Her Mane Men (Paranormal Dating Agency Kindle World)(7)

“Meaning I move where you are?” Which didn’t sound awful. Since Roxanne left, it was pretty much me, and the once-a-month book club at work to keep me from being lonely, and the only reason I joined that was because it sounded fun until we got into the third book in a row that ended with a main character dying. If I want to weep, I’ll just watch the news. Books are for fun, an escape. But then my manager got excited I was “participating in some of their positive workplace initiatives,” and book club it was.

“Or I get a new job here,” Curtis offered. His work sounded interesting, at least what I understood of it. But was labwork portable the way my work was, and, whoa, weren’t we jumping the gun?

“You would do that?” Jumping the gun or not, knowing it even passed through his mind was beyond endearing.

“If we can find our third, we would move mountains to make it work, and I really hope that turns out to be you.” Curtis once again showed his vulnerability, his fear of it not working out embracing each of his words. He felt it, too, whatever this was. They both did.

“Don’t scare the hu—Maddie.” Parker took over, as if sensing Curtis’s need for him to do so. “No pressure Maddie. None.”

“It feels like pressure.” They asked for honesty, and with all that was thrown at me, the honesty I had to give was probably not what they hoped for, but there it was.

“How about this? Call Roxy, get her opinion of us.” I could do that. It would be weird asking her to gossip about her husband’s friends with their knowledge, but what part of this wasn’t weird. “Then we go on dates. One at a time. See if you even like us. And if things feel right, we move on from there.”

That seemed easy. Go on dates. See if we worked separately and then build from there. What could be weird about that except at the end of the dates they went home to each other, not me. I wasn’t jealous, but the weirdness of adding a woman to a couple that was already there was poking at me.

“You know I’m a woman, right?”

“Believe me, we noticed,” Parker teased.

“And that’s not a problem?”

“Meaning, you want to know if we are more into men than woman.” Curtis clarified, to which I nodded.

“Sounds stupid said out loud.”

“It’s not stupid if it weighs on your shoulders and causes doubt.” And with that my embarrassment fell away, and my insecurity fled. “Curtis was the first and only man I’ve ever been into in that way.”

“Whereas, I tended to be less concerned with gender and more concerned with who I made a connection with.”

“I see.” It didn’t completely answer my question but did tell me they both had interest in women, so it would have to do. Why did sexuality need to be so complicated? I remember being a little girl and thinking all little girls fell in love with a prince—the end. That was so not how things worked. The only part that was true was that people fell in love and how that looked—well that couldn’t be put in a box, and if they said my gender wasn’t an issue, I needed to take them at their word. They’d never given me a reason not to, with the exception of leaving out who all would be at the dinner.

“How about we put it a different way. When you got up to use the facilities, neither of us stood up even though it is the gentlemanly thing to do.”

“Okay?” It wasn’t like we were still trapped in the days of old. Heck, my boss only held the door so he could look at my ass and made no pretense of it being anything else.

“And I’m the one who says things wrong.” Parker shook his head in mirth, “Maddie, what he was trying to say far too subtly for any kind of understanding is that we stayed seated because neither of us wanted you to see our boners.” Yet again, a knee hit the table. “Owww. It’s true.”

“And she’s a lady.” Curtis scowled.

“A lady who gives you two boners.” Boy, did I like the sound of that. Me, giving two hot guys who were already getting it regularly, boners. And suddenly all felt right in the world. Not because I gave them boners, but because they were both fine with admitting it, and I was fine repeating it back. That level of comfort so soon was a good omen. I could feel it.

“Two peas,” Curtis laughed, both of us joining in.





Chapter Four


“Something you want to tell me?” I asked the moment Roxanne answered the phone. I waited until seven her time, given it was Sunday and she had a little one who thought five a.m. was sleeping in.

After my men, for that was how my brain now thought of them, put me in the cab, bidding me good night with small pecks on the cheek, all I could do was think about them. It was nearly sunrise when my brain started to settle down enough for sleep. My eyes had barely closed when they popped open again, and I gave up. Who needs sleep when you have so much to process.

“Whatcha mean?” She sounded as tired as I was but without the adrenaline I had pumping through my veins.

“Parker. Curtis.” I punctuated each name.

“Barry’s friends?” Okay, so maybe she didn’t know. I assumed they knew her through Barry, since they called her Roxy, the nickname he preferred.

“Yeah.”

“Nice guys. Nerdy, but hot nerdy. Cute couple. Why? How do you know them?”