Chapter 14: 3-0 l

-- MONDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2007 --

"And that was it." I sighed and shook my head. "I waited in the room for twenty minutes to see if the girls just needed some time to talk things through before coming back to me. But when I finally went out to go look for them, they'd already left the apartment. BJ had woken up and was playing with Kim in the living room. She said that Adrienne was crying and the girls had walked out the door together almost immediately."

Dawn rubbed my leg from her spot on the couch to my right. "And they never came home?"

"Not last night they didn't," I answered. "Kim texted me at lunch that Adrienne and Sasha had spent the night at a hotel and come back around noon while I was at work. But they just packed up some suitcases, kissed BJ goodbye, and left again."

DJ frowned from the armchair across me. "Do you think they'd move out permanently?"

I shrugged helplessly. "I don't know WHAT to think right now, to be honest. Even if they wanted to, this apartment is Adrienne's. If anything it would be me, Kim, and BJ moving out."

Dayna rubbed my other leg from her spot on the couch to my left. "Relax, it won't come to that. Things will work out," she said encouragingly. "Your relationships with Adrienne and Sasha weren't built in a single conversation. They won't die in a single conversation, either."

"But one conversation can start the beginning of the end," DJ muttered.

I exhaled slowly and sagged deeper into the backrest. Two nights ago I'd been in this very living room with the three Evans sisters, but that evening had been under very different circumstances. For one thing, all four of us were fully-clothed tonight, and sex was the furthest thing from our minds.

I hadn't intended to wind up here in Brandi and Dayna's apartment, nor had I intended for Dawn and DJ to make the trek out across the bay on a school night. But Dawn had texted me this afternoon to ask how things had gone after Adrienne and Sasha's return from Napa, and upon reading my less-than-positive response, she and DJ had dropped everything to catch the next BART train over despite my protests that they didn't really need to. My own damn fault for actually typing my concern that the engagement might soon be over.

Dawn had texted Dayna on the way, and at first all four of us, plus Brandi, started off in my apartment. But Kim was making dinner and I kept getting distracted by BJ. To be honest, I didn't really want to talk about Adrienne and Sasha, so I rather LET myself be distracted by BJ. A man should spend as much quality time with his son as he can right? Right? But the girls became rather impatient with my disjointed, frequently-interrupted explanation of last night's events, so Brandi volunteered to stay behind and babysit while the three Evans sisters took me downstairs. And with no toddler around to distract me anymore, I managed to begin a relatively straightforward narrative monologue that quickly devolved into more of a Spanish Inquisition that lasted longer than my actual conversation with Adrienne and Sasha by the time the girls got through with me.

"Adrienne loves you," Dawn reassured me, stroking my arm this time. "She would never voluntarily separate herself from your life, not again."

"But that doesn't necessarily mean she wants to marry me." I stared at the coffee table and bit my lower lip. "And when I stop to think about everything that's gone on for the past few months, I'm not entirely sure I should be marrying her, either."

"What are you talking about?" DJ sat up straight. "All you've EVER wanted to do is settle down, get married, and start popping out kids. And you've made it clear to everyone that Adrienne is your absolute Number One."

"And yet -I- haven't done a single thing to actually push a wedding forward. I proposed more than five months ago, and we still haven't even set a date yet."

"Because Adrienne's been putting off those decisions for now. That's not your fault."

I shook my head. "It's my fault, too. We got engaged, we came back to San Francisco, we had one... maybe two conversations about wedding ideas, and after that, nothing. I accused Adrienne of stalling for time, of going through the motions instead of seriously considering all our wedding details. But apart from some initial internet research and buying Adrienne her ring, I haven't actually done much better myself."

"You're only twenty-three," Dayna chimed in. "There's no rush to get to the altar."

"Bert and Lynne have been engaged for what, a year and a half?" Dawn pointed out. "And they haven't set a date yet."

Dayna nodded. "It would be perfectly understandable for you and Adrienne to have a nice, long engagement and figure all this stuff out in another couple of years if you wanted to."

"What exactly makes you say you're not entirely sure you should be marrying her?" Dawn asked thoughtfully. "Is it that you're not sure you're ready to get married yet? Or are you not sure you want to marry Adrienne?"

"Well ... kinda ... both," I sighed, sagging even deeper into the backrest and staring up at the ceiling.

The three Evans sisters shared significant looks. DJ remarked, "Wait, seriously? Are you actually questioning whether or not you want to BE with Adrienne?"

Sitting up straight again, I shook my head. "No, don't get me wrong. I know I'd love to BE with Adrienne."

DJ arched an eyebrow, leading me, "But..."

I sighed again. "But maybe we're not meant to be together."

Dayna frowned. "You can't truly believe that."

"I can. What if she really WOULD be happier with Sasha instead of me? Who am I to take that away from her?"

"You're her fiancé. She committed to you." DJ took a deep breath. "And I should know how difficult and painful it is to break that kind of commitment."

Dayna popped her eyebrows. "But you did it anyway."

DJ shot her big sister a dirty look, but I raised my hands and gestured at both of them, cautioning, "We're not getting into that. The point is: engaged or not, Adrienne and I aren't married yet, and there are no legal roadblocks to the two of us breaking up if it's the right thing to do. Hell, even IF we were already married, I'd still want what's best for her. And if being with Sasha is what's best for her, then that's something I need to seriously consider."

Dawn touched my arm. "You're trying to be the nice guy, but it's okay to think a little selfishly here. If being with Adrienne is what makes you happiest, you're allowed to fight for that."

"Maybe I'm allowed, but..." My voice trailed off as I furrowed my eyebrows, trying to figure out what to say.

DJ gave me a skeptical look. "You don't seem particularly inclined to fight for her."

I grimaced. "It's not that I don't want to, but--"

"But you don't really look like you want to," DJ pointed out. "Look at you. Are you curled in a fetal position rocking back and forth in a panic that you may have lost your fiancée? Are you going sex-crazy, dragging the nearest female into your bed trying to fuck away the pain? Or are you just sitting there ... talking about it? Rather calmly, I might add. Let's face it: You're not acting like the great love of your life is slipping away."

"Give him a break." Dayna rubbed my leg and gave me an encouraging smile. "Maybe you're just handling the situation better than you did in the past. You're getting more mature."

DJ shook her head. "Or maybe he doesn't love her as much as he thought he did."

"What are you talking about?" Dayna protested, again turning back to rub my leg. "Adrienne adores you, and we ALL know how much you LOVE her."

"I DO love her, but DJ's got a point. Do I love her as my wife? My sister? My girlfriend? My best friend?"

"All of the above?" Dawn suggested.

I shook my head. "She's... 'My Adrienne'. She defies categorization. My relationship with her is ... my relationship with her. It simply IS, even if I can't really define it."

"That's not necessarily a bad thing."

I shook my head. "It is when I can conceive of a proper definition for 'My Wife' and yet have a hard time fitting Adrienne into it."

Dawn raised both eyebrows. "Sounds more like you need to adjust your definition for 'Wife' than try to adjust Adrienne."

"I don't disagree. All four of us have talked for a long time about me trying to push too fast to settle down and get married to some imaginary cardboard cutout wife with an empty face that I'd fill in with the first woman willing enough to take the plunge. I'm trying ... really, I'm trying ... to move past any fantasies of a Happily Ever After future and instead concentrate on the reality right in front of me. Adrienne – quirks, foibles, fears and all – is the reality right in front of me, just the way she is. And I DO love her. I love her more than anything. I love her more than anyone."

"So you asked her to marry you," Dayna chimed in. "That's normal."

Shaking my head slowly, I shrugged and muttered, "And yet I'm wondering if that was a mistake."

The three of them shared significant looks again. DJ asked, "Because you don't think she fits your ideal concept of a wife?"

Dayna suggested, "Because ever since she accepted your proposal she hasn't made much of an effort to actually plan a wedding?"

I sighed. "Because I feel like I'm getting in the way of her and Sasha."

Dawn frowned, sat up straight, and in a tone of realization, she said, "Because you don't think you proposed to her for the right reasons." It was a statement, not a question. She leaned over me, so that when I opened my eyes again I was staring at her and not the ceiling anymore, and she stated questioningly, "You proposed to her because of me?"

I blinked twice. "Not just because of you."

"But you proposed because she nearly tried to leave you BECAUSE of me."

"I wouldn't say that..."

Arching an eyebrow, my best friend gave me a skeptical look. "You gonna claim that you knew all along you were gonna propose to her then and there? That was a crazy day, everything all happening at once. You and I made love in our clearing, we walked back to the cabin knowing that Adrienne was gonna be pissed, and you thought, 'Hey, if I just propose marriage then she'll forgive me for cheating on her!'"

I rolled my eyes. "We've been over this: I didn't cheat."

Dawn added raised eyebrows to her skeptical look. "I'm on your side, but I still don't get what kind of algebra you're using to try and claim we didn't cheat."

"Because I didn't emotionally betray ... You know what, we're not getting side-tracked on this. The point is--"

"The point is that you were in the middle of a knock-down, drag-out fight with Adrienne trying your level best to convince her that you and me rekindling our best friends relationship wouldn't destroy your relationship with her. The whole point I was trying to get across was--"

"Was that she was still my Number One."

"Exactly. But not necessarily your wife."

I grimaced. "Well ... yeah ... that part sorta just happened."

"Unintentionally."

Dayna snorted. "You gonna claim you 'unintentionally' got down on one knee and proposed?" she muttered skeptically, arching an eyebrow.

"He didn't propose at all," Dawn pointed out. "In fact, I remember him explicitly stating that it wasn't a proposal."

"While he was down on one knee and thumbing the promise ring he'd put on her fourth finger," Dayna drawled.

I shook my head. "Dawn's right. It was impulsive. I ... I didn't plan on proposing to her. The whole point was just to state that even with Dawn back in my life, Adrienne was still my Number One."

"And then she said 'yes'," Dayna said with a smirk.

"SHE said 'Yes, I will marry you'," Dawn clarified. "Ben didn't actually ASK."

"But she answered," Dayna shot back. "And to be fair, Ben DID say that if Adrienne was ever ready for him to propose for real, he'd ask her to marry him in a heartbeat. THAT'S what she replied 'yes' to. So really, Ben DID sorta ask her."

"Except that he technically didn't."

"Whether or not Ben asked or didn't ask," DJ interjected, "they BOTH walked away from that conversation believing they were engaged."

"Even though he didn't INTEND to ask her to marry him," Dawn said with a shrug.

DJ shook her head. "It's the result that matters, not the intent."

"The lack of intent goes to show why Ben's having second thoughts."

Dayna turned to me. "So do you want to take it back? Do you regret asking her to marry you and wish you could go back in time and not do it?"

"No, it's not that," I replied. "But I AM questioning if it was the right thing to do at the time."

"Because you don't think you proposed to her for the right reasons," Dawn repeated. "You wound up proposing – by accident – to make her understand that she was your Number One, but not to ACTUALLY start the clock ticking on your engagement. If you could have gotten through that argument outside of the cabin back in July without having proposed, and come back home to your life and your job with Adrienne merely your Number One girlfriend and NOT your fiancée, nothing in the past five months would have really changed."

"Well..." My voice trailed off as I grimaced.

Dawn translated, "That means 'No, not really. Nothing would have changed.'"

Dayna and DJ sat back in their seats, thinking about that.

"She'd still have gone on with her life, doing her photo shoots and going to parties and living the glamorous supermodel life," Dawn continued.

"Doing everything with Sasha glued to her side," Dayna added.

"And ultimately fallen in love with Sasha as her girlfriend, leaving you on the outside looking in," DJ finished.

"Only in THAT scenario," Dawn reasoned, "she'd have just been your 'girlfriend' instead of your 'fiancée', and this moral quandary about how to handle your three-way relationship wouldn't have been such a big deal. If things had remained casual between you all, no engagement rings or marriage proposals, the three of you would probably be just fine with the status quo, even if it meant Adrienne exploring this potential romantic partnership with Sasha."

"Basically, Ben would have become the third wheel in Adrienne and Sasha's relationship instead of Sasha being the third wheel in Ben and Adrienne's relationship," Dayna clarified.

DJ sat up and looked at me. "Would you have been okay with that? Being the third wheel to the two of them?"

I sighed. "Well, for the past few months, I already HAVE been the third wheel. They've obviously spent a lot more time with each other than with me."

"Which is normal in a three-way relationship – I would know," Dawn explained. "Nothing's ever in 100% balance for very long. Sometimes two people are a little tighter with each other than with the third. Sometimes it's a different pair within the threesome that's a little stronger. Those are natural shifts and flows, and you just sort of go with it."

Dayna frowned. "But didn't becoming engaged mean Ben and Adrienne should have taken priority?"

DJ nodded and looked at me. "I'd certainly expect that from an engagement, and I did when Ben and I were. Didn't you expect the same from me?" That last part she directed at me.

I shrugged. "Expect me to be your priority? Sure."

DJ popped her eyebrows. "So didn't you expect the same from Adrienne?"

I grimaced, and hedged, "Well..."

Dawn translated, "That still means, 'No, not really.'"

Dayna asked, "But why not? Why did you expect DJ to make you her priority, but didn't expect the same from Adrienne?"

"I don't know. I guess I should have."

"But you didn't," DJ said with a sigh. "Which means that really..."

" ... Even though you were engaged," Dawn continued, "You didn't really FEEL engaged. The proposal happened. The ring is on her finger. But you didn't FEEL it in your heart. Adrienne's status of 'fiancée' is just an empty title."

Dayna furrowed her eyebrows. "Yeah, you'd think that becoming engaged would've inspired Ben and Adrienne to be with each other a little more these past five months than they've been. Even if Ben's behavior didn't change, you'd think that Adrienne would have modified her behavior, but it didn't turn out that way."

DJ shook her head. "Nothing about the past five months turned out to be any different than if he'd never proposed in the first place. Adrienne and Sasha still went and did their thing without him. Ben still came over to Berkeley to make Dawn squeal and fix things with me. His relationships with Brandi and Dayna, and Kim and BJ, more or less went unchanged. Ben and Adrienne didn't commit to each other in the same way Ben and I did. For them, getting engaged didn't make a single difference."

Dawn sighed, "Hence his questioning whether or not he should have ever proposed in the first place."

"But the proposal itself is ultimately irrelevant." DJ shook her head. "All we're basically talking about is titles. Strip away the term 'fiancée' and everything is status quo without all the angst about a potentially lost engagement. Sasha and Adrienne can explore a more seriously romantic relationship while Ben remains their 'plus-one'. Everybody gets what they want. Problem solved."

"It's not that simple," Dawn cautioned.

"Hypothetical scenarios aside," Dayna stated firmly, "the reality is that Ben DID propose, Adrienne DID accept, and if they actually break off their marriage engagement, there WILL be a lot of hurt feelings and emotional turmoil."

"But ONLY," Dawn put in, "if Ben and Adrienne actually want to break off the engagement."

"Maybe this is just the wakeup call they need to realize what they're about to lose," Dayna reasoned, "and it becomes the catalyst for repairing their relationship and finally planning out their wedding."

"Only if he still wants Adrienne to be his wife," DJ pointed out.

"Didn't we ALL think that up until last night?" Dayna shot back.

"A lot's happened since last night." DJ shrugged. "I wasn't at Morris Camp with the rest of you; I wasn't there to witness the proposal. And this is the first time I've ever heard anything about Ben not intending to propose in the first place."

"Ultimately, it doesn't matter. DJ's right: whether or not you intended to propose, the two of you walked away from that conversation as an engaged couple," Dawn began, turning to face me directly. "But even THAT doesn't matter. Engaged or not, fiancée title, girlfriend title, or just plain fuck buddies, all that matters now is one question: Do you STILL want Adrienne to be your wife or not?"

Taking a deep breath, I looked my best friend in the eye and shook my head. "I'm not sure."

Dawn's eyebrows went up. "Because you believe she's in love with Sasha? Or does Sasha have nothing to do with it and you're not sure if you want to BE with her, period?"

I frowned and thought about it. Wincing, I gave her a weak smile and said, "Of course I still want to BE with her. And selfishly, I'd love to marry her."

"You're allowed to be selfish," she reminded me.

Shrugging, I took a deep breath and explained, "She's my Number One. I love her to pieces, and I know she loves me, too. I may not have intended to propose at the time, but we DID get engaged. I've spent the past five months as her fiancé, anticipating our future marriage. I've wondered what it would be like to build a home and raise a family together. Even if I haven't done a whole lot over the last five months to get our wedding organized, like Dayna said, we're only 23 and there's no rush to get to the altar. And if Sasha wasn't in the picture, I think Adrienne and I would just take some time to really sit down, talk things through, and figure out together how best to get from here to there on our own timetable."

When I paused to collect myself, Dawn gave me a rueful grin and led me by saying, "But..."

With a sigh, "But this isn't a hypothetical situation where Sasha isn't in the picture. She IS in the picture. And their love for each other isn't just some hypothetical. It's REAL."

Dayna shook her head. "And your love for Adrienne isn't just as real?"

"It is, but at the same time, I think I'm okay with taking a step back. Not just to be the nice guy, but not because I love her any less, either. If anything, I love her so much and believe that SHE loves me so much that we don't necessarily NEED to be married to each other in order to be truly happy together. I mean, I'd love to marry her and have kids together, but at the same time, I already KNOW that we'll be in each other's lives until we're old and decrepit and losing our teeth, whether we're married or not." I paused and smiled at Dawn. "Kinda like with you."

My best friend smiled back at me. "Who says I'm ever losing my teeth?"

Still smiling, I turned to DJ and Dayna, adding, "And you, and you. We're Family, aren't we? Forever."

Dayna chuckled. "Maybe that's why you're not curled up in a fetal position mourning the lost love of your life. It doesn't hurt so much because even if Adrienne ultimately decides she'd rather be with Sasha than you, you know she still wouldn't leave you."

"She wouldn't, would she?" Blinking, I arched an eyebrow, nervous for just a second. "Because if she would, then that would change everything."

Dawn laughed and patted my arm. "I think you're okay, and at the same time, I can understand why you'd be okay with letting her go."

Dayna tapped DJ's knee and also shot a look over at Dawn. "That's because it's the same decision both of you had to make in letting him go."

DJ blushed and nodded. "We're Family. Forever."

There were smiles and nods all around. Dawn wrapped her arm around my back and hugged me, Dayna hugged me from the other side, and even DJ got up to join the group hug. For now at least, I believed that even if Adrienne and Sasha decided to pursue a romantic relationship with each other away from me, I'd still be alright.

And it was Dayna who chimed in, saying, "Thing is, we don't actually KNOW how the two of them are going to react to all this. For all we know, both of them will come home saying the whole thing is ridiculous and that Adrienne still wants to marry you."

Taking a deep breath, I nodded my head and smiled. "I hope so. I really do."

Dawn hugged me again. "For all you know, they're in your apartment waiting for you right now."

I grinned. "Wouldn't that be nice?"

-- TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2007 --

I awoke with my usual morning hard-on. My eyes were still closed, but I felt my lover's presence against my chest, and a wave of blissful contentment spread across my body.

The December morning air was cold against my right cheek, the pillow reassuringly warm against my left. I snuggled deeper into the covers and their cocooning heat while pressing my chest against her back, covered only by a thin layer of cotton. As my senses came alive, the fingers of my left hand reflexively squeezed the large breast I was currently palming as my left arm snaked beneath her pillow to hold her from the opposite side. My right hand firmed up over her hip, gently holding her in place while I reflexively ground my erection into her panty-covered ass.

Just another morning, much like any other. Only rarely did I sleep alone, and on those mornings when I didn't jerk awake while shoving my cock an inch into a girl's throat, I frequently found myself in this very same spooned position. It felt comfortable. It felt familiar. It felt like ... home.

When I cracked my eyelids open, I smiled to find sunny blonde hair filling my field of vision. Weary and not yet fully awake, I let my eyelids droop shut again and squeezed my lover just a little tighter in a hug of affection. But the pleasant sentiment soon gave way to primal lust, as fond memories of the many, many times we had made morning love percolated in my brain. So breathing deeply, I let my head roll forward to push my nose into her hair, smelling her sweet fragrance. And I exhaled softly as my body warmed up to make my erotic dreams into reality.

Moving slowly, I kept my touch as light as possible while still grazing across her skin. She stirred slightly, but did not awaken as my left hand continued to fondle her nipple while my right hand slid into the back of her panties, down her butt cheek and into the gap between her legs. Her right leg was bent forward, giving me a clear path to her crotch from behind. Still with an infinitely gentle touch, the pad of my middle finger glided up through the furrow of her closed labia, pressing just slightly to part them until I found the harder nub of her love button.

We had not made love last night. Despite finding myself alone in an apartment with all three Evans sisters once again, sex was the last thing on my mind. Dawn's comment that the girls might very well be waiting for me upstairs spurred us all to ride up the elevator then and there. But of course, Adrienne and Sasha hadn't come home.

Still, with everyone in one place it only made sense to have dinner together, and afterwards Dawn and DJ went back to Berkeley. I hadn't planned on coming back down to Dayna's place, but after BJ went to bed, I found myself staring at the empty spaces where my fiancée and girlfriend should have been but weren't. So I'd returned with Dayna back down to her place and we'd fallen asleep together in her room. We didn't even fuck. With the knowledge that Adrienne and Sasha were out there somewhere, still not coming home, I simply wasn't in the mood.

But that was last night. This morning, my semi-conscious mind wasn't thinking about an absent fiancée or her lesbian girlfriend. In a way, my semi-conscious mind had completely forgotten I even HAD a fiancée or another girlfriend. All my semi-conscious mind cared about was the half-naked presence of my current girlfriend spooned up in front of me, panting softly in her sleep as my finger continued to manipulate her swollen clit. The truth was, I hadn't ejaculated since Sunday, two days ago, and Big Ben was raring to rock 'n' roll.

Not that I'd just open her up and shove it in; I was a more considerate lover than that. With a few more swipes of my fingertip over her clit and a few delicate squeezes of her nipple, Dayna began to lubricate. Her pussy lips opened up like petals of the sweetest flower imaginable, secreting their honey which I coated upon my finger tip. Probing more firmly now, my finger glided back up through her cleft, buzzing over her hot button. I fondled it, making love to that little bundle of nerves with my fingertip until my frictionless gliding began to lose lubrication. I then returned my fingertip to her honey pot, dipping into it with carefully restrained force. And thus recoated with fresh nectar, my finger rose to once again make love to her sensitive clit.

I kept this up for a good three or four minutes. Dayna nearly woke once, her soft pants hitching into a startled gasp. But within seconds, she hummed and calmed down, squirming her thighs together as she obviously dreamed a pleasant dream. And I returned to my carefully-plotted task.

In the end, Dayna's pussy was on fire. Her flower petals were parted wide open and wet with her arousal. There was a fine layer of sweat now covering her skin beneath the covers, and as my finger swiped up and down through her cleft, she trembled in anticipation.

I shifted my hips until my banana-bent erection was neatly enfolded by her asscheeks. Sliding myself further down, I felt my cockhead travel through her butt crack, lower and lower until there was suddenly room in front of it. Pivoting my pelvis and pulling aside the strap of her panties, I nudged the mushroom tip forward and slid myself back up the bed. And as her moist warmth surrounded me, I smoothly pushed myself inside.

Dayna gasped as she suddenly came awake. By then, she was already about three-inches full of dick, and helpless to stop the last five from pushing in as well. She moaned and pushed her ass back against my pelvis as I reached around her hip with my still wet fingertips and resumed rubbing her clit. And within three strokes of me pumping my hard cock in and out of her body, she stiffened up and came.

"Oh, fuck," she swore, tucking her chin down against her chest and curling her body inward as her abs clenched over and over again. She bucked her bubble butt back against me, driving her ass to meet my forward thrusts. And through clenched teeth, she grimaced and grunted as she rode out the rest of her morning climax.

"Morning, sweetheart," I mumbled while pulling the wide-scooped neckline of her pajama shirt down over the edge of her shoulder and kissing the bare skin beneath.

"Ohhh, Bennn..." Dayna moaned dreamily as she came down from her orgasmic high, her body going limp before me. "I love it when you do this to me. Such a niiice dick..."

"Such a niiice pussy," I murmured right back, and I truly meant it. She had a niiice pussy. It wasn't as tight as Kim's, nor did she quite possess Adrienne's inner muscle control. I couldn't feel her heartbeat like I did with DJ, and she didn't have Brandi's naughty sister factor. She couldn't match the eternal sibling bond I felt with Brooke, nor could she flip on a dime from buttoned-up modesty to sexpot depravity like Sasha. And of course, she didn't share the soulmate link I felt with Dawn. But she had a niiice pussy, with the perfect dimensions, tightness, texture, and ... umm ... viscosity ... for Big Ben.

Only my third lover ever, Dayna was the first to fuck me like an equal; Keira had been my teacher and Dawn my virginal student when we'd gotten started. Dayna had also been the one to introduce me to anal and tit-fucking that fateful summer back at camp, getting my "firsts" for both. I'd told her she had a "niiice" pussy that first time we'd ever had sex, and even now she was still a perfect fit.

Tightening my hand-grip on her big, round left boob, I squeezed the melon while kissing my way up her shoulder and around the back of her neck. Gripping her right hip with my other hand, I kept her body in position for me to slowly withdraw myself until just the cockhead remained trapped within her clenching cunt, and then I smoothly pushed my way back inside.

And then out.

And then back in.

"Mmm..." my sweetheart hummed happily, closing her eyes to concentrate on the feeling of my prick pistoning deep within her pussy. After another minute, she opened her eyes and glanced back at me, brilliant blue eyes smiling of their own accord as she stared adoringly into mine.

I craned my neck forward enough to peck her lips without pausing my pumping prick. I did switch boobs with my left hand, scooping my arm a little deeper beneath her pillow so that I could reach her right Double-D-cup breast instead. But after another minute of long-dicking her from behind, I withdrew my arm and levered myself up so that I loomed over my girlfriend in more of a push-up position, although I straddled her straightened left leg and continued thrusting in and out of her pussy from the rear while she lay on her left side instead of a more traditional missionary style.

Folding her left arm beneath her head like a pillow, Dayna extended her right arm across the mattress to the side so that her chest rotated down toward the mattress. Moaning in ecstasy, she absorbed my repeated pounding of her pussy and gasped at the exceptionally deep penetration I could get at this angle. After another couple of minutes, I could see her breathing rate increase as she approached a second orgasm, so I reached down with my right hand to find and strum her clit again to help my girlfriend along.

"Oh, baby ... oh, baby ... oh, baby..." my buxom blonde bombshell chanted. "I'm gonna cum!"

"Cum, sweetheart, cum!" I urged. Abruptly, I grabbed her right leg and yanked it across the front of my body, rolling Dayna onto her back. Hooking it over my left shoulder kept her legs spread wide and her crotch still semi-sideways to allow me to maintain my angled depth. I could no longer reach her clit with my fingers in this position, but I could still rub it with my right thumb. And at the same time, I put all my weight forward so that I could curl myself over and latch onto a swollen nipple with my mouth, sucking hard on her teat even while putting every ounce of energy I could into my ab muscles to continue my in-and-out pounding of her pussy.

I had Dayna pinned beneath me, her right knee jamming into her own right shoulder while her left leg was extended down the bed. A less flexible woman might find the position extremely painful, but for Dayna being this stretched out and still having her pussy pounded while her nipples got sucked was nothing but erotically exhilarating. She shrieked in my ear, screaming her pretty little head off that she was cumming over and over again. And after three more violent in and out thrusts, I slammed forward one final time and joined her in climactic release.

"AAARRRRRRGHHH!" I roared, holding myself at full depth as my cockhead burst open and began hosing down the insides of my girlfriend's womb. Wave after wave of creamy jism raced through my urethra and splattered with great force against her clenching inner walls.

Those clenching inner walls milked me for all I was worth, Dayna's orgasmic spasms massaging my invading shaft as if to coax out every last drop of spunk I could possibly give her. She continued screaming even after I squeezed out those last drops, even after my body went limp in the aftermath of my exertion. But when I slumped forward and brought all my weight down on top of her chest, her lungs finally gave out and her deafening shriek in my ear died away.

Only then did she manage to slip her right leg off my left shoulder. Keeping Big Ben deep inside her loins, my girlfriend cooed into my ear and wrapped all four limbs around my spent body, holding my weight down on top of her chest. Together, we panted for breath, enjoying the blissful aftermath of our lovemaking for as long as it would last. But the feelings of serenity could only remain for so long before full consciousness flooded my brain and brought with it the memories of all that had come to pass.

I'd now been out of contact with Adrienne and Sasha for nearly two days. Phone calls were sent to voicemail. Texts were only returned by Sasha, and those never said anything more than 'Adrienne needs more time' or some other variant thereof. She replied often enough to let me know that the two of them were alive and well. She told me they were staying under an assumed name in a hotel nearby, though she wouldn't tell me which one. And I gathered that their situation was emotionally stable enough for Sasha to have gone to work yesterday none the worse for wear.

But they weren't coming home. Not yet. Not until they'd figured out what they wanted to say to me. I'd discussed the situation with Kim both Sunday night and yesterday. I'd poured out my feelings, doubts, and desires with the Evans sisters last night. But while talking things out with friends and family who truly cared about me helped me wrap my head around my own thoughts of the situation, nothing would be resolved until I could actually talk to Adrienne and Sasha again. And as long as they continued to avoid me, there wasn't a whole lot I could do.

In the meantime, I had a job to do and a life to live. Neither Kim nor BJ was going anywhere, and my toddler son had no concept of the turmoil going on in his Daddy's life. He wanted to play with me as much as ever, if not more. And if there was a silver lining in not having Adrienne or Sasha around to suck up my time, it was that their absence left me with more hours in the day to spend with him.

And more time, quite frankly, to spend with my other girlfriend: the one I currently held in my arms, the one who hadn't walked away.

"Thank you," I said softly, bending down to tenderly kiss her on the lips. "Thank you for being here for me."

Still awash in the post-coital afterglow, Dayna beamed up at me with bright eyes and a happy smile. "Glad to be here for you," she replied warmly.

Dayna. My Sweetheart. Through all the years we'd known each other, she and I had always been on good terms. No major fights. No prolonged periods of estrangement. Dependable, fun-loving, easy-going Dayna. She'd always looked out for me in her surrogate big sister way. We'd always been good lovers with a comfortable bond, with none of the drama or angst I'd gone through with the other girls around me. Still buried inside her, the feel of her perfect pussy around my shaft felt comfortable, familiar ... it felt like home. And I realized that being like this ... being with her ... felt like home, too.

Inside my girlfriend.

Inside my sweetheart.

I sighed and got my elbows underneath me to support my own weight and take some pressure off Dayna's chest. Even so, her breasts were pretty big and smashed between us, so she had to still be feeling my weight. But she didn't complain and instead smiled up at me expectantly, recognizing that I wanted to say something.

Taking a deep breath, I began, "Thank you for being here for me."

Giggling musically, the beautiful blonde beneath me smiled warmly and replied, "You said that already, but I'm still glad to be here for you."

I smiled back just as warmly. "I don't know yet what's going to happen between me, Adrienne, and Sasha. For the most part I hope that we sort out our true feelings for each other, and that doing so leads the three of us to staying together."

Blinking, Dayna looked up at me and asked, "Staying together as an engaged couple and your joint girlfriend? Is that what you really want?"

"Of course. Any man would love to be Adrienne's fiancé while dating Sasha on the side. Besides, I owe it to Adrienne to do everything I can to stay engaged – after all, I'm the one who ultimately asked her to marry me, and I don't like the idea of being the one to back out of it. But if she wants to be free and pursue this relationship with Sasha, I have to let her go."

Dayna frowned and focused her gaze on my chin for a moment, looking unsure how to respond to that.

"But I didn't actually want to talk to you about Adrienne and Sasha right now," I continued, lowering my face until I got her attention back up on me. "I wanted to talk about us."

She blinked again. "What about 'us'?"

"I haven't forgotten that you're my girlfriend, too. In fact, you're the ONLY girlfriend who hasn't walked out on me in the last two days."

Dayna gave me a coy smile and replied, "We both know I'm not your ONLY girlfriend left. Title or not, Dawn and DJ are just as much your girlfriends as I am, and I'm not even going to start on what Kim means to you."

I shook my head. "Kim doesn't count for what I'm talking about, and you're wrong about Dawn and DJ. Dawn's my best friend, and we're leaving it at that. And DJ's not my girlfriend, de facto or otherwise. You don't see me going out of my way to go on dates with her or spend extra quality time with her the way I do with you."

"Only because you haven't asked her yet. If you did ask her to become an official girlfriend just like me, she'd say 'yes' in a heartbeat."

I sighed. "I know. She told me that herself last week."

Dayna gave me an amused look. "Well there you go."

"Whatever. I'm not talking about DJ right now. I'm talking about you, and I want to make sure you know you haven't been lost in the shuffle here. I care about you, I care about this relationship, and I want you to understand I don't take it lightly."

She leaned up and pecked me on the nose. At the same time, she squeezed her pussy muscles around my half-hard cock still inside her. "Thank you. I appreciate it."

I sighed. "And the simple fact is: this whole thing with Adrienne and Sasha could go sideways. If it does, at the end of the day you'd be my ONLY girlfriend left."

Dayna blinked twice, her expression saying she hadn't thought of that before. "Huh..."

"If Adrienne and Sasha take themselves out of the picture, then it'd just be you and me." Leaning forward, I nuzzled her nose with mine and murmured playfully, "Heck, this might be your big chance to keep me forever."

Dayna's hands on my upper arms suddenly went from holding them to pushing them. I quickly found my half-hard penis dislodged from her pussy, and then she was rolling me off her body one way while she turned the other.

"Hey, wait," I sputtered in surprise, gathering my balance on my right knee and sitting upright on my heels.

Dayna had turned her back to me, swinging her legs off the edge of the bed and perching her heels on the bed frame. She tugged down her sleep shirt, which had gotten bunched up around her neck during our lovemaking, covering up her naked back and blocking my side view of her breasts. She stared at the window in front of her, or at least the opaque curtains that had been pulled across it, furrowing her eyebrows with her mouth etched into a deep frown.

"Was it something I said?"

Taking a deep breath, Dayna shot me a hurt look and muttered, "Please don't fuck with me."

I blinked in surprise. "I'm not trying to fuck with you."

Shaking her head, she gave me another glance before facing forward once more and scowling, "I never WANTED to keep you forever, not seriously. I mean, of course I've thought about it a few times, and even perhaps fantasized about marrying you and uniting our two families and making my mom super-duper happy with ME for being the one to finally land you, but ... no. Just... no."

"I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to imply ... I didn't mean--"

"I don't actually want to marry you," she interrupted. "I've said it before: any girl who wants to be with you has to understand that she'll never be your one and only. You're ALWAYS going to be spread thin. And I decided for myself a long time ago that any man I chose to marry would HAVE to be focused on ME. I'm egocentric like that. Not big on sharing my toys. Kinda like you."

I frowned. "I'm not--"

"Please. You're possessive about your women, and that's fine. I get it. I even had my own collection of boy toys in college. But I'm not possessive about you, because you've always been YOU. You could never be the husband I always dreamed of. You're a great friend. You're the awesome little brother I never had, with all the fun and of course the amazing sex and none of the little sister drama I've had to deal with Dawn and DJ. I mean, you have a TON of drama around you at all times, but it's usually the kind of drama I can sit back and observe from a distance without becoming involved in it myself. I never wanted that kind of drama with you and me."

I frowned. "Are you saying you DON'T want to be my girlfriend?"

"Of course I WANT to be your girlfriend. It's just that..." She sighed and gave me a helpless shrug. "C'mon, Ben, we've talked about this. I enjoy being 'a' girlfriend, not 'the' girlfriend. Having official status with you and going on occasional dates and bonding in harem sisterhood with all these other amazingly beautiful, amazingly sexy girls who really know how to please another woman ... I LOVE it. It's FUN. But I never planned on 'forever'."

"I didn't ask you to."

"You just SAID this was my big chance to keep you forever."

"I said it MIGHT be, and even that was meant as a joke. At a time like this, I wasn't being serious about you and me falling head over heels in love and becoming each other's soulmate for the rest of our lives."

Dayna snorted and shook her head. "And that's just it, you weren't serious. You could NEVER have the depth of feelings for me that you've had for Dawn or DJ, so why would I ever stop to genuinely think you might? Don't fuck with me. Don't say things like that and give me false hopes when we both know it could never be like that. You could never love me like you loved them."

I frowned. "Now wait a minute. Are you saying that you--?"

"I'm SAYING that I would never be so naïve as to indulge in that kind of girlish fantasy," she interrupted. "And I'm SAYING I'd appreciate it if you didn't joke around about stuff like that, alright?"

"Alright, alright." I held my hands up defensively, realizing just how thin the ice was beneath me.

Standing up from the bed, Dayna sighed and stomped toward her closet. It was still a weekday and we both needed to get dressed and ready for work. "You're my rebound, my cushion after breaking up with Kevin. You and I started fucking because we were friends, because you were an elevator ride away, and because we knew these overly complicated feelings would never get in the way. I was happy with our friends-with-benefits relationship; you didn't HAVE to make me an official girlfriend."

I frowned. "Don't you LIKE being an 'official' girlfriend?"

"I DO! But only because I know you already have Adrienne and Sasha as your REAL girlfriends. Becoming 'official' never made me official. It doesn't even make us 'public'. I don't go around telling my friends I'm dating you. I don't bring you along as my plus-one to company dinner functions. Being 'official' just gets my mom off my back about dating, it makes me feel less guilty about taking your time away from your real girlfriends, and it gives me the right to commandeer a section of your closet. 'Official' formalizes our relationship within The Family, but it doesn't make me REAL."

"So what are you saying? You don't really consider yourself my girlfriend?"

"Not like Adrienne. Not like Sasha. I'm a micro-step up from your relationship with DJ, who's still in the booty call zone and still has our mom nagging her about finding a serious boyfriend. You and I talked just last week about just enjoying things the way they are for as long as it lasts. But I already told you that I'm a wild filly not looking to be tamed. Even if I could be tamed, I'm sorry, but you wouldn't be the one to do it. There's some other Mr. Right out there for me – maybe even more than one – and when I meet him (or them), you and I will go back to being 'just friends'."

I frowned, hearing echoes of Brandi. "You want to go looking for your Mr. Right?"

Rolling her eyes, Dayna shook her head. "No, of course not. I would've told you if I did. The absolute LAST thing I want right now is to get into another committed, serious relationship." She whipped the sleep shirt over her head, briefly baring her amazing bosom to my gaze. But she promptly turned around to fish a bra out from her dresser drawer, and she kept her back to me while pulling it on and fastening it. A white spaghetti-strap camisole went on next.

"Okay..." I sighed in relief. "For a minute there, I thought you were about to start breaking up with me."

Exhaling slowly, Dayna turned around while shrugging herself into a white button-down blouse with narrow blue and green vertical stripes, typical business attire. Pursing her lips, she gave me a resigned look as she said, "Actually, I think I am."

I frowned. "Excuse me?"

"I told you last week I had no designs on marrying you, nor any expectations of staying with you forever. I told you I was prepared to start thinking about the rest of my life and figuring out my exit strategy. And especially now that Brandi has separated herself from you, now that she and I have had our own long talks about this sort of thing, well ... maybe that time has come."

I blinked twice in shock. "You're breaking up with me NOW? Right when I might be losing Adrienne and Sasha as well?"

Dayna sighed as she buttoned up her blouse. "I won't abandon you, but you know I'm a girlfriend in name only. If keeping me with an official girlfriend title makes you feel better and keeps you from feeling all alone, then sure, I can do that for you and stay 'official'. But you and I have to be honest with each other about where we stand and what our true feelings are for each other. And I don't think pretending that you and I are anything more serious than we really are would be the right thing to do."

"So you're NOT staying my official girlfriend, unless I ask you to just for the sake of me feeling less abandoned and alone."

Dayna grimaced but nodded her head. "I'm not trying to kick a man while he's down or anything like that, but look at your situation with the others: If Adrienne and Sasha stay with you, then you'll need to focus more of your attention and quality time on THEM, not me. It would be better for your relationships with them for me to step aside. And if they LEAVE you, you don't want to pour false hopes of a 'forever' future into ME. I'm not the one for you to be with for the rest of our lives. I'm the 'fun' girlfriend, the friend-with-benefits, the horny older sister-type, and it's best for us to be in an add-on relationship when everything else is going WELL. But when everything is falling apart, when things get serious and you need REAL support, I think I can better do that for you as a big sister, and not as a pretend girlfriend."

"So you're breaking up with me."

"I'll love you forever, Ben. I will ALWAYS be here for you, and I will NOT abandon you, no matter what. I'm just saying that you'll have to decide if a 'girlfriend' title is really worth that much to you or not."

Shaking my head, I sighed, "A title? It's not."

She gave me an apologetic look and a shrug. "Then I guess yeah ... I'm breaking up with you."

My shoulders slumped, and I gave her a forlorn look. "Thought you just said you wouldn't kick a man when he's already down."

Wincing, Dayna ran her right hand over her scalp and through her hair. "I'm sorry. It's just ... We had a good run, didn't we? Maybe it wasn't the longest relationship ever, and maybe it wasn't all that serious, but did you really expect any different from me? C'mon, Ben. You KNOW me – know the kind of girl I am. Don't tell me you had serious thoughts about ME settling down with you in the suburbs and popping out a few kids."

"Of course not." I raised my eyebrows and gave her a curious look. "But I'm sure Kevin did."

Dayna sighed and acknowledged, "Yeah, Kevin did."

"So how did THAT happen? He knew you, knew the kind of girl you are. He knew you better than I do."

Dayna sighed again and shook her head. "Because I let him believe that could be me."

I popped both eyebrows and gave her another curious look. "Kinda like Adrienne's let me believe that could be her?"

Dayna frowned. "Is that really what you think? That Adrienne'll move to the suburbs and pop out a few kids with you?"

"Think, believe ... Maybe just... 'hope'?"

Dayna thought about that and pursed her lips in thought. "This IS Adrienne we're talking about. That girl would do anything to make you happy."

"Even if doing so would make her unhappy?"

"You could never make her unhappy. She's Adrienne. You're you. If I ever loved a man as much as that girl loves YOU? Well ... Huh..." Dayna paused, looking thoughtful. "They always say you'll know you're really in love when you know it, and I realize now that I've never REALLY been in love. Sorry, buddy, not even with you. Because if the day ever comes that I really WOULD move to the suburbs and pop out a few kids for a man ... ME ... the wild filly ... THAT'S when I'll know I'm truly in love."

"The way Adrienne was truly in love with me?"

Dayna nodded, correcting, "The way she truly IS in love with you."

I shook my head. "But even if she is, I don't know if I can do that to her. I truly love her. I do. You once said the absolute LAST thing you want is to let some guy tie you down. Adrienne's a wild filly, not so different from you in that respect. She stays out late drinking and partying with her girlfriends. She flirts with guys AND girls in coffee shops. She loves her city life ... and she loves Sasha..." I took a deep breath and let out a long exhalation. "So what the hell am I doing trying to take that away from her?"

Kim and BJ were already up and about when I walked back into my own apartment. BJ turned from his spot on the floor, flashed me a big smile and exclaimed happily, "Da-da!"

Though my heart still felt heavy, my son's smile buoyed my mood. "Hey, little man," I greeted warmly as I quickly joined him on the living room floor and opened my arms.

BJ quickly crawled over to me, but instead of giving me a hug, he pivoted around and sat in my lap, all of his attention on the airplane in his hands. No matter, I hugged him from behind, enjoying the feel of his small but warm body in my arms.

"What's wrong?" Kim asked out of the blue.

I looked up in surprise. "Huh?"

Kim's eyebrows were furrowed as she scrutinized me. "What happened? Something with Dayna?"

"What makes you think something's wrong?"

She gestured at me and BJ. "Everything."

I rolled my eyes. "What? I can't hug my son when I see him first thing in the morning?"

"What's wrong?" she repeated insistently.

I sighed and hugged BJ a little tighter. If me hugging my son first thing in the morning seems unusual to her, I really DO need to do better with him. But in the meantime, Kim's question still hung in the air.

"Might as well save you the trouble of interrogating the others," I muttered. "Dayna broke up with me."

Kim didn't look surprised, but she looked annoyed as she immediately took a deep breath and folded her arms over her chest. Shaking her head, she covered her mouth with her right hand and looked thoughtful for a moment. I could practically hear her brain humming inside her head.

Eventually, though, Kim shook her head again and came over to join me and BJ on the floor. She reached out and stroked my upper arm, saying apologetically, "I'm sorry. I never wanted this to happen."

I sighed wearily and shrugged in resignation. "It's okay. It was inevitable. Dayna and I were never gonna last forever."

She took a deep breath and nodded, "True enough, but the timing still has to hurt. On the other hand, she's one less distraction so you can focus more on Sasha and Adrienne."

I snorted. "Assuming they ever come home."

Kim frowned. "Why wouldn't they come home?"

"You know ... this whole break-up thing."

Her frown deepened. "What break-up thing?"

I gave her a puzzled look. "Have you NOT been paying attention? You didn't notice the way Adrienne and Sasha haven't been around here the last two days?"

"I noticed that the girls are taking some time away to think about the situation. But I'm much more curious about why you're talking like you've already broken up. You haven't actually broken up yet, have you?"

"Well, no..."

"Did she give you the engagement ring back?"

"Well, no..."

"Then why are you acting like a break-up is a foregone conclusion?"

I sighed. "I'm just ... I'm mentally preparing myself for the possibility."

"Do you want to break up with them?"

"What? No, of course not."

"But would you fight it if THEY wanted to break up with you?"

I grimaced, and my shoulders slumped. "I want them to be happy."

"That's not an answer."

"Why would I fight them if that's what they want?"

"Why WOULDN'T you fight for the love of your life?"

"I'm not saying this right."

"No, you're not." Kim shook her head and gave me a disapproving glare. "You're LOSING them. Doesn't that bother you?"

"What do you want me to do? Call up every hotel in the city guessing what assumed name they're under? Stand against a streetlight post outside Sasha's office wearing a trench coat while pretending to read a newspaper, wait for her to walk out after work, and follow her to whatever hotel they're staying at?"

Kim thought that over. "Well, it might work..."

"Seriously?"

Kim's eyebrows went up. "Precisely. How serious are you about this relationship? How badly do you want to make it work?"

My shoulders slumped. "I love her. I love them both. But if they'd rather be with each other than with me ... I value THEIR happiness."

"Over your own? Don't answer that. Stupid question. Obvious answer." Kim sighed. Raising her right hand to her forehead, she rubbed it and muttered, "I never meant for things to turn out like this. I should have known June wouldn't know any better than to tell you what I thought."

"June?" I frowned. "Why shouldn't she have told me? If I was screwing up, better that I know, right?"

Kim shook her head. "I had a plan for getting you to come to this realization on your own, remember? Get you to adjust your priorities slowly and sort of steer you back into place gradually. Instead, you went into full-blown fix-it mode, confronting the girls directly and saying 'Hey, there's a problem' instead of simply modifying your behavior so that any corrections happened naturally."

I blinked twice. "You're saying I made things worse?"

Kim grimaced. "I wanted you to address the lack of quality time with Sasha and Adrienne. I wanted you to take action to improve the intimacy of your relationships..."

"But I made things WORSE." I picked up BJ, set him down on the floor in front of me, and stood up as the realizations hit me like a ton of bricks. Taking Brandi out on a date and making her see what I could never truly give her. Confronting Adrienne and Sasha with our lack of quality time together, not only MY lack of making them a priority, but THEIR lack of prioritizing ME. And finally not respecting my relationship with Dayna for what it was. I paced out of the living room, shaking my head as I groaned in defeat, "I'm making things WORSE."

Kim winced silently.

I shot a dirty look back at her. "And now you want me to make things even more worse by trailing Sasha from work to her hotel and confronting them again?"

"No, not at all," she answered with a scowl. "I would have stopped you from actually DOING something so ... blunt. But I did want to know how badly you want to make this right. And unfortunately, it doesn't seem like you want to very much at all."

"I want to do what's right for them. And if that means letting them be together and the loss of my engagement to Adrienne ... so be it."

Shaking her head, Kim's scowl deepened. "I love you, but you're a fuckin' idiot."

Abruptly, I covered BJ's ears and arched an eyebrow at my baby mama. "Kimiko... language."

Kim rolled her eyes in frustration, stood up, and stalked away.

Things had been quiet at work for the past couple of days. Business always slowed down around the holidays, with so many high-level executives of our target companies out of the office and not in the mood to discuss mergers and acquisitions. Sure, there were a couple of foundering companies, deep in the red and staring down the end of the calendar year, who would be prime pickings for a company like JKE to swoop in and bail them out or buy them outright. But overall, mid-to-late December was a time to burn off unused vacation days and to clean up a year's worth of clutter around our desks.

June never came out and asked me how things were going in my personal life. She'd never been one to pry, nor even really care to listen when I chose to volunteer information about my romantic entanglements. "Doonnn't want to hear it" had been a frequent phrase. Still, I knew that she was at least aware of most everything that went on concerning my multiple girlfriends and me, and I was pretty sure Kim had informed her of the developing situation. But June avoided the subject entirely and limited her discussions with me to business topics and business topics alone.

We'd gone through the motions both yesterday and today, today even worse than yesterday, and if June noticed my increasingly morose behavior, she didn't comment on it. In fact, the only time she said anything even tangentially related to my current relationships was at the end of the day, just before we left the office, when she asked, "Will you still be attending the Holiday Party tomorrow night?"

I blinked in surprise and gave her a confused look.

"I only ask because I wasn't entirely sure about attending myself." June blushed and stared at her feet for a moment. "If you're not going, then I don't think it would be a good idea for me to go, either."

"Of course you should go," I told her. "It's a big deal for the company. Everyone schmoozing and networking ... Attending a social function like this is important for your career."

June pursed her lips. "We both know I don't do very well with social scenes. It would be one thing if I could tag along with you, but if you're not attending I don't think I'd feel comfortable there."

I sighed. "Well I WAS going to go. But now... ?"

"Hence my question. Kim told me you haven't spoken with Adrienne in the past two days."

I shook my head. "I haven't. But..." My voice trailed off as I paused to collect myself. And then standing up straight, I nodded firmly and continued, "You know what? Don't worry about it. I'll definitely be there tomorrow night. So you should come too."

June blinked. "Even without Adrienne? You already know half the company is anxiously waiting to see her there. She certainly gets a kick out of all your co-workers being jealous of you for dating her."

I rolled my eyes. "She's a busy supermodel. I can make up some excuse for her absence."

June frowned. "But it would be so unlike her to not be by your side for something like this. As you pointed out, this is a big social function for the company, a significant networking event that's important for your career."

I nodded. "Another reason why I need to attend, with or without her."

"Perhaps you should ask Dayna to be your date," June suggested. "She's not a famous supermodel, but she's certainly pretty enough to maintain your reputation and attract the attention of some of the VPs you might want to network with."

The idea had merit, but I frowned and furrowed my eyebrows. Had June suggested asking Dayna yesterday, I would have jumped on the idea in a heartbeat. But after this morning's breakup, it just didn't feel right, even if she'd promised to not abandon me during this rough time in my life.

Shaking my head, I replied, "No, not Dayna. Long story you probably don't want to hear about, but I have an idea of someone else I can ask. Then again, maybe you and I should just go together."

June made a face. "Don't even think about it. Tagging along with you and whichever gorgeous girlfriend you bring as your date is one thing – I can be more or less invisible that way while still putting in my mandatory appearance – but there's no way I want the scrutiny of being the one and only woman by your side when everyone else is expecting to see Adrienne. Those would be very big ... boobs ... to fill."

I chuckled and shook my head. "Fair enough."