It seemed having Merry around wasn’t only good for orgasms and getting a variety of different kinds of warm and squishy.

It was good for a vast number of other things.

Fifteen minutes later, after getting a toothpaste-flavored good-bye kiss from my man and two different style waves from both my guys, they were gone.

I turned to the sink and cleaned up dude food.

* * * * *

Friday Evening

I walked into J&J’s for my shift and knew I was in for it.

This was because Colt was on his stool. Cal was standing by it. Mike was sitting on the stool next to where Cal was standing. Ryker was hanging close to Cal and Colt.

And Benny Bianchi was standing, leaned into the bar next to Mike.

Benny Bianchi was Joe Callahan’s cousin.

They might be cousins, but they were tight so they were more like brothers, and them being family couldn’t be missed.

Cal was sheer male beauty, marred by the hardness and heartbreak of the life he’d endured and the scars on his face. Though, both of these made him even hotter than he probably was back in the day before all that had happened.

Benny was just sheer male beauty. Very male. Very beautiful.

Like a movie star.

But better because he was real.

He was also taken, married to my girl Frankie, who’d lived in the ’burg for a spell, and when she’d lived there, we’d become friends.

She’d moved back to Chicago to be with Benny, who lived up there and owned a pizzeria.

His pizzeria was the bomb. I knew this because, since Frankie had moved away, I’d taken Ethan up there for several weekends, stayed with them, and discovered this fact.

Ben worked the pizzeria; Frankie had a sweet job where she made a shit-ton of money.

She also had the job of popping out babies for Benny. In their time together, which had not been much, they’d already had one and she was heavily pregnant now.

I knew this before I walked into the bar because she’d called me six months ago to tell me.

I knew this right then because the only good part of my current scenario was that she was also there, around the curve of the bar, in a girl huddle with Vi and Dusty. All three of them were on the outside of the bar, Feb and Dee were on the inside.

The chicks would take my back.

But the reason I knew I was in for it was because in all the years I had it bad for Merry, the only person who called me on it was Benny.

In fact, he’d done it the first night I’d met him.

He, Frankie, and me had gone out to have drinks. Merry had showed. Benny had sussed things out. They took me home, Benny walked me to my door, and he’d laid it out.

He was cool about it. He wasn’t a dick when he told me to soften up, and if I did, I’d open up enough to let a guy in, that guy being Merry.