Chapter 14: 3-0

-- MONDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2007 --

“And that was it.” I sighed and shook my head. “I waited in the room for twenty minutes to see if the girls just needed some time to talk things through before coming back to me. But when I finally went out to go look for them, they’d already left the apartment. BJ had woken up and was playing with Kim in the living room. She said that Adrienne was crying and the girls had walked out the door together almost immediately.”

Dawn rubbed my leg from her spot on the couch to my right. “And they never came home?”

“Not last night they didn’t,” I answered. “Kim texted me at lunch that Adrienne and Sasha had spent the night at a hotel and come back around noon while I was at work. But they just packed up some suitcases, kissed BJ goodbye, and left again.”

DJ frowned from the armchair across me. “Do you think they’d move out permanently?”

I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know WHAT to think right now, to be honest. Even if they wanted to, this apartment is Adrienne’s. If anything it would be me, Kim, and BJ moving out.”

Dayna rubbed my other leg from her spot on the couch to my left. “Relax, it won’t come to that. Things will work out,” she said encouragingly. “Your relationships with Adrienne and Sasha weren’t built in a single conversation. They won’t die in a single conversation, either.”

“But one conversation can start the beginning of the end,” DJ muttered.

I exhaled slowly and sagged deeper into the backrest. Two nights ago I’d been in this very living room with the three Evans sisters, but that evening had been under very different circumstances. For one thing, all four of us were fully-clothed tonight, and sex was the furthest thing from our minds.

I hadn’t intended to wind up here in Brandi and Dayna’s apartment, nor had I intended for Dawn and DJ to make the trek out across the bay on a school night. But Dawn had texted me this afternoon to ask how things had gone after Adrienne and Sasha’s return from Napa, and upon reading my less-than-positive response, she and DJ had dropped everything to catch the next BART train over despite my protests that they didn’t really need to. My own damn fault for actually typing my concern that the engagement might soon be over.

Dawn had texted Dayna on the way, and at first all four of us, plus Brandi, started off in my apartment. But Kim was making dinner and I kept getting distracted by BJ. To be honest, I didn’t really want to talk about Adrienne and Sasha, so I rather LET myself be distracted by BJ. A man should spend as much quality time with his son as he can right? Right? But the girls became rather impatient with my disjointed, frequently-interrupted explanation of last night’s events, so Brandi volunteered to stay behind and babysit while the three Evans sisters took me downstairs. And with no toddler around to distract me anymore, I managed to begin a relatively straightforward narrative monologue that quickly devolved into more of a Spanish Inquisition that lasted longer than my actual conversation with Adrienne and Sasha by the time the girls got through with me.

“Adrienne loves you,” Dawn reassured me, stroking my arm this time. “She would never voluntarily separate herself from your life, not again.”

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean she wants to marry me.” I stared at the coffee table and bit my lower lip. “And when I stop to think about everything that’s gone on for the past few months, I’m not entirely sure I should be marrying her, either.”

“What are you talking about?” DJ sat up straight. “All you’ve EVER wanted to do is settle down, get married, and start popping out kids. And you’ve made it clear to everyone that Adrienne is your absolute Number One.”

“And yet -I- haven’t done a single thing to actually push a wedding forward. I proposed more than five months ago, and we still haven’t even set a date yet.”

“Because Adrienne’s been putting off those decisions for now. That’s not your fault.”

I shook my head. “It’s my fault, too. We got engaged, we came back to San Francisco, we had one... maybe two conversations about wedding ideas, and after that, nothing. I accused Adrienne of stalling for time, of going through the motions instead of seriously considering all our wedding details. But apart from some initial internet research and buying Adrienne her ring, I haven’t actually done much better myself.”

“You’re only twenty-three,” Dayna chimed in. “There’s no rush to get to the altar.”

“Bert and Lynne have been engaged for what, a year and a half?” Dawn pointed out. “And they haven’t set a date yet.”

Dayna nodded. “It would be perfectly understandable for you and Adrienne to have a nice, long engagement and figure all this stuff out in another couple of years if you wanted to.”

“What exactly makes you say you’re not entirely sure you should be marrying her?” Dawn asked thoughtfully. “Is it that you’re not sure you’re ready to get married yet? Or are you not sure you want to marry Adrienne?”

“Well ... kinda ... both,” I sighed, sagging even deeper into the backrest and staring up at the ceiling.

The three Evans sisters shared significant looks. DJ remarked, “Wait, seriously? Are you actually questioning whether or not you want to BE with Adrienne?”

Sitting up straight again, I shook my head. “No, don’t get me wrong. I know I’d love to BE with Adrienne.”

DJ arched an eyebrow, leading me, “But...”

I sighed again. “But maybe we’re not meant to be together.”

Dayna frowned. “You can’t truly believe that.”

“I can. What if she really WOULD be happier with Sasha instead of me? Who am I to take that away from her?”

“You’re her fiancé. She committed to you.” DJ took a deep breath. “And I should know how difficult and painful it is to break that kind of commitment.”

Dayna popped her eyebrows. “But you did it anyway.”

DJ shot her big sister a dirty look, but I raised my hands and gestured at both of them, cautioning, “We’re not getting into that. The point is: engaged or not, Adrienne and I aren’t married yet, and there are no legal roadblocks to the two of us breaking up if it’s the right thing to do. Hell, even IF we were already married, I’d still want what’s best for her. And if being with Sasha is what’s best for her, then that’s something I need to seriously consider.”

Dawn touched my arm. “You’re trying to be the nice guy, but it’s okay to think a little selfishly here. If being with Adrienne is what makes you happiest, you’re allowed to fight for that.”

“Maybe I’m allowed, but...” My voice trailed off as I furrowed my eyebrows, trying to figure out what to say.

DJ gave me a skeptical look. “You don’t seem particularly inclined to fight for her.”

I grimaced. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but--”

“But you don’t really look like you want to,” DJ pointed out. “Look at you. Are you curled in a fetal position rocking back and forth in a panic that you may have lost your fiancée? Are you going sex-crazy, dragging the nearest female into your bed trying to fuck away the pain? Or are you just sitting there ... talking about it? Rather calmly, I might add. Let’s face it: You’re not acting like the great love of your life is slipping away.”

“Give him a break.” Dayna rubbed my leg and gave me an encouraging smile. “Maybe you’re just handling the situation better than you did in the past. You’re getting more mature.”

DJ shook her head. “Or maybe he doesn’t love her as much as he thought he did.”

“What are you talking about?” Dayna protested, again turning back to rub my leg. “Adrienne adores you, and we ALL know how much you LOVE her.”

“I DO love her, but DJ’s got a point. Do I love her as my wife? My sister? My girlfriend? My best friend?”

“All of the above?” Dawn suggested.

I shook my head. “She’s... ‘My Adrienne’. She defies categorization. My relationship with her is ... my relationship with her. It simply IS, even if I can’t really define it.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

I shook my head. “It is when I can conceive of a proper definition for ‘My Wife’ and yet have a hard time fitting Adrienne into it.”

Dawn raised both eyebrows. “Sounds more like you need to adjust your definition for ‘Wife’ than try to adjust Adrienne.”

“I don’t disagree. All four of us have talked for a long time about me trying to push too fast to settle down and get married to some imaginary cardboard cutout wife with an empty face that I’d fill in with the first woman willing enough to take the plunge. I’m trying ... really, I’m trying ... to move past any fantasies of a Happily Ever After future and instead concentrate on the reality right in front of me. Adrienne – quirks, foibles, fears and all – is the reality right in front of me, just the way she is. And I DO love her. I love her more than anything. I love her more than anyone.”

“So you asked her to marry you,” Dayna chimed in. “That’s normal.”

Shaking my head slowly, I shrugged and muttered, “And yet I’m wondering if that was a mistake.”

The three of them shared significant looks again. DJ asked, “Because you don’t think she fits your ideal concept of a wife?”

Dayna suggested, “Because ever since she accepted your proposal she hasn’t made much of an effort to actually plan a wedding?”

I sighed. “Because I feel like I’m getting in the way of her and Sasha.”

Dawn frowned, sat up straight, and in a tone of realization, she said, “Because you don’t think you proposed to her for the right reasons.” It was a statement, not a question. She leaned over me, so that when I opened my eyes again I was staring at her and not the ceiling anymore, and she stated questioningly, “You proposed to her because of me?”

I blinked twice. “Not just because of you.”

“But you proposed because she nearly tried to leave you BECAUSE of me.”

“I wouldn’t say that...”

Arching an eyebrow, my best friend gave me a skeptical look. “You gonna claim that you knew all along you were gonna propose to her then and there? That was a crazy day, everything all happening at once. You and I made love in our clearing, we walked back to the cabin knowing that Adrienne was gonna be pissed, and you thought, ‘Hey, if I just propose marriage then she’ll forgive me for cheating on her!’”

I rolled my eyes. “We’ve been over this: I didn’t cheat.”

Dawn added raised eyebrows to her skeptical look. “I’m on your side, but I still don’t get what kind of algebra you’re using to try and claim we didn’t cheat.”

“Because I didn’t emotionally betray ... You know what, we’re not getting side-tracked on this. The point is--”

“The point is that you were in the middle of a knock-down, drag-out fight with Adrienne trying your level best to convince her that you and me rekindling our best friends relationship wouldn’t destroy your relationship with her. The whole point I was trying to get across was--”

“Was that she was still my Number One.”

“Exactly. But not necessarily your wife.”

I grimaced. “Well ... yeah ... that part sorta just happened.”

“Unintentionally.”

Dayna snorted. “You gonna claim you ‘unintentionally’ got down on one knee and proposed?” she muttered skeptically, arching an eyebrow.

“He didn’t propose at all,” Dawn pointed out. “In fact, I remember him explicitly stating that it wasn’t a proposal.”

“While he was down on one knee and thumbing the promise ring he’d put on her fourth finger,” Dayna drawled.

I shook my head. “Dawn’s right. It was impulsive. I ... I didn’t plan on proposing to her. The whole point was just to state that even with Dawn back in my life, Adrienne was still my Number One.”

“And then she said ‘yes’,” Dayna said with a smirk.

“SHE said ‘Yes, I will marry you’,” Dawn clarified. “Ben didn’t actually ASK.”

“But she answered,” Dayna shot back. “And to be fair, Ben DID say that if Adrienne was ever ready for him to propose for real, he’d ask her to marry him in a heartbeat. THAT’S what she replied ‘yes’ to. So really, Ben DID sorta ask her.”

“Except that he technically didn’t.”

“Whether or not Ben asked or didn’t ask,” DJ interjected, “they BOTH walked away from that conversation believing they were engaged.”

“Even though he didn’t INTEND to ask her to marry him,” Dawn said with a shrug.

DJ shook her head. “It’s the result that matters, not the intent.”

“The lack of intent goes to show why Ben’s having second thoughts.”

Dayna turned to me. “So do you want to take it back? Do you regret asking her to marry you and wish you could go back in time and not do it?”

“No, it’s not that,” I replied. “But I AM questioning if it was the right thing to do at the time.”

“Because you don’t think you proposed to her for the right reasons,” Dawn repeated. “You wound up proposing – by accident – to make her understand that she was your Number One, but not to ACTUALLY start the clock ticking on your engagement. If you could have gotten through that argument outside of the cabin back in July without having proposed, and come back home to your life and your job with Adrienne merely your Number One girlfriend and NOT your fiancée, nothing in the past five months would have really changed.”

“Well...” My voice trailed off as I grimaced.

Dawn translated, “That means ‘No, not really. Nothing would have changed.’”

Dayna and DJ sat back in their seats, thinking about that.

“She’d still have gone on with her life, doing her photo shoots and going to parties and living the glamorous supermodel life,” Dawn continued.

“Doing everything with Sasha glued to her side,” Dayna added.

“And ultimately fallen in love with Sasha as her girlfriend, leaving you on the outside looking in,” DJ finished.

“Only in THAT scenario,” Dawn reasoned, “she’d have just been your ‘girlfriend’ instead of your ‘fiancée’, and this moral quandary about how to handle your three-way relationship wouldn’t have been such a big deal. If things had remained casual between you all, no engagement rings or marriage proposals, the three of you would probably be just fine with the status quo, even if it meant Adrienne exploring this potential romantic partnership with Sasha.”

“Basically, Ben would have become the third wheel in Adrienne and Sasha’s relationship instead of Sasha being the third wheel in Ben and Adrienne’s relationship,” Dayna clarified.

DJ sat up and looked at me. “Would you have been okay with that? Being the third wheel to the two of them?”

I sighed. “Well, for the past few months, I already HAVE been the third wheel. They’ve obviously spent a lot more time with each other than with me.”

“Which is normal in a three-way relationship – I would know,” Dawn explained. “Nothing’s ever in 100% balance for very long. Sometimes two people are a little tighter with each other than with the third. Sometimes it’s a different pair within the threesome that’s a little stronger. Those are natural shifts and flows, and you just sort of go with it.”

Dayna frowned. “But didn’t becoming engaged mean Ben and Adrienne should have taken priority?”

DJ nodded and looked at me. “I’d certainly expect that from an engagement, and I did when Ben and I were. Didn’t you expect the same from me?” That last part she directed at me.

I shrugged. “Expect me to be your priority? Sure.”

DJ popped her eyebrows. “So didn’t you expect the same from Adrienne?”

I grimaced, and hedged, “Well...”

Dawn translated, “That still means, ‘No, not really.’”

Dayna asked, “But why not? Why did you expect DJ to make you her priority, but didn’t expect the same from Adrienne?”

“I don’t know. I guess I should have.”

“But you didn’t,” DJ said with a sigh. “Which means that really...”

“ ... Even though you were engaged,” Dawn continued, “You didn’t really FEEL engaged. The proposal happened. The ring is on her finger. But you didn’t FEEL it in your heart. Adrienne’s status of ‘fiancée’ is just an empty title.”

Dayna furrowed her eyebrows. “Yeah, you’d think that becoming engaged would’ve inspired Ben and Adrienne to be with each other a little more these past five months than they’ve been. Even if Ben’s behavior didn’t change, you’d think that Adrienne would have modified her behavior, but it didn’t turn out that way.”

DJ shook her head. “Nothing about the past five months turned out to be any different than if he’d never proposed in the first place. Adrienne and Sasha still went and did their thing without him. Ben still came over to Berkeley to make Dawn squeal and fix things with me. His relationships with Brandi and Dayna, and Kim and BJ, more or less went unchanged. Ben and Adrienne didn’t commit to each other in the same way Ben and I did. For them, getting engaged didn’t make a single difference.”

Dawn sighed, “Hence his questioning whether or not he should have ever proposed in the first place.”

“But the proposal itself is ultimately irrelevant.” DJ shook her head. “All we’re basically talking about is titles. Strip away the term ‘fiancée’ and everything is status quo without all the angst about a potentially lost engagement. Sasha and Adrienne can explore a more seriously romantic relationship while Ben remains their ‘plus-one’. Everybody gets what they want. Problem solved.”

“It’s not that simple,” Dawn cautioned.

“Hypothetical scenarios aside,” Dayna stated firmly, “the reality is that Ben DID propose, Adrienne DID accept, and if they actually break off their marriage engagement, there WILL be a lot of hurt feelings and emotional turmoil.”

“But ONLY,” Dawn put in, “if Ben and Adrienne actually want to break off the engagement.”

“Maybe this is just the wakeup call they need to realize what they’re about to lose,” Dayna reasoned, “and it becomes the catalyst for repairing their relationship and finally planning out their wedding.”

“Only if he still wants Adrienne to be his wife,” DJ pointed out.

“Didn’t we ALL think that up until last night?” Dayna shot back.

“A lot’s happened since last night.” DJ shrugged. “I wasn’t at Morris Camp with the rest of you; I wasn’t there to witness the proposal. And this is the first time I’ve ever heard anything about Ben not intending to propose in the first place.”

“Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. DJ’s right: whether or not you intended to propose, the two of you walked away from that conversation as an engaged couple,” Dawn began, turning to face me directly. “But even THAT doesn’t matter. Engaged or not, fiancée title, girlfriend title, or just plain fuck buddies, all that matters now is one question: Do you STILL want Adrienne to be your wife or not?”

Taking a deep breath, I looked my best friend in the eye and shook my head. “I’m not sure.”

Dawn’s eyebrows went up. “Because you believe she’s in love with Sasha? Or does Sasha have nothing to do with it and you’re not sure if you want to BE with her, period?”

I frowned and thought about it. Wincing, I gave her a weak smile and said, “Of course I still want to BE with her. And selfishly, I’d love to marry her.”

“You’re allowed to be selfish,” she reminded me.

Shrugging, I took a deep breath and explained, “She’s my Number One. I love her to pieces, and I know she loves me, too. I may not have intended to propose at the time, but we DID get engaged. I’ve spent the past five months as her fiancé, anticipating our future marriage. I’ve wondered what it would be like to build a home and raise a family together. Even if I haven’t done a whole lot over the last five months to get our wedding organized, like Dayna said, we’re only 23 and there’s no rush to get to the altar. And if Sasha wasn’t in the picture, I think Adrienne and I would just take some time to really sit down, talk things through, and figure out together how best to get from here to there on our own timetable.”

When I paused to collect myself, Dawn gave me a rueful grin and led me by saying, “But...”

With a sigh, “But this isn’t a hypothetical situation where Sasha isn’t in the picture. She IS in the picture. And their love for each other isn’t just some hypothetical. It’s REAL.”

Dayna shook her head. “And your love for Adrienne isn’t just as real?”

“It is, but at the same time, I think I’m okay with taking a step back. Not just to be the nice guy, but not because I love her any less, either. If anything, I love her so much and believe that SHE loves me so much that we don’t necessarily NEED to be married to each other in order to be truly happy together. I mean, I’d love to marry her and have kids together, but at the same time, I already KNOW that we’ll be in each other’s lives until we’re old and decrepit and losing our teeth, whether we’re married or not.” I paused and smiled at Dawn. “Kinda like with you.”

My best friend smiled back at me. “Who says I’m ever losing my teeth?”

Still smiling, I turned to DJ and Dayna, adding, “And you, and you. We’re Family, aren’t we? Forever.”

Dayna chuckled. “Maybe that’s why you’re not curled up in a fetal position mourning the lost love of your life. It doesn’t hurt so much because even if Adrienne ultimately decides she’d rather be with Sasha than you, you know she still wouldn’t leave you.”

“She wouldn’t, would she?” Blinking, I arched an eyebrow, nervous for just a second. “Because if she would, then that would change everything.”

Dawn laughed and patted my arm. “I think you’re okay, and at the same time, I can understand why you’d be okay with letting her go.”

Dayna tapped DJ’s knee and also shot a look over at Dawn. “That’s because it’s the same decision both of you had to make in letting him go.”

DJ blushed and nodded. “We’re Family. Forever.”

There were smiles and nods all around. Dawn wrapped her arm around my back and hugged me, Dayna hugged me from the other side, and even DJ got up to join the group hug. For now at least, I believed that even if Adrienne and Sasha decided to pursue a romantic relationship with each other away from me, I’d still be alright.

And it was Dayna who chimed in, saying, “Thing is, we don’t actually KNOW how the two of them are going to react to all this. For all we know, both of them will come home saying the whole thing is ridiculous and that Adrienne still wants to marry you.”

Taking a deep breath, I nodded my head and smiled. “I hope so. I really do.”

Dawn hugged me again. “For all you know, they’re in your apartment waiting for you right now.”

I grinned. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

-- TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2007 --

I awoke with my usual morning hard-on. My eyes were still closed, but I felt my lover’s presence against my chest, and a wave of blissful contentment spread across my body.

The December morning air was cold against my right cheek, the pillow reassuringly warm against my left. I snuggled deeper into the covers and their cocooning heat while pressing my chest against her back, covered only by a thin layer of cotton. As my senses came alive, the fingers of my left hand reflexively squeezed the large breast I was currently palming as my left arm snaked beneath her pillow to hold her from the opposite side. My right hand firmed up over her hip, gently holding her in place while I reflexively ground my erection into her panty-covered ass.

Just another morning, much like any other. Only rarely did I sleep alone, and on those mornings when I didn’t jerk awake while shoving my cock an inch into a girl’s throat, I frequently found myself in this very same spooned position. It felt comfortable. It felt familiar. It felt like ... home.

When I cracked my eyelids open, I smiled to find sunny blonde hair filling my field of vision. Weary and not yet fully awake, I let my eyelids droop shut again and squeezed my lover just a little tighter in a hug of affection. But the pleasant sentiment soon gave way to primal lust, as fond memories of the many, many times we had made morning love percolated in my brain. So breathing deeply, I let my head roll forward to push my nose into her hair, smelling her sweet fragrance. And I exhaled softly as my body warmed up to make my erotic dreams into reality.

Moving slowly, I kept my touch as light as possible while still grazing across her skin. She stirred slightly, but did not awaken as my left hand continued to fondle her nipple while my right hand slid into the back of her panties, down her butt cheek and into the gap between her legs. Her right leg was bent forward, giving me a clear path to her crotch from behind. Still with an infinitely gentle touch, the pad of my middle finger glided up through the furrow of her closed labia, pressing just slightly to part them until I found the harder nub of her love button.

We had not made love last night. Despite finding myself alone in an apartment with all three Evans sisters once again, sex was the last thing on my mind. Dawn’s comment that the girls might very well be waiting for me upstairs spurred us all to ride up the elevator then and there. But of course, Adrienne and Sasha hadn’t come home.

Still, with everyone in one place it only made sense to have dinner together, and afterwards Dawn and DJ went back to Berkeley. I hadn’t planned on coming back down to Dayna’s place, but after BJ went to bed, I found myself staring at the empty spaces where my fiancée and girlfriend should have been but weren’t. So I’d returned with Dayna back down to her place and we’d fallen asleep together in her room. We didn’t even fuck. With the knowledge that Adrienne and Sasha were out there somewhere, still not coming home, I simply wasn’t in the mood.

But that was last night. This morning, my semi-conscious mind wasn’t thinking about an absent fiancée or her lesbian girlfriend. In a way, my semi-conscious mind had completely forgotten I even HAD a fiancée or another girlfriend. All my semi-conscious mind cared about was the half-naked presence of my current girlfriend spooned up in front of me, panting softly in her sleep as my finger continued to manipulate her swollen clit. The truth was, I hadn’t ejaculated since Sunday, two days ago, and Big Ben was raring to rock ‘n’ roll.

Not that I’d just open her up and shove it in; I was a more considerate lover than that. With a few more swipes of my fingertip over her clit and a few delicate squeezes of her nipple, Dayna began to lubricate. Her pussy lips opened up like petals of the sweetest flower imaginable, secreting their honey which I coated upon my finger tip. Probing more firmly now, my finger glided back up through her cleft, buzzing over her hot button. I fondled it, making love to that little bundle of nerves with my fingertip until my frictionless gliding began to lose lubrication. I then returned my fingertip to her honey pot, dipping into it with carefully restrained force. And thus recoated with fresh nectar, my finger rose to once again make love to her sensitive clit.

I kept this up for a good three or four minutes. Dayna nearly woke once, her soft pants hitching into a startled gasp. But within seconds, she hummed and calmed down, squirming her thighs together as she obviously dreamed a pleasant dream. And I returned to my carefully-plotted task.

In the end, Dayna’s pussy was on fire. Her flower petals were parted wide open and wet with her arousal. There was a fine layer of sweat now covering her skin beneath the covers, and as my finger swiped up and down through her cleft, she trembled in anticipation.

I shifted my hips until my banana-bent erection was neatly enfolded by her asscheeks. Sliding myself further down, I felt my cockhead travel through her butt crack, lower and lower until there was suddenly room in front of it. Pivoting my pelvis and pulling aside the strap of her panties, I nudged the mushroom tip forward and slid myself back up the bed. And as her moist warmth surrounded me, I smoothly pushed myself inside.

Dayna gasped as she suddenly came awake. By then, she was already about three-inches full of dick, and helpless to stop the last five from pushing in as well. She moaned and pushed her ass back against my pelvis as I reached around her hip with my still wet fingertips and resumed rubbing her clit. And within three strokes of me pumping my hard cock in and out of her body, she stiffened up and came.