Chapter 425

‘Outside, but ready for rain’ ended up being them planning to take me to Lake Union Park - I never did figure out why it was called that as opposed to Union Lake Park, since that seemed like it should be more grammatically correct, but that was my only complaint about the entire morning. The park was really nice, even if it wasn’t huge, and was right on the water.

Becca and Wanda kept reminding me that this wasn’t our date, which was kind of funny considering how utterly date-like it felt. We walked through the gardens and along the waterfront, we hung out around the Model Boat Pond which was neat and stirred up the nerd in me (making me remind myself that I lived in Las Vegas, I did not need a model boat), and we toured through the current exhibits at the MOHAI, the Museum that dominated the park. It was a gorgeous building that was right on the water as well, which meant that it was able to maintain a series of old boats and small ships to view.

It did rain, but only once, and that was when we were able to make a beeline into the museum. By the time we came back out, the darker clouds had passed and the sky was spotted blue and grey with isolated cloud cover instead of a solid sheet.

I think at least one of my hands was being held for ninety per cent of the time - and the other ten I was either being kissed by one of them (which often still included holding one of their hands, not always the one I was kissing), I had my arms wrapped around one of them, or I was in the washroom at the museum.

Once we’d worn out all the things to see at the park, we took a slow walk into downtown to a spot they’d picked out ahead of time for lunch, and I managed to convince them to let me pay to save my masculine ego since they had paid for dinner the night before, and were planning to pay for the ‘actual date’ later that night. In some ways, it was nice to be treated - and I know my wallet appreciated it compared to if I was treating them to everything while I was there - but I had enough traditional ‘take care of my woman’ in me that I still got a little embarrassed. Hell, I was in a city I didn’t know, surrounded by people I wasn’t likely to ever have a connection to, and I felt a little weird about the amount of PDA that the three of us were engaging in.

Not that we were the only ones.

If Las Vegas was the home of the weird and the wild, Seattle felt like the last resting place of the Hippy and the birthplace of the Hipster, and those hipsters - especially the queer ones - had just as ‘in your face’ tendencies as the Vegas weirdos. It was just all a lot more uptight than Vegas. The amount of tense, nervous flirting we witnessed as people tried to navigate a very wide spectrum of gender and sexuality without offending anyone was astounding. In Vegas, strangers flirting was way more abrupt, and people didn’t care if they offended you - I sometimes thought of it as the perfect mix of East and West coast mentalities. That or it had something to do with that abruptness leaking from the Strip to the entirety of the city.

After lunch, we walked down to where we’d parked and took a quick tour of some of the other famous locations in the city. Multiple views of the Space Needle, Pike Place Market (where Wanda and I jumped out to take a picture with the big sign in the background), the waterfront, Pioneer Square and Chinatown. There were more places they wanted to show me, but we were running out of time before they had to get to Wandas, so we headed back to Becca’s.

“Is it bad that I kind of want you to come with us?” Wanda sighed as we all got out of the car.

“No, but it’s not a good idea,” I said, stepping close and wrapping my arms around her in a bear hug.

“We don’t want to antagonise Brodi and have him start making this all harder on you,” Becca said as she was unlooping a key to her place off her keychain. “That or weirdly arouse him.”

“Ewgh,” Wanda scoffed in a disgusted mix of ‘Ew’ and ‘Ugh.’ “True.”

I pressed my lips to the top of her head and kissed her softly as I kept hugging her. “You’ve got this,” I told her.

“I know,” she sighed quietly. “And I’ve got you and Becca.”

“You do,” I said.

“Damn right she does,” Becca agreed, coming over and wrapping her arms around the both of us. We had a quick three-way hug for another long moment before we broke apart, and Becca handed me the key. “Here, so you can get in and out as needed. There are a couple of good coffee shops a block in either direction if you want to explore.”

“Actually, could you do me a favour, Tiger?” Wanda asked, looking a little pained to need to do it. “Could you take Ralph for a walk? Even just ten minutes would be great.”

“I could use a good walk myself,” I told her, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. “He’s not going to freak out if I leash him up when you’re not there, will he?”