Chapter 0291

“Or...four?” Fay says excitedly, smiling at Daniel with an eager expression.

Daniel gapes at Fay, his eyes darting between her and his father.

“Oh, he knows you have a boyfriend,” Fay says, rolling her eyes. “You should bring him!”

Daniel goes a little pale then, realizing that this post-Natalia era was one in which all of their secrets were apparently going to be

laid bare.

“You should,” Kent says evenly, looking seriously at his son. “If there’s someone who is...important to you, who you'd like to

introduce to me...you should bring them.”

Wary, Daniel takes a deep breath, not sure how he feels about this. “All right,” he says slowly. “I'll...think about it.”

“And I'll go to the barn!” Fay declares, grinning and standing on her tiptoes to give Kent another kiss before heading for the door.

“Jerome will take me. See you tonight!”

Daniel makes some excuse, heading out on Fay’s heels, but Kent barely hears his son as he watches Fay go. Because he is

very, very excited for this new era.

Good things, he knows, are just around the corner for all of them.

I chatter almost unceasingly to Jerome in the car, telling him all about the absence of the Italians and begging him to consider

coming to the little family party tonight. He refuses immediately, letting me know that Kent is going to cut his head off when he

finds out that its him — a low-level Mafia lackey — dating Daniel, and not some lIvy-league rich boy like Daniel should be dating.

As we move into the stable and the riding ring I protest, arguing that it’s not going to be like that — that Kent was, after all, very

accepting of Daniel being gay despite all of the ideas everyone has long had about what happens to gay men in Mafia families.

So why would he care at all who Daniel is dating?

The debate continues in snatched conversation as I put Heathcliff through his paces and Jerome rides behind me on his own

borrowed steed, a pretty white mare named Butterfly. But after about an hour of it, when the horses are happily exercised and

Jerome and I still haven’t come to an agreement, we both laugh and decide to move on from it all.

“I hope you'll come,” I murmur to Jerome, knocking my shoulder playfully against his arm as we lead the horses back into the

stables. “I like you. I like you and Daniel. Kent will like you too.”

“Kent does like me,” he sighs, “as the guy who reliably chases down the people who owe him money and as his girlfriend's

chauffer. As the guy sneaking into his son’s bedroom?” Jerome just shakes his head at me, still not convinced.

I laugh again, opening my mouth to object, but I turn away when I hear a banging from a stall at the other side of the stable.

Butterfly lifts her head then and nickers loudly towards it.

“What's that?” I ask as I turn Heathcliff into his stall.

“No big deal,” Jerome replies as he starts to move away. “Our sweet Butterfly is in heat,” he tells me over his shoulder as he

leads her to her own stall across the aisle. “The stallion at the end of the row is...unsettled by it.”

“Oh,” I say curiously as I tie

Heathcliff's lead rope to the little ring

on the wall and start to unhook hj

saddle. Then, ipytetiésabele on

the daak aid start to brush my horse,

I let my mind start to wander. How

often do mares even go into heat?

And I didn’t notice any physical sign

of it from Butterfly - do horses

just...not get their periods? Please

read the original content at

.

And quite suddenly, as I think it, I realize something.

And I go absolutely perfectly still as my mind races.

Quickly, desperately, I flick through

my mental calendar, yiRg col"

evehy

remember when the last time I...

Please read the original content at

.

And then my hands begin to shake,

just a little bit, ag oats towitat ny

sfomabhiihtrorror. Please read the

original content at .

Because as far as I can remember?

It's been about...six weeks since I last had my own period.