The timing was most likely horrible, but Linda and I had been talking about Beth over the last week. I shared everything with her, including some of the sexual adventures Steve and I had with Beth before Linda moved in next door. Beth knew I was going to talk to Linda and had encouraged me to do so. She wanted to be back in our lives and to be honest, Steve and I missed her.
Linda was sitting at the kitchen table with me and reached out to take my hand. "You know, I'm not the jealous type. I think you both like Beth, and I don't have a problem with you seeing her again. I would love to meet her."
I'll admit I was surprised. "That's a fantastic thing for you to say, Linda, and I love you for it. The truth is that Steve and I have been so into what we have with you that I wasn't considering being with Beth. I knew that the three of us needed to focus on each other. Steve and I keep in touch with her and have told her about you. I hope you aren't upset about that, but you must understand that I trust her completely. She's very happy for us, even though I know she didn't want our sexy fun to end."
Her hand tightened on mine. "Please invite her here. I don't want you or Steve to push people you care about away because of me. Plus, I'm sure that I'll like her too. I want to get to know the people you care about.
"Hell, invite her here during spring break! With that many people around, you can sneak off while they keep each other busy. I'm sure Beth would have a great time. You can always claim the need to get away and get a hotel room for the night."
I squeezed her hand back. "First of all, there will not be an us with her and not you. I will not set you aside while I'm with someone else. You are always my love, and I will not pretend otherwise. You feel me, woman?
"Secondly, she's dying to meet you, and I think you might just have a lot of fun together. So there!"
She smiled in the way she does, and that sent a tingle through me. "So, are you going to give me her number?"
I did, then left her to make the call. An hour later, she joined me by the pool, smiling happily. "She's excited and can't wait to meet me! Now we have to figure out where everybody is sleeping."
I nodded my agreement. "I guess the open issue is whether Rich and Jeff's girlfriends will sleep with them or in a separate room. What does mom think of that?"
Linda chuckled. "Mom thinks whatever works for them works for her. I'd be a bit of a hypocrite if I got all prudish now."
She went back into the house and returned a minute later with the floor plan she'd drawn. Our home sits on an acre of land that's twice as long as it is wide. Our house sits well back from the street. The walkway of pavers from the street to the three steps leading up onto our front porch is rarely used by anyone other than the mail carrier. Outside of the young couple that bought our old house, our nearest neighbors are half a mile away. The driveway next to the house is wide enough to park cars on either side and still access the three-car garage. Most of it is compressed gravel because paving that much area isn't within the budget and may never be. The garage is pole building, clad in cedar, and deep enough to contain a small wood shop and a modest music studio.
The side entrance near the garage feeds into the mudroom, then into the kitchen. The front door is centered on the house and our front porch has two swings because they are awesome. Given its size, the house doesn't have many bedrooms. We moved walls and installed columns and headers to carry the loads so we could convert the old tiny rooms into much larger ones. The result was a two-story house with twenty-five hundred square feet on each floor.
The first floor was dramatically different on the right side (garage side) of the house. The old formal living, dining, and Linda's rooms were now a great room, with plenty of area for entertaining. The flat screen on the wall was massive, and the picture quality was beyond belief. In addition to being a musician, Steve was an audiophile and, over the years, has collected some fantastic sound equipment. Movie nights were fucking awesome.
The staircase to the second floor was in the middle of the house and a focal point when you came in the front door. To the left was a large cloak closet, followed by Jeff and Rich's old bedroom, then the infamous closet, now part of the library. The end of the house was the kitchen and dining area with two sets of French doors leading out onto the patio and pool deck. The staircase sides and back were clad in cherry trim and raised panels. Steve and Linda made every bit of it and integrated CNC carvings, nooks, and a hidden door to the storage space underneath. It was absolutely gorgeous.
The master bedroom on the second floor was at the back of the house and included an ensuite bath. The three of us had quite a lot of fun in that room the night before. Right outside our bedroom on the garage side was a laundry room/utility room, then the second-floor bath, followed by a smaller room that was storage for lack of a better purpose. The other side of the floor contained two bedrooms. The one nearest our room was now Jeff and Rich's room.
I got this onery idea. "How about we put Beth and the other girl in Jeff and Rich's room? We'll put the two guys in the upstairs bedroom and the Twins' girlfriends in their old room. If Jeff and Rich feel strongly that they can't sleep with their girlfriends, we'll put them in that little room upstairs we aren't using."
Linda grinned at me. "You are so bad! You want them sleeping together!"
"Well, duh! I intend to squeeze every ounce of fun I can out of this spring break. Rich and Jeff are coming home; I want it to be amazing. You know as well as I do these girls must be pretty special. You know how the twins feel about us. The last thing they would do is bring home a couple of skanks."
Linda looked a little pensive. "Yeah, as nervous as I am about meeting them, I can't imagine what it will be like for them to meet us. I also can't imagine Josh or Rich bringing them here clueless about our family. They have to have told them something."
I thought about that for a minute. "If they told them something, I'm betting they trust them enough to tell them pretty much everything. Maybe not the details, but the gist of it anyway."
We looked at each other big-eyed for a second, and then the grins broke out. I held up my hands. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We'll see when they get here."
Beth arrived an hour before Steve returned. Lisa and she hit it off immediately like I knew they would. We gave her a house tour, finishing in Jeff and Rich's upstairs bedroom. Linda ran downstairs to grab Beth's bag, and I took the opportunity to grab Beth. I was passionately kissing her when Linda walked back into the room. When our lips parted, we saw Linda smiling at us. Beth smiled sweetly at her. "Would you like a kiss, too? I hope so because I really want to kiss you. Linda bit her lip and nodded. Their kiss was tentative at first but soon became affectionate, borderline sexy. They parted with a look that promised each other there would be more.
Steve had taken the Honda van to pick up our spring breakers. One of the girls had a Nissan Cube that she drove as well. The twins and their girls rode with Steve while the others rode with her. The drive was an hour and a half each way, and I was pleasantly surprised that he got back with his cargo in the early afternoon.
I had figured getting them collected and on the road would be like herding cats. Steve told me that the group was waiting when he arrived, and he had to hold them off long enough to take a bathroom break before leaving the campus. He wasn't sure what the twins had told their friends, but whatever it was, the group was excited.
