Page 96 of All Tied Up

Neil lifted the blanket in invitation and got a grin in return. When Jamie reached the table, he unstrapped the toolbelt, dropped it on the table with a thud, and snuggled in.

“Hi,” Jamie whispered softly. His lips were kissably close and he slid one hand up Neil’s thigh under the blanket.

“Hi,” Neil whispered back. “I think we’re supposed to be good right now because there are guests with kids.”

Jamie wrinkled his nose. “The guests know we’re gay, or at least they do if they read the About Us section of the website.”

“Yes, but I’m not your partner and, you know, it’s children.”

Jamie reluctantly moved his hand back toward Neil’s knee. “I suppose. It’s just that we only have a few hours left.” He looked so serious. Like maybe he was going to miss Neil, too.

That was impossible, of course. Jamie had his Daddy and a new guy to play with every month. Neil knew he was one in a long stream of guests.

Neil wrapped one arm around Jamie and looked out the windows. The majestic pines were obscured by the rush of water, like they were living in a reflection in a pool. “It’s beautiful out here,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere so beautiful.”

“Thanks. I think so, too.” Jamie sounded sad when he said it though.

“Hey, Jamie?” Neil waited for a questioning hum and then went on. “Why do you always look so surprised when I try to spend time with you? Did I overstep our agreement or something?”

Jamie chuffed out a short laugh. “You’re definitely not overstepping. I mean, most of our hook-ups don’t exactly pave the walk or do our taxes, but I think you knew that.”

Neil nodded. He certainly hadn’t done their taxes, but he wasn’t going to correct Jamie on it. That wasn’t the point. “OK. I just wanted to check that I wasn’t bothering you guys too much. You know, outside of the kink thing.”

Jamie shook his head, a tickle of downy soft hair against Neil’s neck. “No. It’s been wonderful having you here. I liked spending time with you and getting to know you better. But as for sounding surprised…” Jamie trailed off.

Neil found his hand under the blanket.

After a long pause, Jamie found his voice. “You’ve heard about Henri, right? Our ex?”

“Yes.” Neil tried not to growl. So far, he knew that the asshole had hurt Jamie’s feelings and was trying to suck them dry financially. He couldn’t wait to hear what else he had done.

“Well, when we started dating, I thought he really liked both of us. He used to… I guess I would say compete with me for Daddy’s attention. I thought it was a game, you know? I would be bratty and difficult while he would be obedient and sweet. I thought it was kind of perfect, like this balance between the three of us. All three of us had fun together, and we’d try to make sure that each of us had time alone and as separate couples, too.”

Neil didn’t like where this story was going, though he was already starting to guess.

“At some point, we started getting jealous of each other. I don’t even know how it happened, because I thought I just wasn’t a jealous person. But it seemed like Henri wanted all of Daddy’s attention, and the competition became real because there wasn’t enough to go around.”

Neil nodded like he understood, but he wasn’t sure he did. Sebastian seemed to have plenty of love and care for two boys. He’d even said he liked watching Neil and Jamie together. Neil had seen the same thing when Jamie was watching him with Sebastian.

But Jamie was still talking. “I thought it was just the stress of starting up a new business. We’d had fun while it was just an idea, but actually doing it was a lot of long hours and constantly figuring things out. Henri ended up hating it. I mean, we’d all been in love with the idea of running a business, but Henri didn’t like doing customer service or maintaining the lodge or cooking or… anything that we’d talked about. I guess he thought it would be different. So Daddy and I felt terrible for dragging him into it.”

Or, Neil privately thought, Henri was a spoiled little asshole.

“But we were both committed to him. I mean, I just... I loved Henri so much that I wanted him to be happy. I would have done anything that made him happy. I gave him all of the time with Daddy that I could, but it was hard being left out. I even thought about leaving the relationship so that Daddy and Henri could have what they needed.”

Neil’s heart hurt, just listening to it. No one who thought about leaving a relationship to make their partners happy could truly be that jealous. It was horrible that Jamie couldn’t see that in himself.

Jamie drew in a deep breath, staring off into the distance. “Then one day, he just decided to leave. I felt like I’d done everything I could to keep us together, but he’d apparently been seeing another guy. I mean, we knew he was sleeping with other people, and we agreed about it. But he called us one day to say he’d found a new Daddy and was moving back to Paris. With just… no warning. We’d never even met the other guy.”

Neil gathered Jamie in close. “Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry that happened.”

“Yeah.” Jamie gulped. “He said that he didn’t want to share a Daddy with another boy, especially someone as needy as me. And that… we could never be enough for him as long as we loved the Meadowlark more. But… but, we loved him.”

“What a terrible thing to say.”

Jamie sniffed, though his voice was still solid. “It’s a reasonable thing to say, actually. We work all the time, especially evenings and weekends. And I am needy. I wanted Daddy’s attention and Henri’s too.”

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing to want attention,” Neil told him. “Have you ever considered that… maybe the problem wasn’t you and Sebastian? That maybe it was just Henri?”