"As in I asked Tabby to marry me, and she said yes," Patrick said.
I've been in a car crash once. I was nine years old, and riding in the back seat of the car while my dad drove me to piano practice when he was sideswiped by a guy who ran a red light in a pickup truck. I wasn't injured, but it did jar the hell out of me.
Patrick's words shocked me just as much. I looked from him to her, then to Mark, then back, my head moving in a sort of weird triangle. "Engaged?"
"Now, don't worry, we're not running off to Vegas like you two," Tabby said, reaching over and taking my hands. "We want to take our time. We haven’t even talked about a date yet. It’s more of just a declaration of us wanting to spend the rest of our lives together. We know its fast, and we know that it sounds strange."
Mark shook his head, and walked over to Tabby. She stood up from her chair, looking up into his eyes. They had bonded nearly as close as Tabby and I had, and they looked at each other for a long time before Mark opened his arms and wrapped her up in a hug. "Okay," he said, her head tucked under his chin like he was protecting his little sister, or his child. In fact, the mother growing inside me could see him doing that with our own daughter some day. "Okay. I love you, and I trust you. Congratulations."
He let go of Tabby, who turned to me while Mark turned to Patrick. "You know this doesn't mean I'm backing off on your training. If anything, I'm going to push you harder."
"Damn right you are," Patrick said. "I've got something more to come home to than just a couch and two goldfish now."
Tabby watched the two men shake hands, then looked at me. "Are you okay with this?" she asked me.
I pulled her into a hug, the woman that was most important in my life. “You’ve never been one to waste time when you want something. The real question is, are you happy?" I whispered in her ear.
"Yes," Tabby said, squeezing me tight. "Maybe I'm greedy or needy or whatever. But I need all three of you in my life."
"Then we'll be there," I said, squeezing tighter. "I love you, Tabby."
"I love you too, Sophie."
Chapter 9
Tabby
I know what Mark and Sophie expected of me and Patrick after we declared that we were engaged. After all, I'm supposed to be the hypersexual redhead, the girl that can't wait to get her itch scratched. And considering that I'd already gone over a month since Patrick and I had last had sex, I guess that assumption was a safe one.
But part of what Patrick and I had talked about, the thing that it took a couple of days for us to get used to and talk about, was that Patrick and I discussed the fact that, at least for the first part of our engagement, we wanted to actively avoid sex. It wasn't that we were in a total no-touch scenario, but rather that we were just not actively seeking physical intimacy.
It was the emotional depth we were looking for. It had come to me after Patrick told me about his past with Scott Pressman. I realized that, despite the wonderful side effects of sex, and however much I love it, the two people I was closest to in my life, I'd never had sex with. Sophie was closer to me than anyone else in the world, the yin to my yang, the woman who held more real estate in my heart and soul than I had even known I had. I would die for Sophie, but even more importantly, I lived for her too.
Then there was Mark. If Sophie was my match, Mark was just as much hers. It sounds so fucking weird, but it was true, and there was never any feeling of being shortchanged or jealousy in any of it. Mark was my brother, my mentor, my guide and my advisor. If Sophie was my heart, Mark was my strength. And it was the same with Mark and I. He'd come to me so many times for guidance, second only to Sophie herself. If I was the third wheel of the relationship, I certainly didn't feel like it.
So that was why Patrick and I made a conscious choice, not to have sex for at least a little while. We knew we were a match sexually, we’d already proved that. Nobody had ever satisfied me as much as Patrick had, even though it had been only one night. We'd found something there that was precious, and I wanted it again and again, I knew. But I also wanted more than that, and Patrick agreed with me.
"Tabby, the thing that was most painful to me was that I'd caused you pain," he had said to me while we sat in his apartment. He was about ten minutes from asking me to marry him, and we'd just finished the fighting.
"You didn't do anything intentionally," I said. "Although not telling me about Pressman is your fault."
"For which I’m very sorry," Patrick said, rubbing his jaw.