Cardinal (Love in Los Angeles, #4)

3-5

PAUL EXPECTS A RANT from Alex when they finally go to bed, but what he gets instead is Alex kissing him as soon as the door is shut. Alex grins fiercely as they shove each other out of their clothes, and Paul can’t but help smile back. If Alex wants to f**k instead of complain about Liam, he is happy to oblige, especially when Alex pulls his jeans down roughly and sinks his mouth over his c**k.

Once they both come, Alex only bothers to clean them up with the corner of the sheet before rolling onto Paul’s chest. Paul expects that he’ll fall asleep quickly, but his breathing stays keyed up and he keeps fidgeting.

Paul cards his fingers through Alex’s hair and waits for him to speak.

“Did you think I was going to say I was mad it wasn’t us?” Alex asks eventually.

Paul doesn’t need to ask what he means. “A little bit, yeah.”

Alex huffs. “I don’t know why any of that had to happen. Not them hooking up with random people, because it’s them and that’s whatever. I just mean that big thing about it?”

“Nobody was making a big thing about it except you,” Paul points out gently. Alex overreacts to things and tends to see domestic process as far more dramatic than it actually is. Alex also isn’t using a lot of proper nouns, but Paul gets the gist. “Liam was just trying to have a conversation with you.”

“With anyone else that conversation would have taken ninety seconds. With him it’s like Robert’s Rules of Order.” Alex grumbles.

“How the f**k do you know about Robert’s Rules of Order?” Paul asks curiously.

Alex lifts his head to stare at him. His eyes are wide in the dim light of the room. “I worked on The Fourth Estate. Which you wrote.”

“Yeah, not that episode.”

Alex buries his face in Paul’s chest again. Paul rubs a hand up and down his back. He smiles into the dark when he feels Alex let out a sigh and finally relax against him.

“Hey, so can I talk to you about a thing?” Paul asks after a few quiet minutes have passed.

Alex moans softly. “No more family meetings.”

“Not a family meeting,” Paul says soothingly. “Just me. Just us.”

“Okaaaaay.”

“We’ve talked about finding somebody to sleep with before,” Paul starts.

Alex squints at him. “That was never a serious conversation.”

“Because you weren’t interested in it being an actual thing we might actually do.”

“People aren’t commodities.”

“I agree,” Paul says. “And I apologize for the crassness of my phrasing — then and now, but you know what I mean, yes?”

“Yes,” Alex says grudgingly.

“Okay. So if you still aren’t interested, it doesn’t need to be a serious conversation now either. I’m fine either way. But you’re younger than me and have had way fewer adventures. You deserve adventures. I don’t want you to miss out on them because you’re irritated at Liam.”

“So you’re going to educate me in the ways of threesomes?” Alex sounds amused. “Because we already did that once. Or is this just your excuse?” He pokes Paul fondly in the chest. “Because the first time you met me and, as far as I know, fell for me, I was making out with another guy. So like, clearly, this is a thing for you.”

Paul sputters. “No! I mean. Not entirely. Like, okay. A little, sure. But after I broke up with Carly, like, I had a...really random threesome and it was completely amazing. Like, there were d***s everywhere.”

Alex cracks up and has to muffle his laughter in his pillow so his cackles don’t wake the other occupants of the house. “This is how you sell this idea to me,” he says when he can finally stop laughing. “We have been together for a decade. But there were d***s everywhere.”

Paul swats at him lazily. “I’m just saying, no matter how often you make the point that the rest of us are on vacation and you are not, Liam isn’t wrong that vacation rules can be different. If that was a thing you wanted to do, doing it here is probably a better choice than doing it back home. And I, as a voice of reason and terrible ideas, would be entirely remiss if I didn’t point that out to you.”

Alex makes an inarticulate noise into his pillow.

“Also,” Paul says, making his voice softer, gentler, as he brushes a thumb along Alex’s ear. “I know none of this has been easy for you. Being away from home, and now having all of us in your space. You’ve been a little off. I can’t fix any of that, but I can offer opportunities if you’re interested.”

“And if I’m totally uninterested?”

Paul shrugs. “We keep each other plenty busy. But I’m just saying, if you want to point out hot Icelandic dudes to me, you know, feel free.”

“Can I think about it and also point out hot Icelandic dudes to you without intent?”

“Whatever you want, Alex,” Paul says. “It’s always been whatever you want.”

***

* * * *

TO ALEX’S RELIEF NO one f***s another bartender, and the rest of the family vacation passes much more like, well, a family vacation. Or at least the way he’d always imagined a family vacation would be. He’s never actually been on one. As a kid, there had never been the money. Also his sister had spent a lot of time in juvie. Since then, he’s never had the opportunity. Or, really, a functional family with all members present and accounted for.

He’s happy to retreat into what passes for domesticity with his friends and his husband and their kids here at the edge of the world. He enjoys dinners with everyone, playing with the girls, and taking hikes with various combinations of people on clear nights when the moon is so bright they can see by it. He and Paul go into town for dinner and groceries, holding hands all the way down the street without worrying about their picture ending up on TMZ. Alex doesn’t even need his hat here, except for the cold. No one recognizes him or cares on the rare occasions they do. It’s the closest thing to normal he’s ever felt.

He and Paul are both shamefully grateful, even more than usual, for Carly and Liam’s presence that allows them to feel like something other than parents at every second of every day. They f**k every chance they get when they’re not on kid-duty. Alex doesn’t even feel embarrassed showing up for hair and makeup with his skin dotted with scratches and bruises from Paul’s mouth and hands.

***