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I burst into laughter, painfully aware of the customer he’s referring to. Lara gives me a curious look. “Who’s that?” she innocently asks.
“Mr. Hamstring, otherwise known by his legal name, Franklin Mandela,” I say, “is a pain in the ass and then some. He’s very wealthy, and he will spend thousands of dollars in a single afternoon when he’s in town. But he will also consistently ask you to make sure that our tailor customizes his pants in his preferred bespoke style which he claims makes his butt look fantastic. His hamstrings need to feel ‘pretty,’ he’ll tell you, and he will expect you to blush and laugh a little.”
“Frank is condescending and pretentious,” Etienne adds, still chuckling. “And he likes the young ladies, probably a little too much considering that he has a wife and three children at home. I often advise my staff to be careful with… what did you call them, Selina?”
“Spicy customers,” I giggle.
“Yes, spicy customers. Well, Frank is spicy but harmless. He just loves droning on about his derriere and his hamstrings, and he loves any ounce of feminine attention that he can get.”
Lara takes a deep breath, putting on a slightly awkward smile. “I will make a mental note of the gentleman in question, then.” She nods my way, glancing at my baby bump—or undercover watermelon, as I like to call it. “How is the baby?”
“Kicking. I’m sure we’ve got a future soccer player on our hands,” I reply.
“Do you know if you’re having a girl or a boy yet?”
I shake my head. “No, and I specifically asked the doctor to keep us in the dark. We want it to be a surprise. It’s how we like living life these days, fast and loose.”
“Oh, ma cherie, whatever it is, this child is the luckiest. How is Matthew, by the way?” Etienne replies.
I take a moment to admire his dapper style—the black suit with subtle gray lines, the pearly gray vest, the white shirt and burgundy tie look great on a man his age. Then again, Mr. Lacroix only wears the finest fabrics and personally tailors each piece, making sure to follow the current trends without abandoning the classic men’s fashion values upon which he built his own brand. It’s admirable. I hope I’ll be just as iconic when I’m his age.
“Matthew is good. He’s back from a conference in Toronto. I believe he, Jason, and Sully are coming by the store later,” I say, then look to Lara. “I sent you an email yesterday about setting some shirts aside for the guys. Did you get a chance to read it?”
“Yes. And I’ve already prepared them for Matthew and his friends when they arrive.”
“This one’s a keeper,” I quip to Etienne.
He smiles broadly, genuine affection glowing in his eyes. “I must say, Selina, I love this look on you. Who’d have thought you would get this far with the right man beside you? Had I known Matthew would be such a good influence, I would have personally catapulted that other fellow, what’s his name?”
“Kieran.”
“I would have personally catapulted Kieran straight into the sun ages ago.”
I snort a dry chuckle, realizing that Kieran hasn’t crossed my mind in eons. My head is clear, my heart is as light as a feather. I’m pregnant and happy, thriving and content, for the first time in… I can’t even remember how long. Why would I even give the past a second thought? There’s no need for that, not anymore. Only the present and the future matter. “Etienne, I am definitely blessed with Matthew by my side. He looks after me and takes care of me. He meets me halfway on everything that we might not immediately agree on. He knows what I like and don’t like, and I swear he can sometimes read my mind.”
“He just loves you truly and deeply,” Etienne says. “Only a man who loves truly and deeply is able to see so deep into a woman’s mind that he can read her with such startling accuracy.”
I’d tell him more about my relationship, but then I’d have to explain how I’m physically and emotionally involved with three men, not just Matthew. That Matthew, Sully, and Jason take turns on the weeknights, and that we do our favorite foursome fun on the weekends. We madly make sweet love into the night, and again in the morning, and they make sure I have everything I need, always. It’s a hard thing to explain to anyone, so I keep my complicated family to myself—which is better, anyway. It’s better to keep the most precious things in our lives as close to our chests as possible.
Good people are hard to find and sometimes they turn out to be even harder to keep. But I am happy. We complete each other in so many ways. Sully’s fighting career is reaching its peak, so Jason and Matthew have already begun lobbying around Providence to help him open his own gym downtown. He still trains kids at the community center, and he will keep doing it for as long as he breathes, yet he also needs a lucrative business model—a gym of his own seems like the reasonable option. Sully gets to do what he loves for a living without destroying himself in the cage. I love him, and I need him whole and healthy. I love him even more for understanding that and for making the necessary steps in that direction. We estimate another year of prize fights before he retires at the top of the pyramid and goes on to start his own unique project.
Jason’s charter boat business is booming, too. So much so that he had to buy a few more vessels in the spring, and Matthew has even offered to bring in additional funds as a business partner, seeing how well the whole endeavor is going. The pier is extra busy during the summer, and since Jason is more of a hands-on kind of guy, I only see him late in the evenings, but I have him on the weekends, along with Matthew and Sully.
I do like our schedule and how we fit each other’s careers and personal projects to match one another. We get to grow in this relationship, we support and encourage one another. Matthew is also making incredible progress with his father’s company. They made it onto the latest Forbes list, and that has had a positive impact on their stocks. To celebrate these accomplishments, Matthew will be taking the four of us to Belize after the baby is born and I am comfortable leaving them with the nanny. I’m looking forward to it and then some, I’ve traveled more in the past six months than I ever could have imagined.
The world is a big place and there is plenty to see. Plenty of places and cultures to explore. Different sunsets across the globe. Different waters. I always come back feeling refreshed and ready to grab the bull by the horns yet again.
“Alright, so what’s on today’s project board?” I ask Etienne, eager to delve right into work.
No wonder I’m constantly buzzed and capable of taking the whole world on. I’m finally doing what I love. I’m in a healthy—albeit complex—relationship, I’m safe and satisfied on every level. And I’m going to be a mother soon. I’d gotten so used to getting punched in the gut over and over again, survival mode was the only way of life I knew and understood. That was a terrible sort of comfort zone to exist in.
“I would like for us to go over the jacket section of our autumn/winter collection,” Etienne says. “You had a couple of suggestions for the tweed patterns, and I’ve given them some thought.”
“Don’t tell me you’re willing to gamble on my patterns,” I gasp.
“I am, actually.”
“Be still, my beating heart!”
