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Of course, he misses his parents, fuckface! What kind of horrible monster are you to bring this up?

“It doesn’t get any easier. Paul and Elle have been great though.”

“How do your brothers deal with it?”

“Better than me. . . .” His voice trails off into a whisper. “They were older. Maybe it was easier for them.”

“I don’t think it’d be easy for anyone.”

I pay attention to the song playing on his phone and smile.

I love listening to Elvis Presley for many reasons, most of which have to do with my dad. He used to play all his records when I was a kid, so the love was pretty much forced on me. Although I did come to appreciate his songs and the meaning they held.

This one in particular, “Pieces of My Life,” was one of his favorites. I never knew much about my mother, but from what I gathered, her and Dad had some problems. Problems he regretted and weighed heavily on him since there wasn’t anything he could do to fix the situation. She was gone, and once they’re gone, there’s nothing you can do.

“Elvis was amazing, and I was apparently born in the wrong decade,” I note, sinking down in the water.

“I think we both were.” He moves slightly, shifting and reaching for another beer. I take that moment to refill my wine and stare up at the sky full of stars. It’s so peaceful out here and the way the warmth of the night feels on my skin, this feels almost like heaven.

“Were you close with your dad?”

“Yeah.” I smile at the memories of him. “My mom died when I was just three months old. She was hit by a car when she was running one morning.” My voice fades when my gaze drifts and finds Tathan.

He sits back against the concrete, his brow furrowed in what seems like pain. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t remember anything about her. My dad said I looked just like her and the photographs I’ve seen we could be twins.” I shrug. “But my dad raised me all by himself. He never dated anyone that I can remember. It was just us. When I went away to college, I came home every weekend to check on him and then he got sick. It was out of the blue too. Just, hey, I have stage IV lung cancer.”

It takes Tathan a moment before he speaks, deciding on his words. “It’s never easy. Doesn’t matter if you watch them die over months, or it just happens in one day. They’re gone.”

He knows exactly how I feel and I know that right then, I am exactly where I want to be and with who I want to be with at this exact moment.

Tathan just gets me. We have such similar life experiences, well, not the “he’s rich” one, and “I’m not” one. But the love of our family and the tragedies we’ve both suffered run so parallel. I’ve never felt a connection like this with anyone, especially not Colton. Tathan looks so inviting, wet, bare chest, arms spread open and relaxed. I want to curl up in his embrace and snuggle him.

I scoot toward Tathan, wanting to see what hot tub kissing is like when a noise draws our attention toward the gate and I realize I forgot my Saturday night buddy was coming over. Casey.

Fuck. Just fuck.

She shuts the gate behind her, tosses her towel aside and does a cannonball into the hot tub, drenching both Tathan and me.

He looks a little shocked with water beading down his face. “I think she drank that entire bottle.”

Sure enough, she’s holding an empty bottle of wine that she sets down on the edge of the concrete and shakes the one beside me, seeing it’s still half full. “Let’s party!”

When I scoot away from Tathan, Casey notices our proximity and smiles, drifting to the side of the hot tub to sit on the edge. “Was I interrupting?”

Tathan smiles but doesn’t say anything because I practically shout, “No!” before he can get a word in.

“If by interrupting you mean was I hoping to cop a hot tub feel, then yes, you were most definitely interrupting,” Tathan states, with that smile and those dimples.

Thank God for the hot tub because my cheeks were already red, so my embarrassment is masked by the heat.

Fucking Casey has impeccable timing.