“Porter,” he said again, louder now.
“And I want you to know, it’s not an issue, it’s an ish-me?—”
“Porter!” Theo insisted, confused and possibly a bit panicked.
I pulled my arm down. “What? Itis. And I’d like to point out that I’m only confessingbecauseI love and trust you, okay?—?”
“Porter.” Theo grabbed my chin gently and turned my head so that I faced our walk-in closet. “Why is your brother’s sex rooster looking at my dick?”
Sure enough, when I followed his gaze to the closet shelf, there sat Pecky, perched at a crooked angle amongst Theo’s sweaters. And he really did seem to be staring at us.Intently.
“Fuck,” I groaned. “Okay, I can explain.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEO
Porter jumped out of bed,his hair still mussed and damp from our lovemaking. “Okay, first of all, I’d like to remind you that you said you’d listen and not judge.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to restrain my laughter—a reaction I wouldn’t have thought possible just a few hours ago.
All evening at Webb’s, I’d been watching Porter get more brittle and distant, like glass cooling too quickly. I wasn’t entirely oblivious—certainly not where the love of my life was concerned—and I’d seen the signs building for days, but at first, I’d explained them away. Aiden was a freaking delight, but having a kid in the house was always chaotic. And God knew the oppressive summer heat could throw anyone off.
When I’d really stopped to think about it during our mostly silent drive home, though, I’d realized it had been going on longer than I’d allowed myself to acknowledge. A couple of weeks at least.
Guilt had hit me like a physical weight in my chest. I’d been so consumed with this Shakespeare project, so buried in research and correspondence, I hadn’t noticed that Porter wasstruggling. Worse, he clearly hadn’t felt like he could come to me about whatever it was.
My mind had quickly spiraled through some worst-case scenarios. Was Porter having second thoughts about us? Was he tired of my academic obsessions?
The thought that Porter might be unhappy had been absolutely terrifying—the kind of terror that made my blood cold despite the heat—and I’d made love to him with a desperate intensity.
But seeing him now, pacing the floor beside our bed unselfconsciously naked, his hair sticking up at impossible angles, while that absurd rooster cookie jar from Webb’s house watched from the closet like a poultry voyeur… I somehow felt more settled than I had in days.
Whatever Porter was about to confess couldn’t be so terrible, not when we were here together like this. We could handle anything as long as we faced it together.
“I pinky promise,” I said. I grabbed a towel from the nightstand to clean myself and sat back against the pillows to watch Porter pace. Though I was genuinely concerned—and genuinely spent—I couldn’t help appreciating how the lamplight gilded the lean lines of Porter’s muscles.
He ran a hand through his hair, making it even more disheveled. “Okay, so… you heard Hawk’s explanation about the rooster earlier?”
“That Sir Pecksworth called to him from amongst the other crockery on the Dishes and Doo-Dads table like it knew him of old? That it practically begged Hawk—mentally, subliminally,magically—to take it home and then proceeded to make Hawk’s fiancé fuck him all over their house, an activity they’ve never, ever engaged in before?”
Porter’s cheeks flushed pink, and he stopped pacing long enough to cross his arms defensively over his chest. “It wasn’t just Jack and Hawk! Something similar happened with Gageand Knox, and then Luke and Webb, too, when they were given the rooster, so?—”
“Baby,” I interrupted gently, sitting up straighter. “Gage and Knox have been thinking about getting married for years, just like we have. Luke and Webb’s surrogate has been pregnant for months. Having been around your brothers—especially after the time we nearly caught Gage and Knox in the orchard—I don’t think them having a lot of sex can be solely attributed to Pecky the Magic Rooster.”
“The Cock of Good Fortune,” he corrected sharply, his jaw tightening. “And just to say… I’m pretty sure you’re judging right now.”
“But I’m not judging you,” I pointed out. “I’m judging people who believe the rooster is—” I stopped mid-sentence as the penny dropped. “Porter, why did you bring the sex rooster home? Do you… I mean… If you’re not satisfied with what we…”
“What?” Porter paused in his pacing and wrinkled his nose. “Oh.” He waved a hand in angry dismissal as he resumed. “Fuck, no. Our sex life is so good I sometimes have to remind myself why we both need to work full-time jobs. It wasn’t about that.”
Relief flooded through me. “Right. No. Good. So then what…?”
“The rooster’s lucky,” he blurted, the words tumbling out in a rush. “Or I hoped he might be. And I needed some luck because… Ugh.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve been jealous, Theo. Weirdly jealous. Stupidly jealous. And I didn’t want to tell you because I know how silly it is. That thing Shakespeare said aboutreason and love? He wrote it about me.”
I sat up quickly and grabbed Porter’s hand, stopping his frantic pacing. “Hold up. Jealous of what? Of who?”
Porter looked at me like the answer should be obvious. “Of Remy. Obvs.”
