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“I’m good.” He smiled down at me. “Look at that.”
For the first time I could remember, the clock’s huge gears turned, and the minute hand inched a tiny degree with every second’sclick, click, click. Fort looked at his watch while I marked the clicks with the stopwatch on my phone. Thirty seconds. A minute. It matched up perfectly.
“Holy shit, Forsyth.” I let out a whistle. “You got it working again.”
“I told you that piece would solve everything.” He climbed down the scaffolding, amazingly nimble for a guy his size. “And there’s a piece that’ll solve everything for you and Alice also. Make sharing optional. Word the new rule so it’s at the sponsor’s discretion. That way the men still feel like they’re in charge, the women still feel owned and controlled, and couples who don’t want to play with other people can do their own thing.”
I thought a moment, looking up at the clock. “Maybe. It might work. I’ll send an email to the current members, see what they think. I’d love to bring her back here, you know?”
“It’s better than Underworld any day,” Fort said. “Even if I met my future wife outside that skank hole. I think Juliet and I would come back here more often if you made that small change to the rules.”
“What about the collars?” I asked. “They all say ‘Property of The Gallery.’”
“So? Hell, we’re all property of The Gallery when you think about it. We’re the ones who make this place come alive on Saturday night.”
He had a point there, and coming with Alice would make it even more alive for me. I thought of bringing her back in her gorgeous uniform and stockings, letting others look but not touch. That was as sexy as sharing, now that I thought about it.
“No, man, wait.” Fort smacked his head. “It’s so obvious. The collars, the locks. If a submissive’s communal property on any given night, she wears theProperty of The Gallerylock on her collar. If she’s not available to other Doms, no lock. They can come on and off.”
“That’s genius.” And he was right, it was such an obvious solution. “That way, the ones who get off on the communal property thing can still have their fun times—”
“And the couples who aren’t so into sharing can have their boundaries respected without a lot of uncomfortable body language.”
“And punching, in Dev’s case,” I joked, rubbing my eye where he’d landed a vicious left. “This is good.” I smiled at Fort. “Seriously, it’ll be a good change. I think everyone will be on board with it.”
“Agreed. Oh, and when you email everyone, make sure you tell them we’re keeping proper time now, thanks to me.”
I looked at the turning gears, watching them connect for the first time since we’d bought this clock tower. “Where’d you find that missing piece, anyway?”
“I didn’t find it, my friend. I made it with my ‘petite metal solder’ and those fancy jeweler’s tools you always make fun of. You’re not the only one who can build cool stuff in a workshop.”
“How’d you figure out the right size?” I squinted to make out the small inner workings beneath the big gears. “How’d you make it fit?”
“Skill and experience,” he laughed, making a lewd finger-in-the-hole gesture. “With enough patience, you can fit anything anywhere. Speaking of workshops, how does Alice like her new violin?”
“She loves it. It gets a name this weekend. We’re flying to Italy to see my parents, and, I guess, everyone else she hasn’t seen for a while. Her parents are meeting us there too.”
“Wow, a big family thing in Milan.”
“All Fierro violins officially come from Italy,” I said. “Once it has my mother’s blessing—and name—it’s formally adopted and registered.”
“Congrats, man. That’s a big deal. The family stuff, more than anything. I don’t know. Alice might be the one. If so, you’re a lucky man.”
“I’m a very lucky man.” I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. “It’s so weird. I never thought everything would work out like this. For me. For you. For Devin.”
He studied me a moment, then shook his head, taking off his toolbelt. “Yes, you did. With you and Alice, you knew. It was pretty apparent to us, anyway, from the first time we saw you two together. Maybe we don’t deserve the women we ended up with, but I, for one, am not going to let that stop me.” He punched me on the shoulder. “Now get out of here and write that email, you selfish motherfucker. It’s time for The Gallery, Version Two.”
Chapter Twenty: Alice
We dropped Blueat Milo’s parents’ home in Chappaqua, so he could be spoiled by their house staff for the weekend, and run wild across their wide open lawn. I watched in amazement as he broke into a sprint the minute we hit the backyard. He went from lazy dog to rocket streak in the space of a few seconds, kicking up sod with his narrow feet.
“Jesus. I never knew Blue could run like that.”
“Of course he can run like that. He was a great racer in his day.” Milo smiled at me. “Even though he’s changed, he’s still got that wildness in him. He likes to let it out now and again.”
Blue blew past us with a big dog grin on his face, starting lap two of the fence’s perimeter. I squeezed Milo’s hand, smiling back. “It’s good to know that wildness isn’t gone.”
We left Westchester County Airport on a private flight to Atlanta, and picked up a transatlantic Gibraltar Air flight from there. Devin wasn’t in the cockpit this time. Milo told me his friend sometimes flew that route, but this particular weekend, he was taking Ella to Martha’s Vineyard to propose to her, skywriters over the beach and everything.
