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“You can give me that twenty in the morning,” Rhys joked. The three of them laughed, and then they sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. Tony thought perhaps Jess had drifted to sleep. He was surprised when she spoke again.
“How come you guys don’t go out on dates?” she asked.
“We do,” Rhys responded, his words the truth. Or at least, they had been until Jess moved in. Since then, neither of them had asked a woman out.
“Not while I’ve been here,” she pointed out. “Is it because of my second job? If it’s cutting into your social life—”
“It’s not,” Tony reassured her. She’d consulted with them before taking the job, asking if it would work for them and their schedules. They’d insisted it would be fine to leave Jasper in their care, that between the two of them and Aunt Berta, there would always be someone home to look after the little boy. Because she put him to bed before she left, watching Jasper essentially required zero work, as he’d never once woken up while she was gone.
“Why don’t you have girlfriends?” she asked.
Tony chuckled. “Are you trying to figure out what’s wrong with us?”
She grinned. “Oh, Tony. I can make that list all by myself without any help.”
“Minx,” he said, tickling her.
She batted his hands away, giggling.
Rhys rolled his eyes at their antics. “I think it’s safe to say we’re both workaholics. Besides, marriage and a family…they aren’t really in the cards for me.”
“Penny mentioned you felt that way, but I’m curious why not?” Jess asked.
“I’m committed to my practice, my patients. I’m on call twenty-four seven. You’ve seen that. It wouldn’t be fair to ask a wife to spend so much time on her own.”
It wasn’t unusual for Rhys to receive a phone call or several each night from patients, and he spent at least two or three nights at the hospital after office hours, making the rounds of his patients there.
“I think that’s a shame,” Jess said. “You’d be a great dad. You both would.”
Over the past month or so, Tony had come to acknowledge the pull he felt whenever he and Jess were in the same room. He was drawn to her like a moth to a flame, helpless to hold back when it came to touching her, either to offer a hand to help her stand, his palm on the small of her back when they walked beside each other, or a hug before bed. Or like right now…as he held her in his arms. She felt good there. Right.
He’d never been much for those casual, affectionate touches in the past.
Of course, like Rhys, he hadn’t been looking for a serious relationship either, preferring to keep the women he went out with firmly in the “just dating” category. He’d jokingly declared the hunt for a wife a forty-year-old man’s game, likening himself to George Clooney, claiming he had too many wild oats left to sow.
He was committed to putting Moretti Brothers Restorations on the map, working overtime to see the business’s continued success, but lately—since Jess—he was questioning whether or not that should be his life’s number one priority.
Before moving in together, he and Rhys discussed their future plans, in regards to relationships and women. It would have been impractical not to, since they were not only buying real estate together but a home as well. Both of them had stated outright that marriage wasn’t in their immediate plans, and overnights spent with women wouldn’t be unheard of, but it also wouldn’t be a common occurrence. They’d decided to revisit the discussion when one of them renounced their single status. That hadn’t happened.
They’d both brought lovers home from time to time, but it was always a one- or two-night thing. None of the women had ever stayed beyond breakfast on the second day.
Tony glanced at Rhys as he massaged Jess’s feet and acknowledged he wasn’t the only one who’d changed with Jess in their apartment. Rhys was upstairs for dinner much earlier than normal, typically coming up shortly after Jess returned home from the diner.
When neither of them replied to her assertion that they’d make good fathers, Jess let the subject drop, stirring in his arms and sighing contentedly once more. “You guys are spoiling me.”
Tony liked the idea of that, aware that he would pamper her a hell of a lot more if she’d let him. “You’re easy to spoil.”
She glanced up at him, smiling so sweetly, she took his breath away. Before he could think about his actions, Tony placed a soft kiss on her forehead before letting his lips drift lower, drawing them over her cheek slowly, seductively. Tony felt Rhys’s gaze on them, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t.
The lack of surprise on Jess’s face told him he wasn’t alone in feeling this…connection. And it wasn’t a connection just to Jess. Rhys was part of it as well.
He would have thought that idea completely ludicrous a few years earlier, but since then, he’d watched his sister Layla meet and fall in love with two men. He’d been a witness to just how strong and true that relationship was.
When he’d first learned his sister was dating Finn and Miguel, he’d been fully prepared to kick the guys’ asses, certain they were just using her for some sort of kinky threesome sex. Then he’d gotten to know them, seen the way they adored Layla, cared for her—and each other—and he couldn’t hold on to his belief that what they were doing was wrong.
Because it wasn’t.
For them, it was…perfect.
