither of us wanted more coffee while we ate.
When we were alone again, I nodded. “I do want security for them. I never want one of them to be cut out of a decision that may need all of us to make. We’re a family, and it’s one thing for us to make those calls for ourselves, but what happens if we’re sick or injured? I just—I don’t want that to become a thing.”
“I get it,” he said with a gentle smile. “That’s why I’ve been doing some research. Now, legally, you can’t file for a marriage certificate with five people. The marriage contract is literally between two people. However, we might have some wiggle room to work a little magic—if you’re willing to be flexible.”
I perked up in the chair, excitement tingling in my belly. Don’t get too excited, I cautioned myself. Hear him out. “I’m definitely interested in hearing what you’ve figured out.”
“Okay, let’s start with CNM,” he said, straightening in the chair. “That’s consensual non-monogamy. There’s a very strong movement from the polyamorous side of things in this country. The big things to note are some of the legwork they’ve already done. Bigamy, for example, has been decriminalized in many states—not all. New York still has it listed in the penal code, but it requires a spouse—the person affected by the bigamy—to seek charges. Most of the time, it’s not going to be pursued as an active criminal complaint.”
Criminal…
“Bear with me, I have a reason for taking you down this rabbit hole.” The caution helped, but at the same time, I couldn’t help trying to swallow back the fear.
“Only four states have added civil unions and domestic partnerships to their anti-bigamy statutes. In almost all cases, the civil union, domestic partnership, or marriage is recognized as such based on the laws and statutes of where the marriage, partnership, or union took place.” He glanced at me. “Following me?”
“If we get married in New York, we have to get married under the auspices of the statutes governing marriage here, but our marriage is recognized in another state because we were married here whether their laws would allow it or not?”
“Exactly. This also applies to civil unions and domestic partnerships. The technicalities get a little fuzzy in places, but we have a strong case. In the townships of Somerville and Cambridge, they have passed multiple-partner domestic partnership ordinances. Somerville was first, and Cambridge followed. There have been other towns and cities who have also begun to pass these ordinances, following their lead and requiring the domestic partnerships must fulfill six criteria.”
Six?
“You must be at least eighteen years of age and mentally competent to execute a contract. You cannot have just terminated a domestic partnership in the last ninety days—unless it terminated because a partner died, and you cannot be related by blood closer than the state—in this case, Massachusetts—would allow for marriage.” He ticked them off with his fingers. “Finally, you must be in ‘a relationship of mutual support, caring, and commitment, and intend to remain in that relationship,’ ‘you must reside together,’ and you must ‘consider yourselves to be a family.’”
“That’s it?” Holy shit.
“That’s it—for Sommerville and Cambridge, MA. And for a little town called Freshtown here in New York—which passed that ordinance last summer.” He grinned. “Now—this isn’t a marriage, but it does confer legal protections often covered by marriage and civil unions. We would also add co-parenting as an agreement between you and medical powers of attorney for each of you—just to cover all our bases. This would allow you, as a group, to adopt all the children you produce—or in this case, the guys would all be able to adopt—because multi-parent homes are a fact of modern life. It takes a little finessing and a lot of paperwork—but then you have any ceremony you want.”
Any ceremony we wanted.
My heart dipped and I leaned back in the chair. “Seriously? That’s only three towns.”
“Everything has to start somewhere. The more it’s not contested and the more the anti-bigamy laws aren’t enforced, you quietly and strategically change the flow of the stream. You’re all adults, and you’re all consenting adults. State anti-bigamy statutes may violate the Due Process Clause because individuals engaged in consensual non-monogamy are adults with the liberty to choose whom to form relationships with.” He was so sober as he met my gaze. “It’s imperfect, messy, and definitely going to take some hoop-jumping. If you all decide to legally change your names to one, we’ll have more paperwork to fill out—but it’s doable.”
Blinking rapidly, I tried to wrap my mind around it. There was so much. The ceremony we were planning was for us and our families. There wouldn’t be a typical marriage license for the officiant to sign. “Dominic—is there a chance this could hurt like Coop’s chances for licensure? Or Archie’s inheritance? Or Jake and Ian’s work? I don’t want someone to turn this on them.”
“First, if any of them run into discrimination—we handle that on a case-by-case basis. You and Ian are semi-public figures through Bound Hearts, so could you get some notoriety on this? Probably. But as far as I’m aware, the world kind of already knows you have four boyfriends. Your social media manager has posted some tasteful images of the five of you together, as well as some fun shots of the proposal and from when they’ve come to your concerts.”
“Yeah, but we’ve—we’ve tapered back, so I don’t—”
“Do you know how many followers your Bound Hearts account has?”
I just stared at him. “To be honest, Dominic—high school kind of burnt me out on social media. The less I pay attention to it, the better. Andrea’s a damn gift that she does so much of all that and just tells me what she needs from me.”
He chuckled. “Fair, tell you what, you talk to your manager and your social media manager and let them know about the wedding and what you’re planning—they’ll keep you in the loop about how much exposure you want for it. Though—you might have people trying to crash the wedding.”