Entering Corleone’s, a restaurant that we frequent, Camden holds the door for us. The decor of the little restaurant is vintage meets modern. It's a casual trattoria style Italian bistro, with red accent walls and natural brick. The food is amazing. I’m usually the type to find something I like at a place and stick with it, but coming here I try something new every time. They change up their menu occasionally offering the different homestyle classic Italian dishes and making sure to appease everyone who frequents the spot.
Georgio, the owner, is standing at the hostess station when we walk in. “Welcome Camden, Shayna… and look, you brought Lexi with you this time.” he says in his deep Italian accent. “Would you guys like your usual table?” he asks, grabbing menus.
“That would be great, Georgio. Thanks,” Camden says as the shorter, stout man nods his head and turns to walk toward the dining area. Lexi and I follow him, side by side. I feel Camden’shand on my lower back and turn my head to look at him and notice he’s done the same to Lexi, which makes me smile.
Georgio places the menus on the table and motions with a flourish. “The boys aren’t with you. Having a night out I see,” he says as we all scoot into our normal round table in the corner. It’s large enough for everyone, including Darian and Landon, since they are usually with us.
Camden throws his arm over the back of the booth behind me when he settles in. “They’re spending the weekend with friends. You know we have to take advantage when we can,” Camden says chuckling and Georgio nods.
“I will have Liz come take your orders. Enjoy,” he says, dipping his head and walking off.
I’m sitting between Camden and Lexi. The restaurant isn’t that busy yet, especially for a Saturday afternoon, but I’m sure it’s going to get quite busy here pretty soon. We all pick up the menus looking at the newest additions to it. When I see Lexi lean forward to look over the menu, I slide my hand onto her lap where her hands are clasped. I entwine our fingers. I can feel her freeze a little, which makes me laugh. She looks over at me and I give her a smile and rub my thumb over the back of her hand.
We continue to look over the menus quietly until our waitress approaches the table. She takes our drink and food order before taking up the laminated sheets and leaving us to it. Lexi sits back relaxing a bit more when the waitress walks away, still holding my hand under the table. She looks up from where our fingers are interlocked looking back at Camden and I. Camden leans over my lap to speak in a hushed tone.
“We don’t need to talk about this now, or here. But we do need to talk about it. But like I said before, we will do this at your pace, Lex,” he says and I nod in agreement. Her eyes flit from his to mine, but I can tell his words set her at ease a bit.
Lexi leans a little bit to speak, like Camden did. “I know and I appreciate that. I’m good with the pace we’re running at,” she says with a laugh. “I don’t think I could slow this down if I wanted to. I say we just do what feels right.”
Cam scoots a little closer and rubs her shoulder from around my back, and her cheeks flush slightly. “Nothing like taking it from 0 to 100 right out of the gate, huh? But it wouldn’t be us if we didn’t,” he says.
Lexi’s brow furrows a little and she focuses her attention on Camden. “And you’re sure you’re okay with all of this?” she asks him, making me smirk and look over at him.
Camden throws his head back and his chest heaves with a guffaw. Both Lexi and I have to join in knowing exactly what he’s going to say. “Why wouldn’t I be okay with this? This is probably every man’s dream to have two women… at the same time,” he says.
“I can see your point. But I just wanted to make sure you’re both okay with this. With me spending time with each other. I mean… I know we will have times like this, all three of us together. But I expect you two are going to want some alone time and maybe I want alone time with Shayna,” Lexi says, looking back and forth between the two of us.
“What about me? You don’t think you would want alone time with me too?” Cam asks, making me glance over to see Lexi’s reaction to his question. I know he’s feeling a little self conscious, and also worried that this is going to end up being like it did with Alyssa. But he also sounds a little jealous that she didn’t think of him also.
I run my fingers over Lexi’s twitching hand. She’s starting to fidget a bit, probably worried about Cam’s question.
“Yes, Cam. With you, too. Are you both going to be okay with that?” she asks. Camden and I look at each other. I can tell just from a look exactly what he’s thinking. He’s just wanting to besure I’m going to be okay with it. His look screams,‘Whatever you need, Princess’, and I give him a warm smile leaning over giving him a sweet chaste kiss on his lips.
I look back to Lexi replying, “Yes. We will both be okay with that. The benefit of having you with us outweighs the possibility of any jealousy we may feel. I’m sure it may happen, but communication will always be key. We will need to sit down and talk about it. Talk it through and come to an understanding for the future.” Lexi is nodding as Camden watches the interaction.
The waitress brings our plates, sets them in front of us and assesses our drinks– which are still pretty full considering the heavy topic of discussion–and steps away. We all three take in each of our plates, and as if we just realized how famished we are, begin to eat. Our extracurricular activities earlier really build up an appetite, so we waste no time digging in.
After a few quiet minutes of comfortable silence while we eat, I take a drink and I see Lexi clean her mouth with the cloth napkin. “Now,” she finally says, “...so I don’t do anything that neither of you want or like, how do you feel about PDA?” she asks. And I have to admit I was wondering about that as well. I didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable either.
“I mean if you guys don’t want anyone to know that we are all together, I understand. Most people around here know you guys are married,” she says and averts her eyes reluctantly. “I mean… I don’t know. I’m not shy or embarrassed about this, but I know that you two have been married for a very long time.”
Camden chuckles at her rambling and I just smile. She continues, “I just want to know…” but before she can finish her sentence, I lean over and kiss her softly with just a press of my lips against hers silencing her. Her eyes go wide, and there that beautiful blush is back on her cheeks. I pull back but not very far and she gives me a little sheepish smile. I nip at her bottom lip and kiss her again softly. “I want everyone to know that you’remine… ours. And that we’re yours. What others think doesn’t matter to us, and never has,” I say.
Lexi moves, pressing her lips against mine this time, slipping her tongue out to flick the cupid’s bow of my top lip. My tongue slips out and we both tilt our heads at the same time and deepen the kiss if only for a moment. I taste alfredo sauce from her dinner, and I savor it.
When we finally pull back, Camden has an elated gleam in his eyes while continuing to eat his food. “Good to know. Because I have a hard time not touching you,” she admits. When she finally pulls back fully I take a moment and admire the rosy color to her cheeks. This is new to all of us and it will be an adjustment, but I’m looking forward to it.
After we’re done with the main course, Camden orders a dessert for all of us to share. Some chocolate cake with chocolate icing, and heated fudge flows from the inside of it giving it a gooey look. Something called ‘Death by Chocolate’. We even asked for the chocolate ice cream that comes with it separately, since they know I’m not a fan of ice cream the way Lexi and Camden are. They can have that, I just want some of the cake.
When the waitress leaves from grabbing our plates and taking the order for dessert, I tap Lexi’s thigh, since she’s closest to the edge of the booth. “I need to use the restroom,” I say motioning to be let out of the center. “I’ll be right back.” I stand and look at Cam giving him a little wink, then head back to the front of the restaurant where the bathrooms are.
CHAPTER 19
Lexi
Saturday afternoon
As Shayna walks off to the front of the restaurant, I move to sit back down. The waitress brings the chocolate monstrosity and Cam immediately dives in. My eyes shift to where Shayna just disappeared to, and my mind immediately goes to her. An opportunity to get her alone and test this new found connection we have.
