“Yeah, no. I’m good,” I say just as Coop chimes in.
“We’re apparently married and woke up completely indecent.”
Magnus gasps and Sem’s grin widens in delight. Beau cocks his head at his best friend, and when I meet Max’s eyes, they twinkle.
Oh, he thinks this is funny. After all the shit I’ve pulled, all the stupid stuff I’ve said in the past, here I am—married to a gay man, a hickey the size of Saturn on my neck. Apparently I liked whatever Coop was doing last night. Seemed I liked it enough to bust all over myself and him.
“What do you mean by indecent?” Magnus asks.
Sem chimes in, “They were naked, Maggie. No clothes anywhere and cum everywhere.”
I feel my cheeks heat and I shift in my seat, wanting to bolt, but Coop’s hand on my knee keeps me grounded. Damn thing. Always touching me, making me resist the urge to flee.
I’m obviously touch-starved. I need to find someone online to come over and just hold me, get me out of this goddamn funk I’ve found myself in.
It’s not a funk. It’s who you are.
Coop nods, like Sem’s comment isn’t a big deal. “We obviously can’t remember anything but plan on doing some investigative work after lunch.”
Magnus perks up slightly. “Oh, I love investigative work. In another life, I’d have been a detective.”
Sem stares at his husband like he’s never seen him before. “That true, Maggie? I thought you always wanted to be a teacher.”
He grins up at him and nods. “I mean, kind of. I do love a good mystery. You were one of them, Sem. And look at us now.”
Coop’s fingers curl into my thigh, and he lets out a small laugh. “Well, my investigation will start with an online search of county records to see if our marriage license was ever submitted.”
“Might be too early to tell,” Beau says. “It could still be processing.”
That makes my heart thunder in my chest. “So there’s a chance we could stop it?”
Coop glowers at me and his hand moves up my thigh slightly. I swallow loudly and feel my cheeks warm. But still, I don’t move him away from me. I just let him keep touching me.
“I don’t think we can stop it,” he says, his eyes meeting mine. “It’s in their hands now.”
It’s so final, like there’s nothing we can do, and I feel the panic start to rise once more, but then it suddenly settles when his hand moves from my leg to my back, rubbing it gently. Somehow, in the short amount of time we’ve known each other, Coop’s already figured out what I need.
And I hate that.
Why does it have to be him? Why does it have to be another guy?
“Yeah, I would think you’d just have to wait for it to process and then look into some kind of annulment,” Max says, biting back a grin. He can laugh all he wants. If this was him a few years ago, he’d be panicking just like I am. He would have died if he’d ended up married to a gay man. Although, it seems his tune has changed.
Seems he found his person.
I’ve never seen him happier.
Same with Magnus.
There’s just a glow about them. They seem content, calm.
I don’t even know what those two words mean. I’ve lived in a constant state of meh, not really unhappy, but not happy either. Even with my ex-girlfriend, Katrina, I wasn’t all that happy. I just remember feeling a little lost the entire time, and whenever I tried to talk about it, she’d brush it off. Like whatever I was feeling wasn’t really that big of a deal.
But maybe the bad tainted all the good. Maybe I’ve just forgotten how good it was with her.
Coop’s hand moves up to the nape of my neck and he squeezes. Everyone at the table seems to follow that movement, and it’s only their scrutinizing gaze that has me wrenching myself away from him.
I don’t need them getting any ideas about me.