AMA Week - 345-349

Hey folks! It's AMA week thanks to our resident Patron Saint. There's going to be a strong of 25-ish chapters released for AMA in a row, and at the end of the releases I'll push them all out in PDF and ePub along with the properly numbered previous releases. This is Release 1 of 5 and it picks up right after the previous release in December that was numbered ALL wrong.

Cheers!

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Chapter 345

“Is she going to cook dinner like that?” Cattie asked me as she smirked, watching Cass trot down the upstairs hallway towards the stairs. My fiancee was still entirely in the buff.

“Honestly, gorgeous, I don’t know,” I chuckled as I slipped my arms around her and hugged her. The fact that we both happened to still be naked as well just made it all the more lovely a feeling. “She’s never been a nudist before, just a teaser.”

“Wear an apron,” Cattie called after Cass, shaking her head and she continued to smirk and lean back into my hug, hugging my arms to her.

“No shit!” Cass called back, already downstairs.

That made us both snort, and I squeezed Cattie a little tighter and kissed her shoulder before releasing her. We headed into the washroom, both of us needing a shower after an hour and a half of fucking all over the house… not to mention the sex on the road, or the sex I’d had with Becca before we left. Even if our shower was officially a ‘No Sex Zone’ due to the slippery floors it could still fit two of us, and being in a hot, enclosed space naked and soapy with Catherine was glorious.

“I love this,” she grinned up at me at one point. She’d been washing my chest, grinning at me because I had a sudsy dollop of bubbles on the tip of my nose. My hands hadn’t been nominally ‘washing’ hips and waist but I was mostly just holding her close.

“It’s pretty fucking great,” I agreed, leaning down to her and giving her a sweet kiss.

“No, I mean I really love this,” she said, smiling as I pulled back from her lips. “I love doing this with you. I love that this relationship isn’t… you give as much as you take, not that you’ve been taking or anything. But I notice you keeping track of everything, trying to make sure Cass and I get equal attention. And if it’s just us, you try to make sure you’re giving just as much or more of everything even if I’m the submissive. More pleasure, more service, more… just everything, Robbie. I know there’s a lot of learning and growing and stuff, but… you’re already a good Dom. And a really freaking great boyfriend.”

I groaned softly, my heart surging at her words, and slid my hands from her waist to her back, hugging her to me. “Thank you, Catherine,” I murmured.

“You’re welcome, Master,” she said with a little grin. That made me smirk and slide one hand from her back down to her butt, giving it a little swat and squeeze. When we pulled apart she let me rinse out her hair and she picked out one of Cassidy’s hair product bottles and I started to softly lather it into her hair as she groaned.

“OK,” she finally sighed. “Um- We probably should have talked about this in the car, but we got a little busy. I know the general gist of your week, and I don’t want to leave this fucking shower let alone this house, but I can’t stay forever right now. You said you already have therapy booked for you and Cass this week, right? What else is going on?”

I nodded softly, massaging her scalp one-handed and holding her still with the other on her stomach. “We’ve got solo therapy sessions booked on Wednesday afternoon, sort of late,” I said. “One after the other. Then we have a Couples session next week, and it'll trade off like that if we like the therapist.”

“Do you want me to stay until after that?” Cattie asked. “So I can be here to help you guys decompress if you need to?”

“That would be amazing,” I said, leaving her hair and hugging her.

“What about the week in general?” she asked me, turning in my arms to hug me back. My cock, half-hard, ended up pressed between us.

“I have to go back to work tomorrow,” I said. “So you and Cass can spend the day doing any planning you need to or hitting up some of the sights. Then tomorrow night we’ll do a tour of the Strip and have dinner out. Same thing on Tuesday, except that night I’m thinking we need a one-on-one date night, just us.”

She hummed at that, leaning into me more. “Cassidy will be OK with that?” she asked.

“She will,” I murmured quietly. “But even if she wasn’t, Cattie, she doesn’t get to dictate the relationship between you and me anymore. Now that this is official between us, now that we’ve made the promises we have, she needs to be OK with us having space to be together. And she will.”

“I love you, Robbie,” Cattie murmured, hugging me tightly.

“I love you too, Catherine,” I murmured back. For some reason showers with her were always so emotional.

- - - - -

“Could you come stir this, Tiger?” Cassidy asked as we entered the kitchen, fully dressed. Cass had gotten clothes from somewhere as well, wearing a little tank top without a bra and a pair of panties. “And can you come finish chopping these, babe?”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, reading a weird energy from Cass as I took over stirring a saucepan of gravy. We’d picked up a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store and she had it reheating in the oven.

“I just got a weird text from Terra,” Cassidy said, wiping her hands and then picking up her phone from the counter.

“What kind of weird text?” I asked.

“Is she OK?” Cattie asked.

“I don’t know, let me look,” Cass muttered, swiping away notifications and then opening her messages. “OK. She texted the group chat when her and JC landed in New Orleans. Then she texted just me a bunch of random letters and then a bunch of exclamation marks, then ‘OMG WTF WTF,’ then ‘holy fuck this isn’t happening’ and then ‘Call you when I can.’”

I was frowning and looked at Cattie, who was wearing the same expression. “Uh… see if she’s OK?” I asked.

“Obviously, Tiger,” Cassidy said, already typing and then firmly pressing to send the message. She got a reply quickly. “She sent a thumbs up,” Cass said. Then her phone buzzed as she got another text. “And then a mind blown.” Another text came in. “And now a Facepalm. I think she’s OK? Ish?”

“She was planning on talking to JC tomorrow, right?” I asked. “Clear head and all that? So what could have happened tonight?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Cass sighed.

Chapter 346

“They would have just boarded the flight,” Cattie said a few minutes later. We hadn’t heard back from Terra yet.

“Wait, they had to sit in the airport this long?” Cassidy gasped. “Holy shit.” Then she started giggling.

“What’s so funny?” I asked as Cattie started to suppress her own giggles as she covered her mouth and locked eyes with Cass.

“Oh, you didn’t see those pics,” Cassidy said, quickly grabbing her phone and tapping through it before she passed me it. 

I winced and snorted. The picture was of Heather and Sherry in an airport terminal from earlier, both of them standing in a bubble of clear space. Heather was facing away from Becca, who had taken and sent the picture, and every piece of skin showing from her ankles up was an angry-looking red-pink colour of a deep sunburn. Sherry, Cattie’s traitorous little sister, was bent over and looked like she was rubbing some sort of lotion into her equally burnt legs.

“On, no,” I groaned. Just like Becca had said, they did look even worse than earlier. And now they’d been like that for hours in an airport.

“Can you imagine if I’d had to fly back with them?” Cattie scoffed. “Even if you guys didn’t help me get out and I was still with her, imagine how fucking miserable they would both be to travel with.”

“Lord, I pray for the airplane stewards on their flight,” Cassidy said, smirking and doing a sign of the cross to end her mocking prayer.

“You forgot the gate agents,” I said. “And the pilots.”

“And the security who have to come and take them away,” Cattie snorted.

We were in the final minutes of prepping dinner. Cassidy had gone and taken a super-fast shower after we hadn’t heard back immediately from Terra, leaving her phone with us just in case she called, and now my fiancee was dressed in a cute sundress and her violet-dyed hair was up in a bun on top of her head so that it hadn’t needed a full washing if it got wet. With all three of us squeaky clean and fully dressed, we got dinner on the table and sat down around it, and I found myself smiling. Hard.

“What is it?” Cassidy chuckled, seeing the look on my face.

“I know what it is,” Cattie grinned back at me.

“I just really fucking love this,” I shrugged. “Having you here, with us.”

“Me too,” Cattie said.

“Well, I think there should be more tits out at the table myself, but it’s pretty good so far,” Cassidy said, her teasing grin showing she meant that she agreed wholeheartedly.

We dug in, chatting and laughing as we went back over some of the events of the last week. Not the bad parts, not the hard parts. The silly things. Cassidy told Cattie about us playing Marco Polo that first day and how that had got everything rolling with the girls feeling comfortable teasing me. We laughed about the fact that this was the first meal we’d had in a week that was actually at a table - we’d eaten everywhere except sitting at the little kitchen tables of the houseboats because the food had always been laid out on them.

We were just wrapping up the meal when my phone buzzed - we’d been waiting for Terra to contact one of us so they were face-down on the table, but we’d expected it to be Cass who got the call. They both got a text while I was checking mine. “Becca, Wanda and Heels all landed safe,” I relayed.

“Wanda texted our group chat,” Cattie said as they were both typing back.

“Can I ask why, exactly, you guys have a group chat without me?” I asked, smirking a little. I wasn’t actually bothered by it, but I wanted to hear the reasoning nonetheless.

“So we can talk about work stuff, and stuff we wouldn’t usually talk to boyfriends about,” Cass said.

“You talk to me about literally everything,” I deadpanned.

“Yeah, but that’s because we’ve been living together forever,” Cass waved me off. “I can have a conversation with you about the best way to trim all my pubes and make sure I got all the nooks and crannies, or how I farted so loud I’m pretty sure someone a car over from me at a red light heard it, but they can’t.”

Cattie started sputtering because she’d made the poor decision to take a sip of her drink just as Cass had started talking. She put her glass down and cleared her throat loudly as she blinked the tears out of her eyes, laughing and shaking her head.

“I mean, they’ll get there,” Cassidy grinned. “But that sort of trust takes a while to develop, even if they all want more of you ASAP.”

“To be fair, some girls are also going to just be more open about that sort of stuff with you than others in general,” Cattie said once she’d finished clearing her throat. “We’re not all as gross as Cass.”

“OK, miss-”

“Don’t you dare,” Cattie said, pointing at Cass and interrupting her. “I’d like at least a few days of my boyfriend thinking I’m a perfect little princess.”

That made me start chuckling as I raised a questioning eyebrow, but Cattie’s innocent look at me and Cassidy’s snickering was interrupted by my fiancee’s phone ringing. 

“It’s Terra,” she said and quickly answered it. “Hey,” she answered. “Are you OK?’

“No,” we could hear Terra say even though Cass hadn’t put it on speaker. “I mean, yes, but no.”

“Well, I just watched Robbie’s butt cheeks clench hearing that so you want to try again? Are you safe?” Cass asked.

“Oh, fuck me,” Terra sighed in exasperation, then she lowered her voice and we missed what she said.

“She’s safe,” Cass relayed, then dropped her voice a little as she raised the phone closer to her lips. “Do you want just me, or me and Cattie, or all three of us?.... OK.” She stood up from the table, moving the phone from her mouth again to talk to us. “She wants to word vomit to me first, then all three of us once she has her thoughts straight.”

I nodded, still concerned, and Cattie shooed Cass away to go talk. She nodded and left, leaving me with my girlfriend, so I sighed.

“What is it?” Cattie asked. “It makes sense she wants to bounce off of one person before she makes this a thing with a group of us if she’s upset.”

“No, it’s not that,” I said. “I was just thinking I guess it’s only fair we do the dishes since Cass took care of most of dinner.”

Cattie snorted, smirking and shaking her head at me. “Come on, we all know you aren’t afraid of a little domestic work,” she said, standing up and coming around to me. I’d pushed my chair out to follow her but she stopped me from standing up as she sat across my lap and kissed me sweetly. “And we know you especially like it when you can get in a little grab-ass while doing it, too.” She pulled my hand down from where it had landed on her waist to her butt.

I laughed and gave it a squeeze. “You know me so well.”

Chapter 347

There really wasn’t that much to clean up, so even with Cattie and I spending a not-inconsequential amount of time flirting we still got the kitchen cleaned up before Terra and Cass had finished their conversation. When Cassidy did finally come back to the kitchen she burst out laughing.

“I was wrong,” she said into her phone. “They aren’t banging or making out. It’s worse than that.”

“Fuck off,” Cattie blushed.

“They’re baking,” Cassidy filled Terra in. Then she playfully scoffed. “I know, the absolute worst.”

I took that opportunity to approach my fiancee with a mixer beater covered in the remnants of sugar cookie dough, and she groaned and took it from me, handing off the phone. I tapped the Speaker button and brought it over to where Cattie was still at the counter, balling up the dough and pressing it onto the parchment-covered baking sheets.

“Hey, honey,” I said. “Ready to talk with me and Catherine, or do you want time to process?”

“Hi, Tiger,” Terra said, her voice sounding relieved and just a little raw. “Hey, Cattie. I’m all processed out.”

“What’s up, babe?” Cattie asked. “What happened?”

Terra sighed heavily, but then her voice got terse for a moment. “Oh, motherfucker,” she said.

“What is it?”

“Nothing- Ugh, I’ve got you on hands-free speaker in my car,” Terra said. “I’m most of the way home but some asshole is driving like it’s the 1800s and he’s in a horse and buggy. God, it’s a fuckin’ highway, man. OK, I’m around him.” 

I hadn’t realised Terra would be an impatient driver, but then I could only imagine how I’d feel if I got stuck behind a ponderously slow driver when I was going through something and just wanted to get home. “Do you want to-”

“Robbie, stop trying to be sweet and shit,” Terra mumbled.

“Stopping Sweet and Shit right away,” I smirked, making Cattie roll her eyes and Cassidy snort from where she was finishing off licking the beater.

“JC broke up with me,” Terra said.

I raised my eyebrows at the same time Cattie raised hers as we glanced at each other. “He did?” I asked.

“Wow,” Cattie murmured.

JC was as close to the ‘golden retriever boyfriend’ I’d ever seen in real life; though to be fair, I’d been described that way in my relationship with Cass by people too. The thing was, Juan Carlos had all the good and bad features of that description - he was eager, and happy, and friendly, and helpful. But he was also easily distracted, didn’t think things through or very far ahead, and he wasn’t a neutered golden retriever so he thought with his dick too frequently. He was the best version of a perpetual frat bro, not yet willing to grow up.

And Terra wanted an adult relationship, wanted to grow with someone instead of becoming their mother. She’d been frustrated and sad about needing to end things with him since they’d gotten into a deep and too-comfortable rut, but also hopeful about us and what could be.

“Apparently he was thinking about it the whole flight back,” Terra said. “Though he slept for a bunch of it so I think we’re talking, like, fifteen minutes at best. But we basically got into my car and he asked me to drive him to his friend’s place, and I was like ‘What the fuck? We just got back, we need to go home,’ and that’s when he said we should break up because he really likes me but I’ve gotten too ‘downer’ and he doesn’t think he can make me happy anymore. Apparently, he’s already worked out that since we rent a place from his uncle we can get out of our lease easily, and he’s gonna move back to Florida next month sometime. In the meantime he’s asking me to move out in like a week and a half, because that’s how long he can crash with his buddy - don’t ask me why it’s specifically to next Wednesday, I don’t know - and then he’ll handle the final move out for his stuff and handing the place back over to his uncle. How the fuck he came up with this plan in fifteen minutes on the plane and then got it all sorted while we were waiting at baggage claim I don’t know, but I’m willing to bet his Mom has had this plan ready for ages because she’s always kind of side-eyed me since I’m a model. I mean, what the fuck? He’s a model and somehow I’m not good enough for him? I bet he texted her and she had it all ready to go. So apparently I’m fucking single now and I’m going to need to move before next Wednesday and there’s no fucking good reason for me to stay here in Louisiana compared to back home, but there's no way in hell I want to move to bumfuck Texas, but if I get a place in a city in Texas then I’m going to be locked into a lease and shit for at least a year so that’s not super viable either. Plus I’ll have to figure out a whole fucking social circle before we get the ‘big plan’ rolling so I don’t go insane just living like an urban hermit in between gigs and I don’t want to have to do that and then do it all over again a year later or however long it takes and-”

“Terra,” I interrupted her loudly, and she finally stopped and took a breath. “You’re single now?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Will you be-”

“Don’t ask me that,” Terra said quickly. “Not over the phone please, Robbie.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, blushing at the look both Cass and Cattie were giving me. I thought the plan was to make us official as soon as she’d pulled the trigger on JC, but apparently, I was wrong?

“How are you feeling?” Cattie asked.

“Awful,” Terra said. “Relieved. Excited. Guilty. Sad. Sad and guilty that I feel sad, and excited, and relieved. OK, I’m a fucking mess. I called you guys as soon as I dropped him off at his friend’s place.”

“My suggestion is that Terra comes to ‘visit us,’” Cassidy said, putting a big air quote around the visit part. “I’m thinking she could bring all her stuff out this way? She could stay for a couple of weeks, see how she likes Vegas?”

And never leave, I read Cassidy’s intentions. I wasn’t sure why we weren’t just asking Terra to move in. “Would that help, hon?” I asked Terra. “You can come crash with us for a few weeks, figure out your next move?”

“... Yes,” she finally said, and I could hear the emotional relief in her voice. I’d felt so in tune with her on the boats - not like with Becca, but I’d always felt like I knew what she was feeling at least - and I wondered if maybe this shortish-term long-distance thing with the girls was going to be harder than I thought.

Chapter 348

“It’s because if she jumps right into a relationship with you she won’t have time to properly grieve what she had with JC and she’ll carry shit over,” Cassidy explained to me quickly. She and Cattie were going to have a longer conversation with Terra since she’d gotten home, without me. “And she’s not ‘moving in’ because she might actually need time to live by herself for a bit once she figures out what she wants next.”

It made sense, and Cassidy made sure I understood before she’d given me a kiss and followed Cattie up to the bedroom where they could both talk to Terra some more without me accidentally listening in.

That left me to finish the cookie baking, which wasn’t so bad.

I was spared from being alone with my thoughts, though, by another phone call.

“Hey, Sugar,” I answered. “You get home OK?”

“Mmm, it’s so good to hear your voice, Robbie,” Becca groaned happily. “Yes, I’m home. Wanda is home too, and Heels is staying with her tonight since Wanda wanted someone to make sure she didn’t just start breaking shit. I think she’s going through the stages of grief in a weird order, but she’s hit Angry.”

“Fuck,” I grunted. “She-?”

“She loves you, wants you to know that, and knows you love her,” Becca headed me off. “But she wants to keep radio silent with you for now until it’s done.”

“OK,” I said, shaking my head as I leaned back against the counter. “How are you, then? Feeling better now that the trip is over?”

“Stress levels are definitely lower now, but not gone,” Becca said and I could hear the smile on her lips. “You know how it is.”

“I do,” I chuckled. Getting an event done didn’t mean the work was done, there was always cleanup stuff to handle. Not to mention how stressful things were right up at the end with everything else that had been going on. “Tell me where you are, what you’re doing. I want to picture you in my mind, gorgeous.”

She laughed warmly. “Do you want the truth, or something sexy?”

“The truth,” I chuckled.

“I’m naked in the tub, soaking in warm water and touching myself imagining that you’re in here with me,” she said. “Massaging me all over, kissing my skin, holding me tighter and tighter…”

“That's not the sexy version?” I asked.

She snickered and I could hear her moving around a bit. “I just wanted to give you that mental image,” she said. “No, I’m laying on my couch in the same clothes I travelled in all day, missing my panties since I think I forgot them in your truck, and I haven’t even unpacked my bags. The only thing I’ve done since walking in the door is make myself a cup of tea.”

“So tea, lay down, and call me?” I asked.

“Wanted to hear your voice,” she said. “Wanted to hear my boyfriend’s voice.” She laughed at that. “God, you have no idea how my friends who weren’t on the trip are going to react to the news I have a boyfriend, Tiger.”

“Good or bad?” I asked.

“Ecstatic,” she said. “Especially when I describe you. Then worried when I tell them it’s a poly relationship because they’ll be like ‘What the fuck, talk about 0-60 in five seconds!?’ and I’ll have to explain it all ad nauseum until they get to meet you or something.”

“I can’t wait,” I promised her.

“So how many times have you fucked those two lucky bitches who are with you?” she asked without a tinge of actual malice or jealousy.

I had to clear my throat at that question. “Are we being that open?” I asked. “I mean, I know all of you kind of knew everything that was going on as it happened on the trip, but is that the goal?”

“I’d like it to be,” Becca said. “I know it’s… Well, I don’t know if it’s weird or not for a poly relationship, but I never felt negative about things on the trip and I think it sort of helped being able to celebrate things for the other girls a bit? So unless you think they wouldn’t want to…”

“Cass and Cattie?” I chuckled.

She snorted. “Fair, they definitely wouldn’t mind.”

I finished the baking, swapping out trays in the oven, as I told Becca about our trip home, and the ‘tour.’ By the time I was finished, she was breathing heavily in the phone and I teased her about actually touching herself now, and she’d laughed as well. Then I told her about Terra’s call, and she immediately wanted to call the other blonde but I assured her Cass and Cattie were working on the phone with her. 

I was almost immediately proven wrong by my fiancee and my other girlfriend coming downstairs, no longer on the phone, and I put Becca on speaker and pretty much lost possession of my phone as the three of them started talking. That left me with the job of cleaning up the baking and putting away the cookies (after stuffing my face with a couple).

Before I could go looking for them Cattie was coming back to find me, holding my phone as it vibrated in her hand with a new incoming call.

“It’s Ami,” she said as she slipped into my arms and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I think this might be your nightly routine for the next while, by the way. I know I’ll want to call you every night.”

“Awkward as fuck, but worth it,” I said, giving her a little kiss back. She gave me my phone and I answered it.

Chapter 349

“Love you,” I told Ami. “And I miss you already. I can’t believe last night was only last night.”

“I know,” she replied. Her Midwest accent had me grinning a little because it was so her in my mind. “And, Robbie, I’m still falling for you.”

“Love is a bottomless pit you can fall down forever if you want,” I said. “And I’ll fall with you, holding your hand the whole way.”

“Cornball,” she laughed. Then she sighed. “I should go, I want to get a good start in the morning.”

“OK, Cutie,” I said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. And I want to hear about whatever neat place you stop at.”

“I’ll send you pictures, Tiger,” she said. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

We hung up and I felt a flutter of sadness because I knew it was going to be the longest of all my girls that I would see Ami. She was road-tripping it back up to where she lived with her ageing parents outside of Minneapolis, a three-day drive without pushing too hard, and she planned to make a few more stops at random ‘Biggest Ever’ sorts of spots since she’d hit the more major tourist landmarks on the way down. Honestly, it sounded like a trip I would have loved to take with her, but that wasn’t how life worked.

With my calls to my girls done, at least for now until Leia and Zenya landed (I had to do a mental checklist to double-check that I was accounting for everyone, which made me feel weird), I went looking for Cattie and Cass again. They’d swapped to Cass’s laptop and were on a group FaceTime call with Terra and Becca as they sat on the bed - which had new sheets on it, I noted.

“Ami’s good for the night,” I said as I climbed up on the bed as well.

“We know, Tiger,” Cass grinned at me. “She told us on our group chat. Honestly, you don’t need to relay stuff to us unless one of us asks you to, OK?”

I sighed and shook my head. “Fine, I’ll keep my lips sealed unless specifically asked.”

“For some reason, I feel like this is going to backfire on us in the future,” Becca smirked. Then she blew a kiss at her camera - she looked like she was at her desktop in a room with a carefully curated background of nerdy stuff and lights that screamed ‘streamer set up.’ I’d only been aware of Becca before we’d met as a cosplayer contemporary of Cass, so now I knew I was going to need to check out some past recordings of her streams.

Hell, I needed to make sure I was following all of my girls' social media; the only two I had right now were Cass and Cattie.

Terra, meanwhile, was bundled up in my sweater that she’d stolen/borrowed/disappeared into her luggage and looked like she was using a tablet in her lap. The hood on the sweater was up and her dainty, elf-like features were slightly obscured by the shadows caused by it. Her background looked like she was sitting on a couch with a wall behind her.

“I promise not to use this agreement like a malicious genie,” I told them. “How are you feeling now, honey?”

“Thhhhbbppp,” Terra blew a raspberry, her shoulders shrugging.

“Mostly still the same,” Cattie translated for me as I settled in next to her. She leaned into me and I raised my arm to scoop behind her, which also let me trace my fingers across the back of Cassidy’s neck as she leaned into Cattie from the other side.

“We’ve got a plan, though,” Cass said. “Thanks to Becca.”

“You guys just needed a prompt to jump from idea to planning,” she said.

“As long as you’re OK with it, Tiger,” Cass said. “Cattie is gonna stay with us until Thursday, and we’ll do our therapy stuff on Wednesday. Then she’ll fly home and I’ll fly out to Terra to help her get all of her stuff packed up. We’ll rent a Uhaul, get it loaded up, and drive it across the country.”

“By yourself?” I asked. “Shouldn’t I come with you?”

“You, dear boyfriend,” Becca said. “Need to save your vacation days at work until you need to use them. You’re the only one of us who answers to an actual employer. Plus, you need to stay available in case Wanda needs you. I’m in the city so I’m Responder Numero Uno when it comes to her needing someone as the shit hits the fan, but once it’s done she’s going to need you.”

“I’m sorry I’m not-” Terra started, but all three girls shushed her.

“You need what you need, babe,” Cassidy said. “Don’t apologise for it.”

“Terra,” I said, trying to project warmth through my voice. “I love you, you don’t need to worry one iota how I feel about you needing to work through stuff. I don’t take it personally, and I’m here whether you want to emotionally vent or you want to have a distraction or anything in between. Or if you need space.”

Terra took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as she closed her eyes and looked up into her hood before her shoulders slumped. “Thanks, Robbie,” she said. “I’m… going to love getting used to that. Not needing to worry about you. But I have a question.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“How much is an iota?” she asked, then snorted.

“Honestly? I’ve got no fucking idea,” I chuckled. “Really small.”

“I think it literally means ‘really small amount,’” Cattie said.

“Nerd,” Cass chuckled as she nudged her.

“Geek,” Cattie teased back.

“Sluts,” Becca said.

“Takes one to know one,” Cass laughed and stuck out her tongue.

“My God, I’m dating ladies with the attitudes of children,” I groaned, though I couldn’t keep the smirk from my lips. Their laughter was an absolute delight.