After how the previous night had gone (with the whole ‘lack of sleep’ thing), Rachel did not seem overly upset that Rosalind had stayed in her feminine form their second night together. Instead she declared it a ‘girl’s night’, which seemed to consist of treating Rosalind like a doll. Since Rachel and Rosalind were of reasonably similar sizes, nearly all of the former’s wardrobe was unleashed on dress up schemes. It was slightly overwhelming, but Rosalind did have to admit she looked dang good in a lot of it. However, there were some slight issues with how things were going.

“You do remember I’m still bisexual in either form, right?” Rosalind asked as she was laying back and getting her makeup done in the third style of the night.

The physical contact between the two of them was leaving her flushed, with the other woman leaning over her. The way Rachel had been constantly calling her a good girl and terms akin to that whenever she cooperated was proving to not help matters in the slightest.

“Ro... I’m sprawled half over you. I can feel the reminder of your bisexuality against my thigh,” Rachel said flatly. “And there’s no doubt that’s what it is, since I know those pants don’t have pockets.”

Somehow, Rosalind’s cheeks were able to go redder. “So, are you just teasing me for the fun of it?”

The question lingered in the air long enough to make Rosalind nervous.

“... Yes,” Rachel said with a smirk. “I think I deserve at least a little of that after how the last few months have gone. But we’ll stop for the night. It’s less fun when you realise what I’m doing.”

“I don’t mind, you know... I just didn’t want to make things awkward,” Rosalind mumbled.

“Well, I also sadly have other work to do, so this was going to be the last look of the night anyhow. Plus, I can only queue so many posts at one time for your Instasnap.”

“Wait, you’ve been making social media posts this whole time!?” Rosalind yelped, suddenly self conscious about how she’d been messing around.

The next morning, Romeo found himself called into Hank’s office nearly as soon as he’d arrived at the studio. More than a little on edge, he headed upstairs. Knocking at the older man’s door, he was reasonably certain what the issue was. Hank had always been protective of Rachel.

“Come in,” Hank called out.

Slipping in, Romeo closed the door behind him. “Sir?”

“Sit down,” Hank said, gesturing to the chairs in front of his desk with a tone that didn’t seem aggressive but was still more formal than Romeo was used to from him. 

Thanks to the tone, Romeo did not hesitate in crossing the room and sitting with a straight back and his best attempt at eye contact with Hank. Though he worried slightly that eye contact might feel more assertive and aggressive than was best he had, unfortunately, already committed. So he maintained it.

“Now, what’s this Rachel is telling me about her having a timeshare for you?” Hank asked.

“Er, well... we’ve decided to give polyamory a try, sir,” Romeo explained.

“That’s what Rachel said before she explained it as a timeshare. What does it mean, though?” 

“That I’m... well, Rachel, Logan, and two other people are all dating me right now,” Romeo said.

Hank raised an eyebrow. “So... polygamy?”

“We’re not married. At least not yet. And, well... it’s not going to be anything sketchy like those weird cults and whatnot,” Romeo explained.

“You’re sure it doesn’t have any cult energy? I’ve heard the whole weirdness with Greek Gods you’ve got going on,” Hank replied.

“They’re... well, they exist, but they’re more meddlesome than anything. I definitely have no plans to worship any of them any time soon,” Romeo said. “But, the basic idea of the polycule is equality and to try to avoid jealousy. Though Rachel’s solution for that seems a bit... exacting. Every day is scheduled for me.”

“Sounds deserved if you’re hogging all of them, including my little girl,” Hank muttered.

“I’m not ‘hogging’ anyone? Didn’t Rachel mention that she’s planning to embrace matters and also date Mario?” Romeo asked.

“Who’s Mario?”

“Ah, I guess she didn’t. Mario is one of the two other people I’m dating,” Romeo said. “He’s a bit shy, but she definitely has him in her sights.”

That seemed to give Hank a bit of pause, the greying man nodding slowly as he processed that. “Hmm... I suppose that sounds more fair than I was worrying it would be. My initial worry was you were on a bit of an ego trip, but I should have realised my Rachel was too smart and independent to be conned into something like that.”

“So... are we all good?” Romeo asked.

“I suppose,” Hank replied quietly. “If you break my little girl’s heart--well, she’ll probably get all the vengeance she needs all on her own, so I can just advise you to not do it.”

Romeo offered a slightly strained smile, having not really thought about that risk. Still, it had been too late to escape the moment Rachel had proposed, so he just had to do his best from here on out.

It was depressingly unromantic to have a scheduled itinerary to decide who he’d spend the rest of the day with, but that was the result of getting into a polycule with Rachel. Things were going to be organized. At least he was happy to spend time with each person he was scheduled to be with. He was dating them all, after all.

So, having Logan waiting outside his dressing room made up for any lack of spontaneity. The handsome violinist shot him one of those trademark smiles and all of Romeo’s negative feelings vanished.

“Do you have anything nice to wear here, or should I drive you back to your condo?” Logan asked.

“Uh... define ‘nice’,” Romeo replied.

“Genuine fine dining.”

With a small nod, Romeo replied, “Then I’ll have to swing back to my place. Both for a change of clothes and a shower.”

“Ah, cleaning up all the way. I will not complain about that,” Logan said, before turning to lead the way to the garage.

The pair walked across the compact studio building in silence, the walk to the stairwell not taking long. Once they were in it, though, Romeo found himself biting his lip, before having to let loose the instincts he was struggling to hold down.

“Can I kiss you? I’ve wanted to for so long...”

Logan paused, seeming to be slightly surprised, but then nodded. “Sure. We can make out in the stairwell... like I know I wanted to do in high school, but was way too nervous to propose.”

“Well, I was just going to go for one kiss as a release, but, if you insist,” Romeo replied with a grin, grabbing a hold of Logan’s shirt to pull them both closer as he went in for a kiss.

The first kiss was quickly followed by more, the pair making their way to the landing so that they had more stable footing. Hands lightly probed one another, both with enough sense to not remove any clothing in so public a place, but starved for the feeling of the other man. The pair only broke when the need for air overcame the need to express long pent up longing, both of them mildly out of breath.

“Would love to do more of that,” Logan said between panting breaths, “but we do have a schedule. The restaurant is in Hammer City and, well, you know traffic on the QEW. Even pop-stars only get so much wiggle room on reservations.”

“The nerve of some people,” Romeo replied, before letting out a laugh. “Alright, lead the way. Your part time princess must make himself look handsome.”

Logan did just that, though kept the conversation going as they walked. “If you’re feeling a bit non-conforming at want to look pretty, that's allowed.”

Raising an eyebrow, Romeo wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

“It was just, with you bringing up your femininity, I wasn’t sure... my homo-romanticism is a bit more flexible with a fluid partner than Rachel’s straightness,” he explained. 

“Uh... I need to brush up on my terms better,” Romeo mumbled as he got into the passenger seat of Logan’s small and sporty car. “But, isn’t ‘whatever’-romanticism an asexual thing?”

“I think anyone is allowed to play around with the split attraction model,” Logan replied. “In my case, sex is fun whoever it’s with, but I need at least some level of masculine-masculine bonding for my romance. It might more be a gender need than anything, but a need is a need.”

“Fair,” Romeo replied as they pulled out of the garage.

There was a single protestor out front, a cardboard sign proclaiming something about an alien threat. Dealing with folks like that was probably going to be an issue for a while, but Romeo decided he’d ignore that for the night.

Instead, he relaxed into his seat. Logan was far more enjoyable to be driven around by than either Mario or Rachel. The former treated the laws of the road with such casual dismissal that Romeo half suspected the man was unaware of the concept. Meanwhile Rachel knew exactly what the limits were, pushed them every chance she got, and hissed about the legal violations other drivers got up to when she was in a bad mood. By comparison, Logan’s main stress relief while driving was to listen to Romantic era music and other passionate orchestral pieces at a loud volume and sometimes mumble ‘I crush your head’ about other drivers (while making the accompanying hand gesture if traffic conditions allowed). It was honestly quite amusing. The only other bad habit he had was speeding slightly, but everyone did that. 

Of course, downtown Toronto in the early evening left Logan with little in the way of speeding opportunities and a need to play the 1812 Overture for the few blocks they had to drive.

As they pulled into a guest parking space, Romeo promised to be quick, leaving Logan to relax to some Beethoven in the garage. It seemed more time efficient if Romeo went alone, no risk of getting distracted by his being half naked with a bed being available, potentially leading to them forgetting about Logan’s date night plans. 

Slipping into his condo, Romeo had almost forgotten that Teddy would be there. The solidly built and handsome woman was poking through the cupboards in a slightly absent way that he felt he needed to help with.

“You know there’s a grocery store in the basement, right?” he asked while heading towards the master bedroom.

“It’s all expensive and fancy, though,” Teddy replied.

“You won’t be paying rent in two months. Those savings should cover buying nicer food,” Romeo called out from the bedroom.

Opening the main walk-in closet, he noted the small amount of clothes Teddy had put in one corner. The woman needed more than t-shirts, jeans, and some flannel shirts, but tonight was not the night to fix her lack of wardrobe. No, it was the corner where Romeo kept his nicer menswear that was the focus of Romeo’s attention.

After a bit of flitting, he decided to grab a black silk shirt, red blazer, and some black dress pants. It had been a while since he’d had an excuse to dress up as a man and he wanted to pop a little, even if Logan was probably taking them somewhere more traditional. Realising there was a slight risk of mandatory ties he grabbed a red one with black cuboid detailing. Laying it all on the bed (which he noted Teddy had made up differently than he would have) it was then a quick hurry off to the shower. 

“I hope you don’t need the washroom,” he called out, only to realise Teddy had apparently taken his advice and headed down to the grocery store.

It was only a few minutes later that Romeo rejoined Logan in his car. His hair was still damp and the sigil on his chest was still drying, but he had his tie and hair gel ready in his hands.

“Let’s hit the road,” he said with a grin. “I hope you didn’t get too bored down here.”

“Don’t worry, I had access to the entirety of the internet with my phone. It did a good job of distracting me by showing people with terrible opinions on twumblr.”

“The wonders of modern technology,” Romeo replied, pulling his seatbelt on.

It took only a couple of minutes to escape the streets for the highway. They did not, however, escape the traffic. There was lots of muttering from Logan about how all the commuters should take the train, which Romeo found amusing.

“What? They’re not taking their high school sweethearts on dates... at least most of them aren’t. It’s fair for us to be being a little fancier,” Logan mumbled, looking a bit self conscious at what could plausibly have been considered hypocrisy.

If one were being excessive.

“No one will judge you for complaining about traffic, Logan,” Romeo said with a small smirk.

The look made Logan blush, with Romeo unsure if it was from being self conscious or charmed. Either way, the pair slid into a comfortable silence for much of the rest of the drive along the highway. As they moved further from downtown the traffic mostly cleared up, letting them gain some speed. To either side of them the 905 slipped past, cranes and rising towers sprinkled across most of the route. 

It was only as they approached Hammer City that Romeo decided to actually ask where they were going. Logan answered with a small smile that offered no information. Slightly annoyed, though in a way that felt like he was being challenged more than anything, Romeo tried his best to turn through the options. There were only so many high end restaurants in Hammer City... unfortunately, that number was still easily in the double digits and Romeo couldn’t guarantee that there hadn’t been any recent openings he’d missed.

However, when they turned down James, towards the escarpment, the answer clicked.

“Al Qamar?” he asked.

Logan nodded. “Yes. We’d always talked about taking a date there in high school.”

“I remember saying ‘if we ever actually made money with our band’,” Romeo replied, finding himself smirking.

“Mhm. Before we ever dreamed of making it Toronto big, let alone reaching international fame,” Logan said with a laugh, before his cheeks filled with a blush again. “And, of course... I’d always meant you back then. Even if I hadn’t had the guts to admit it.”

The strength of the statement caused Romeo to join him in blushing as they rounded the Jolley Cut. The restaurant sat only a few dozen metres away, perched on the hill above Sam Lawrence Park. Large windows framed the sides of the restaurant looking out towards the escarpment, offering sweeping views of not just Hammer City’s downtown below, but Toronto as well, lurking on the horizon. Growing up in Berlin and Cambridge as they had, those trips during high school over to Hammer City had left them thinking those twin cities had to be one of the greatest metropolitan areas on the planet. 

In the grand scheme of things they did add up to being significant, but Romeo knew they were nothing next to the true megacities they’d be visiting this winter.

Still, the view was nothing to complain about.

“I’m glad you remembered this place,” Romeo said as he and Logan got out of the car. “It’s nice to remember what our old goals were.”

“And how some goals haven’t changed,” Logan added, offering Romeo his hand.

It struck Romeo then just how full his life suddenly felt. A bit of fun in the bedroom was one thing. The promise of stability that came with entering long term relationships was another. But to realise those around him really cared... and realising how much he cared about them... it was love. It was something he’d not properly opened his heart to until now, and he was so very glad to have found it.

His life wasn’t just a present. There was a future to want to look forward to.