My Men: Men Series, #2

By Andrea Smith

This sequel to "These Men," finds Paige, Eli and Cain trying to add to their family. Unfortunately, they've been trying for several months with no luck. The stork seems to be ignoring them . . . or is he?

 

When an unexpected person shows up on their doorstep, it isn't quite the bundle of joy they've been hoping for, but their lives are about to get even more interesting. Someone from Eli's past is about to play havoc with their summer, and put a crimp in their love lives. Steamy, sexy, and an incredibly complicated scenario is about to play out, that finds Eli caught between a rock and a hard place (pardon the pun).

 

Will Eli do the right thing, or put their relationship at risk?

 

Adult Content 18+

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrea Smith
• Release date: Jun 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201147129

Andrea Smith

Andrea Smith (PhD, University of California) is a professor of ethnic studies at UC Riverside. She is the author of Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely Alliances, Native Americans and the Christian Right, and Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. She is also the coordinator for Evangelicals 4 Justice and a board member for NAIITS, an indigenous learning community. Previously, she served as the coordinator of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians. She lives in Long Beach, California.

Book preview

diamond girl acknowledgements

To all the readers of BEND who loved These Men enough to want a sequel, this one is for you! Enjoy the conclusion of this beautiful love story!

Many thanks to:

Editor: Ashley Blaschak Stout

Formatting: Erik Gevers

Beta Readers

Andrea’s Foot Soldiers

diamond girl prologue

My mistakes have always played a larger role in self-assessment than my successes. Not just in my eyes, but my family’s as well. Maybe that’s why I continue to measure myself using my parents’ perfectly calibrated instrumentation. The calipers that carefully measure their disappointment in me for perceived failures. Their frustration at my nonconformity to their ideals and morals; their thinly veiled displeasure in the choices I’ve made in my life.

But that’s not to say that my primary agenda growing up was to earn their praise and approval, because clearly I made it my mission to behave in ways that assured me of their attention, no matter how negative and punitive that attention turned out to be. I suspected at a young age I had been a surprise addition to the family.

My first clue?

The ten-year age difference between me and my older brother, Trace. Another? The fact that my parents both worked at our winery in Napa and during the harvest season that meant long hours. My early childhood was spent with babysitters, except during the summer when Trace got paid to watch me while school was out. He didn’t try to hide the fact having to drag me along with him seriously cramped his style. But he was the one that took me to my swimming lessons, my ballet lessons, and my piano lessons, none of which I particularly excelled at, nor enjoyed.

Once he joined the military and was out of the house, things didn’t change much. It only became lonelier. And then I reached my teens a few years later and all hell broke loose. Clearly, I became a handful by my own measurements, I don’t deny it. I own it. I made it through college; slept my way through numerous men in an attempt to fill a void for which the etiology escapes me. I mean, my father didn’t give me any less attention than my mother. I don’t know, maybe I simply hoped he would. Daddy’s little girl and all of that.

The truth is, I didn’t have a bad childhood or home life. The proof is Trace; he is a prime example of having grown up in the same household and turning out to be a perfect example of any parents’ wet dream for a son.

Even my other older brother, Easton, well actually he’s a half-brother and as it turns out, no blood relation. But shit, he turned out to be a billionaire. Of course, he was mostly raised in England, but I’ve heard bits and pieces of how dysfunctional his rearage was and still I feel he has the approval from my parents that I never will.

Should I concern myself with it? Am I too concerned with wanting their approval?

Not enough to change what I feel is the best part of my life. That would be my men. And they’ve been mine for over a year now.

These men--my men I should say, have been the best thing that ever happened to me, bar none. For the past year and a half, we’ve been living in a mostly blissful relationship, though I admit, it started off a bit rocky.

But it works for us, because we make it work.

It’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but really, what relationship is? Most relationships are one on one; one guy, one girl, one guy and another guy, one girl and another girl, but we are two guys and one girl. My idea of the perfect sandwich most of the time.

We live together in a mostly loving relationship. Yeah, of course we argue. And sometimes two gang up against one, but it’s not a gender thing at all. It’s simply who the third person happens to agree with on whatever bone of contention is on the table.

My parents don’t pretend to understand my alternative lifestyle, their words, not mine. Their disapproval is worn like a mask whenever I see them or talk to them. And yes, they have met Eli and Cain on several occasions. And though they don’t understand it, they are forced to accept it for what it is because there’s nothing they can do to change it.

At the beginning, they wanted to preach and lecture, but they soon learned that it wasn’t going to do a bit of good because they didn’t know what I knew. This wasn’t a typical ‘got to get attention’ ploy that I was so adept at for most of my life. No, this was different and I knew that as time passed, they would come to realize that as well. Aside from that, it would be pretty difficult for them to interfere being that they live clear across the country. Damn near as far away from Silver Spring, Maryland as anyone in the continental US can be.

So, we’ve worked ourselves into a committed and trigamous (yes, it’s a made up word reflecting our faithful trio!) relationship.

We all have our careers. Cain Maddox is the entrepreneur of our little threesome. He owns a catering business that is quite successful and, at times, I fill in for special events when needed. Cain is dark, sexy, and kind of quiet at first, but it didn’t take long for us to click. Dark brown eyes, thick black hair, and long eyelashes that all work to give him a soulful appearance. That’s how I would describe him, but note that still waters run deep, and none run deeper than Cain's.

Eli Chambers is the golden boy of the group. He absolutely hates it when I refer to him as such, but whatevs. He is golden. Blonde hair, beautiful cornflower blue eyes, and not a secret about him. Eli wears everything out in the open because that’s just who he is. He is outgoing, social, and guaranteed to be the life of the party. He works at the company my older brother, Easton, owns majority share of: Baronton-Sheridan. All I know is that it’s some sort of a government subcontractor of services and software. Eli goes to work in designer business attire and looks fucking fantastic.

I came out to D.C. specifically because I was accepted into the FBI Trainee program in Quantico, Virginia, compliments of my older brother, Trace Taz Matthews. He’s a career FBI agent, and now works in the BAU, which is so cool. I was dubious at first, but it’s all worked out. I work as an admin in Human Resources.

Let me back track just a bit. When I arrived in the D.C. area, I was a twenty-two year old, totally immature, college educated hot mess. I don’t deny it. I clearly got on the nerve of every family member I had, whether it be by blood or by marriage. I think in my own way I was testing my limits; daring someone to call me out on my behavior. To give a shit maybe.

Well, they did, but in different ways.

I was kicked out of Trace and Lindsey’s home for good reason. I had this thing for random hook-ups and, in looking back, I can see just how inappropriate it was, though at the time? Yeah, at the time, you couldn’t tell me anything because I was just that selfish and childish.

Next came Darcy and Easton, my other brother and sister-in-law. They tolerated me a tad longer than Trace and Lindsey, but the fact I was screwing Darcy’s ex (and my commanding officer at Quantico) didn’t sit well with anyone. Though I wasn’t officially kicked out of Matthews Manor, I felt the need to get my own place, but there was no way I could afford to live on my own. My intern pay was shit.

Then I met these two guys at a barbecue at Darcy and Easton’s. I immediately bonded with Cain, and when I realized that he and Eli were a couple--a couple that needed a roomie, I jumped at the chance.

It didn’t take us long to feel like family.

Well, maybe a bit more than family.

If anyone would have ever told me that Paige Erin Matthews would find herself in a love ménage at twenty-two, I would’ve told them they were on crack.

Pardon the pun, but you catch my drift, right?

I knew I was drawn to Cain first, but I felt wrong about that, because you see, I loved them both. Cain had confessed early on while we worked a wedding together that he was bi, but I had no clue that Eli had swung both ways in his younger days. Cain explained that Eli had gotten his very first girlfriend, an exchange student in his high school class, pregnant. She had been hustled right back to Sweden, and Eli’s heart had been broken. He swore off the XX chromosome for that reason, but he had always known he was drawn to both sexes. I suppose he found it easier dealing with guys. Less baggage maybe?

All I know is that when I moved in with these men, I brought a whole helluva lot of baggage, much of it inside me.

But I didn’t fool them for long. And the fact that they cared enough to call me out on it was the icing on the proverbial cake. We worked through some tough stuff but, at the end of the day, we found love. All three of us. And we have evolved rather nicely, despite the fact that my parents will probably never come around with this part of my life, but that’s okay. They have that right. My brothers and sisters-in-law are cool with it. And Eli, Cain, and I