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Nora held her head higher above the multi-coloured horizon, a loud laugh escaping her lips something Alex said. He was curled up against Henry’s side, eyes glazed from the red cup in his hand, staring at Henry’s adam’s apple, watching it move as he laughed. Goosebumps rose slightly on Nora’s skin as the cool breeze of the evening brushed over the rooftop, a small flat part of the White House that Ale and June had directed them to.
“In my defense, I didn’t actually know that being a performer in the Superbowl was a huge deal. I barely knew what the Superbowl was!” Henry exclaimed, making Alex giggle raucously into his neck, mouth a mirthful crevasse on his face. Nora looked at June, shaking her head slightly, and was taken aback.
It sometimes surprised with how beautiful June was. Tucked up and a little bit drunk as she was, Nora’s heart did a flop in her chest. June, her mouth a lush, pink heart across her face, and laughed while throwing a cracker at Alex’s head, but it hit Henry squarely in the nose, who look bemused, wiping sticky drops of beer off his nose. “Oops. Get a room!”
Alex, looking indignant but with limitless affection, said, “You’re literally sitting on Pez’s lap. Like you’re literally sitting on him,” he said, gesturing at them wildly and mumbling something to Henry, who ran his hand up Alex’s spine and into his hair, mumbling something about “drinking too much” in his boyfriend’s ear. It earned him a bite to the neck, and consequently red cheeks.
Nora rolled her eyes and winked at Pez when he looked at her in a slight question. She leaned over as if to kiss him, but diverted and let him kiss her cheek, making him give an un-dainty noise of protest. It would have been perfect in execution, just the right amount of teasing, happy and one-up-man-ship; except that June chose that moment to press a kiss to Nora’s neck.
Nora was helpless to do anything but tilt her head and kiss her girlfriend smoothly, cupping her jaw.
Alex and Henry made some squawking noises at the blatant hypocrisy, but Pez said something witty and placated them. Nora couldn’t hear him, she was too busy biting June’s lower lip and holding her sharp jaw in both her hands.
When Nora pulled away, she rested her head on Pez’s shoulder, a hand scratching over June’s scalp, soothing her into a puddle in Pez’s lap. Idly, she watched both Alex and June phase into their sleepy-drunk state, a product of being exhausted from a gruelling week of whatever it was they needed to do.
Alex had his eyes closed in the crook of Henry’s neck, a pale hand playing with the curls at the base of his neck. June was curled in the laps of both her partners, Pez’s hand on her hip, Nora’s brushing her hair back. It was quiet, suddenly, Henry, Pez and Nora all staring adoringly at their respective partners.
After a beat, Pez gave a soft noise, rare for someone as loud and verbose as him, and muttered to them, “Our purpose in life is to make the Claremont-Diaz siblings as comfy as possible, and I don’t even resent it.”
Henry and Nora raised their red cups to that, drinking in agreement. Alex was almost asleep in Henry’s lap, and June’s eyes were sliding half-lidded, sleep thick in the air.
“When’s Bea getting here?” Nora asked Henry gently, not wanting to disturb anyone, or more, the blanked of peace settling over the roof.
“Half ten. She couldn’t get out of one last appearance for charity, so she took a later flight.”
Nora smiled fondly and nodded.
“Yeah, and she’s sleeping with the girls while I sleep with you two, so I fully intend to be a voyeur,” he said with a wink and his whip-crack grin, making Nora’s heart do funny things in her chest. Henry threw an empty cup at him, while Pez’s hand slipped around the back of Nora’s neck, rubbing absently.
Their three-way arrangement, while dysfunctional and mostly hidden from the press, was creeping its way up to becoming the best thing in Nora’s life. She had so much love to give, and received it tenfold. She sank into the feeling a little, listening to Pez and Henry bicker about something or another.
June reached out gently and rested her hand on Nora’s wrist, looking at her with raw, unbridled love. “Come to bed. We can catch a nap and wake for Bea,” she said, voice sleepy and slightly slurred. Pez kissed her forehead lovingly, as if he couldn’t help himself. Nora understood the feeling. There was something irresistible about the Claremont-Diaz children.
June lifted Nora’s hand to her lips in quiet question, and Nora nodded, lacing their fingers together and kissing the corner of Pez’s mouth. “Coming?”
He shook his head. “I’ll stay up with the others. I couldn’t join you even if I wanted to.”
She frowned at him, and he gently tapped her nose. “Break the rules for me. For us,” she whispered, teasing and sharp, eyes glinting with challenge. “We love chaos.”
Pez looked tempted, as ever he was intrigued by the dramatics, but gave her a final kiss to her lips, so brief she couldn’t react in time, and shook his head again, looking between the two of them. “You don’t make it easy for me to say no.”
June grinned as she started getting up,leaning on Nora while ruffling Pez’s growing out, bleached hair. “Good. You’re missing out.”
As Nora stood, Pez pressed a kiss to the back of her thigh, making her give a fine shudder. Nora walked away, hand in hand with June, and could hear her boyfriend getting ribbed by her ex boyfriend and his current boyfriend. She took a happy breath. They were weird, their little group; but she loved every minute of it.
--
They had agreed, the next morning, they would meet for breakfast at a place of June and Alex’s recommendation. Nora had never been, it was a place on the way to Texas, their dad’s place. It would be the first time they’d all be together at the lake house, and it made Nora smile brightly.
Oscar had taken a second to adjust that June was now not only dating his son’s ex-girlfriend, but also simultaneously and ethically dating his son’s boyfriend’s best friend. And they were bringing his son’s boyfriend’s sister. But he’d taken it in stride, choosing his kids over anything else, rolling with them and their love.
“Y’all’ve always had big hearts. Doesn’t surprise me it found more than one to love,” he’d said to June while Nora had been sitting on her floor, listening in to the Facetime call. She’d been pretending to work on campaign data, but had spent most of that evening resting her head against June’s thigh where it hung over the edge of the bed. By the end of the night their legs were tangled together, June’s head tucked on her chest, resting peacefully.
Nora often found herself staring out of her apartment window, tending to her succulents and the windowsill chillies growing there, thinking about her beautiful woman sitting on her bed, writing speeches, and her gorgeous man probably in Central Asia helping children.
“Christ,” she whispered, just to herself, in the quiet of June’s bedroom. Sometimes the force of loving them was so powerful her chest gave an achy throb.
But when June sleepily pulled her back to lie down with a happy little noise, Nora knew it’d all work out.