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He stopped the car at the bottom of the hill that served as a noise-dampener between the house and the helipad, and we got out. The wind whipped around us as we crested the rise; the helicopter hovered just feet off the ground and slowly settled. It seemed only a second before El-Mudad pushed the door aside and climbed out, looking like a male model on the way to a photo shoot in some far-off place.
I looked to Neil and caught my bottom lip between my teeth, eyebrows raised in a silent plea.
He grinned. “Go on.”
I launched into a run across the grass. El-Mudad’s laugh reached me on the wind from the rotors, which whined to a stop as I bounded onto the edge of the pavement. He dropped his bag and opened his arms wide.
“You’re here!” I shouted, charging straight into his arms and knocking him back a step. I really wanted to jump up and wrap my legs around him, but we generally tried to be discreet. I settled for his crushing embrace.
“Oh, it is so good to see you, Sophie.” His lips brushed the skin of my bare shoulder, and he said, lower, “My love. I have missed you. Both of you.”
He released me, his gaze moving to Neil casually strolling toward us. I turned in his direction, and my breath caught.
“He is unfairly handsome,” El-Mudad observed with a laugh.
I pushed playfully at his chest. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
El-Mudad’s brown skin was a deeper bronze from his recent stay on the French Riviera, but he apparently hadn’t been slacking on his workouts while he was there. Beneath his gray T-shirt, his chest was rock hard. The weeks of southern sun had brought out deep topaz highlights in his silky black hair, which he wore carelessly combed to the side.
We walked to meet Neil on the grass, and they shook hands awkwardly. “Very good to see you.”
“You two, as well.” El-Mudad said, a teasing crookedness to his smile. He knew as much as I did how much Neil wanted to grab him and kiss him right there, helicopter pilot be damned.
Neil gestured to the small suitcase El-Mudad pulled behind him. “You didn’t bring much, for a week.”
“I didn’t think I’d be wearing much,” he replied. When Neil offered to carry it, El-Mudad declined.
Once we crested the hill and were out of view of the pilot, Neil stopped. Without a word, he took El-Mudad’s face into his hands and kissed him, long and slow. My heart skipped like a stone over water, watching them together. We hadn’t set out to find a long-term lover and beloved friend when we’d propositioned “Emir” in a French sex club. The whole point had been to pick up a stranger and do something anonymous and dirty, and we had; I’d lain across his lap while he’d fingered me and made me come in front of Neil. None of us had assumed that, years later, we’d be aching with longing when we were apart and overflowing with love for each other when we were all together.
“You did miss me,” El-Mudad said with a laugh as he pulled back. He put an arm out to me. “What about you, Sophie?”
I let him pull me in close to his side. I tilted my face up, and he dipped his head to bring our mouths together; when they touched, I couldn’t hold back my little moan of relief.
“Later,” he promised with a chuckle.
We walked the short distance to the car together, El-Mudad’s arm around my waist.
“Guests get shotgun,” I told him, opening the passenger side door.
“Is this the 2017?” he marveled, running his hand reverently over the glossy white paint.
“It is.” Neil beamed with pride at showing off his new toy. “It’s my latest.”
“What?” El-Mudad sounded scandalized. “Are you living a frugal life, now?”
“Yeah, he only buys one expensive car every six months. We’re really cutting back.” I rolled my eyes and hopped over the side of the car into the back, ignoring Neil’s yelped admonishment to watch my shoes on the seats.
“Would you like to drive?” Neil asked.
El-Mudad shook his head. “I trust you to deliver us safely. But we’ll have to take some of your collection out while I’m here.”
Neil’s face lit up like the Eiffel Tower at dusk. I supposed I hadn’t needed to worry about keeping El-Mudad entertained while I was at work this week.
Neil drove us to the front of the house, not back the way we came. I wondered why that was, until we stepped into the foyer, and he gestured to El-Mudad’s bag.
“We do have a guest room made up for you,” Neil began cautiously. “Unless you’d like to sleep with us?”
“If you’d be more comfortable, please, don’t feel obligated to—” I began, nervous about a possible rejection.
“No, no,” El-Mudad cut me off. “With you would be fine.”
