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Jace chuckled. “That’s because this is probably the coldest you’ve ever been. I never expected you to be such a snow bunny. You’re not hiding some Canadian bloodline or something, huh?”
She smiled over her thermos before taking another sip. “Not that I know of. I just like being out here. It’s beautiful. Everything seems so untouched and private, you know? Like it’s all for us.” She shrugged. “Maybe I read the Narnia books too many times as a kid. It’s like our own magical kingdom.”
Jace took a gulp from his thermos, the steam drifting over his face. “You do remember that snowy Narnia was the bad version, right? That White Witch chick had made it perpetual winter.”
She lifted a brow. “You read the Narnia books?”
“Hey,” he said, his expression mildly offended, “I like to read.”
“I know you do, but it’s hard to picture you getting into anything so fantastical.” Besides the erotic books he read to see what to stock in his store, she’d only seen him with thrillers and biographies.
“Wyatt got obsessed with fantasy books for a while when we were kids and wouldn’t shut up about those, so I read them to figure out what he was talking about. We ended up cutting a hole in the back of one of the guest room closets when I was eight because we thought we could escape into some universe where my parents weren’t such pains in the ass.”
Andre laughed and stepped up next to Jace. “No way that was Wyatt’s idea.”
Jace’s smile turned wry. “Yeah, okay, I did it and blamed Wyatt. But that’s kind of like a ‘we’ thing.”
Evan shook her head. “First, I think it’s kind of adorable you tried to find Narnia. Second, I think we’ve established that I don’t gravitate toward the normal things. I liked the winter version.”
Amusement flickered over Jace’s expression. “Yeah, I guess we should be happy normal doesn’t do it for you. We’d be screwed.”
“You got that right,” Andre said, tightening the top on his thermos. “Normal is boring anyway. Who needs that?”
She looked down, the words giving her pause and a pang going through her. “Right.”
“Hey,” Jace said, stepping closer. “What’s wrong?”
She rubbed her lips together, trying to work through the surge of anxiety the words had caused. God, lately any little thing could swing her emotions from one end to the other in no time flat. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Bella?” Andre asked, concern in his voice now. “Did I say something wrong?”
She waved him off. “No, it’s fine. I just—I know what we have isn’t the norm by any sense of the word. We like it that way. But it makes me wonder what would happen if there really is a baby. Whether we like it or not, a child will force us to create some normal. We won’t be able to sweep away to some ski resort for a kinky weekend or grab each other in the kitchen whenever we want. Our life will become a lot less open and spontaneous.”
Jace sat next to her on the rock and put his arm around her. “You don’t think we realize that?”
She frowned and looked over at him. “But that’s not what y’all signed up for. Ours is not a white-picket-fence-and-PTA-meet
ing kind of world. You both ran screaming from that kind of life. Andre, I know that Martine woman wanted that kind of thing with you. And Jace, you tried the married, suburban life and hated it.”
“No, I hated my cheating ex-wife,” Jace corrected. “There’s a difference.”
She blew out a breath. “I guess I’m just scared that you’ll end up resenting having that decision forced on you. We were supposed to be those quirky, to-hell-with-society’s-rules kind of people.”
Jace huffed a quiet laugh. “Mourning your life on the fringe already?”
She shoved his thigh but smiled nonetheless. “Shut up.”
He turned toward her on the rock, and Andre stepped up next to him. “Baby, there’s nothing wrong with being a little of both. The three of us are never going to fit into a traditional mold, that’s true. And yes, our life is pretty free right now. But if you think I’m scared of the traditional stuff, you’re wrong. If someone had asked me a year ago if I wanted a wife and kids in the ’burbs, I would’ve balked. None of that sounded right for me. I’m sure Andre would’ve said the same. But that’s because it wouldn’t have been with you two.”
Her gaze flicked up to his.
“Now I can’t imagine wanting anything else in this world. I get to spend my life with two amazing, kinky people who totally get me and get to be so shit-faced in love that I want to raise a family with them? That I can’t sleep at night because I’m thinking about how incredible that could be? I mean, fuck, who gets that lucky?”
She blinked, the sincerity in his voice hitting her right in the sternum. “You can’t sleep?”
“Baby, you could be carrying our child. How the hell am I supposed to sleep?”
Andre smiled from behind him. “He was up all night researching. He probably has names picked out, the top schools on standby, and a list of safe BDSM practices for pregnant women already.”
